A Desert Rose: Red Rocks 2010

My friend Jamie and i spent a week in the desert outside of Las Vegas climbing at a national rec area called Red Rock Canyon. It's beautiful down there and only 6 hours away from salt lake! the first couple days were windy, cold, rainy, and even a bit snowy. we did some 'urban hiking' down the las vegas strip, which was more mentally taxing than any of the climbing we did! we did get in 4 perfectly sunny days of climbing and had a blast. ye ole' hip actually did quite well. my body is still figuring out how to manuever- feels like i got the tires changed and haven't quite figured out how to use them. i'm still struggling against some limited range of motion and quite a bit of residual pain in my quad muscle. i hope these are just time things though. my head is in a really good place for climbing, and the trip felt like a huge success.

of course the images are in reverse order, but you get the idea.

sad b/c it's leaving time

the pink tourist bus- they pack them in here like clowns and then off load at every scenic view..it's quite funny to watch them all pile out of this bright, pink bus

yummy mac'n'cheese with sausage dinner

There is a sign at one of the stops on the scenic loop that goes around the rec area that explains rock climbing and protection and ropes etc. the title of the sign is "cliff dancers". i was just busting one of the many dancing moves we climbers do....
??

Pasta Primavera dinner!

Herd of Mountain goats- about 10 of them! i was literally just saying how much i wanted to see this animal when we suprised a herd of them on the trail. they are amazing creatures!