Reading Break Rocks (and the Epic on Epinephrine)

Written by Julian Larsen

All photo credits to Evan Wong 

Reading break was coming around, and everyone was excited for the somewhat annual trip to Smith Rock. The crowded clubroom was filled with excitement as eager climbers talked about plans at the pre-trip. Only one thing stood in our way, the fickle weather of November…

As the days drew closer the forecast oscillated from bad to worse and a number of people abandoned their trip plans. Others among us began discussing other options. Could we escape the storm further south? It was mostly a hypothetical, we only had 5 days without classes and smith rock was already a long enough drive. We hung on to the hope that Smith would be good, but so much talk of further flung destinations had us all inspired. Evan Wong, Nick Ayers and I slowly prodded each other, all secretly wanting to go on a bigger trip, but not wanting to commit without group support. We were looking at multiple places, but Red Rocks was the only place with an absolutely bomber weather window. During my gear hour on Wednesday I met Mikkel Bjerrum, who I found out was also planning to go further south with Ivan Fediaev’s car group. The next day, less than 24hrs before leaving, we had done enough prodding, and all committed to the trip. We called an emergency meeting in the clubroom, where I frantically explained the logistics and areas for climbing in Red Rocks. Last year, I flew there to climb for the same week, so I had already done most of the research for areas, routes, approaches, food, and camping.

The last-minute plan was as follows:

1. We drive to Smith in our original car groups.
2. We climb in Smith for the first 2 days, which looked like good weather.
3. Nick, Evan, Julia Cranston and I pile into Julia’s car on Monday morning and race Ivan to Las Vegas.
4. We climb in Red Rocks for 4 more days.
5. We embark on a 20+ hour drive back to Vancouver going straight through the night.

Smith Rock

Phase one of our trip was in full swing, and on Saturday morning, VOCers awoke at camp to the morning glow on the beautiful volcanic formations surrounding the aptly named crooked river. People split into smaller groups going to different parts of the park, and I joined Evan and Avery to start off the day with Monkey Space, a route up the incredibly cool and similarity named formation: the Monkey Face. This ended up being the entire day (which I did not expect from a 3-pitch climb) for the following reasons:

1. We started late, and the days are short in November
2. The first pitch is indeed an actual trad climb (none of us brought gear)
3. Evan decided to lead a 5.11 pitch with a massive and heavy cragging pack (because he wanted to rig the route for a photo shoot)

This alone could constitute a mini trip report, but I don’t want to risk turning this trip report into an endless ramble, so I’ll let the reader extrapolate that a lot of faff was had. At dinner I asked Evan if he had learned anything from trying to lead with his bag, he responded: “I need to get strong at leading with heavy packs.” – not the lesson I had in mind…

  (Evan’s photos from Smith: VOC training methods; Avery Soule and I walking and chilling on the Monkey Face)

Red Rocks

 A Very Long Race

After second day in Smith, and a heartfelt goodbye to those we left behind, it was time for more Rocks. Ivan’s car had assured us they would make it to the Red Rocks campground before us, so a 13 hour race ensued. We got off with a bit of a head start, so we thought they had been left in the dust. Over 8 hours later we pulled into a town called Austin in the middle of Nevada, which looked straight out of a Western movie. To our surprise Ivan’s Corolla pulled in just metres away, and we stepped onto the curb outside the saloon, facing each other down, ready for a standoff. Fortunately for both of us we didn’t have guns like the rest of the Americans, so instead we had a bit of a laugh and after a few minutes got back on the road. A couple hours later, not knowing if we were ahead or behind, we sent a photo of my tent in the campground from the previous year (though they didn’t know that), as a confusing and effective taunt. In the end we did make it to the campsite before them, but only by about 15 minutes. Julia promptly fell asleep in her car, so the other 7 of us all piled into the Corolla for dinner at Panda Express.

 (Road trip shenanigans and the maximally stuffed vehicle)

Epic on Epinephrine

We spent the next couple days doing some classic Red Rocks climbing. Trad climbing some splitter cracks at Kraft Mountain, sport climbing on juggy Patina plates at Calico Hills, and doing an absolutely classic 5.8 trad multi called Dark Shadows (highly recommended).

The ultimate prize however, is a route called Epinephrine. Epinephrine is possibly the most classic 5.9 in the whole of North America. It is most well-known for its perfectly smooth sided chimney pitches, which are incredibly unique and high quality. The rest of the climb, which is lesser mentioned but still ultra classic, is hundreds of meters of vertical gym-like face climbing between 5.8 and 5.9.

(Evan’s photos from our first 2 days: splitters and beautiful colours)

After Mikkel suffered a cactus related injury (mildly horrific), it was decided that 4 of us would go for Epinephrine on the third day. Nick and Evan would be the first pair, and Ivan and I, the second. Knowing the immense popularity of the route, we left at 3:00AM, hoping to beat the crowds. After a questionable drive on the desert access road with Ivan’s Corolla, we began the approach. We quickly passed a group of 3, and one of them loudly exclaimed: “are we just gonna let them pass us?”. We rushed to beat them but in the dark our lack of solid approach knowledge was damning. When we made it to the base the group of 3 had beat us, and another pair was already ahead of them. We set in for the long haul, hoping they would be fast, bail, or let us pass at some point. The first pair appeared to get lost on the first pitch, unable to find the anchors for several minutes. Not a great sign. Then the group of 3 set off, and having only climbed about 10 meters up, the leader calls in on their rocky talky: I’m gonna take a shit on this bushy ledge, don’t follow me for decent bit. At this absurd statement (why wouldn’t they do this on the ground before starting?) we knew we were doomed.

After waiting at the base for an hour and then giving them a bit of a head start, Nick started leading the first pitch. In a matter of minutes he had caught up to them, but the anchor was full, so he kinda just sat around beneath the line. Evan asked if he could follow, but Nick said the anchor was too full for another person. This would end up happening at all of the first 3 anchors, and then happened to Ivan and I as we followed as well.  The first pitch was a surprisingly run-out slab, that should warrant a bit of a warning for budding trad leaders. The second pitch had a small but fun chimney that serves as a warmup for the mega chimney of the third and fourth pitch. At the anchor at the top of the second pitch, a reasonably sized ledge allowed Ivan and I to sit down. Little did we know the groups ahead would slow to a grinding halt as they entered the main chimney pitches (3 and 4). As we sat on a ledge below the chimney, several other parties got to the base, waited for people to start moving, and then promptly turned around to climb something else when no progress was made. One party from Calgary shared in our frustration, loudly cursing the top two groups for not bailing. At the belay ledge we all started finding ways to pass the time. Ivan had been getting videos of himself playing subway surfer and watching downloaded TikTok’s while on outdoor adventures as a joke, but this time he was so bored that he was doing it legitimately. Nick and Evan began singing Christmas carols, as I tried to rigorously determine the rank of Sour Patch Kids flavours from best to worst. During this time, I watched a pair of climbers on a nearby route climb a full 5 pitches before disappearing out of sight. The sunken cost fallacy was brought up more than a few times amongst us, but surely, SURELY, the climbers above us would give up at some point, right? They were only barely finished the third pitch and at this rate would be on the climb for several days. During this time the group of 3 also got a cam and a rope stuck. The rope was only freed when Nick got it out for them.

(Nick waits on a small ledge for hours)

So why were we still waiting? Well, we only had 4 days in Red Rocks, and Epinephrine is the must-do ultra-mega-super-classic. I wanted to climb Levitation 29 the next day, so bailing and doing another route at this point would’ve been too long of a day if I wanted a good rest. We decided we would likely just do the chimney pitches because of how unique they are, by which point it would hopefully still be a reasonable hour, and we could go get some proper sleep for our final day.

At long last we began going up the start of the main chimney (pitch 3) one by one. It was a spectacular feature, a deep, wide slot hidden behind a sandstone tower, with perfectly smooth walls. It’s what you might imagine the idealized chimney climb would look like, no holds, no zig zags, just two smooth parallel walls. The first pitch of this massive chimney had two cracks in the back, which allowed for ample protection, and a bit of crack climbing when the body compression became tiring. Due to a couple cam retrievals, Nick and Evan had taken to calling me “the cam wizard”. Since I had so much time to wait, I tried furiously to get a cam unstuck that the group of 3 had left behind. After about 30 minutes I had made significant progress, and all 4 lobes were moving, but I was so tired from the awkward hanging position and my knuckles were bleeding from all the abrasion in the crack that I had to give up. Once all four of us made it to the top of pitch 3, moral was low, and nobody seemed stoked to start leading the next pitch. While the chimney was incredible, the sun was only a couple hours from setting, and there were still 10 pitches left, followed by a long scramble and descent. We didn’t make a firm plan, but it seemed the group was mostly on board to do the next pitch and then rappel back to the base.

(Evan’s photos from Epinephrine: Me pondering my next moves on the infinite chimney; Ivan recovering after crushing Pitch 3)

It was at this point that we finally saw our mortal enemies who had ruined our day so thoroughly. At an anchor midway up pitch 4, the leading party and the group of 3 decided to combine their ropes so they could do the required 60m rappels to the base. They laughed and giggled as they descended past us, which only made me more bitter. Normally I like to be positive and give people the benefit of the doubt, but laughing and joking while ruining the day of potentially dozens of people who wanted to do the route today? I must admit, I felt true hatred in those moments. Trying to encourage Nick and Evan to start up the next pitch, I reiterated a joke we had been saying: “You can’t fall out of a chimney, right?”. At this moment the leader of the group three was rappelling and laughed rather aggressively at me, before stating “I’m a 5.12 trad leader, and this was HARD. Good luck making it all the way up this pitch.” If I didn’t feel hate towards him before, I surely did now.

Pitch 4 was similar difficultly to the pitch before but had no cracks in the back of the chimney. Instead, a couple of incredibly spaced bolts were placed. While none of the moves proved too challenging, there were maneuvers that were just committing enough, to be a bit nerve-racking when the last bolt or gear is 10 metres below you. It was once again a great bit of climbing though, and not ridiculously hard like Mr. 5.12 had assured. To my surprise, when I topped out on the Black Tower, Nick was out of sight, and Evan was about to follow up the next pitch. “WE’RE GOING TO THE TOP!” Evan exclaimed. While I also felt the excitement of having our path unobstructed, I felt a bit of disappointment knowing that this meant tomorrow, our last day, would be a write-off. A worthy trade off perhaps, but only barely. Nonetheless, I blamed Mr. 5.12 and accepted the decision.

We had heard less about the rest of the climb, but it was equally amazing. Imagine a 5.8 or 5.9 in the aviary but going seemingly forever. Small cracks, and some bolts provided ample protection and perfect jugs were just common enough to let you climb them the whole way, but just spaced enough that there wasn’t a confusing jumble of hold options; essentially a perfectly set gym climb. The sun was already setting when we made it out of the chimney, so the majority of these upper pitches were climbed in the dark. We made it all the way to the top of the climb in only a few hours, less than we had spent at one of the belay stations behind the other groups. We were all ecstatic, but also tired. It had been a long and frustrating day, and none of us had brought enough food and water for such an epic. The expansive light s of Vegas dominated the horizon as we scrambled our way across and down the ridge to descend. In a couple hours, we made it back to the car at 10:30pm. By the time we had gotten dinner and made it back to camp we were probably approaching 20 hours since waking up, a lot bigger of a day than we had planned for.

The next day was as much of a write off as I expected it to be. While the others were somewhat functional, I was not. We went to a steep overhung sport crag, which in my state was far too physical, and I couldn’t even do my warm-up. After a couple hours we went into town to have showers and then began our drive home. We had thought about staying another night in Red Rocks, but Julia was feeling good and wanted to drive as far north as possible that night. In the car I tried desperately to get sleep, but probably only got a few minutes every hour. Heavy wind and snow blasted us through most of Nevada, and by the time we made it into Idaho, Julia was tapping out. We pulled off at a rest stop, but it was so cold and miserable outside that Nick said he’d rather drive through the night than camp there. We drove through the night, going through canyons and mountain passes with more heavy snow and wind. Evan took the graveyard shift, using a caffeine pill to pull off an incredible effort. When the sun rose we regained some energy and made it to Vancouver, capping off a 22 hour drive that I would not like to do again soon.

 (While I couldn’t climb on the last day I explored the beautiful landscape)

My take on Epinephrine:

So why did the groups in-front of us epic so badly on epinephrine, and why were we not able to pass?

• Group of 3: This group mentioned a few times that they were strong climbers, so how did Mr. 5.12 get shut down? Well in short having strong fingers has zero benefit in a chimney. If you are going to do epinephrine, you should have at least used true chimney technique on a climb before – a super popular route is not the place to try it out for the first time. On top of this, they clearly had very little multi-pitch experience. Being strong does not mean you suddenly know how to efficiently belay a 3 person team or do transitions quickly.
• Leading party: This party was simply inexperienced and 5.9 was likely around their regular limit. Epinephrine is not sandbagged, but many of the pitches are PG13 in my books, and the chimneys in particular are a totally unique style that you need to practice beforehand. There’s also a good chance they had never done a climb this long before, and again, due to popularity, this is not the route to be attempting as your longest climb.

Why we couldn’t pass:

1.  With five people ahead of us, passing both parties would’ve been a huge maneuver, especially since there were 4 of us.
2.  The group of 3 thought they were really good, so they wouldn’t let us pass, even though they were too slow to pass the group ahead of them
3. The chimney was constrained enough that we couldn’t just go around. The others would have had to step to the side at belay stations and awkwardly let us by if we were to pass in the chimney

Should you climb Epinephrine?

Yes, but only if you’re ready. Practice chimney’s beforehand, do climbs of similar lengths, and be comfortable on 5.9 PG13 (i.e. runout). If you’re very confident in these 3 skills, and the same thing doesn’t happen to you that happened to us, it’ll be one of the best days of climbing you’ve ever had.