Day 8 was a Sunday – another super busy one. Literally, all of the crags are overrun, so we couldn’t get an entry pass until 11am slot. The plan was to go check out Calico hills, and maybe find a few climbs in the shade. Calvin and Clare went before us, we drove out shortly after
We rolled into First Pullout in Calico Hills, but it was immediately obvious it’d be just too busy. We quickly went back into the car and drove further to find a less busy area. We settled on the Willow Spring area, but further up the road (the 2nd parking).
We simply picked one of the few trails there and started walking.
The trail took us up the back of a mountain, a couple hundred meters of elevation gain, around 10km there and back.
We met some interesting wildlife, plants, and man-made mining shafts. And of course some amazing views!
Below: wildlife.
Below: mining shafts we definitely did not go into.
Below: view from the top: matching hats are accidental.
Calvin and Clare took an easy day off after finding out how busy the crags were and just got back to the Las Vegas house (AKA the Dal Riada USA Headquarters) Clare found for this trip.
Since the day was relatively easy for us, I decided to get back to The South Point Casino and play their Sunday evening deep stack event. Paul dropped me off for the 6pm event.
The 2 previous times I played there I finished near the bubble, which is very frustrating, but this time I finally cashed. I finished 19th out of the field of 147 entrants. I feel I could have done better, as I played a solid game, just didn’t get the right amount of luck in the later (bubble) stages of the tournament. The stack I built first halfed when my 77 lost to jq on AJxxx board, and then 3 blinds/ante of orbits and being card dead got me down to <5bb. Last hand was my All in with 2BB UTG with K9 off (already in the money), and getting called with AT, which held.
Day 9 was back to climbing. We all booked in for 10am Loop Road entry (it is incredibly annoying to have to do it every day!) and headed for the area of Calico Hills known as The Black Corridor.
Technically speaking the best access to The Black Corridor is from 2nd Pullout carpark, but it being very small (around 20 cars), its almost impossible to get parking there. And if you get there to find it full, that’s it, there is no going back to 1st Pullout (since the loop road is 1 way!).
For that reason, the best thing to do is to just park at 1st pullout (which is very spacious), and hike the extra 15 mins. And that’s what we did.
Before that however, we went in for a quick look to the Red Rock Visitor Centre (which is located at the start of the loop road). its quite interesting – just a pity that you have to visit it first, before you drive off – again – because the road is 1 way, there is no coming back.
Below: Paul under attack at the Visitor Centre.
Once we got to the crag (it was around 30 mins total walk from 1st Pullout), we found Calvin and Clare and we climbed for the day in each other’s company.
Below: entrance to the Black Corridor crag.
The crag is quite interesting – it is quite long and narrow, with climbs on both sides. It’s also divided by large boulders into 2 distinct sections (lower and upper).
Below a rare picture of Clare bouldering. To move between levels you have to beat a V0 boulder.
Climbs vary from some slabs to more vertical and overhanging ones. They are mostly in moderate to hard climbs – so you’ll see a lot of people trying hard and top roping as well.
Below: Paul on one of the 5.10a routes.
There aren’t too many easy ones, with the 5.9 ones being on the harder end of the spectrum!
Below: Clare leading one of the 5.9 routes (definitely harder than it looked!)
Below: Mic leading one of the easier routes (757 2x4) 5.7.
In general, we had. a very good day of climbing, with everybody enjoying climbing at their own levels or current abilities.
Below: The Dream team scoping the next routes to do.
We left a little bit later than usual (around 4pm), which allowed us to catch a glimpse of a sunset over the mountains (Remember, that to get out you have to drive the entire length of the loop around (almost 20km). It was however spectacular!
Below: Sunset over Red Rock National Park.
This place is truly amazing, and we know that the 2 weeks won’t cover even the 1% of what’s here to do.
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