Gareth's last blog

On the day before Gareth's accident, of which I am sure anyone reading this is now aware, Gareth and I were driving from Las Vegas to Moab, for the final few days of our US road trip before heading back to Vancouver for a flight to Thailand and the next part of our adventure. It was a full day of driving, and so we took it in turns to do 2-3 hour stints. In the time when Gareth was the passenger, he compiled the next part of our blog, covering the time we had spent in Joshua Tree and Red Rocks. It was the first time he had actually wanted to write for the blog so I was happy to let him get on with it and choose the pictures to accompany it. The plan was to upload it when we got to Vancouver, and obviously circumstances dictated that that never happened. 
It has been saved as a document on our laptop since then, and every so often I go back and read it and let myself go back to those last few weeks we spent together, remembering those and all the other happy days of our trip, in what seems now like another lifetime. It would be a shame not to publish Gareth's blog, and let everyone read and interpret from his words that he (and I) were continuing to have the time of our lives......

Greetings from Utah!  We’re heading North East from Vegas towards Moab for a very brief trip for biking and climbing, we’ve spent the last 2 weeks after Yosemite climbing in the deserts of California and Nevada.  First stop was Joshua Tree which was a welcome break from the concrete jungle and 8 lane super highway of LA.  We spent a day on Laguna beach with a quick visit to Crank brothers for a free pedal rebuild and my first hair cut for 3 months before picking up Joe and Anna from Sheffield for their 3 week holiday.

Joshua Tree is one of the most serene, beautiful places to climb. The camp site is amongst huge granite boulders and towers in the middle of the desert with obligatory picture perfect sunsets every single night.  We thought Yosemite was chilled out but this was even more peaceful.  The climbing is on very rough granite mostly in cracks necessitating the building of tape gloves to protect your hands, it takes a while to get between climbs as the desert is one gigantic boulder field, the first few days were spent chasing the shade to get out of the 30 C+ heat.  We had a day getting lost in the ‘wonderland of rocks’ with the appropriate nickname the wander land of rocks getting used to the granite which on the less climbed areas of rock exfoliates in big sheets of rock.

Setting up camp

Just another sunset

We steadily became more proficient at jamming various body parts into the cracks ranging in size from finger to full body parts making use of the monster set of 50 cams that we had between us (after 3 days of carrying round the Yosemite rack I realised it was slightly overkill)

A great 5.8 offwidth on intersection rock. Nobody would follow me claiming various poor quality excuses

The desert is home to various amazingly well protected cactuses the most common of which have  inch long spines backed up by clumps of hair like barbs which as soon as you brush against them leave about 30 of them stuck in various body parts taking the next 5 minutes to remove.

Joe sensibly avoiding cactus spines

Yet another spectacular sunset

The baking sun didn’t last long though and the nights started getting colder with ice appearing some mornings, soon we were chasing the sun and looking for crags in the sun to stay warm and even having to don trousers during the day (I suppose it is Autumn)

Baseball cap pointing backwards for leading mode on a great 5.9 at Crazy horse buttress

Anna enjoying a 5.9 at Crazy Horse buttress

Joe on ‘Taxman’ a 4 star 5.10 finger crack at Lost horse, Joshua tree

We all felt that we started to improve over the course of the week with Julia leading her first 5.9 and me reaching the dizzying heights of 5.11b with a route called Course and Buggy, a great finger crack/ layback route.  With the arrival of the colder weather it was time to head across the desert to Las Vegas and red rocks where it was surely far warmer.

Amazing colours in the evening

The optimism proved to be false as we travelled further East the weather deteriorated into showers and high winds, as we drove into Las Vegas it was proper grim! Setting up the tents in the wind we lashed them down to some handy tie downs and departed for Walmart and Cici’s pizza emporium.  What followed was total gluttony; for 5 dollars you could eat as much pizza as you could physically manage, I stopped shortly after 10 plates and between us we definitely got our money’s worth.  After pudding (all you can eat too) the inevitable sugar high hit and as we shopped in Walmart, Joe and I added various oddities to the trolley including a 10lb frozen turkey only to be sensibly vetoed by the girls. I swore never to eat as much ever again.

The next few days fortunately involved plenty of climbing to burn off the calories at some fantastic crags of the appropriately named sandstone ‘Red rocks’.

Julia leading a 5.8 in the sun at Red Rocks

Unfortunately it was too cold to climb some of the fantastic looking multi-pitch routes in the canyons, so apart from one day climbing an easy 5 pitch route, we stuck instead to single-pitch mainly bolted climbs in the sun, which were all still great. Julia managed to flash several routes between 5.10a and 5.10d, and finished the week with a flash of her first 5.11a. I was really enjoying getting back into steeper, juggy routes and tried to climb a 5.12d, unfortunately forgetting to warm up properly first and pulling my shoulder on the steep overhanging “California 12a”. It did give me chance to take a rest day and get some good climbing photos of the others the following day, mainly from above which often is the best way to capture climbing “action” shots, but something we rarely make time to do.

It was Julia’s 30^th birthday whilst we were in Red Rocks, so in the absence of any usual 5^th November bonfire night celebration, after spending the day climbing in the sun, we headed to the Las Vegas strip for burgers, beer and to experience the city. I hadn’t imagined that a place so neon, tacky and vulgar could possibly exist. The amount of money going up in smoke, lights, water and passing through the casinos is unbelievable. We ventured through a couple of the seedier casinos, before leaving, feeling disgusted by the smell of smoke (yes you can still smoke in the casinos there) and the sight of the croupiers who were dressed in leather bikinis and chaps, and some of them really shouldn’t have been. Walking down the street there were men and women handing out cards every few metres for “hot girls to your room”, and let’s just say some of the women handing them out were not the best advertisement for such a service! We left (after witnessing police on horseback arrest one of said men in front of us while we ate ice cream) feeling glad that we could escape to the campsite and away from the hideousness of the city.

Driving along the Las Vegas strip…..neon and vulgarity in the extreme

Huge burgers and beers on Julia’s 30^th birthday

Footloose on “California 12a” 5.12d

Joe looking cool on a route in the Black corridor

Stretching for a hold on a 5.10c in the Black Corridor

So today we’ve left Joe and Anna at Red Rocks as we had to Moab on our way back north. Trying to work out how to fit several weeks worth of biking and climbing routes in the area into just two days is proving difficult. Oh well, perhaps we’ll just have to come back here next year.

This time next week we’ll be soaking up the sun and cranking on steep limestone off the beach in Thailand. Apparently there are routes which can be done with the belayer sitting in the bar, sounds like it might be alright. Later, dudes!  

It is hopefully evident how much Gareth was enjoying himself. I don't think I ever saw him quite as relaxed and happy as the time we were away this summer. We really were "living our dreams" and making the most of every day, something which given what happened, makes me very glad that that was how we both chose to live our lives....at the moment unfortunately that makes losing Gareth seem even harder, as there was so much more we would have done together in the future.

At some point I'll write down the story of what happened on the day of Gareth's accident, and the subsequent chain of events in the hospital. I'm not quite ready to do that yet, and as that day and the days that followed will forever stay in my head as clear as if they were yesterday, I don't think I need to worry about forgetting.