red rocks national monument - Mescalito - 5440'
dark shadows full class 5.8 - march 2016
This trip I did with Fernando and a group of his friends from Los Angeles who mainly focused on bouldering, but we decided to go do our own thing for the weekend. We decided to do a three pitch route on the east face of Mescalito to the right of Cat and the Hat. I don't remember the name of the route we did but it was a pretty grungy route apart from its awesome second pitch. We then did a single pitch 5.9 called Topless Twins near the Birdland Route. This was a tough but awesome route...one of the best 5.9s I have ever done.
We met back up with our bouldering friends that afternoon and decided to hit the Vegas strip for the evening. Kevin had a relative staying at one of the nice hotels so we got to get in and relax at the pool for a bit. We had an Air B&B set up beforehand which was really nice to have a place to crash for the night. The next morning Fernando and I took off early for the Pine Creek Trailhead for a return to Mescalito to go for the full Dark Shadows Route. We nearly ran the approach since we were running a little later than we wanted. When we reached the base of the route, by the pools of water, there was a team of 4 above us on the first belay ledge. The plan was for me to lead every pitch since Fernando hadn't done any leading yet. So I started up the first pitch which was a lot of huacos and bulges on a face, then transitioned into a dihedral crack and ended with a traverse left across a small pillar. Fernando followed, and I was then able to link up the two money pitches into one long 60 meter rope stretcher pitch and pass the party who was ahead of us. I traversed out right onto the beautiful ledge where I got an excellent view of the route below. These two pitches were awesome and had a couple tricky spots.
From this point, the rest of the route was mostly 5.6 and 5.7 up lesser traveled face climbing with areas of sparse pro. We took 6 more pitches to reach the top after the first two (which the route description calls 4), and summitted Mescalito in 8 pitches. It was a couple hours before dark when we reached the top and the views were spectacular with Las Vegas to the east and all of Red Rocks surrounding us. We pulled out the Pringles and snacked a few minutes and started the descent. The way down was a spectacular slot canyon type crack on the back side of Mescalito which averaged about 5 feet wide, and had 3-4 rappels on small trees. Once we made it back into the south fork of Pine Creek, we hiked down back to the confluence of the south and north forks and I agreed to hike back up the north fork to the base of the route to get our stashed gear since I was felling decent. Fernando would continue back to the car and I met him there right as it got dark, but when I arrived he realized he lost his helmet with the GoPro on it somewhere on the hike back. Since it was now dark, I mentioned he should write a note on the board with his phone number. Amazingly a few days later he got a call from someone who found it and we were able to get his photos from the climb.
We met back up with our bouldering friends that afternoon and decided to hit the Vegas strip for the evening. Kevin had a relative staying at one of the nice hotels so we got to get in and relax at the pool for a bit. We had an Air B&B set up beforehand which was really nice to have a place to crash for the night. The next morning Fernando and I took off early for the Pine Creek Trailhead for a return to Mescalito to go for the full Dark Shadows Route. We nearly ran the approach since we were running a little later than we wanted. When we reached the base of the route, by the pools of water, there was a team of 4 above us on the first belay ledge. The plan was for me to lead every pitch since Fernando hadn't done any leading yet. So I started up the first pitch which was a lot of huacos and bulges on a face, then transitioned into a dihedral crack and ended with a traverse left across a small pillar. Fernando followed, and I was then able to link up the two money pitches into one long 60 meter rope stretcher pitch and pass the party who was ahead of us. I traversed out right onto the beautiful ledge where I got an excellent view of the route below. These two pitches were awesome and had a couple tricky spots.
From this point, the rest of the route was mostly 5.6 and 5.7 up lesser traveled face climbing with areas of sparse pro. We took 6 more pitches to reach the top after the first two (which the route description calls 4), and summitted Mescalito in 8 pitches. It was a couple hours before dark when we reached the top and the views were spectacular with Las Vegas to the east and all of Red Rocks surrounding us. We pulled out the Pringles and snacked a few minutes and started the descent. The way down was a spectacular slot canyon type crack on the back side of Mescalito which averaged about 5 feet wide, and had 3-4 rappels on small trees. Once we made it back into the south fork of Pine Creek, we hiked down back to the confluence of the south and north forks and I agreed to hike back up the north fork to the base of the route to get our stashed gear since I was felling decent. Fernando would continue back to the car and I met him there right as it got dark, but when I arrived he realized he lost his helmet with the GoPro on it somewhere on the hike back. Since it was now dark, I mentioned he should write a note on the board with his phone number. Amazingly a few days later he got a call from someone who found it and we were able to get his photos from the climb.
Looking up the first pitch of Dark Shadows
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Looking down the money pitches of Dark Shadows
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Fernando climbing up our 2nd pitch
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Rappelling in the slot canyon on descent
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