In October of 2005 I left Scotland for the Cayman Islands with Elaine but enroute we fitted in a class rock tour of the western USA. We landed in LA, one of my least favorite places in the world and quickly got the hell out of the city, destination the high desert plains and Joshua Tree National Park. We drove through the park gates well after dark and we drove deeper into wilderness I had a truly happy sense that I had arrived somewhere way cool. We found a camp site and had a late night wiskey under the star filled sky, surrounded by rock, the air full of Coyote howls. We woke to find our camp site was in the middle of a huge natural coral called the Hidden Valley. Joshua Tree, made famous by the U2 song is a flat desert plane, tailing off the end of the Sierra Nevada Range. Its made up of Joshua Tree’s, basically giant cactus looking things and boulders. These boulders vary in size between football sized to office block big and are scattered in such a random way its like a giant has picked them up like a handful of marbles and thrown them in the air spreading them all over the park, some in big piles others all by themselves. The climbing is mainly crack and flake. There are bolts in places but being the hardcore trad master (hhmmm) I am we concentrated on leader placed protection. The rock is far and away the sharpest I have ever come across and if you want to have any skin left on your hands at an end of the day tape is essential. The style of climbing was a little beyond me at the time but I really enjoyed the routes we did after a somewhat shaky start. Elaine did awesome, surpassing all expectations I had of her as a climbing partner. We spent 10 days in the dusty, dry boulders of Josh before we packed up and headed for the well needed R n R of VEGAS (baby).

From Vegas we headed into the even drier and dustier Red Rock State Park. The climbing here is a different ball game from Josh. Steep yes, but well featured face with so much pro it’s a joke and grades at least two easier than Josh. Red Rocks provides somewhere to enjoy longish (4-10 pitches) of very climbable, fun, safe routes.

From RR we headed east into Utah and a couple of days sport climbing in the beautiful Snow ? Canyon. It was now late November and it was beginning to get cold. By the time we reach Zion it was absolutely Baltic. However tourist season was done and the park was empty. Accommodation was cheap, thankfully, cause it was like -10° C outside and we weren’t that keen to be outside. The big walls of Zion are a serious outing and will have to wait for another day but we kept ourselves busy with some sweet slot canyoning and hiking. A beautiful spot and well worth the visit.

From Zion we drove all the way south to Cochise Stronghold, deep in cowboy country on the Arizona/Mexican border. We had been recommended the spot by some friends we met in RR and were not disappointed with the advice. The Stronghold is a citadel of rocks offering unlimited climbing, camping and getting lost potential. We did the first two poorly and the latter very well. The Stronghold also happened to be the location of the ranch we had booked into for a week of cowboy stylee. Although not keen to begin with I slowly warmed to the horse thing and by the end of the week was somewhat of a horse convert.