I’ve read stories about the OG’s of climbing doing amazing things at Joshua Tree since I started in 1998. Super-sketchy, ultra-hard climbs, high-end boulder problems, giant solo linkups, and on and on. We didn’t originally plan on coming here before Yosemite, but when Jen suggested it a couple days back I was stoked to check it out.
I’m certainly not back to fighting strength, so I wouldn’t be trying any of the hard-man lines, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t do a few classics while we chilled in camp. So, that’s exactly what we did. We drove around until we found a person who was willing to share their campsite, parked the van, and climbed for two and a half days within walking distance of our spot.
Unfortunately, one of those routes, a traversing flake on overhanging rock called Bearded Cabbage, really did a number on my shoulder and put the whole get-fit versus get-healthy balance way off from where I wanted it to be. So, then we kicked the difficulty way down and tried to do whatever looked both fun and easy. Sometimes the easy stuff was actually more physical than the hard stuff, but you can’t win them all.
While we didn’t spend enough time here to even scratch the surface, we did meet some really interesting people, find the secret cave with the secret stash, do a handful of excellent pitches and a few not-so-good ones, and watch three next-level sunsets. I can’t wait to be back this way in the late fall.
