Sublime sublimation of spring 🌱

I don't know if you've noticed but it's been a hawt spring. When I got back from Joshua Tree in January I felt like I was dodging snow storms to keep climbing outside, and 6 weeks later I'm chasing shade under the scalding sun. In that time I've been catching up with a lot of friends in Utah and making new ones.

Climbing in SLC

I spent a surprising number of days climbing in American Fork with Nate and Gabby. Billboard offered excellent sunny weather when it was cold and I finally put Beeline away. Nate kept prodding me to hike Mt. Timpanogos (which looks fantastic from Billboard) and I kept saying ew.

Nate and I agreeing to disagree about hiking Timp.

I climbed a bunch of random stuff in SLC and environs so I'm just going to photo dump!

Working long-time project Mr. Smiley in the snow. Soft landings and cold toes! Finally mastered it after 10+ sessions.

Closed casket variation on Coffin Buttress in SLC. Beautiful patina climbing with Danny, Tammy, and Nate.

Slapping up "The Worms" sloper problem on Valentine's day with Nate.

Potatoe didn't leave her heating pad the entire time I cat-sit her.

Made a visit to the Hurricave in St. George with friends Adit and Alex. Steep!

Stand up sledding with family

In February I joined my family and our friends from Boise on our annual ski trip to McCall. I like to snowboard which I think is like a sled attached to your feet? Idk I'm kinda a novice but it's fun. A fun game you can play is guessing which people in these photos I'm related to! I love that we're keeping up this family tradition (started when I was 5!) and I'm so grateful for all these people.

Squadding up at the Flying Pie pizza parlor.

Flapping wings with the pow cow and the chair bear.

Evan's birthday feast with some climbing

Evan celebrated his birthday in Indian Creek with a bunch of friends and I! It was basically a culinary desert experience with a little crack climbing to burn some calories for the next meal. The blackstone took center stage below Evan's fearsome spatula, and we dished out a pancake-bacon-eggs-hash-browns breakfast followed by a two course dinner of elotes and fajitas with a sprawl of toppings. Wow! Oh and we camped and climbed some cracks!

Evan's fearsome spatula and battle-hardened puffy.

I enjoyed getting to know all these new friends better and watch them excel at a new style of climbing :) and Evan and Morgan are just so cute!

Moab with Mango

My friend Mango lives in Moab but he and I both travel a lot so we don't get to see each other often. Our schedules lined up and he invited me down to stay with him for a week, working remotely at his tiny house and climbing in the afternoons and weekends.

Mango LOVES climbing desert towers, like so much he should talk to someone about it because most of them are actually choss and I don't think he understands. Regardless we climbed 3 really high quality ones while I was down there, and I must say wingate towers are some of the best climbing I've encountered in the desert!

On day one we climbed "Ring Sizer" which wraps around "Pinky Tower", a delightful mix of hand traversing, edgy face climbing, foot traversing, and a slammer hands finish to the summit! Pair that with a short approach and it is up there with my favorite towers to date. Oh and there's a great 5.11 sport climb on the backside of it!

Mango's drone makes for some awesome footage!

While Mango was busy aid climbing (yawn) I snuck away for some bouldering in the Big Bend area by the river. While a relatively small area, the bouldering is very high quality and boasts an amazing setting. I was working on "Circus Trick", and heartbreakingly fell off the finishing hold so many times. Next go for sure!

"Circus Trick" climbs the left arete finishing with a hero jug dyno!

I took one day off of work to go hunt some towers out in Canyonlands with Mango. The drive in takes about 2 hours from Moab on a winding dirt road that Mango's Ford Raptor ate up. The towers themselves are striking, they look like wizard hats to me. The climbing up Moses (the taller tower) was moderate at 5.10 (with a short 11+ crux) and full of variety. The climbing up Zeus was strenuous 5.11 and at times scary, but ultimately a more rewarding experience as it sees far fewer ascents. We took a few hangs but were psyched to summit both of them in a day.

"Moses" is the tallest peak and "Zeus" is the next spire to the left. Mango's butt is in the middle.

Mason finishing up the second pitch of "Zeus".

Some silly jokes were made in our dehydrated delirium.

Mango rappels off our "redundant" anchor.

On our rest day we took Kasey's dog Fig for a big hike (Kasey and Mango are dating). Fig keeps up surprisingly well!

Little Figgy walked up to the mesa overlooking Moab all by herself!

I was really grateful to spend time with Mango and bond over hard beautiful climbs in the desert.

Enabling Tommy's crack addiction in SLC

My friend Tommy from Idaho was passing through SLC and stopped for a weekend to sample the local crack. Tommy is a blossoming trad leader but he already has a taste for the hard stuff. He got psyched on "Trench Warfare", a heinously difficult offwidth roof crack, and Meredith joined to laugh at us. It was really something to behold.

I struggled to even move on this crack, but hey I can hang from one arm!

Tommy makes the best link of the day on "Trench Warfare".

On Sunday we took advantage of LDS tendencies and climbed at the "forbidden" Church Buttress above the LDS Vault. I've been eyeing "Gargoyle" forever and it didn't disappoint.

The beautiful dihedral that is "Gargoyle". Tommy struggles up some forsaken offwidth to the right.

It was nice to catch up with Tommy and it reminded me how happy climbing in Little Cottonwood makes me.

Thanks for reading!!! Much love