Saturday Brian Frandsen and I headed out for a liesurely day of climbing. Mollie and I had plans for the evening that required me to be home by the afternoon, so we headed for Beulah’s Book, a highly rated 5.9 with a 5.8 bolted variation in Oak Creek Canyon.

Alternate 5.8 pitch

We broke the four pitches up in half, with Brian taking the first two pitches, and me the second set. The first pitch was an interesting section with lots of options, and some fun chimney moves. Soon Brian was leading up into the second pitch, which is the crux and ‘classic’ section of the climb. The above picture shows Brian on the exposed 5.8 variation. The chimney in the shadow is the classic route, but it looked too stout for us at the moment. We decided to head to the well protected face instead. It was classic fun Redrocks face climbing.

Looking Down at Brian

The third pitch was a 5.5ish face climb, and my first lead of the day. I took a fall, breaking off some loose holds about half way up the pitch that made things rather ‘exciting’, but we were both just fine, and I finished the pitch without problems. Brian took the next pitch for me, and we topped out the climb by the early afternoon.

This climb was fun, but I didn’t feel like it was worthy of the high ratings that the guide books give it. The second pitch is very cool, and the chimney section looked to be full of awesome moves, but there is just too much mediocre face climbing surrounding it to make it worthwhile.

Never the less, it was still a great day climbing in Redrocks. This is probably the last climb I’ll get to do this season without having to worry about the desert heat…here comes the summer time. Good to climb with Brian Frandsen too…we hadn’t tied in together in far too long.