The Angel Food Wall is located in Redrocks at one of the more accessible canyons called White Rock Springs. Not long ago I climbed Tunnel Vision over there with Frandsen, Toby, and Matt. There’s a bunch of moderate climbs on the wall that are all around 500-600ft, and with the easy 30 minute approach it makes for a good easy/big day of climbing.
Take a look at the purdy dots above. Blue is Group Therapy, the route we were shooting for. Yellow is Healey’s Haunted House (5.7R burly grunting chimney fest). Green is Purblind Pillar (big sweet lookin’ 5.8). The Red is our wandering-way-off route-have no clue where were are-improvised route. Looks like we were a little lost eh?
The approach went fast, and we were at the base of the cliff early on Saturday morning. The plan was for Gary and Bergie to lead up first, with me and Frandsen following up right behind. This usually presents some really cool photo opportunities of each other, but Burgie was leading off so fast we didn’t have much time to shoot photos.
The pitches were fun and pretty solid climbing throughout. The problem was, I didn’t have a clue where we were. After the first pitch of Purblind Pillar, we took a weird traverse across some loose rock into Healey’s Haunted House, and from there we had a good looking line to the top, but nothing was matching up with our route descriptions. Climbing blind isn’t super fun. Especially when you are supposed to be back home by early afternoon.
Looking back on it now, I really would love to do this again. Climbing it knowing that I am not going to get stranded 400′ up would make for a much more enjoyable time. The majority of our climb was in Healey’s, and it had some really cool moderate chimney work that I’d like to do again with more focus on the moves and climbing, instead of worrying about spending the night on the wall.
After way longer than it should have taken, we all topped out successfully and in good spirits. The final pitch I ran out over a big wandering line, and I had to pull through the worst rope drag I’ve ever seen. It was ridiculous. I was basically doing 100lb squats over and over up the last 40′ of the climb. Not so fun…but at least we finished it. A long down climb later, we were back at the car, tired and hungry.
Good times. Angel Food wall is a sweet place. Lots of very doable moderate climbs that aren’t too big, but aren’t so small it doesn’t feel like you are pushing it in a bit. Next time I’d love to drag Burgess out there and see if we could pick off two of them in a single day…I can dream right?
