redrocks 2005

Who knew that it rains in Las Vegas?!?

Red Rocks Rendezvous 2005

By: Matt Talley

Ross, me (Talley), PK, and Brauning

Ross Brown is the long distance road trip driving king! This last summer he spent his time driving around the West and put something like 12,000 miles on his Blazer. In January he started getting the itch again and began bugging me about going to the Red Rocks Climbers Rendezvous just outside of Las Vegas. I looked at the web site, checked out the big name climbers that were going to be there teaching clinics and agreed to show up. Hell, it was only a 6 hour drive for me. As the date neared, Ross started prodding me almost daily about signing up. I called my buddy Brauning and “volunteered” him to make the trip with me, as he is usually easy to talk into such things. We registered online for the weekend and for two climbing clinics. With only two weeks until the start, all the really good clinics with the big name climbing stars/legends were already full. Not a big deal. Climbing is climbing, so we picked ones that looked somewhat interesting.

The whole way from the California coast the sky looked ominous: dark and cloudy and grey. It started drizzling rain the tiniest bit as we pulled into the festival area which set the tone for the whole weekend: The weather sucked - driving rain, cold-overcast skies, monster wind, et cetera... The only time the sun shone was when we got on the road to leave. Brauning whined about the weather some and pointed out that is wasn’t his idea to come that weekend. He had wanted to go snowboarding and with it raining down low, it was sure to be snowing in the mountains. He made sure to point that fact out to me no less than 34 times in two days (that is an EXACT count).

When I got out of Brauning’s Subaru to sign in and get our goodie-bags, I realized that I had a problem: I had left my hiking boots by the door at home. All I had for my feet were my SoCal flip-flops and two pairs of climbing shoes. Crap! Normally, I am so prepared for trips that I end up lugging 10 pounds of un-used gear up and down the mountain. I had been caught in a freak desert snow storm about 5 months before the Red Rocks trip in which I had stupidly yet purposefully left my big warm coat. I was cold all night and the next morning was a surprise white-covered-Hell for my toes. I had vowed to never be that unprepared again. Logistics were not my strong suit for the Red Rocks trip either…

We met up with Ross and his buddy PK that first night and parked right beside them in the festival’s dirt and gravel parking lot to set up camp. Ross seems to not have been a poster boy for the magic of trip planning either: On their way out they had to detour around the entire state of New Mexico because another freak snow storm closed I-40 to ALL traffic. There were no campgrounds available as they rolled into Sin City 6 or 7 hours late on Thursday, so they decided to get a hotel room. There was a NASCAR race going on in Vegas that weekend as well as some technology convention so the 300,000 extra people in the city had taken almost every room in every hotel. The two of them finally found a room off The Strip for something like $300 dollars a night.

The inside of Ross's Blazer the first night. I am holding the "Danger Cam" Ross's digital Camcorder.

Around 9:00 the wind started howling so we made dinner and brewed coffee and all four of us retreated into Ross’s blazer to laugh, catch up on things and make fun of one another. We got up the next morning with grand plans to climb a long trad route before our first class, but the wind was blowing and it was cold enough that we bailed on that idea. We were sitting around the common area in front of a tent eating breakfast and drinking coffee when some guys overheard us talking about climbing at Sam’s Throne in Arkansas. They were Missouri climbers and had been to the Throne a lot. At some point one of us mentioned our buddy Flood and their eyes lit up and one of them said, “You boys don’t mean Mark Flood do you?” Of course that is who we meant! All four of us and the two of them spent the next twenty minutes talking about Arkansas crags and routes, other climbers we all knew, Flood and his old red Ford truck, his inability to drive the speed limit and what a great guy he was in general. They hadn’t heard from him in a while, so I dialed him up on my cell phone and let them all catch up. Climbers are members of such a small community and there is usually only one degree of separation between every climber and every crag.

PK’s girlfriend had called the night before while we were all huddled in the Blazer and it was apparent right away that she was the jealous type to the point of giving him “orders” about female climbers and such. Far be it from me to tease someone about such a thing or to try to stir the pot a bit… I would NEVER do such a thing… Well, that is a lie. I live to give my friends good-natured grief! We ran to a nearby grocery store to pick up some provisions that first morning after talking to the boys from Missouri. PK was talking to his girlfriend on the phone and I walked up real close to him and said, very nonchalantly, “Brauning, man I think I left my car keys at that hooker’s apartment last night.” PK looked at me with fear in his eyes and I heard her screaming into the phone. Mission accomplished. He spent the next hour convincing her that I was teasing that that there hadn’t really been any hookers. He didn’t call her again in my presence for the rest of the weekend. Yes, I know that I am going to Hell for being an evil little shit, but moments like the look of panicked fear in his eyes make the whole process and promise of damnation worth it.

We watched a search and rescue team work on a rock face before our clinics started on the first day. The landing zone was in the middle of the road.

Our clinic the first day was shit. It was an intermediate class and we went over building a "fast" anchor – not an intermediate skill. I was honest about my skill level when I signed up for the classes: I climbed 5.10+ sport and 5.9 trad. I didn’t onsite 5.12s, so I didn’t even think about signing up for the “Expert” sessions. The instructor was fine (he held the speed ascent record for Denali), but the course curriculum was very basic. Lesson learned – overstate my abilities the next time I sign up for a clinic to make sure I learn something new.

It stormed Saturday night and all four of us stood in the rain for 2 slide shows, an auction (where I almost bought a painting done by one of the Missouri climbers - I stopped bidding at $260) and general BS before turning in. I did get a BUNCH of stickers and swag: chalk, t-shirt, chalk bag, sunscreen, a karabiner, two Frisbees, a copy of Rock & Ice, catalogs, coupons, 2 killer Petzel insolated mugs, 2 dozen free chocolate chip cookies, a drink-cosie, snowshoe straps and such from the different booths.

That night my lack of preparedness reared its ugly head again: I had looked at my rain gear when I was packing and thought, ‘It is the desert. I don’t need you.’ Wrong! I had to borrow PK’s extra jacket to keep the rain form soaking me to the skin. In disgust of my own incompetence, I sat up with Brauning that night and made a COMPLETE check list of gear for every activity that I engage in so that I don’t leave home next time without my pants or climbing harness or rope. After completing my list, we watched a DVD on Brauning’s in-dash player before turning in for the night. Roughing it, huh? Ross and PK called it an early night and were asleep in Ross’s Blazer by 9:00.

I snacked on beef jerky while watching the movie. It was so good and I finished off the whole package. Sometime around 3:00 am I woke up with a pounding headache and a tooth that was killing me. I had a sizable chunk of jerky shoved in between two molars. There was no picking it out. I searched around for floss like a madman until I realized that I had forgotten something else: I had left the floss on my bathroom counter at home. Damn. I had to have some relief! I woke Brauning up and he didn’t have any either. The pain was starting to really get to me. Brauning pulled the elastic off a car air freshener and I used it. I finally succeeded in getting the piece of offending dried beef out, but I also managed to cut my gum badly and it bled all night. Again, there is nothing like being prepared: Too bad that I was not.

Conrad Anker and me ( Brauning was in the shot too, but I cut him out because it looks better with just the two of us...)

Our Clinic Sunday looked to be more of the same so while PK and Ross went to their class, Brauning and I slept in and ate donuts and had coffee and cocoa in the common area. My only real goal for the weekend was to spend time with some good friends, climb a few good routes and to meet Conrad Anker, who is one of the world’s premier mountaineers and was there to teach a clinic (and paid to lend his name to the event for marketing purposes). Brauning and I went to lunch where he was teaching a clinic, stalked him after the class was over and introduced ourselves. He was cool and talked with us about who we were, his "great open" trip with Rick Ridgeway, the next trip he was planning (a trek to build an opthamology for children in Nepal), he offered some general logistical advice for trips, shook our hands, gave us each a signed poster and stood for a picture. I REALLY appreciated him taking the time out of his schedule for us.

After meeting a climbing legend, we went back to the event site to wait for our buddies. Soon after we got there a competition for a new rope was held where one person had to stand up while another had to climb all the way over their back through their legs and end up where they started. I would have smacked my momma for a free new rope and tried to convince Brauning to help me win it. He wouldn’t do it. I watched a couple of more teams try and fail and I came up with a plan. After begging, Brauning capitulated and we gave it a try. My plan was sound – the couple who won used it – but the gigantic pad that we had to stand on made us unstable because of our near equal weight so we ended up falling over and my ass landed square in the middle of his chest. I tried to give it one more try but he would have none of it and asked that the entire incident never be discussed again. I told Ross and PK about it right away when they showed up…

After handshakes, pictures, hugs and goodbyes we hit the road home and Ross and PK spent the next 30 hours on the road back to Arkansas. If the weather had been better, it would have been such a good trip, but as it stands it might be considered one of my more mediocre road trips as far as climbing goes. I promised Brauning that it will all be better next time and we’ll get more actual climbing in. It was great to see Ross and PK and to hang out with Brauning – as disgruntled as he was - and I got to meet Conrad Anker.

Red Rocks on Sunday afternoon. As we started to leave, the sun popped out...

Who knew that it rains in Las Vegas?!? Red Rocks Rendezvous 2005 By: Matt Talley

Ross, me (Talley), PK, and Brauning

Ross Brown is the long distance road trip driving king! This last summer he spent his time driving around the West and put something like 12,000 miles on his Blazer. In January he started getting the itch again and began bugging me about going to the Red Rocks Climbers Rendezvous just outside of Las Vegas. I looked at the web site, checked out the big name climbers that were going to be there teaching clinics and agreed to show up. Hell, it was only a 6 hour drive for me. As the date neared, Ross started prodding me almost daily about signing up. I called my buddy Brauning and “volunteered” him to make the trip with me, as he is usually easy to talk into such things. We registered online for the weekend and for two climbing clinics. With only two weeks until the start, all the really good clinics with the big name climbing stars/legends were already full. Not a big deal. Climbing is climbing, so we picked ones that looked somewhat interesting. The whole way from the California coast the sky looked ominous: dark and cloudy and grey. It started drizzling rain the tiniest bit as we pulled into the festival area which set the tone for the whole weekend: The weather sucked - driving rain, cold-overcast skies, monster wind, et cetera... The only time the sun shone was when we got on the road to leave. Brauning whined about the weather some and pointed out that is wasn’t his idea to come that weekend. He had wanted to go snowboarding and with it raining down low, it was sure to be snowing in the mountains. He made sure to point that fact out to me no less than 34 times in two days (that is an EXACT count). When I got out of Brauning’s Subaru to sign in and get our goodie-bags, I realized that I had a problem: I had left my hiking boots by the door at home. All I had for my feet were my SoCal flip-flops and two pairs of climbing shoes. Crap! Normally, I am so prepared for trips that I end up lugging 10 pounds of un-used gear up and down the mountain. I had been caught in a freak desert snow storm about 5 months before the Red Rocks trip in which I had stupidly yet purposefully left my big warm coat. I was cold all night and the next morning was a surprise white-covered-Hell for my toes. I had vowed to never be that unprepared again. Logistics were not my strong suit for the Red Rocks trip either… We met up with Ross and his buddy PK that first night and parked right beside them in the festival’s dirt and gravel parking lot to set up camp. Ross seems to not have been a poster boy for the magic of trip planning either: On their way out they had to detour around the entire state of New Mexico because another freak snow storm closed I-40 to ALL traffic. There were no campgrounds available as they rolled into Sin City 6 or 7 hours late on Thursday, so they decided to get a hotel room. There was a NASCAR race going on in Vegas that weekend as well as some technology convention so the 300,000 extra people in the city had taken almost every room in every hotel. The two of them finally found a room off The Strip for something like $300 dollars a night.

The inside of Ross's Blazer the first night. I am holding the "Danger Cam" Ross's digital Camcorder.

Around 9:00 the wind started howling so we made dinner and brewed coffee and all four of us retreated into Ross’s blazer to laugh, catch up on things and make fun of one another. We got up the next morning with grand plans to climb a long trad route before our first class, but the wind was blowing and it was cold enough that we bailed on that idea. We were sitting around the common area in front of a tent eating breakfast and drinking coffee when some guys overheard us talking about climbing at Sam’s Throne in Arkansas. They were Missouri climbers and had been to the Throne a lot. At some point one of us mentioned our buddy Flood and their eyes lit up and one of them said, “You boys don’t mean Mark Flood do you?” Of course that is who we meant! All four of us and the two of them spent the next twenty minutes talking about Arkansas crags and routes, other climbers we all knew, Flood and his old red Ford truck, his inability to drive the speed limit and what a great guy he was in general. They hadn’t heard from him in a while, so I dialed him up on my cell phone and let them all catch up. Climbers are members of such a small community and there is usually only one degree of separation between every climber and every crag. PK’s girlfriend had called the night before while we were all huddled in the Blazer and it was apparent right away that she was the jealous type to the point of giving him “orders” about female climbers and such. Far be it from me to tease someone about such a thing or to try to stir the pot a bit… I would NEVER do such a thing… Well, that is a lie. I live to give my friends good-natured grief! We ran to a nearby grocery store to pick up some provisions that first morning after talking to the boys from Missouri. PK was talking to his girlfriend on the phone and I walked up real close to him and said, very nonchalantly, “Brauning, man I think I left my car keys at that hooker’s apartment last night.” PK looked at me with fear in his eyes and I heard her screaming into the phone. Mission accomplished. He spent the next hour convincing her that I was teasing that that there hadn’t really been any hookers. He didn’t call her again in my presence for the rest of the weekend. Yes, I know that I am going to Hell for being an evil little shit, but moments like the look of panicked fear in his eyes make the whole process and promise of damnation worth it.



We watched a search and rescue team work on a rock face before our clinics started on the first day. The landing zone was in the middle of the road.

Our clinic the first day was shit. It was an intermediate class and we went over building a "fast" anchor – not an intermediate skill. I was honest about my skill level when I signed up for the classes: I climbed 5.10+ sport and 5.9 trad. I didn’t onsite 5.12s, so I didn’t even think about signing up for the “Expert” sessions. The instructor was fine (he held the speed ascent record for Denali), but the course curriculum was very basic. Lesson learned – overstate my abilities the next time I sign up for a clinic to make sure I learn something new. It stormed Saturday night and all four of us stood in the rain for 2 slide shows, an auction (where I almost bought a painting done by one of the Missouri climbers - I stopped bidding at $260) and general BS before turning in. I did get a BUNCH of stickers and swag: chalk, t-shirt, chalk bag, sunscreen, a karabiner, two Frisbees, a copy of Rock & Ice, catalogs, coupons, 2 killer Petzel insolated mugs, 2 dozen free chocolate chip cookies, a drink-cosie, snowshoe straps and such from the different booths. That night my lack of preparedness reared its ugly head again: I had looked at my rain gear when I was packing and thought, ‘It is the desert. I don’t need you.’ Wrong! I had to borrow PK’s extra jacket to keep the rain form soaking me to the skin. In disgust of my own incompetence, I sat up with Brauning that night and made a COMPLETE check list of gear for every activity that I engage in so that I don’t leave home next time without my pants or climbing harness or rope. After completing my list, we watched a DVD on Brauning’s in-dash player before turning in for the night. Roughing it, huh? Ross and PK called it an early night and were asleep in Ross’s Blazer by 9:00. I snacked on beef jerky while watching the movie. It was so good and I finished off the whole package. Sometime around 3:00 am I woke up with a pounding headache and a tooth that was killing me. I had a sizable chunk of jerky shoved in between two molars. There was no picking it out. I searched around for floss like a madman until I realized that I had forgotten something else: I had left the floss on my bathroom counter at home. Damn. I had to have some relief! I woke Brauning up and he didn’t have any either. The pain was starting to really get to me. Brauning pulled the elastic off a car air freshener and I used it. I finally succeeded in getting the piece of offending dried beef out, but I also managed to cut my gum badly and it bled all night. Again, there is nothing like being prepared: Too bad that I was not.

Conrad Anker and me ( Brauning was in the shot too, but I cut him out because it looks better with just the two of us...)	Our Clinic Sunday looked to be more of the same so while PK and Ross went to their class, Brauning and I slept in and ate donuts and had coffee and cocoa in the common area. My only real goal for the weekend was to spend time with some good friends, climb a few good routes and to meet Conrad Anker, who is one of the world’s premier mountaineers and was there to teach a clinic (and paid to lend his name to the event for marketing purposes). Brauning and I went to lunch where he was teaching a clinic, stalked him after the class was over and introduced ourselves. He was cool and talked with us about who we were, his "great open" trip with Rick Ridgeway, the next trip he was planning (a trek to build an opthamology for children in Nepal), he offered some general logistical advice for trips, shook our hands, gave us each a signed poster and stood for a picture. I REALLY appreciated him taking the time out of his schedule for us.

After meeting a climbing legend, we went back to the event site to wait for our buddies. Soon after we got there a competition for a new rope was held where one person had to stand up while another had to climb all the way over their back through their legs and end up where they started. I would have smacked my momma for a free new rope and tried to convince Brauning to help me win it. He wouldn’t do it. I watched a couple of more teams try and fail and I came up with a plan. After begging, Brauning capitulated and we gave it a try. My plan was sound – the couple who won used it – but the gigantic pad that we had to stand on made us unstable because of our near equal weight so we ended up falling over and my ass landed square in the middle of his chest. I tried to give it one more try but he would have none of it and asked that the entire incident never be discussed again. I told Ross and PK about it right away when they showed up… After handshakes, pictures, hugs and goodbyes we hit the road home and Ross and PK spent the next 30 hours on the road back to Arkansas. If the weather had been better, it would have been such a good trip, but as it stands it might be considered one of my more mediocre road trips as far as climbing goes. I promised Brauning that it will all be better next time and we’ll get more actual climbing in. It was great to see Ross and PK and to hang out with Brauning – as disgruntled as he was - and I got to meet Conrad Anker.

Red Rocks on Sunday afternoon. As we started to leave, the sun popped out...