Musical Odyssey

‘Musical Odyssey’, First Creek Slabs

Our early start was thwarted by closure of West Charleston Boulevard due to an accident, forcing us to backtrack and drive the long way around through Blue Diamond to First Creek Canyon.  In our haste to make up for lost time, we climbed too soon out of the creekbed and found ourselves at the base of Rising Moons, rather than Lady Luck, our intended route.  We opted for an angling traverse on the fun, well-featured face (5.4) to the right of Sunset Slab, aiming to meet up with and join Lady Luck.  However, at some point we inadvertently crossed both Lady Luck and Big Sky, sending us into uncharted terrain.  Although it was clear that we were off route, we decided to continue along the path of least resistance toward the top of the First Creek Slabs, encountering a mixture of mostly clean but occasionally grungy sections.  Climbing in approach shoes what may have been a new route, with a few 5.8ish sections on rock of uncertain quality, and Kirk following his first-ever multi-pitch, our rate of progress was less than optimal, and about 900 feet up, somewhere in the vicinity of the Romanian Rib's final pitch, we realized we couldn’t safely make it to the top and reach, much less complete, the rappels before dark.  So we curled up in a tight bivy spot amid some scrub oak and settled in for a long, sleepless, and chilly night.  Fortunately we still had plenty of food and water. 

At first light I scouted around for the best path forward.  A corner to the left looked unpromising, so I instead padded up about sixty feet of easy but runout slab to the right, set a couple of cams, then moved left another thirty to a small tree, finding two decent horizontal placements along the way to protect Kirk's traverse.  Rope drag was pretty bad.  

Kirk was skeptical, but I knew we were now quite close to where we could begin contouring east to the rappels.  First, however, we had to gain and traverse a loose, narrow, cactus-infested ledge to a massive boulder, which I slung for what turned out to be our last belay anchor.  Sure enough, around the bend I spotted the top of Lady Luck, and beyond it the dead pine tree which marks the start of the rappels.  From there it was just a series of scrambles and down-climbs, and with our two ropes we made it to the canyon floor around noon -- though not without a little extra excitement.  Our knot snagged a few feet below the last bolted anchor as we pulled, and I had to prusik all the way back up to free it.  (In retrospect it would have been better to make two single-rope rappels, using the slung tree at climber's left as an intermediate anchor.)  We celebrated completion of our unintended adventure with an early dinner at the Kona Grill.

Musical Odyssey, 1200’, ca. 8 pitches, 5.7+ PG, so named because Kirk is a professor of classics and I'm a pianist, and because of the siren song that lured us from our intended path, and the multitude of hazards and obstacles placed in our way by the rock gods which we had to negotiate to make it safely home.  An enjoyable, varied route, worthy of two stars, but "caveat emptor".

FA (?) Philip Highfill and Kirk Ormand, April 3-4, 2022

Start slightly right of Sunset Slab.