This past weekend I made the long but mostly scenic drive out to a very special climbing area with two good friends, Luke and Cerre (a fellow FiveTen teammate). The remote mountain valleys of the climbing areas at Ibex are about an hour from the nearest town and miles from the nearest road that anybody other than climbers use. In between chatting and attempting boulder problems, there are always a few moments in which I sit still and take in the deafening silence of the place.

We escaped from the cold and the pollution trapped in the Salt Lake Valley into the warm sunshine and pristine desert air and we were giddy just to be outside. We warmed up on some fun short problems in the sun and were quickly shedding layers and climbing in t shirts! We wandered around a sector of unclimbed boulders and found a few that we definitely want to come back to. Luke did an FA of a really cool cave problem, but unfortunately for Cerre and I, it was freezing down there and we really wanted to get out and climb in the sun!

Next we went to an established area called Candyland, and contrary to the name, the problems here are hard! We toiled away for hours without many sends, but I loved every minute of getting shut down on those sandbagged problems. This was the first time in many months I’ve been able to try hard on moves without my finger hurting! The three hour car ride back didn’t seem so long after having one of my best days bouldering in nearly a year.