Reflections on the Sharp End: Bells Canyon Much?

Good week folks! I put in solid hours studying for classes and prepping for the whirlwind of midterms that start next week as well as a good week of training. I had taken last week off of climbing and didn't work out that much, just as kind of a "off" week (and because the gym was closed in for the route setters to get ready for a competition).

I decided to set a real goal for climbing this year. In the past its just kinda been, "climb as hard as I can, as often as I can." But because of time restrictions on how much I can climb outside and some weird desire to really challenge myself (who does that?), I looked up a climb that I thought looked incredibly awesome and would really give me a reason to push myself hard. It's a 5.13a called The Paper Crane in Mill Creek Canyon, Moab, Utah. I've actually been ruminating on doing this climb for a few years now, but I finally feel like I'm in a situation where I can make it happen. Don't worry you'll hear more than you care about my training for it. I think I'll put my climb pyramid up on here soon...

Today Devan and I ignored the doomsday avalanche forecast and went snowshoeing up Bell's Canyon. Our objective: the Upper Bell's Canyon Reservoir. The trail is 4.2 miles and 4,000' of elevation gain to reach it. Unfortunately, after about 2 miles, there isn't really a trail anymore (not that there's ever a trail in 5+ feet of snow... although you'd be surprised at how well someone can track a difficult trail in the snow sometimes. Today was not one of those days for me.) and we got led on a wild goose chase by the tracks of someone we guessed had snowshoed up earlier. We got way too high on the south ridge and finally reached a point where the only way to get to the reservoir was to traverse a super sketchy and steep face that I felt sure would avalanche, or go to the bottom of the canyon only to have to climb back up to our same elevation on the opposite ridge.

Yeah, we turned around.

As for the earlier snowshoer, we saw no tracks going down, so I hope they didn't die in a slide further up the the canyon.