Living full time in Las Vegas is a great place to be as a mountain guide. The variety and accessibility of climbing in Red Rock is simply amazing, but I will save that for another post.
Being in the center of the Southwest gives me the opportunity to also guide in Joshua Tree(an awesome place to climb and hang out), the Eastern Sierras(great cragging and long technical routes like the East Buttress of Mt. Whitney) and what has become one of my favorite places to climb: Moab!
If you have never been there it will blow your mind. Moab sits next to the Colorado River and has 5 roads leaving town, and every road has endless sandstone walls and towers. I’m constantly amazed at how much rock there is there. This past spring I worked a 3 day desert towers trip that was put on through Mountain Gear. We had 6 AAI guides and 12 guests. Although there were climbers of different abilities, Moab had something for everyone. Since it takes a bit of effort to get to Moab, I like the format of doing a 3 day trip and think it would be great for private trips. It’s a bit hot there right now, but cooler temps will start coming in September, so make your plans and book a trip for this fall. Following are some itineraries I would suggest for climbers of every level:
Solid 5.9 Climber
Day 1 – Cragging on wall street to work on crack climbing technique
Day 2 – Ancient Art
Day 3 – Castleton Tower
5.7 – 5.8 Climber
Day 1 – Cragging at Ice Cream Parlor and Wall Street
Day 2 – Looking Glass Rock
Day 3 – Ancient Art
5.5 – 5.6 Climber
Day 1 – Cragging at Ice Cream Parlor
Day 2 – Cragging on Wall Street
Day 3 – Looking Glass Rockr
Climbers on Wall Street
Citibank Ancient Art Commercial(It’s awesome to see this with non
climbing friends and family and say, “yeah, I’ve done that”)
Summit of Ancient Art
Climbers at the base of Castleton Tower
Looking Glass Rock(A free hanging 150′ rappell to descend)
-Doug Foust, Instructor and Guide