Springboard to Excellence

Voyeurs!  After much time away, I'm imbued once again with some fine story fodder.  This journey winds westward, past the Colorado Plateau and Utah's vibrantly painted Swell.  I-70's serpentine tarmac paints a black strip across some of the most amazing scenery in America, and if you care to pay attention to vaulted sandstone and endless sky, you might remember that landscape until your death.  Old Edward Abbey wasn't wrong, and so pining for our lives to mirror his novels, Seth Finkelstein and I  made tracks.  Officially, the final destination was Las Vegas.  The worst city in America.  The sprawling arm pit of vapid spec-builds.  The mile after mile of Geography of Nowhere, manifest.  Ultimately, though, Vegas is the only real launching point to Red Rocks National Conservation Area.  And that, my friends, is vere ve do zee freiklettern.

Rainbow Mountain.  Levitation climbs the back side of this peak.

Like any good voyage with a Brother Finkel, our space ship was disguised as a van.  This time, Starship Enterprise was Seth's loaded Ford Sportsmobile, a lovely van with a minor drinking problem when compared to Wally's diesel efficiency.  Plush captain's chairs and panoramic windows allowed us to take in that Utah scenery en-route to Nevada.  Somewhere between Richfield and St. George, I realized that my plans for 2011's climbing achievements had started in earnest.  I'm looking forward to tons of sends and adventures this year, and as we blasted off towards our sandstone objectives of the week, the trip was dubbed the "Springboard to Excellence."   It might look better as a slogan for an elementary school, but I see no reason to ignore the fact that the Red Rocks trip, complete with sun and warm air, was a perfect start to 2011's campaign.