Fall travels - Eva and the Giraffe join in the desert searching for cracks and admire the geology

brianzurek
Nov 19, 2022
4 min read

Utah maybe the land of Mormons but better yet it is also the home of desert crack climbing and spectacular national parks!

After traveling 2/3 across the country Brian picks up Eva and the Giraffee at Salt Lake City International airport for a week in the desert. Our first stop is the San Rafael Swell an eroded out anticline in a semi remote area in-between Salt Lake City and Moab.

The scenery was spectacular.

The mighty San Rafael river cuts out a dramatic landscape deserving of the Marlboro man.

The swell is quite large with an axis roughly running 70km SW-NE and 40km across. Here the surface expression can be seen in a Google satellite view of the swell

Here a geologic cross section of the swell shows how you got from younger rocks to older rocks as you go in to the core of the anticline (blatantly taken off the internet... while not the original reference this where I got it - clickie ). We climbed mostly in the Wingate sandstone (early Jurassic / late Triassic) on the western limb...

After a day of climbing Brian walks back to the van on the red sandstone that makes up the Chinle formation. Across the valley the cliffs are made up of Wingate and Navajo sandstone.

Besides the geology the area was also frequented by native people over the years - sometimes leaving behind their own intricate glyphs on the rocks - I assume they enjoyed the views.

Eva too enjoys the views from one of our campsites.

But she is also eager to get climbing...

Brian prepares for the days adventures from the van.

leaving the van behind we strike out in search of the elusive desert crack!

It would appear the color of the day is red

And just like that Eva finds a crack to climb

What size gear for this crack do I need she wonders?

Decided, she is racked up and ready to go

Up the crack she goes

Brian also finds a crack and is eager to go

and off he goes!

Eva ready to tackle what lies next...

and off she goes!

Having not had enough she goes off looking for more cracks

Brian finds another crack! and is eager to lead up it!

After a couple of days of climbing cracks Eva is all smiles

and is ready to head back to camp

Brian enjoying the solitude of the swell

Happy couple

As the sun sets after another good day climbing its time to start thinking about leaving the swell

a full moon lights up the landscape and makes for a dramatic night

but the scenery and solitude that comes about in such a remote location is hard to leave behind.

Driving out of the Swell

Our next stop was Indian creek but on the way we stopped in Moab and climbed along Potash road - voted by vanlifers around the globe as the best crag for the lazy climber as one can literally belay from ones car (van) - approach time zero!

Eva lays back a tight corner crack

and then gets eaten whole by her least favorite (perhaps Brians favorite btw) climb of the trip

The wind was ferocious and climbing subpar - so we retreated to the van and made a plan to head straight down to the creek!

Arriving to our campsite just in time for the sun to set

The next morning rested and ready to go we arrive at the parking lot eager to find more cracks! Eva smiles with miles of Wingate sandstone all around us

All it takes is a short approach to the base to find a crack fairly generic like all others...

Brian ties in

and sorts his gear

and we assume he climbed the crack - did he or didn't he we may never know??? Meanwhile Eva finds her own crack to climb and floats up it...

and gets eaten by another

After a full day of crack climbing its time to pack up and head out - Eva all smiley after a good day

Brian heads back down to the van

while the sun sets on Indian Creek

We wake the next morning to a drastic change in weather - a major winter storm is moving in and the skies look ominous

and the wind blows dust into the air

We decide to retreat to Moab where it rains

and snows

The rock will take a couple of days to dry, which for the purposes of our trip means the climbing is done and it's time to pull on our tourist hats and visit some national parks. So the next day we get up early to see the sun rise over Arches NP.

The moon, almost full, seen through an arch!

Eva explores the snowy landscape straight out of a Dr Seuss book

For geologically curious these formations are in the Entrada sandstone which are Jurassic in age and sit above the Wingate which we have spent the past few days climbing on

As the day went on the sun came out and warmed us up - hear Brian. looks at the world famous delicate arch while standing under one of the other 2000 arches in the park