The Best Days are Rest Days?

My friend Bobby and I have a thing with rest days on climbing trips, in that our “rest” days tend to be more active than our climbing days. Generally it goes something like this: We are taking Wednesday off, what’s the coolest/biggest/most outrageous adventure we can go on that day? One time it was scrambling around for miles on the granite domes of Sweetwater Rocks outside Lander. We drove down a road, looked at something that seemed feasible, and struck out. No trail, not much of an idea of what to expect, but plenty of stoke and an open mind.

Another time it was hiking several miles up a side canyon in Indian Creek. We found a magical forest of huge trees and possibly the Well of Life, but we couldn’t get through all the bramble bushes to confirm. We also found a beautiful unclimbed splitter that is probably in the 12/13 range. And in a place that gets hammered with visitors, we found a lot of solitude in a canyon not many others had been.

Most recently, we went for a big romp up a sandstone mountain in Snow Canyon State Park, in Saint George. “What’s the plan for today?” “Let’s just drive in and look for the coolest-looking thing to summit.” And we found what we called the Lonely Mountain, a big white sandstone formation that we scrambled 1500’ to the top of, with amazing views all around.

Sometimes I enjoy taking rest days that are actually restful, but my best memories are from these days when we went out looking for adventure, which was surprisingly easy to find, and leave me eagerly wondering what the next “rest” day will bring.