Ten Sleep with a Baby

I’ve been sitting on this one for a while, as we took this trip in August, but better late than never!

How do I even begin to describe this trip? So many unknowns came together in the most beautiful way possible to create a trip I will always remember with a heart full of gratitude. We’d taken R climbing enough times to know we could make that part happen, and we’d taken her on one two-day camping trip before this to get our systems dialed. But how would all the pieces fit being on the road for two weeks with a 6-month-old? What about the long car ride? And then of course there was all the bolting drama on top of it.

Well, the short version is that it was amazing. We’d spent a week there the year before, when Tracy was pregnant, and the whole time we were also keeping an eye towards what it would be like with an infant. We left confident that the Rock Ranch would be an ideal spot with a little one, and indeed it was. The easy camping, the showers, the bathrooms, the running water. The wifi is great when you need to stay connected to the world outside the canyon, and the Andersons are gracious hosts. There’s enough extra stuff going on with an infant, and staying at the Rock Ranch takes away a lot of the guesswork.

For the climbing, we stuck to crags that were less than 20 minutes from the car, as carrying the baby and all her extra stuff made for some invigorating approaches, and we didn’t want to be too committed (No French Cattle Ranch this year 🙁 .)  It was relatively easy to find good sheltered spots for R to post up that we would base camp out of. Also, having a shade/rain tarp was crucial. There was one day when the forecast called for a chance of rain, so we set up the tarp when we got to the crag, and when the showers did come, we could duck inside, with all of our stuff and the baby staying dry. The rain passed in a few minutes, and we were able to climb the rest of the day. Likewise, if we climbed at a morning shade zone and got caught in the sun, we could stick R under the tarp and keep climbing. It took more work to get to and stay at the crag, so doing whatever we could to make the most of our time was important.

It also seems like Ten Sleep is so massive that you rarely see a ton of other people, which is nice when you are managing the safety of a little one. There’s enough going on when you take your baby cragging, so it’s nice to not have to also be thinking about things like rockfall from someone else, dogs that aren’t friendly, etc.

And of course, having an amazing third adult was huge! We made a decision early on that we would not go climbing with just the three of us until the kiddo is old enough to take care of herself at the cliff. So we always bring a third, and we were lucky to have an amazing person come with us who loved R as much as the climbing. And sure you don’t move as fast with three, but we generally got 6-8 pitches in each on a given day, which felt like plenty for a trip where we were climbing two days on, one day off.

As for all the drama with chipped holds and such, everyone we ran into thought the whole thing was silly. The general feeling was that Louie got carried away, but that the vigilante response was childish and had a predictable result, and everyone was ready to move on. The red padlocks were stupid and way more of an eyesore than a drilled pocket (side note, we never saw anything as egregious as some of the photos posted online. Maybe all four of those pockets got filled in?). Some feel it was worth it, but I wonder if they will feel that way in eight years when bolting is still banned. I can tell you from experience that the feds don’t move quickly on this stuff, and once it’s shut down, it’s simply easier just to leave things that way. Too bad, there’s a lot of undeveloped rock in those parts!

At the end of two weeks, we felt like we could have stayed out for a month. We fell into a simple routine of wake up, eat, climb, eat, go to bed and repeat. R loves being outside, and I even started to feel fit on the heavy hikes to the crag. It was an amazing thing to be back on the road, with our little one, doing the things we’ve always enjoyed doing together. Sure, this version was different, but because we had our kid along, it was so much more special. This kind of trip won’t be for everyone, but if you are looking for a great place to road trip with your little one, I would put Ten Sleep at the top of your list.