Red Rock
17 Mar 2019 - Michelle Ho
We spent twelve days in Las Vegas.
Learning to climb more efficiently is something I want to work on this road trip. In Vegas, I discovered that I’m a very tentative (read: slow) trad leader. Our trad days were really long. That said, we still climbed some fun and interesting multi-pitch routes including Trihardral, Television (variation of Tunnel Vision) and Middle Earth. Tunnel Vision and Middle Earth both featured pitch-long awesome tunnel squeezes demanding chimney skills and headlamps during the day! Geoff, the ultimate chimney aficionado, also did Epinephrine with Kevin.
The sport climbing in Red Rock, meanwhile, was super fun and pure joy. Jess, Mark, Becca and Kevin flew in for four days and we climbed at the Civilization Crag, Wake Up Wall, and Gun Club.
Unfortunately, it rained for a few days so our climbing was cut short but we made up for it by hiking, going to the Strip, drinking and eating, winning at the casino, and seeing the incredible show Fuerza Bruta (shout out to RC friend Katie for hooking us up with the tickets!). That show is no Cirque Du Soleil, no sir. It is a 360° dance club-immersive theater-pool party in a tent. As Jess put it: “I can’t believe they can put that show on in the US”.
Other sites we really enjoyed in Vegas were:
- Spring Mountain Road, which is the “Chinatown” of Vegas. I recommend Mian for Sichuan noodles (and the cutest placemat/menu noodle cartoons!) and Monta for ramen! We also really liked the Mexican food at Serrano’s.
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- Springs Preserve which is a big museum park complex. There’s this educational water plant where we learned how Vegas gets its water. During a recent drought, Vegas was in danger of losing its water supply because the Lake Mead water levels were going to drop below the intake pipes. To prevent this from happening, a third intake pipe was drilled into the very bottom of the lake, a real engineering achievement that now ensures that Vegas will have water going forward. We also visited the “Boom Town” at Springs Preserve, which is a recreation of downtown Vegas in 1905, complete with bank, market, saloon, quarantine house, and boarding house. My favorite part was that they pipe noises of horses clip-clopping down the streets through speakers. It really adds to the vibe and makes you feel like you’re in an old spaghetti western.
- The arcade under Excalibur.
