This is mostly a photo tr of some climbing we did at Courtright Reservoir last weekend of July 4th. It's a pretty cool place. Definitely reminds me of Tuolumne and there's granite slabs everywhere you look which is really cool. I'm a beginner climber (July 21st 2009 makes it 1 year since I've been climbing) so I didn't really get to do too many hard routes, especially on Power Dome, but I did lead a pretty fun 5.8"+" called Rope-A-Dope on Penstemom Dome. That was fun!
Where we parked over by Penstemon and Punk Rock Domes off the road for camping.
Our first stop the next day was Trapper Dome for some nice, easy routes.
Joyce, my girlfriend, never had led any routes before and this day she led three!
We worked her slowly to the left up the grades and got her onto a little more challenging 5.7 and she cruised right through. Here she is happy as can be.
Some views from Trapper Dome
We hopped on Matt Schultz's tr of a 5.10+ lead he'd just done. Nice lead, man! Stout route.
We wanted to find a nice crack to climb and scouted out this route which looked ok and had a cool overhanging crack corner which I led up.
More cool views from the top by the tree
The next day we went to Penstemon with a view of Punk Rock's backside.
Ezra led up a 5.6 gully to get us to the ledge below the pinnacle and a few choice 5.7/5.8 climbs. I led Rope-A-Dope here. Looks like the topo says 7 bolts with anchors right above the last bolt, but I actually clipped 9 bolts and the last is runout to the anchor afterwards. Fun, though.
Of course we decided to check out the giant grove of trees on our way home.
Good times and great weather. I would love to go back again and climb Power Dome's "Welcome to Courtright" and "A Little Nukey." I hear they are classics.
Enjoy!