Indian Creek, United States

Indian Creek in Utah, USA is a world-famous area for climbing incredible “knife-cut” crags in hard red sandstone. The area is actually located in the desert near Canyonlands National Park. People from all over the world come here to experience the best spars in North America. The advantage is the ability to use friends as belay devices when climbing in this sandstone area. Friend belays are actually the only progression belay possible in Indian Creek. Spars are often the same size for the entire length of the route, so realistically you need 8 to 10 complete sets of friends ranging in size from 0.75 to 3, plus a few smaller and larger sizes. Of course it depends on what you want to climb. There’s a plethora of splitters, corners, falcons, chimneys and offwidths. A splitter is a slot in the middle of the slab. The nook, falcon and chimney is also known here. An offwidth is a wide slot. That is, a spar of a size that is small for the whole body but large for the arms and legs. It is a dimension in which it is difficult to keep in any way.

Our climbing started with climbing in difficulties 5.8 to 5.9 in local shorter routes. Sometimes these were surprisingly difficult routes. 5.10 is now a serious difficulty, and we climbed wonderful world-famous classics like Incredible hand crack at 5.10 or Super crack at 5.10 and several others in this difficulty. The routes are generally 30 to 35 metres and the grading is extremely hard and honest.

5.11 is really quite a lot and we tried several routes in this difficulty. However, only one of them dropped on RP. It was the power play path for 5.11 in the Power Wall sector. 5.12 proved to be an impregnable fortress that we need to seriously train for.

During our rest days we visited Canyonlands National Park, which is near Indian Creek. We rested in the town of Moab. At the end of the trip, we drove to Castle valley near Moab and climbed the classic Rectory tower by way of Fine Jade for 5.11a. It was an extremely windy and cold day even though we climbed in the sun. The route was a fair 5 lengths. The opening offwidth for 5.10d caught us by surprise. The middle finger joint in 5.11a let go painlessly and the final short slab with rivets in 5.11a caught us off guard again. Anyway, wonderful climbing in an incredible landscape. The view from the top of the tower was well worth the effort.

Indian Creek is a famed area and has left a deep mark on my climbing soul. I would love to come back here again. But until then, I need to train and prepare properly. Until next time :)…