Eagle Dance (Rainbow Mtn., Red Rocks)

By: Gary Clark | Climbers: Gary & Lynn Clark |Trip Dates: October 25, 2002

Photo: Gary Clark

® The author(s) and naclassics.com | Back to climb page NAC Home page

We didn't come to Red Rocks with Eagle Dance on our tick list. We didn't have it in mind for the North American Classics collection. It just sort of happened. We had done the excellent routes Ginger Cracks and Crimson Chrysalis earlier in the week, and had planned on adding another check mark to the list of climbs on the Black Velvet Wall - probably Yellow Brick Road. Then two factors conspired to change our plans. First, the weather turned significantly colder, as it is wont to do late in October. Even though we had been climbing comfortably in the shade all week, the completely sunless Black Velvet Canyon suddenly wasn't so appealing. Second, we decided we weren't enthusiastic about competing with other people for yet another popular moderate route.

Flipping through the guidebook over a hot chocolate at the Dutch Bakery on Charleston, Lynn suddenly exclaimed"Let's do Eagle Dance!" I mulled it over for a few milliseconds and agreed. Over the years we had heard enthusiastic endorsements of this route from climbers whose judgment we trust, and had been impressed looking up it as we passed by a few years earlier on the way to the more moderate 'Rainbow Buttress' route. I had always considered it a bit out of our league in difficulty, but Lynn pointed out that the overall rating was only 5.10-, and we had been quite comfortable at or slightly above that level during the past week, at least on sport routes. Add to that the knowledge that it had been recently re-bolted by the American Safe Climbing Association, the fact that it had a butt-busting approach sure to keep the crowds down, and we had a winner.

We planned to arrive at the gate when they opened at 6:00am, but driving difficulties in Vegas wasted considerable time, so we were about 30 minutes late. In addition, we weren't fully ready to go, so we had some packing to do at the Oak Creek trailhead. I realized we might be in trouble, and told Lynn "We'll be real lucky to get up this thing, let's just mellow out and treat this as a reconnaissance." We knew we could rappel at any time, so we agreed to climb until it was time to come down. We set off up the canyon in no particular hurry, the memory of the approach still fairly fresh in our minds from 1999.

The approach has three distinct stages. First, there is a well-beaten trail through low desert scrub that takes you to the mouth of the canyon. By careful route finding you can stay on an ad hoc trail for another quarter-mile or so, then all vestiges of trail disappear as you are forced into the bed of the arroyo. If you've been up Black Velvet Canyon, you've had the basic experience of the second stretch - major boulders clogging a steep arroyo that you either scramble over or around. At a prominent junction, you must turn right to continue this process up the North Fork of Oak Creek until you are finally forced into serious bush-whacking. The final section is up huge bare rock slabs that descend from the vertical wall and are just steep enough to keep your attention without requiring a rope. All this takes 2½ - 3 hours with a normal pack, food and water.

The route starts at the first logical line up a good crack about 50' to the right of a huge pillar leaning against the wall, and is obvious. We arrived well into the morning, and had already adjusted our expectations downward such that we'd have been happy to get in three good pitches. We ate and drank while leisurely getting ready for the first pitch. It is rated 5.8 and 200' in length. As I climbed I was conservative with protection to ensure I'd still have the right pieces with me for a 5.8 crux section. I never discovered any true 5.8, and still had most of my very light rack with me at the end. Lynn confirmed that the pitch was quite overrated in difficulty. However, it was not overrated in length, which I discovered when I heard the "20 FEET!" signal with a no anchor in sight. We learned that our rope, which I had thought was 60m, was in fact much shorter, and Lynn simul-climbed quite a ways to allow me to reach the anchor.

Ah, the anchor . . . the ASCA didn't skimp on quality when they re-bolted this route in the spring. All bolts were ½" stainless, and the hangers were a new type I had never seen before that were carabiner-friendly and confidence-inspiring. There are 72 new bolts on the route out of 77 original, and all are the same quality - no skimping on protection bolts, even for the aid section high on the route. I have never been on a safer route, and it would have been reasonable to leave the trad rack hanging from the first belay stance, as the rest of the way is liberally and intelligently protected with bolts alone. We didn't know this, and carried the rack the rest of the way, placing two pieces more because I had them than I needed them.

The second pitch climbed a shallow crack that diagonalled left up a steep face at 5.10-. It was continuous and interesting. Whenever the footholds seemed to disappear below the crack, I found I could climb above the crack then traverse back to it. An excellent pitch.

The next two pitches were on a beautiful steep face liberally adorned with holds. The face has lots of desert varnish, which as it weathers produces the best holds short of a climbing gym - positive, solid, and even tendon-friendly. Pitch 3 seemed like the crux to me. Lynn led it, and it took her a while to work out the opening moves just above the anchor. It was clear from below that this would be a tricky section, not only because the holds are smaller and farther between, but the bolts are very close together - a sign that they were placed on lead by a concerned leader. The climbing eased slightly in the upper half of the pitch, but was never trivial. Pitch four seemed very easy in comparison. The book has it as 5.9+ or simply 5.9, depending on whether you consult the topo or the written description, but it seemed no more than 5.9-.

We were now up four pitches, it was really time to come down, but just as when I was 10 years old and my mother used to call me in after an evening of play, I found every excuse to procrastinate. "Let's do one more pitch", I'd say - "It's only 60 feet long, and can't take that long." Lynn should probably have been the responsible one, but she was having too much fun as well, so after completing the 5th pitch, she agreed when I suggested I would "just run up the 6th, and that would be it." The 6th starts with a short 5.8 section up a crack, then the wall gets steep and blank. The Uriostes did the only sensible thing to preserve a great line up the wall - they built a bolt ladder. This is called the "thrash and dangle" section in the guide, which pretty much describes it, since it overhangs gently. It isn't worth bringing comfortable aid gear all the way up there to clip up 8 bolts, so I just put some skinny spectra slings together and thrashed up it.

Now I could almost hear my mother's voice calling "You kids stop playing and get in this house this very minute!". We hastily arranged the first rappel, with a goal of getting back to the canyon bottom before the light completely failed. We had figured out on the way up that we had carried two ropes up here in vain. All of the pitches were of half-length except the first, and there was an intermediate anchor on it just for the rappel that was not shown on the topo. The temptation might have been to combine rappels, but we couldn't afford to risk having a knot hang up on this highly featured wall, so we used a single rope and made up for the transition time in more efficient rope retrieval.

We made it to the big pine tree at the bottom of the approach slabs with a little light left, but the descent of the canyon itself would be no pushover, even with the single headlamp we had. The first section is a horrendous thrash through stickery brush well above the arroyo bottom, which is dominated by impassible dropoffs in this area. By the time we got through that section and were back in the watercourse (dry at this time of year), I had blood dripping from a big scratch on my arm and numerous minor scratches on my face and neck. There might be a more reasonable passage here, but I'm yet to find it in four tries. We turned on the headlamp at the junction of the North Fork and the main canyon, and the next hour was the familiar routine of finding a passage down a wild canyon in the desert night. Even though we were getting tired and hungry, we both admitted to enjoying it in a perverse sort of way.

Once out of the canyon mouth, we had many trails from which to choose. Too many trails, it turns out, and we were lured off on a wrong branch more than once. We could see the ranger vehicles sweeping the loop road, handing out big tickets to any vehicles parked there after the 7:00 curfew, so we pushed the pace as much as possible. We arrived at the car just after two rangers had arrived, and explained to them in a friendly and obsequious manner that we had underestimated the difficulty of the route and the canyon, and couldn't possibly have gotten down any earlier. We were really sorry, and would certainly call the phone number posted prominently on the sign at the trailhead should we ever come back. It wouldn't have gone down quite so well to tell the whole truth, which is that we just kept playing as long as we thought we could without getting a good spanking. And, we would certainly be back. Not only are there 2 more pitches on Eagle Dance, but we were within spitting distance of Levitation 29 the whole climb, and that route now seemed a lot more within reason.