Kevin Riley and friends. One love. Photo by Justin Roth.
Kevin Riley and friends. One love. Photo by Justin Roth.
Just Another Day in the Office Vegas, Baby, I thought as I boarded the plane in Denver. Ticket in hand, camera in tow, and a bag full of rope, draws, and clean undies in the checked baggage compartment below, I was ready for the sunny sandstone and the hordes of adoring readers I’d encounter while repping the mag at the fifth annual Red Rock Rendezvous; March 28-30 — one of the biggest, most laid back climber events of the year.
I planned on skipping the casinos cause there’s nothing less fun to me than losing money playing a game I don’t understand, but everything else Vegas is famous for was on the agenda. Well, not the hookers, of course (I have a girlfriend)... and also not the nightlife (no dancing with sequin-clad divas on the elevated glass patio of Ghost Bar and doing body shots off the torsos of hammered spring breakers, I promised myself—not this time). But everything else.
The clouds that brought the Sunday morning rain, rushing in over the tent city. Sources say over 900 people signed up for the event. Photo by Justin Roth.
Vegas reality set in early when I squeezed into my seat on the fully-booked Frontier Airlines plane next to a woman so large that we could not put the armrest down between us. I donned my headphones and prepared to zone out into my own private dance party when I realized my iPod was not charged. The blinking battery icon sent my heart into the baggage compartment below deck, where it joined my undies. With the armrest wedged in the up position I could not even plug my phones into the onboard music system. I wore them anyway, in an attempt to block the plane sounds, but the tactic, along with the sanctity of my personal bubble of space, was foiled by my neighbor’s snores.
Pro climber and all-around nice guy Justin Woods working on his slackline backflip. I think he may have too much time on his hands. He eventually landed it, BTW. Photo by Justin Roth.
I met my co-worker, Kevin in Vegas’ slot-stuffed McCarran Airport. We hightailed it to my friend Craig’s house nearby. Craig is a performer in Cirque du Soleil’s LOVE (cirquedusoleil.com), a surreal, psychedelic dance performance scored with Beatles music. Craig’s been playing Sergeant Pepper in the show as of late, but used to play the Queen of England, too. Besides being a world-level performer/modern dancer and a Columbia-trained Doctor of Physical Therapy, Craig’s also a burly hard climber. He’s ticked some of the harder sport climbs and boulder problems around Vegas in the years since he moved there. We crashed at his place and bounced early to set up the Climbing stand at the Rendezvous.
Fact: climbers can eat like they have holes in their necks—witness the Red Rock Rendezvous’ old-fashioned Sunday morning pancake eating contest. Photo by Justin Roth.
Fact: climbers can eat like they have holes in their necks—witness the Red Rock Rendezvous’ old-fashioned Sunday morning pancake eating contest. Photo by Justin Roth.
The Rendezvous’ tent city and surrounding cliff bands. Photo by Justin Roth.
The Rendezvous’ tent city and surrounding cliff bands. Photo by Justin Roth.
To briefly recap: the online retailer Mountain Gear (mountaingear.com) put on the event, inviting climbers to party, mingle and check out some of the outdoor industry’s latest wares. Professional guides and climbers offered clinics in everything from bouldering, to setting up toprope anchors, to climbing photography for attendees. Food, beer, dyno and slackline competitions, slideshows, beat boxing, and music from a DJ in a giant solar-powered flying saucer were also offered to entertain. The event was smooth and successful (there was even enough food for all the hungry climbers who eat like they don’t know where their next meal’s coming from) all the way up till Sunday when, just after the pancake breakfast and eating contest, a gusty cold front laced with rain rushed across the outdoor venue, blowing huge tents, folding chairs, and small women about. People packed up their stuff, lest it be scattered to the boreal regions.
Kevin and I, faced with an empty event grounds, headed to the nearby Red Rock Casino (redrocklasvegas.com). I slipped a dollar into a game where I pushed buttons and watched glowing icons dance around the screen pointlessly until my hundred pennies were exhausted. Bored after 15 seconds of “high rolling” we took in the movie “21” (sonypictures.com/movies/21), about MIT students drawn by their smooth-talking professor (Kevin Spacey) into a Vegas card-counting scheme. (The theater was packed by tourists hoping to pick up some tips on how to beat the system.)
One of the strange metal objects circulating around the grounds of the Rendezvous. Photo by Justin Roth.
By the time we got out of the movie, the weather had cleared enough for us to get in a couple of nice sport pitches in the Calico Basin, before a dinner with the event sponsors and organizers. In our brief exposure to the sun Kevin and I both picked up a nice burn. To ameliorate the sting of it, Kevin applied a liberal coating of XtremeSkin (xtremeskin.com) to his entire, radish-red face, making it somewhat shiny and giving him a sweaty, feverish, Ebola-like appearance. The salve soothed his pain though, so he kept applying.
After getting lost repeatedly on the way back to the airport, I found I’d missed the 45-minute preflight check-in cut-off, meaning I’d have to wait for the next flight. Unfortunately, it was 9:05 p.m., and mine had been the last of the day, so I was sentenced to a night in the airport for my tardiness. I found a secret power outlet on the upper level near a cigar stand and plugged in my laptop, watching the BBC Special Life in the Undergrowth on DVD until I fell asleep on the hard, carpeted floor next to a friendly Guatemalan man on his way to Oregon.
This peacock let me know I was in its personal space. Behind the Bonnie Springs hotel, just a mile down the road from the Rendezvous site. This place has a petting zoo, complete with lynxes, and the peacocks roam free. Photo by Justin Roth.
This peacock let me know I was in its personal space. Behind the Bonnie Springs hotel, just a mile down the road from the Rendezvous site. This place has a petting zoo, complete with lynxes, and the peacocks roam free. Photo by Justin Roth.
A falling dyno contest contestant gazes at the distant banded beauty of Red Rock. Photo by Justin Roth.
A falling dyno contest contestant gazes at the distant banded beauty of Red Rock. Photo by Justin Roth.
In the morning I zombied through the maze of barriers to the security checkpoint, feeling as if I’d died and awakened to a purgatory of eternal airport wandering—waiting in lines, drinking Starbucks, and surfing the free Internet until some divine being decided my ultimate fate. Of course I really just swept through the line, boarded the plane, and jetted home. From air there were perfect views of the mountainous desert surrounding Vegas, the red valley-ed vistas of Utah, and the snowfields and razor-backed mountain peaks of Colorado. Not bad.
Sunny in cool in Boulder today; just another day in the office.
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