Red Rocks is my favorite climbing destination.  I was there for the first time in 2003 for a week of climbing and debauchery around Vegas.  It was amazing!  Two years later in 2005 I went back to Red Rocks with some of the same friends from 2003 for another week of climbing.  The second trip was a bit of disappointment.  It rained and snowed basically 6 days out of 7 so we did only a single day of climbing.  Now I visited Red Rocks for a third time.  I was really excited to go back there, do some climbing and show the place to Teresa.

I was hoping for two or three days of climbing but things felt apart since we lost two days when we had a scare with the truck breaks.  We still got almost a full day so I guess I am happy about it.  Things in the park have changed quite a bit since 2005.  First and foremost the park felt changed and commercialized.  Three entrance lanes, a really big ranger building at the gate. Also the park felt like it has become overcrowded and unfortunately I saw a lot of garbage around the hiking trails and up around the park.  The mouse problem has only become worse – lots of mice waiting for you to look away from the packs to dash inside.  The other thing that changed is my climbing abilities.  Where I was playing on Tsunami wall in 2005 with 5.12 routs now I was proud to lead a 5.7 …  Still felt good, soooo good …