Happy Boulders

Climb Review

• I climbed here last year and my previous review stands.

Celestial Trail (V0-; Heavenly Path Boulder)—When I climbed this, I still had hopes of climbing Heavenly Path and this was my warm-up. Going up, what I felt was that this climb was not 100% super-easy as I had hoped, if I had felt that, I would have gone for Heavenly Path. Instead, the rock told me that I still needed more practice.

Happy Hooker (V0+; More Water, Less Power)—I tried this route a couple of times but I just could not figure out the holds. The foot that looked good required a bit too much compression for me. I was just a move away though, so I hope to come back and send this next time.

What I Learned

• I don’t like trying consequential boulders in medium to high winds. I probably knew this before this day, but this day confirmed it.

• Marina taught us that dragging around a bouldering pad is a no-go due to how much erosion it causes. This is something I had heard before, but I think I’ll actually learn it this time.

Friends

• Cassie and I climbed here with Marina and Katie. All of us thought about going up Heavenly Path, but Katie and I ended up just going up the much easier Celestial Trail. Marina went halfway up, but she was dealing with an injury and I advised Cassie not to go up as I felt that she was too new at bouldering to try something with high consequences. Actually, Katie went halfway up Heavenly Path but didn’t feel right and climbed back down. Still, we had lots of fun!

What Happened?

 

After our morning at Siphon Hot Springs, we drove to the Happy Boulders and found the weather very, very hot. We had woken up to frozen morning dew on the leaves and now we were at a place where anything but shorts meant lots of sweat. On top of the heat, it was a windy day with gusts that probably went to 20+ mph. But even with the heat and the wind, we were stoked about the Happys. I think we couldn’t help ourselves from being Happy—we were outside, with a great group, and we were bouldering!

When we arrived, we found Heavenly Path boulder relatively free, so we set up our pads and headed up Celestial Trail. To warm up, I advised Cassie to climb the down climb on the back of the boulder to get comfortable with the rock. I took a pad and helped her with that while Katie and Marie tried their hand at Celestial Trail. After a bit, I started traversing the boulder in a clockwise fashion with my sandals and that was fun until the juggy feet holds ran out.

I then took Cassie over to More Water, Less Power and climbed the down climb for that boulder and generally scampered around on other boulders.

After a while, everyone was hungry for lunch and feeling exhausted from the heat and wind. We grabbed all our stuff and headed down. We went our separate ways after that, with Marina and Katie heading to Red Rocks and Cassie and I heading to Death Valley.