Joe's Valley – Day One at the Right Fork

Joe’s Valley is a beautiful place and the various areas are on the hillsides and nestled in the drainages above Orangeville, Utah.  The industrial coal mining operations  sit in harsh contrast to the green beauty of the trees and rivers.  On our drive out from LA I first pictured the area being similar to Moab with a barren desert like feel. However I was pleasantly surprised by the Pacific northwest style views around the Joe’s Valley reservoir and was  delighted by the plentifully foliage.  The scenery even reminded Lizzy of pictures she had seen of Banff. 

For this trip we had a large group of eight with four of my college friends flying into SLC from the east coast and two more, Julie and Josh, driving out from LA. We had a wonderful 2.5 days of climbing even though it rained a touch on Friday night and there were waves of rain by Saturday afternoon. Our last day was cut short since we did not want to harm the fragile sandstone. The delicate nature of these rocks was reinforced by the recent news that the The Knocking Room had broken due to climbing after a rain storm.  After a wonderful early dinner at Big Mama’s we parted was back to our “real” lives. It was great to see all the familiar faces and have a chill time climbing and hanging out.

The bouldering is world class and the rock reminds me of the sandstone of the southeast with more pockets and crimps.   We spent a day at each of the different sectors, Left Fork, Right Fork and New Joe’s and explored many different boulders.  All of the following photos are from our first day at the Right Fork. 

Enjoy,

Luke

On the way down from the Reservoir

Luke plays photographer.

Kearah warms up on the Boy-Size boulder.

Luke struggles on Boy-Size V7

Lizzy gets psyched up for some highball action!

Lizzy on the perfect rock on the back side of the Man-Size boulder.

Lizzy commits to the crux of Michelangelo

Lizzy excited for her first V3 Flash! The crux was at 15 feet!

Luke goes for it on Michelangelo. 

Jackie making quick work of the Comedian  SDS V5

Luke on the 2nd crux of the Comedian.

Luke on his flash of the Comedian SDS 

Rebecca reaches on the Triangle Boulder.

Lizzy on some thin crimps and pockets on the Triangle Boulder.

Adam campusing a variation of  Scrawny V7

Adam goes big on Maxi Pad V6

Adam latching the edge on Maxi Pad

Josh on the start of No Additivies V11

Make sure to come back for more photos and video from the other days!!

OR ELSE!  :-D