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| Sandstone Peak (Secondary) |
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| Sandstone Peak and Monument Peak |
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| View Northeast from Sandstone Peak Climb |
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| Dihedral Climb |
Jerry and Cheryl sent this review of climbing Sandstone Peak recently. (Sandstone Peak is found in the Red Rock Escarpment or Sandstone Bluffs between Indecision Peak and Monument Peak.) It sounded like such an adventure, I wanted to place the photos and story on the blog. Below, find a quote from a rock climbing blog to explain what a dihedral is in rock climbing. Go to the link for the page and an interesting Dean Potter (famous rock climber guy) video!
What Is a Dihedral (in the Rock Climbing World)?
If you pick up any guidebook to pretty much any climbing area, the chances are good that you’ll see the word “dihedral” used to describe a climb or part of one. So what is a dihedral, exactly?
It’s a cliff feature where two planes of rock come together at more or less right angles to form a corner.
There is usually a crack of some sort in the corner of the dihedral, and this crack can be used for jamming, laybacking, and placing protection. If there isn’t a crack to jam in—or if it’s too thin to do you any good—stemming, palming, body tension, and smearing will help you get up the thing.
http://theundercling.com/what-is-a-dihedral-climbing/
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| Jerry with East Monument Peak in Distance |
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| Cheryl with Spring Mountain Ranch State Park in Distance |
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| The Climb |
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| Cheryl having fun with the Camera |
Sandstone Peak is a difficult but super fun scramble. We parked at the Black Velvet parking area and hiked two miles across the desert to the base of the peak avoiding private property and Spring Mountain Ranch State Park land. From there we started straight up toward the summit. Our class two eventually became 3d class and finally 4th class some of which was exposed. The rock was solid but there were quite a lot of cacti, bushes and trees to negotiate. Unfortunately one of the cactus, an agave, decided to attack me and stuck several needles into the fingers on my left hand. One was imbedded so deeply into my knuckle I couldn’t bend my finger. Jerry sprang into medic mode and using his tweezers/magnifying glass, he expertly and calmly removed them.
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| Easy part! Bonnie Springs and Oliver Ranch in Distance |
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| Worth the Climb! |
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| Just a little Scrambling Remaining |
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| Crazy kids! |
We made our way to the sub peak and had a brief snack. We had made it to this point last November but had to turn around as we were losing daylight. This time we had longer days and knew we’d have plenty of time. After our short break we hiked and scrambled along a 4th class ridge that eventually led us to Sandstone Peak. We had great views of Little Zion, East Peak and Monument Peak to name a few.
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| Going Down |
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| Bushes in the Way |
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| It's a long way down there! |
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| Super Cheryl! |
After signing the register, taking some photos and having another snack, we headed back. We scrambled our way back down a lot of fun spots without incident. At the last section before we made it to the desert floor, we encountered very loose, slippery dirt. Going up wasn’t a problem but going down....well, we’ve all been “there”! We slipped a few times and got some minor bruises and scratches.
We had a really fun time! It was a blast!
Stats: 7 miles; 2600' gain; 7.75 hours
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| Super Jerry! |
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| Well, there's a slow way and a fast way! |
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| Down the Ancient Rockslide |
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