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More Fun Things To Do With Cliffs

• November 2007
• Uncategorized

The Tombstone and Castleton Tower have to be two of my absolute favorite rocks, period. When I thought about learning to BASE jump, I thought how great it would be to be home in Moab, and get to jump off them. So the Tombstone was my first (and second and third and fourth) cliff jump…..

Around noon the other day, Dean and I decided to go climb the North Chimney on Castleton, and jump it. I love the North Chimney–I don’t even know how many times I’ve climbed it, and I still think it’s one of the greatest routes ever. We soloed together, so we only had to bring a 6mm tag line to haul up the BASE rigs.

The advantage of climbing without climbing gear is that you don’t have to jump with climbing gear….just shoes, chalkbag, and the tag line.

Dean wore the rigs on the last twenty feet, so we didn’t have to worry about knocking rocks down on anyone, in case someone was coming up the Kor-Ingalls, though it was getting to be evening, and most climbers were down and gone already.

Hauling up BASE rigs is a little less efficient than climbing with nothing, but the descent takes about one minute instead of an hour!

It was pretty great, getting to jump all these cliffs I’ve spent so many days climbing up in years past….but I know my experienced friends are right when they tell me I can “get away” with jumping such short cliffs right now, but I need to spend more time jumping at the bridge and off taller cliffs until I have more experience. Because it is super serious. And I was getting a little carried away. So I’ve decided to take their advice, and mellow out on the Moab jumps until I log a little more bridge time and jump some bigger cliffs. Though it is unbelievably tempting to be here, surrounded by these beautiful sandstone walls! Luckily they are also good for climbing on 🙂