Las Vegas -- Epinephrine

In Late April of 2002 Jesse Fisher and I went down to Vegas to climb Epinephrine, a long grade IV 5.9 in Black Velvet canyon.  The first day of climbing took us out to recon the route and check out Prince of Darkness a long sport climb in the area.  The next day we went back out and climbed Epinephrine.  Jesse led all the hard pitches and I was along for the ride.  Nice leads Jesse!  We got to the top as the sun was setting and made our way down Whiskey peak.  We didn't take the frogland descent and regretted it!  We thrashed around in a steep gulley that would have deposited us back in front of the black velvet wall.  I don't think anyone does that descent anymore even though it is in the book.  We couldn't find our way down in the dark and retraced our steps back up the gulley and down the Frogland descent.  Jesse had to head back and retrieve his pack at the base of the climb.  About 21 hours car to car with 7 hours on the descent and at least 2 wasted in the gulley.  A great Climb and one I wouldn't mind repeating.  We took 2 number 3 and 2 number 4 camelots and didn't regret it.  It was a bit windy on our climb but for the most part it was probably in the low 60s which made for perfect climbing.

View from our bivy site... the Monte Carlo

The approach to black velvet canyon up the dry creek bed

preparing for ascent of "prince of darkness" a multi-pitch sport climb... a warm up for epi

Shot of two other climbers on first pitch of Prince of Darkness which ascends the wall straight up.

A sideways shot of Prince of Darkness. The tower that forms the right skyline hides the Epiniphrene chimneys which ascend the other side.

Another shot of Prince of darkenss and the epiniphrene tower

Approach trail across the desert into black velvet canyon

Epiniphrene ascends more or less the right skyline of Whiskey peak in the center of the picture.

The 2nd pitch of Epinephrene. I strung the first and second pitch together with a 70m rope.

Shot of the first part of the chimneys.

Jesse tackles the first hard chimney pitch

higher in the chimneys

contemplating the next section

shot looking back down the chimneys from 6 or so pitches up

leading another section of chimney

the last pitch in the chimneys

Looking down on climbers on Prince of Darkness from top of Epi tower

The upper part of the Epinephrene route follows the groove.

Looking out to vegas from high on the route. A little hazy.

Back in vegas the next day after completing Epinephrene

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View from our bivy site... the Monte Carlo