On my drive down from Canada by myself (Melissa flew home a week earlier), I was supposed to meet Dow to climb at Elephant's Perch. He was feeling unmotivated to do the long drive to Idaho for just a weekend, and I had to go to work on Monday, so we compromised on another objective - Notch Peak, located in the middle of nowhere, in the Western Utah desert. Our route of choice would be Book of Saturday (5.11, 12 pitches). And boy, what a compromise it was! There is almost nothing in common between the two objectives - one is world class climbing on beautiful granite, the other one of the chossiest, sketchiest limestone faces in the United States, getting an average of 4 ascents a year. However, what Notch Peak lacks in quality and popularity, it makes up for in adventure and spectacular setting. A few trip reports confirmed that (for instance, this TR by Donini I had read a year prior).

Exerpt from another TR: "Watch for rattlesnakes....you think you climb fast but you will be rappelling in the dark.....assume no one will be in the canyon for months....rescue is improbable...cell phones have no service....death from exposure is possible if become marooned on the wall....good luck". So clearly, we had to do it!

So, Dow and I met near Salt Lake City on Saturday morning and continued to Delta, UT. We fueled up and continued to Notch Peak, by now being late afternoon on Saturday. We had dinner and at sunset, drove my truck up the remaining few miles to the parking area (which was surprisingly rough!) - and hiked in about an hour up the wash where we bivied (I wouldn't really recommend this, there aren't really any great (aka flat) spots...). The final parking area is inside a gorgeous granite basin surrounded by nice climbing... Notch Peak looms above, like an ugly overlord. We marched upwards in the quickly changing scenery, quicking gaining elevation (about 2,500' from the car to the base of the rock).

We enjoyed a beautiful starry night (also witnessed the perseid meteor shower) and after hardly any sleep, got up at 5:30am. Still by headlamps, we hiked up the remaining part of the drainage (about another hour) and found the base of the route. Steep! I linked pitches 1 & 2 (and found the 5.11 crux fairly straightforward, and extremely well-protected), and we swapped off from there. The pitches went by one after the other... shitty loose rock and the occasional runout kept us on our toes. The only noteworthy/scary moment for me came at pitch 11 (second to last), where I managed to go off-route despite (or is it because?) all of the beta on MP.com... which resulted in a 40+ foot runout on crumbling limestone. I gingerly traversed back left to the last bolt on the pitch, and finished the remaining portion. Dow took us up the last pitch uneventfully as well, and we were more relieved than happy at that point - but one thing weighed on our minds - the way down. We read & wrote inside the summit register, and contemplated what's next.

Rappelling down is always stressful, but on a big and loose rock face, ten times so. Miraculously, our ropes didn't knock down any rocks and did not get stuck, and we made it down uneventfully - now we were happy and almost ready to celebrate! The hike was not as long as on the way up, but very hot... we got chased by some gigantic Tarantula hawks (I had never seen such crazy bugs before!), but managed to escape unscathed. The afternoon was capped by grilling burgers and a cold beer from the fridge... ahhh, life is good!

From there, Dow and I split paths - him headed east on highway 50 towards home, and me headed west towards California. What an awesome way to end a summer vacation! I will let the pictures below do the rest of the talking...

	Our first view of Notch Peak rising out of the desert	Driving towards Notch Peak, yea!	Dow's FJ pulling his trailer - we are both spoiled to the hilt these days

			Notch Peak. The north face is the vertical face in the shade (most of it obscured from view from this angle). If you look closely you can see the dirt road we have to drive up!

	Doing my best hill billy impersonation	Notch Peak rising out of the desert, thousands of feet higher..	So gorgeous. The North Face of Notch Peak is coming more into view now...

		Popping up for dinner	Enjoy dinner in this spectacular location

			Driving up at sunset, once the temps cooled off... note the red-ish rock - it is gorgeous granite!

	Notch Peak's north face now basking in the setting sun		Nice granite... why can't we climb this instead?

	Hiking up - granite gives way to limestone 20 minutes up...		Via ferrata in the US! No, we are not in Italy, ladies and gentlemen!

	Looking up at the north face. Chossy rock!	Approaching the start of the climb by traversing into it

	Looking down at the first two pitches - the 5.11a crux is just below me	Looking up at the choss.. why are we climbing this?	Dow at the 5.11 crux moves (overhanging but straightforward)

			A long 5.8 pitch with just a few bolts..

		A crappy 5.9 pitch below..

	5.10c pitch above - one of the better ones, but not great by any means

	Another chossy 5.10 pitch	Looking down at the valley - we are a long way up. You can see the approach gully - it would be murder during the day due to the heat!	Dow coming up another great pitch (NOT!)

	This was the 2nd to last pitch and the most ridiculous one. I ended up missing where one of the bolts was, and doing a pretty serious runout for no good reason... oh well. The top is spicy too (the last bolt is near where Dow is)	If you think Dow is smiling because he's having fun - he's not. He's smiling because we are almost at the top, about to put this shit behind us!

	Dow putting the last pitch behind us, so we could finally go home	As Dow said: "Funny these guys were nailing a wall for 4 days and are complaining about a bunch of rebar!" - I'm still laughing. (top left entry...) Also note Jim Donini's entry :)

	View from the top of th wall		Rappelling down. Surprisingly, the rappels are pretty clean!

	Going down the "U-shaped bowl" in the approach description	Look at the north face from which we just came down.	Another short step to downclimb/rappel

	More scrambling down the wash	Is this over yet?

	Granite heaven	Back to the truck!	Goodbye, Notch Peak. I don't think I'll be back! :)

	Awesome sunflowers on the desert road...	Driving US-50 home