As I entered flow high on the wall, the red rock around me started to beam a brilliant orange with the setting sun.

Once I reached the anchor, I turned around to the valley behind me and took in the vast endless land and horizon sprinkled with desert towers.

My friends and I stared at the horizon in bewilderment, a hunch of what was unfolding in front of our eyes but still in disbelief. We watched the sun, all risking potential blindness but we didn’t care.

We stared straight into the flaming sun sinking through the sky as it directly lined up with North Six Shooter. This large pillar of impressive rock that shoots up from the landscape split the sun directly in half with a crescent setting on each side. It’s one of those moments I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life, almost too coincidental to be true.

My friends had crawled up this rock-sliding choss pile to support me on this lead, Jayce giving a non-convincing smile that was hilariously accurate to the nervousness in the air. I was nervous too, I had never climbed on real crack until 2 days ago when I first stepped foot in the Creek. But when I heard Jayce was camping with a commune of desert rats, I spent $15 at Home Depot to build out my car and hit the road solo.

Moments like these are what I live for. I fell in love with these red rocks the first time I saw them, a young green artist freshly graduated from high school. I would scramble arches as high as I could go, never imagining I’d be back South of Moab some day leading 60’ climbs.

The desert will steal your heart.

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