Pocatello Pump and City of Rocks — Seek Out The Adventure

What? Fisher fell into a cave?

Ben Eaton (age 27), Jennilyn (age 23), Indiana (age 4), and Fisher (age 2) have only been on the road for 7 days and already have a handful of stories to tell.

Pocatello Pump - Pocatello, ID

On Sept 17, we handed in our apartment keys to our landlord, put the last couple of items in our storage unit and exited Ogden, UT. Our first destination was Pocatello, Idaho. I (Ben) participated in the Pocatello Pump climbing comp. It was a fun two days of climbing. I got to do the whole comp with Sam Perkins. He gave me some great motivation to climb hard. And I am happy to announce that I took third place in my division.

Pocatello Pump Shirt

Basecamp #1 (We loved sleeping so close to train tracks.)

Indy and Fishers First Night on their new bed.

While daddy was climbing...Indy was peeing in front of everyone.

City of Rocks - Almo, ID

After the competition was done and all the free stuff was given out, we headed west for City of Rocks. This heaven of slabby granite is located just outside of Almo, ID. As we neared Almo that night, we were tempted to just top at a motel to sleep. But the two places we stopped at were either full or supposedly closed. So instead of getting real comfortable, we spent the night on the side of a road within some BLM land. We emptied out the van of all the tubs, threw the boys on top of the padded bed that we built inside and Jennilyn and I slept underneath the bed. We just needed to make sure that the back door didn’t completely close, or else we’d be locked in and dependent on one of the boys getting us out. (You’d have to see our set up to understand how one could get trapped under the van-bed.)

Now we have our complete base camp set up at Site 30 inside the City of Rocks National Reserve. This is our home from Sept 20-Oct 3. We actually have a pretty nice set up. Jennilyn and I sleep in a four-man tent with a queen-size foam pad that is 3 inches thick. No sleeping bags, just a down comforter. The boys sleep on the van-bed that sits 19 inches off the floor of the van, along with a 3-inch foam pad. We cook and eat under our shade shelter that houses the tables, propane stove and all of our supplies.

Jennilyn has been making some real good food lately. She definitely knows how to make camping amazing with her special entrees. But better than cooking, she’s been doing some amazing things while climbing. I can definitely see the skill and strength that she has in her climbing. She is very skilled in trad climbing. I am grateful to have her train me as I venture into the realm of trad, after so many year of just sport climbing.

So far we have climbed at Bath Rock, Building Blocks, and the Bread Loaves. I’ve been very happy with the routes that we have selected to do so far. Building Blocks was an area that we had yet to climb at. I really enjoyed the routes there. Indy and Fisher did really well hiking into that area. Fisher amazed us after he hiked the whole way in. He’s two year’s old. I though he would have bonked within the first 10 min.

As I attempted and failed the route called Impotence at Decadent Wall, Fisher happened to fall down into a small cave. Jennilyn was the savior on that epic incident. Luckily he only got scraped up on his side. No blood.

The boys are really enjoying the wild life here. Indy got to see two bucks and one doe as we pushed him and Fisher in the stroller during an evening run. Indy told me that he and Fisher saw another deer near our camp while they played in the van this morning. Fisher said that he saw a mouse as well. Indy got excited when he saw a huge jackrabbit jump out of the sagebrush while we ate breakfast.