9 is fine

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Finished my talk, hung around the following presentations for propriety's sake, then ran to my room to grab my rope and rack and headed out for a little late afternoon climbing with Eric. We decided on Iron Curtain Wall at the mouth of Parley's Canyon, where Interstate 80 flows down from the mountains and the canyon walls open up into the Salt Lake City basin.

Short but sketchy approach - from the parking lot, the trail runs a few hundred meters east and up, then skirts the top of the cliff before diving steeply down a scree slope to the base of the wall. Below the base of the wall, the slope falls away more steeply to the traffic roaring by on the Interstate below; not a good place to fall.

We first roped up on Gotta Be Tall or Else You'll Fall (5.9), a fun, not overly technical just off-vertical climb on the face right of an arete. A little thin at the beginning, but plenty of good hands and feet. Despite the name it wasn't overly reachy, though an awkwardly placed third bolt required a decent stretch out right to clip. Good comfortable and enjoyable leading, though a bit spaced out on protection in spots, 12-15 feet in the middle and a good 15-20 feet between the last bolt and the anchors, albeit with solid holds all the way. Big props to Eric, who roped up on his first lead on a 9, hung on a few bolts but was poised and careful on the climbing between clips. A good solid introduction to the headgames that come with leading.

We were quickly running out of sunlight, so we skipped a few promising but longer lines on the east end of the cliff (an awesome looking 9 that turned two small roofs at the finish, and a straight up 10 right next to Gotta Be Tall). We instead picked a shorter line, Motley Cruise (5.9), 4 bolts and a piton. Felt much harder than the previous climb, thin edges and dishes all the way and really technical climbing; good friction for smearing though, and the holds were there if a little camouflaged. By the time I came off lead, the sun was past the horizon and things were turning dark quickly, so I reclimbed the route on toprope to clean the gear - needed a headlamp to suss out all the holds, which was an experience unto itself.

Eric and I packed up in the dark, and climbed out on the steep, crumbling trail by headlamp, to the sound of traffic roaring by in the canyon road below and the lights of the city beyond. Awesome...