Grapevine Canyon is north of Big Bear, and south of Lucerne Valley. One gets up there from Victorville and all them roads east and then south into the hills. I saw some crags there on Google Earth and later found some photos of climbing on the netterwebs, and thus our adventure began. Normally my buddies and I go shooting and make a campfire and just generally hang out in the middle of nowhere in the desert, but we wanted to change up the scenery a bit and hopefully do some climbing. Chris doesn't climb yet, and Eric hasn't climbed since he was a wee lad, so I was pretty excited to introduce them to my world.
The road on the way up was in alright shape for a 2wd pickup loaded with tons of gear and three dudes, and is easy to navigate. I only checked out a couple crags, so I don't know how all of them are. The rock is like Joshua Tree, but with larger, sharper crystals. I'm not a big fan, but it just means I'll have to rise to the occasion and find out how to climb it without bleeding everywhere.
I was the only one to climb this weekend. I found a new looking 4 bolt anchor above a crag with some overhanging sections, and built an anchor to TR solo on. Did a 5.8ish or whatever easy thing on the right after feeling too weak for the steep stuff. Second day, I climbed a seam-fingercrack-offwidth on clean aid, and bailed from near the end of the offwidth. The seam section was fun, the crack above awkward at first but easy and secure, and the offwidth technically easy but challenging with all the gear I had on (was soloing, the Silent Partner is large in small places, rawr).
Eric flipping things off, as usual.
Had a good time and didn't see anyone else while we were there, save for a couple Jeeps driving by and the occasional dirt biker. Nice and quiet.
Cheers