Crag Critters in the Desert

By Steph Davis Photos: Ian Mitchard

By KAVU

March 9^th, 2021

It was time to check out a more obscure corner of the desert with my good friends Brittany and Nate, and the newest addition to their family Kittykittykitty...... also known as Kitty.

Kitty adopted Brittany and Nate just a few months ago by showing up at their house in Salt Lake City, and since they spend most of their time climbing and living out of their van, naturally Kitty became a van cat.

But he’s not just a van cat, he’s a full-on hiking, camping and climbing cat too…..

this guy is a pretty cool cat!

We circled our vans out near Lake Powell to check out some remote and obscure sandstone canyons, where we knew we’d never bump into any other climbers or dogs.

My dog Cajun lives with cats at home so she was pretty tolerant of Kitty from the get go, but as we started hiking up the first long talus cone, Cajun was extremely impressed with Kitty’s hiking skills! When we actually reached the cliff and Kitty started free soloing up chimneys, we were all pretty blown away.

But as much as we could have spent the whole day watching Kitty send the crag, we had our own climbing to do!

Climbing at remote areas with no information is a lot of fun…...

..... you just walk around and look for good looking crack lines, scramble down the hill a little and then try to spot any bolts or anchors above them. If you see something up there, you go ahead and try the route. You know..... basic KAVU strategy;-)

We found some immaculate splitter cracks and we walked along long sections of beautiful cliffs looking to see what else we could find. The colors in this area are just unreal, especially at the beginning and end of the day.