Touchstone Blogger, James Lucas checks in to recount about his recent trip to Mesquite Nevada.
Located between Las Vegas and Zion, Mesquite offers perfect limestone climbing between the two sandstone meccas. For the months of February and March, I traveled in the area, sampling many of the best crags and bouncing between the long sandstone route of Las Vegas and the splitter cracks of Zion.
The desert surrounding Mesquite contains a few different climbing areas. The VRG resides a few miles east of the town. The Cathedral and Wailing Wall sit twenty minutes north east from town as do the Gorilla Cliffs and Black and Tan Wall. Each area offers a vastly different experience.
Dan Mirsky works on Route of All Evil at the VRG
The Virgin River Gorge provides roadside cragging on some of the best limestone in the United States. The VRG holds a high concentration of difficult sport climbs from 5.12 to 5.14 and was one of the primary haunts of Touchstone Stock Boy Scott Frye. The crimpy, technical nature of the climbing combined with the bold style makes the area difficult. Perhaps more bothersome at the crag is the highway. Sitting above a four lane highway with semi-trucks barreling down, hearing your climbing partner yell above the noise proves to be one of the cruxes of the climbing experience. Despite the noise, I managed to eek out the two 5.11 warm-ups at the crag and then injured myself by falling out of a heel-toe cam. Whoops! I spent a fair bit of time punting on the classics before realizing that the VRG was a great place to project difficult climbs but not the best place to have a fun and leisurely day of rock climbing.
Mary-Kate Meyerhoffer cruises up Pocket Line at the Wailing Wall
The Cathedral and Wailing Wall provide a significantly better setting. While the rock quality pales in comparison to the VRG, the areas host a variety of sport climbs from 5.10 to 5.14. I spent the majority of my time climbing on the more technical Wailing Wall as apposed to the steep cave of the Cathedral. The limestone edges strengthened my fingers. Getting to the crag is a bit of an ordeal as it involves driving from Mesquite to Beaver Dam then continuing on a small highway to ten miles of dirt road and an arduous forty minute hike to the crag. I spent the majority of my time climbing at this area with the goal of climbing all the 5.12 and under routes at the Wailing Wall. I accomplished my goal but not without breaking a few holds, lowering off slung limestone horns and doing enough on route gardening to make Martha Stewart impressed.
Matt Pincus cuts loose at the Black & Tan Wall
Beyond the VRG and the Cathedral area, the climbing around Mesquite has a number of smaller often overlooked crags. The Black and Tan wall offers VRG quality limestone in a significantly more boulder style. The routes required ballistic power. As do the short route of the Gorilla Cliffs. Just outside of town is an area known as Lime Kiln Road. The Grail, which is a large limestone diamond, sits a few minutes outside of town and has a number of longer, slabby sport pitches. Exploring each of these areas provided significant adventure. I found little to no information on the routes at the Grail Wall and did a fair bit of vision questing, hoping that the routes I climbed on would not prove to be over my abilities.
One of the best camping spots ever is located on the BLM land outside of Beaver Dam
While the limestone is awesome around Mesquite, the town leaves something to be desired. The town sits on the time change of Nevada and Utah. One moment the clock reads nine am and the next moment it says 8. The constant time change coupled with the casinos gives the town an odd, broken feel. Mesquite offers amenities in terms of a large Walmart, a decent grocery store and a number of bad Mexican restaurants. The public library provides the only free Wi-Fi and the aquatic center in town sells $5 showers.
Overall, the climbing around Mesquite is some of the best limestone in the states. The variety as well as the density of a number of the crags makes it an awesome fall through spring destination.
