Looking Glass, Moab, Utah

We headed south of Moab to the Looking Glass Rock.  This climb was a 3 pitch sport climb followed by a 150' rappel. 

In the guide book it says to take an ascender with you in case you fall off of the route, sheer drop on both sides with no hand holds.  A fall of this route, even though it is an easy climb, would be a challenge in self rescue. 

I led the first pitch, the hardest part was the first ten feet, after that an easy scramble. Barbara followed then led the second pitch.

The only hard part was on the second pitch, there was about ten feet of absolutely smooth sandstone, no holds at all, it had loose sand on it, make it a little slick.  This was scary because you only have smearing technique to keep you on the rock 125' from the floor.  Of course it was encouraging when a group of twenty something's came racing by us just scrambled on up.

Not knowing what the anchors would like I carried plenty of inexpensive gear that we could leave behind.  It turns out someone had set up an excellent set of rappel chains, so it was an easy set up.  Here is Barbara gearing up for the Rappel.

It was my knots so I took the first rappel hoping to get some really good shots of Barbara as she came down, but she forgot her auto block, a little rope that would keep her from a runway rappel should she slip.  As a result I set up a fireman's belay at the base of the rope. Wasn't necessary, but it is safer.  So I only get underneath shots which doesn't really capture the size of this rappel.