Really no cliches here. I brought back a weird ear condition I wish would have stayed in Vegas, but that’s about it. Nick, Jayson and I had a blast spending Thanksgiving in Sin City. We climbed all day and ate like kings every night.
Here’s me leading Doobie Dance, a 5.6 climb in First Creek Canyon at Red Rock Canyon Natural Conservation Area west of Vegas on Thanksgiving Day. This was probably my favorite climb of the whole trip. (Photo by Jayson Sime)
Nick freezes while belaying me. In the shade, it was probably around 50-some degrees, not really conducive to lots of sitting around. (Photo by Jayson Sime)
The sunset/moonrise on our hike out of First Creek Canyon.
On Friday, Nick and I climbed alone at Moderate Mecca in Calico Basin. It was about 75 and sunny all along the wall. Here’s Nick fiddling around with the belay at the top of the first pitch.
Look at Nick. What a badass.
Bold move, Nick, bold move. Your ass must be, what, a foot off the ground? He’s not even sweating it.
Saturday: We convinced Jayson to come out with us again to do some toproping at Cut Your Teeth Crag. And we found this sweet pothole to sit in for a self-timed group photo.
Jayson’s first-ever rappel. Although he panicked a little bit beforehand, he took it like a pro. 
Jayson on one of the 5.7 routes at CYT. We spent most of the day dodging rockfall, as pieces of this sandstone kept cracking off every time someone climbed.
If you blow this one up to full size, you can just make out some of the casinos on The Strip in the lower right corner.
Nick poses hard. (Photo by Jayson Sime)
I concentrate on the belay and Jayson concentrates on staying in frame. (Photo by Jayson Sime)I shot a little video of Jayson talking about the feast at the Bellagio buffet on Saturday night. He’s pretty excited, as you can tell. You can hear him start to laugh at himself when he realizes he’s just said, “some of the purest human beings ever known to man” while describing his food. I later watched him disassemble a duck neck and eat it with his bare hands.
I told him going to the Bellagio buffet with him was like going to the Baseball Hall of Fame with Hank Aaron. I have to amend that to say it was like going to the Baseball Hall of Fame with Hank Aaron and watching him hit home runs off Roger Clemens. Nick quietly ate 13 different animals and I sucked down three cups of the best coffee I’ve ever had, no shit.
I hit the dessert line twice, for five different desserts. No complaints.
Here’s us in front of the fountains at the Bellagio. Photo by some nice lady standing next to us.
A shot of The Strip from the pedestrian overpass between New York, New York and the MGM Grand. A few minutes after this, we saw two guys (and one of the guys’ girlfriends) beating the shit out of each other, and then four cops showed up to beat the shit out of all of them. Of course, I didn’t get any photos of that.
