Getting skunked rock climbing style

Well this morning we were up early (7:30) and heading out the door to climb with Future in Little Cottonwood canyon where a section broke out of the mountain leaving and gnarly face to tackle.  From the road it look awesome, and as we approached through the trees it looked even better.  About half way up the hike Toby picked up on some bear tracks, another first for me!  Luckily the bear wasn't near by, or at least that we could tell.  When we got to the boulder that was the section that broke away from the mountain we were in awe at the state it settled in.  As it broke off, apparently in sections, the rocks collided and left a nice little passage between each other (see pics).  This offered a really cool spot to climb with the right gear, but unfortunately we didn't have that said gear with us today.

So a short bit more and we reached the opening and were staring at the massive face, a solid 100 yards long and a good 35-40ft tall at the climbing point.  There was a semi steep face that went up to a shelf that was somewhat manageable to walk on granted you kept your footing in mind.  Toby skimpered up that so he could take a look at the route that we were told existed on the far left of the face.  After looking for a couple minutes we realized there was no route!  A couple phone calls got us nowhere and we all looked at each other in amazement and disbelief wondering "what do we do now?"  We just hiked up this hill quite a ways through some nasty brush to have nothing to climb?  We hoped that maybe the route was on one of the sides just out of view, so we checked those out.  Nope.  Dang!

So down the hill we went, around the boulders, through the woods (this time we found a slight path that had been traveled recently), and eventually back to the cars to call it a morning.  Why not go somewhere else you ask?  The light was the main reason we headed up rather early, when the light is on the climber it's just not the perfect scenario, and for a climb like this we need the light to be perfect.  Oh well, this evening will have to do.

The gap between the fallen boulders, notice the size of the rocks compared to future climbing up into them:

The climbing face from the boulders:

Toby climbing up to the face:

Where the section was supposed to be:

...and the walk of shame...no climb this morning : (

More pics on my smugmug site under the "Climbing and Hiking/Hiking" section.  Since we didn't actually climb I figured it would be false advertising putting it in the climbing section.

Once home Toby and I ate some food like we usually do all the time, then rode out bike down to Tanner Park to check out the dirt jump scene.  It was slightly out of our league!  So we came back and both of us crashed.  I woke up when Toby was leaving to go bouldering with Future, and am now writing this before I go see Star Trek (can't believe in a million years I am going to a theater to watch Star Trek!).  Good night all.