[Stubbs]

Each camp site, you can buy wood in many places in 29 Palms and J Tree village, they aren't keen on foraging!

[tj]

It was either one for just our plot, or shared with the adjacent site- think it was the former. Picked up wood in town (i.e. bought it), I'm not sure how good an idea it is go harvesting bits of wood/shrubs from an ecological point-of-view, especially when multiplied by the number of climbers that visit J-Tree. Let's not get into the ecological perspective of long-haul flights, and all that though, eh?

[Stubbs]

When I said not keen, what I meant was that there are big fucking signs saying 'no harvesting of vegetation for any purpose' or similar.  When you get there you would (hopefully) know that you were in a place where there's not an overabundance of plant life, and the desert needs to break down what it can.

[SA Chris]

My prospective partner is a badass granite face climber and my ability in that area seems to have improved a fair bit

Just factor in that this is desert rock, not quite the same quality as Yosemite, Bishop and Squamish. It can be a bit granular and flaky in places and you are crimping on thin flakes rather than good edges.. I went straight there from wearing gloves every day for 5 months and my hands got flayed!

[SA Chris]

if you tape up and vary from face to finger cracks to hand cracks to slabs one day to the next you will be fine.

[seankenny]

Is Hidden Valley the classic climbers' campground? And will it be full of dick-heads? If so, where would be better?

I went from the Valley to JT and found the campsite quite and relaxing after the fucktard magnet that is Camp 4. Get a spot on the outer loop if you like peace and quiet - the sites look out over the desert, it's great. Easy to get into town, but I'd buy a big water butt that will last a couple of days.

About 4/5 of the routes I did there were brill (the other 1/5 merely good or average), lots of strong lines and great settings. Bird on Fire, Illusion Dweller, O'Kelly's, LH Ski Track - all stonking climbs.

[pyrosis]

I'll weigh in as someone who has spent many many days in the desert down there. The scene is awesome, Hidden Valley is the place to be - far better than the other campgrounds and worth lingering about for the first morning in order to get a campsite there. The good routes are good but very spread out with lots of marginal routes in between. It can be very crowded on the 5.10 and under classics.

The bouldering is great, again spread out but I think well worth it. Lots of high friction slopers but sharp. Some monster highballs and many reasonably sized problems. Not any one big concentration of classic hard problems, not like Bishop.