Sewing Machine Needle, Southern Canyonlands, Lake Powell. In May, dressed for the early desert summer, Fred Beckey, Reid Cunduff, Lou Dawson and I turned onto a dusty road between the bridges over the Dirt Devil and Colorado Rivers. Twenty-five jarring miles later, we were belaying my car down an arroyo as we rebuilt an old mining road that took us a few miles nearer to the thin 300-foot Sewing Machine Needle. The next day we carried loads up the talus slope and belayed Dawson up 150 feet of steep rubble to a belay stance. It snowed and we retreated. The following morning we regained our lines and exchanged duties above. In the recurring freezing rain Lou Dawson elected to lead and reached the summit a few hours later. NCCS III, F8, A2.

Eric BjØrnstad