Yosemite Valley

Well, this last month has definitely flown! It doesn’t seem like so long ago that I was sitting in Ben & Meghan’s living room typing out the last post, but a quick check of the calendar has revealed to me that it’s been….26 days. Yipes! And almost time to be leaving the Valley now. Sigh. Mike was telling me this morning that he feels like we didn’t do anything while we were here, so I’m going to have to make a list and prove to him that we haven’t just been sitting around!

A quick rundown and then some details:

We’ve climbed Stately Pleasure Dome, Lembert Dome, Fairview Dome, Cathedral Peak, bouldered for 2 days in Bishop, climbed the Nutcracker (and some single pitches nearby), Pillar of Frenzy (ditto single pitch stuff nearby), East Buttress of Middle Cathedral Rock, 2 days of bouldering in Yosemite, climbed Serenity Crack & Sons of Yesterday, sport climbed for a day, hiked/climbed Higher Cathedral Spire, Bircheff- Williams Route, Munginella, Werner’s Ant Trees/The Surprise, Commitment, Jam Crack and the East Buttress of El Capitan.

Eight of the above days involved 900 feet of climbing or more. So there!

With the exception of a cold first week we’ve been blessed with unbelievable weather. Gorgeous sunny days with temperatures in the 80s! We’ve actually had to postpone some of the routes we wanted to do because it was too hot to be on a south facing wall in the sun! Hard to believe it could be this nice in October. We’ve been staying at Camp 4 (of course); it’s the ‘official’ climbers’ campground here in the park, and the place where all those history making climbers of the ‘50s-‘70s stayed. Not the most glamorous of campgrounds but it’s definitely fun to be here and be at the heart of all the climbing action. We’ve seen climbers here from all around the world: Germany, Austria, Spain, France, Argentina, Japan, Canada, Denmark, Australia, Poland, Norway, England. And that’s just in the 5 or 6 campsites around ours! Pretty amazing.

We spent our first week here in Tuolomne; the northern section of the park. We met up with my friend Candy from back home and spent a few days climbing the granite domes. The highlight of the week was definitely our climb of Cathedral Peak. Our hike in was somewhat epic, since we missed the shorter trail. Oops! We added a few miles to the approach, but did get to see Cathedral Lakes so it wasn’t a complete loss. The long scramble up the slabs and slippery scree slope on the back of the peak was less than entertaining but we survived it! The three of us got to the base of the last section of the peak where we started the ‘real’ climbing. Harnesses and ropes on and up 900 more feet we went to an amazing picnic-table-sized peak! There was barely room for the three of us and the ropes. The descent was very tricky; lots of scrambling down steep sections of rock and slab with a little snow leftover from the weekend’s storm to make things even spicier! We made it safely down and hiked out the correct trail (phew!), getting to the car just a few minutes after dark. When Candy and I climb together we always seem to end up off trail, off route and adventuring, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that it happened yet again!

The rest of our time here has been just as much fun. We spent 2 weekends bouldering with our friends Ben, Meghan, Dan and Andy…..and it took me several days after to recover! Bouldering is not exactly easy. Mike and I tackled lots of classic routes (most mentioned in the above list), and so far we’ve only had one after-dark epic rappel session. Quite the accomplishment! The crack climbing is amazingly fun and challenging; I’ve definitely gotten a lot more comfortable with this whole multi-pitch thing since our first days in January. The vistas from these climbs are just incredible, I love being that far above the valley floor and seeing the vast expanses of granite walls and domes all around. It’s easy to forget the hustle and bustle of the valley up there and just drink in the peace and gorgeous scenery. We’ve done two really long climbs: the East Buttresses of Middle Cathedral Rock and El Capitan. With 1200 and 1400 feet of climbing respectively they were definitely the most challenging days for me. The hike in, the climbing, the gear and rope management, the long descents on steep rock….it adds up to an extreme amount of exhaustion by the end of the day! But, it’s been great to test my limits and push myself to try something so hard and manage to get through it.

We still have a couple days left here and then it looks like we’re in for some rain, so we’ll be trying to pack in as much climbing as we can and after the weekend start meandering our way to Indian Creek in Utah for a few days. The trip is winding down, we’re planning to be home by November 15^th so we’ll just try to fill our time with as many new experiences as possible before heading back east.

Yosemite

What we did on our summer vacation….

Well….we spent the last 2 weeks of July in Squamish climbing as much as possible, leaving on the last weekend in July to travel back to New England for my family reunion and our friends’ wedding (hi Ben & Meghan! J) After many many hours in the car we got back to NH on a Wed afternoon and spent the next couple of days helping my parents get ready for the reunion. We had a great time visiting with family, barbecueing, setting off rockets, playing wiffleball…..the torrential downpours weren’t too fun, but we made the best of it!

The following weekend we traveled to Vermont for Ben & Meghan’s wedding. More torrential downpours! But, luckily the day of the wedding was beautiful; we visited with friends, partied (and slept) in a barn and Mike pulled off his groomsman duties flawlessly.

As for the rest of August, we did some climbing around home, visited family, took a little trip to Acadia in Maine, and just for fun bought a house! On Labor Day weekend, a few days before we were planning to leave for California, I went and saw a house on a whim. It’s in the neighborhood where my parents live and I’d gone by it all the time when I was out taking Loki for a walk, so I figured I’d just go take a look. Well, a look turned into a weekend of soul searching because I fell in love with the house and couldn’t decide what to do. We had planned to leave for California for the last leg of our trip, it wasn’t exactly the time to be buying a house! After not being able to put it out of my mind, Mike convinced me to at least try to put in an offer and see what happened. Tuesday morning I applied for a mortgage, Thursday evening I made an offer and on Friday night my offer was accepted!! I was just astounded. The next couple of weeks were filled with inspections, paperwork and getting ready to move. It was a complete whirlwhind! On September 21^st, 2 weeks and 3 days after my offer was accepted papers were signed and homeownership began. Yahoo! The house is great, but we have a lot of work ahead of us: painting, renovating kitchen and bathroom, and ripping down faux wood paneling just for starters. Still, I think it’ll be worth the effort, this house has the potential to be a very cosy little home! Our friends Ri and Sarah are going to be our housemates and we’re pretty excited to have built in climbing and adventuring partners! So, are we rolling up our sleeves and getting right to work? Not quite. We moved all our stuff in the day after the closing, spent a couple days cleaning and getting a little bit unpacked, then hit the road again last Friday! With stops to visit friends in New Haven and Boulder we arrived in California last Wed night. Whew! Time for one more stint of serious climbing before we settle in and get down to work at home.

We’ve stopped in Davis to visit with Ben & Meghan (and to avoid a bad storm in Yosemite), and we’ll be heading into Yosemite Valley on Sunday to climb on some big rocks, lie in the meadow and watch the clouds go by, hike some beautiful trails…. Can’t wait!

Hope this note finds everyone enjoying the fall!

Summer vacation

Squamish, BC: Climbing and weather paradise!

Well, having been in Squamish for just over 2 weeks now I can definitely recommend coming in July! We’ve had only one rainy day the entire time, and considering the lushness of the vegetation it must rain the other 11 months of the year! We’re about an hour north of Vancouver, camped in a beautiful little campground just at the base of the Chief—the 2300 foot tall granite cliff that looms up from the waters of Howe Sound. Climbing is one of the main draws to the area, and there are climbers here from all over the world. We’ve seen people from almost every state and province (though no one else from northern New England), as well as folks from England, Sweden, Mexico, Japan, New Zealand and I’m sure many other countries. It really is a climbing paradise! There’s enough rock within a 30 mile radius to keep you busy for several lifetimes. The one drawback is the construction going on right now. The main North-South highway is being widened in preparation for the 2010 Olympics here, and since the road is squashed in between the Chief and the water that means a lot of construction noise just 50 yards or so from where we’re camped. It’s not so bad, just somewhat annoying when they’re working overnight and backing up the trucks a lot….beep, beep, beep at 3 a.m.!

Our friends Jamie and Ellen were here for two weeks, we had a blast climbing and hanging out with them. We’ve done some hard sport climbing, some one-pitch trad climbing, some bouldering and several multi-pitch routes up part or all of the Chief. Really, we’re spoiled for choice here! Mike had an opportunity to climb the Grand Wall with a friend we met here; it was a long-term dream of his to do that route so I was thrilled he got the chance. We may try to climb it together before we leave, but we have so many things on the to-do list who knows how much we’ll actually get done! Although we’ve been having an amazing time it’s almost time for us to leave and head back home for a little bit…some family events and a friend’s wedding are calling us home for August. We’ve got a lot of climbing to pack in to the next 10 days, so wish us luck and hopefully we’ll get a chance to catch up with NH/Maine based folks soon!

Squamish 1

On the road again: Colorado to British Columbia

We left Colorado on June 17^th and traveled north and west to eventually land over the border in British Columbia. On our way we made a few stops to climb: at Vedauwoo in Wyoming (just to see, no climbing there), at Maple Canyon south of Salt Lake City in Utah, and at City of Rocks in southern Idaho. We also spent a day at Mt Rainier National Park in Washington. It was an amazing 10 days, we traveled through some gorgeous areas (and some flattish, boring areas too!), enjoyed some new climbing spots and I went through 3 states I’d never been in before!

Maple Canyon was just okay, the rock was very interesting, it’s called cobble and it’s made up of smooth river stones embedded in a natural concrete. Cool in theory, but not all that pretty to look at and just mediocre to climb on. Oh well, now we know what it’s like at least!

City of Rocks was phenomenal, so it more than made up for Maple! The formations there were great, a lot like what we saw in Joshua Tree but in high desert, so there were a lot more trees and shrubs. But it was still hot!! We really enjoyed the climbing there, and there’s an almost infinite amount of it, so we’ll definitely have to go back someday and spend some more time there.

After our 3 days we packed up again and moved on, this time through Oregon and into Washington to stop at Mt. Rainier. There was still an unbelievable amount of snow there! Banks over 8 feet high on the side of the road! We did a little walking around (the forest is just incredible! I’ve never seen trees so big!), Mike hiked a little ways up onto the mountain (in the snow, in his sneakers!) and then we headed out to make our way towards the border. We were planning to meet up with our friends Jamie and Ellen once we got up there, but oddly enough we just happened to be driving through Seattle at exactly the same time! We stopped to say hi and catch up a bit, then they continued driving up to Squamish (about 3 more hours) while we decided to stop for the night and take a break since it was after 8:00. The next day we got back in the car for the last leg of this particular journey, crossed the border into Canada and made our way slooowly up to Squamish (delayed several hours by an accident on the highway). And now we’re happily esconced in a campground at the base of a 2000 foot granite cliff with more rock in a 30 mile radius than can be climbed in a lifetime! But, more about that next time!

Northwest jaunt

Colorado: the grand tour

We’ve been in Colorado for the last three weeks and loved (almost) every minute of it! We stayed with our friend Colin in Boulder for two weeks and spent the middle week touring around the state. Except for the 2 ½ days of rain in Rifle (aaaugh!!) we had perfect weather….blue skies, warm and sunny. We managed to get a taste of 10 different climbing areas! Boulder Canyon, Flagstaff, Clear Creek Canyon, Rifle, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Shelf Road, Eldorado Canyon, Lumpy Ridge, N. Table Mountain, and the Flatirons. There’s an unbelievable amount of stuff just around Boulder, 6 of those spots are within half an hour of where we’ve been staying. Climbing paradise! We did several days of long multi-pitch routes, a good amount of sport climbing and a little bouldering as well….pretty well rounded jaunt overall! Boulder is a fantastic place; very easy to walk or bike just about anywhere you want to go, lots of parks and open spaces, good food, great farmer’s market, and the scenery is pretty darn fabulous! I love it here! Staying with Colin was a lot of fun; his friend Rudy was here for a week so that was great, we also got to hang out with Cristin (who we met in Kentucky and was on her way to California), my friend Becky (another interpreter), and visited my brother Roddy and Mike’s aunt, uncle and cousins from Denver. We also visited Great Sand Dunes National Park, and Rocky Mountain National Park and managed to throw in some hiking and exploring while we were at it. Kind of a whirlwind!

This morning we’re back on the road, our eventual destination is Squamish, in British Columbia, but we’ll be stopping along the way to do a little climbing in Utah, and Idaho and maybe Washington. July 1^st should see us camped out at the next great climbing mecca and ready for more exploring and adventuring!

I hope this finds everyone enjoying the beginnings of summer!

Colorado

Home and back again

I spent a bit over a week at home in early May, visiting family and friends and running around doing some errands. I got to have very belated Easter egg hunts with almost all my nieces and nephews, it was lots of fun to see them! It sure was strange to sleep in a bed under a roof though…..we’d been camping about 6 weeks and I’d gotten very used to having the birds wake me up in the morning! I really enjoyed being home, seeing my parents and having a little time to relax. I also picked up my dog, Loki, who will be joining us on our travels for the next few months. On the way back to Kentucky I had a nice visit with my cousin and her husband and their baby.

Since I got back we’ve been climbing climbing climbing! We both had some routes we wanted to complete, so we spent some time focusing on that. Mike sent his first 5.13! It was very exciting! (For non-climbers, 5.13 is a difficulty rating….it’s very hard!) I did a few more 5.12s, nothing too crazy, but fun for me to push myself and feel stronger day by day. We’ve had a lot of fun hanging out with friends here, the climbing is just amazing and there’s lots more to explore but we’re finally ready to move on. So….we’re planning to leave for Colorado on Tuesday! I’m looking forward to exploring new places, doing some hiking, and meeting up with friends. Colorado will be new for both of us, I’ve never climbed there and Mike’s only done a little bit, so it will be great to see and do as much as we can.

That’s about all the news from here, til next time!

RRG 3 and home

Red River Gorge, Kentucky: Climbing til our arms fall off

We’ve been here at the Red for nearly five weeks now; leaves and wildflowers are busting out everywhere, we had a week of sunny weather with temps in the 80’s (bliss!), and we just keep climbing on this crazy steep rock! Our days start off in a leisurely way, I roll out of bed around 9:00 (Mike is up early as always, usually inside chatting with Miguel), we have breakfast, and make the rounds of friends’ tables to see what the plans for the day look like and what everybody is in the mood for. It’s rare that we leave for climbing before 10:30, but since it stays light out til 8:30 or so a late start doesn’t really matter! There are hundreds of crags scattered throughout the region, with thousands of different climbs to do. With so much climbing available, the dilemma is how to keep ourselves off the rock when our bodies need rest! Most days we end up climbing with some permutation of the long-term crew who are here from all over : Bryce (Texas), Cristin (Penn.), Eric & Kyler (Alaska), Jenny (Wyoming), Chuck (Quebec), Malek & Steph (Ontario), Dave (Ohio, now lives here), and some assorted others. It’s a pretty fantastic life! Our worries are limited to whether we have any strength left to climb, and what the weather looks like!

This area of eastern Kentucky is in the heart of Appalachia; it’s a land full of steep hills and ‘hollers’, tiny churches that look like they might hold 40 people, and winding roads without guard rails that threaten to dump you into a ravine. Our favorite thing here is the ‘Tradio’. It’s a local radio show where people call in to sell or trade things. And boy, do they have a random assortment of stuff to get rid of! Lawnmower engines, goats, childrens’ clothes, car parts, old appliances, rabbits….we’ve seen the yards and can imagine folks just looking out the door and thinking “Hmm, maybe we should get rid of some of this stuff….let’s call the Tradio!” It’s a great piece of local color, fun to hear the accents! On Sundays that station plays bluegrass gospel music; good stuff! It’s certainly an interesting corner of the world, we really enjoy it.

We had initially planned to be leaving here around now and heading back West, but we’ve decided to stick around a while longer. Well, actually, I’m leaving on Friday for a week at home; I’ll visit friends and family, pick up my dog, then meet Mike back down here. And then…..we’ll see! We may stay in Kentucky til the heat chases us out, but we’re pretty sure we’ll be in Colorado for June. We’ll keep you posted!

Til next time!

RedRiver Gorge 2

Red River Gorge, Kentucky: Living in a swamp

We’ve had quite a lot of rainy weather in the three weeks we’ve been here, and the campground is at the bottom of a holler, so life here has been pretty damp! We are now quasi-permanent residents of Miguel’s, a combination pizza place, climbing gear shop, and climber’s campground. It’s a unique place, to say the least! We arrived on a Friday afternoon, and our first week some friends came to climb with us, so we didn’t fully appreciate the extent of the weekend crowds. Then Friday rolled around again and suddenly you could hardly find space to walk between all the tents, parking was at a premium, and forget finding a spot to sit inside! It’s a pretty crazy contrast; during the week there might be 20 people camped here, and on weekends there must be at least 100 or so.

Despite the rains we’ve managed to do a lot of amazing climbing. It’s fun to be part of the long-term resident crowd; we’ve met a bunch of great people, including some guys from Alaska that we bumped into in Maine last fall! Small world. We’re planning to stay here until the end of April, so hopefully we’ll have enough time to get on most of the routes we’ve been excited about.

I’ve been enjoying the emergence of Spring yet again, seems like it’s been chasing us the last month or so! Violets, daffodils and forsythia are blooming, so it feels a lot more like home. My favorite are the redbud trees, they’re everywhere and they have tons of tiny little purple flowers busting out when everything else has been pretty bare. I put some branches on our picnic table to spruce it up, so check out the picture in the photo album. The last few days have been gorgeous, so there’s been some basking in the sun…a very welcome change from the wet and gloomy that dominated the first two weeks.

Not too much else exciting to report…just climbing and more climbing. A bunch of folks from all over the place will be joining us this weekend, looking forward to catching up with friends we haven’t seen for a while!

Red River Gorge 1

On the Road Again: Traveling the Southeast

Well, we dragged ourselves away from Tuscon at long last. We originally thought we’d go straight to Kentucky to climb at the Red River Gorge, but Mother Nature had other plans for us. The weather forecast included snow on several days just when we would arrive, and we wanted nothing to do with that! To delay a bit we decided to take a little tour of three climbing areas farther south that were all within a few hours of each other. But first…..we had to get there. Sigh. Back in the car!

We left Tuscon late in the morning and stopped at Saguaro National Park on the way out, so we didn’t really get on the road until 1:00. Eight hours of driving later found us 100 miles into Texas, and ready for a break so we stayed at a cheap little motel. The next day we kept on driving through Texas. And driving. And driving. Texas is really big. And really dull. The route we took was a total of 800 loooong miles! Finished up day 2 of the trek just a few miles past Shreveport, Louisiana, camping in a National Forest. It was a little tricky to find an out of the way spot this time, but it was well worth the effort when we were woken by the bird jubilee the next morning! Hundreds of birds, singing their hearts out to greet the dawn….truly a beautiful moment. We continued on our way, passing through Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama (3 new states for me!) before arriving at Horse Pens 40, a bouldering area in the northeast corner of Alabama.

We stayed one day, tired ourselves out on a lot of boulder problems then drove a couple of hours to northwestern Georgia to the top of another little mountain and another bouldering area. We had a fun day exploring the boulders but didn’t do too much climbing since we were so tired from the day before. Left in the late afternoon for the 2 hour jaunt to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Following directions in the climbing guidebook we found the ad-hoc campground in a beautiful little spot right next to the Tennesse River. It was stunning! The river is so wide and calm. The next day we needed a rest so we went into Chattanooga to do a little exploring. It’s a great city! We really enjoyed walking around the downtown area, they have lots of museums and fun shops and restaurants, and some beautiful riverfront parks. There’s a long pedestrian footbridge across the river, which seemed a popular spot for locals to jog on and tourists to meander along. We found a neat little coffee shop overlooking the river and got some internet time, then went out to dinner. Unfortunately we forgot to bring a camera, so we have no pictures of all our entertaining times. Oh well! The next day we went climbing at Tennesse Wall, about a 15 minute hike from where we were camped. It’s pretty convenient to be able to roll out of your tent, eat some breakfast, then walk up the hill to go climbing! We enjoyed the routes we did, and were lucky enough to have warm weather without it being too hot. Overall it was a great little side-trip!

The next morning we packed ourselves up and tried to figure out where the weather was sending us next. We finally decided to head on to Kentucky and the Red River Gorge as planned, since it looked like we’d have the best chance of avoiding rain that way! We arrived at Miguel’s (combination pizza/climbing shop and climber campground…..more on that next time!) late in the afternoon on Friday and got ourselves set up, happy to be settled semi-permanently at least.

Southeast Blitz

Tuscon, Arizona: a NH pilgrimage to the desert

Tuscon became part of the trip because two of our friends (former NH-ites) were getting married there. They and another climbing friend from NH had moved to Tuscon within the past couple of years, so this was a nice chance to visit and catch up. The wedding drew quite a NH crowd! I think there were 18 of us total, plus the 3 who now live there. It was so much fun to see everyone again, have a chance to hang out and climb together and enjoy the beautiful Tuscon weather. We arrived at our friend James’ house late Wednesday night, with the wedding on Saturday. Unbeknownst to us, there was a bachelor party happening all day and night on Thursday, so Mike joined the boys for their festivities and I hung out enjoying a soft couch and bad TV for the first time in a good long while! We climbed at Mt. Lemmon on Friday (just a few miles outside of town) with a few folks, explored downtown Tuscon on Saturday during the day, then went to the wedding in the evening. The wedding was at a beautiful historic inn on the edge of town, the ceremony was in a little enclosed garden and the reception inside. Lots of great food and dancing!

Sunday we were all invited to Jeremy & Laura’s house (the newlyweds) for a little after-wedding gathering. It was a perfect time, relaxing, good conversation and marveling at the downpour outside! Couldn’t believe we were having yet another precipitation experience in the desert. The next day the 10 of us who were left drove to a climbing area about an hour away. The weather was, well, surprising. Snow flurries off and on all day….no joke! We managed to have a great day despite the chill. We climbed again at Mt. Lemmon on Tuesday with a slightly diminished group as people gradually left for home. Great weather, sunny and hot and hard to believe we were wearing hats and down coats just 24 hours before. We’d been planning to leave on Tuesday, but as folks from home kept extending their stay we couldn’t resist staying a little longer! Unfortunately I caught a bad cold, so I spent a day on the couch recuperating while everyone else climbed. Oh well, it was bound to happen eventually. We finally managed to get back on the road on Friday to start making our way east towards Kentucky and the Red River Gorge.

Tuscon

Hueco Tanks, Texas

We spent a great week bouldering at Hueco with our friends Ben and Aram. Hueco Tanks Historical Park is about 25 miles east of El Paso, Texas. It’s an international destination for bouldering, believe it or not! It’s also an important site for Native American pictographs. Because it became so popular, there’s now a strict limit on the number of people who are allowed to enter the park per day. If you want to climb there you either have to make a reservation, or show up before the gates open and hope to be one of the 10 people they let in without reservations. Made for some early mornings for us! We developed a good system, though. Get up early, eat breakfast and drive to the park to line up, then go find a nice sunny place in the park to nap for a couple of hours! It was perfect.

The bouldering was a lot of fun, and we really enjoyed hanging out with Ben and Aram. Plus, we had amazing weather! Beautiful sunny days, nights that stayed above freezing….bliss!

On one of our rest days we took a trip down the road an hour or so to Guadalupe Mountains National Park. We took a 9 mile hike up to Hunter’s Peak, the second highest point in Texas. It was a great hike, though a little more than we reckoned for. The scenery was beautiful, we even saw some cliffs that looked like they were begging to be climbed, but they were too far away to explore. We finished hiking out just after dark…..9 miles and 2,500 feet of elevation gain (and loss) in 5 hours.

We climbed until the very last minute, ran back to the campground to pack up the car, and hit the road about 5:00. Next stop…back west to Tuscon, Arizona to go to a friend’s wedding. On the road again!

Hueco

Northern Arizona: The Tourist Life

After about 7 hours of driving we arrived at the National Forest just south of the Grand Canyon. Word on the web was that you could camp anywhere in the forest as long as you’re ¼ mile away from the main road, so we scouted out a little dirt road and found a good spot to camp tucked away in the trees. It was cold!! Low temperature overnight…..19 degrees. We slept out under the stars, bundled up in lots of clothes. The next morning it was on to take a gander at the big ditch. Spent the day driving to different lookout points throughout the park, took lots of pictures and also took a little hike along the rim. We realized it’s been quite a while since we’ve spent time in regular, mainstream America…it was a little bit of culture shock! After getting our fill of the sights, and being frozen by the wind, we got back on the road and headed east towards the Navaho National Monument and the cliff dwellings at Betatakin.

We arrived just after dark to find the campground deserted but, fortunately, open. And still free! I had visited there one summer during high school to see the cliff dwellings with my mom and sister. It was a beautiful, isolated spot and I remembered the hike in to see the village being one of the highlights of our trip. I was hoping that they still had guided hikes, but, alas, they don’t during the winter. We could see the trail down from the top of the canyon, all covered in deep snow. Actually, the whole park was covered in snow, and we had another cold night. But, there was one bright spot: a heated bathroom with running water! I’m learning to appreciate the little luxuries, especially after weeks of pit toilets and desert campgrounds where you have to bring your own water. Turning on a faucet seemed like a little bit of magic! We spent some time the next morning at the visitor center and took a short walk to the edge of the canyon, then headed back out on the road. We took a little detour up to Monument Valley just over the border in Utah. The rock formations are just incredible, we were drooling over the climbing possibilities but it’s on the Navaho reservation and they don’t permit climbing on them. Oh well. Onward to Canyon de Chelly to see more ancient cliff dwellings.

We spent the next day touring around Canyon de Chelly. It’s also on the Navaho Nation reservation. It was interesting to see the cliff dwellings, but even more interesting to see the modern farms still being tended at the bottom of the canyon. It must be an amazing place to live! You’re not allowed to hike into the canyon unless you have a certified Navaho guide with you; I can see why since you’d essentially be walking around in people’s ranches and farmland. There is one area where they’ve established a hiking trail down into the canyon so you can get a closer look at one of the ruins. Mike and I took a walk in (followed part of the way by a very endearing stray dog); it was a beautiful place to hike. However, not an especially warm day, so we didn’t linger too much! By mid-afternoon we’d seen our fill and were ready to move on to the next adventure. There were a couple more places I was interested in seeing on our way towards El Paso. We were trying to figure out which route to take and where we might want to camp when we noticed some grim, gray clouds moving in. Turned on the radio to find a weather report; forecast for the night was a low of 17 degrees and snow showers!!! Aaaarrrgggh! I was less than thrilled about that prospect to say the least. The point of being in the Southwest was to avoid winter weather, not be plagued by it! Studied the map some more, did some calculating and decided to try to drive to El Paso, our next climbing destination. Mike figured we could make it before midnight, and sure enough we did. Found the Hueco Rock Ranch, set up our tent and collapsed into bed, very grateful that the temperature would be staying above freezing!

Northern Arizona

Joshua Tree: Spring comes to the desert

We arrived in Joshua Tree National Park late Saturday night (Feb 23rd), not quite out of the storm. It rained almost the entire 5 hour drive, and there were high winds with crazy gusts. We were planning to meet up with Mike’s friend Jay, so we drove to the main climber campground hoping he’d managed to find a site there. Unfortunately he wasn’t there, and he’d left a note that he was at a different campground kind of a hike down the road. It was almost midnight and we were exhausted and not keen to keep driving. We decided to check the next campground to see if there were any sites free, and in a welcome change to our luck there was one site available. We stumbled out of the car and set up the tent in unbelievably high winds….I still don’t know how we managed it! Threw sleeping bags inside and collapsed, just glad to be warm and dry and out of the wind. Mind you, we didn’t actually get to sleep all that much because the wind was blowing the tent around like crazy! Nylon blowing in the wind isn’t all that quiet, to say the least. We decided to give up trying to sleep any longer by 6:30, packed up as quickly as we could and headed back to town to do a little food shopping and time killing until people left for the weekend and we could get a campsite. As we got to town it started raining…oh joy! Grrrr. We’ve certainly been plagued by some bad weather. I’ve never seen so much rain in the desert. Still, we did get to see a fantastic rainbow out of the deal! We did finally get a campsite and spent a couple of hours setting it up, clearing out the car and organizing all our stuff now that it was dry. We met up with Jay and his friends in the evening and they joined us at our site. Spent some time around the fire and looked forward to the rest of the week…..weather prediction: sunny and 70s every day!

We had three days of climbing with the Tuscon guys. Did a lot of fun routes and I worked on leading some harder stuff. Mike did the same, he had a couple of routes he’d had his eye on that he was excited to complete. The weather was just gorgeous and we reveled in the sunshine! Took one rest day to just bask in the sun, rest our bodies and read (and get a little sunburned, oops!), then we climbed two more days. We met a group of guys from NH, ironically enough! Somehow we had never bumped into each other at home, but it was fun to hear a little bit of New England in their accents. I really enjoyed the climbing, but I also had a wonderful time watching Spring arrive. Bushes that looked gray and dead suddenly sprouted lots of little green leaves overnight; birds arrived and sang to us all day; everything seemed to be coming back to life! Every night we’d hear the coyotes calling to each other from quite near the campground. Their yips and howls and barks sounded like a conversation and I wished I had my Coyote-to-English dictionary! One coyote would stroll throught the campground every evening just after sunset, just poking around, hoping to find food laying around. I felt so much a part of all the wildness there, it’s definitely one of my favorite places.

Sunday morning arrived with another windstorm, just to make sure we didn’t enjoy too much good weather. Sigh. Packed up our stuff, tried not to let the tent get blown away, and hit the road. We made a pit stop in town for showers and laundry (a luxury!) then started driving toward the Grand Canyon for a week of sightseeing. Everywhere we go I wish I could stay a little longer….even though we have lots of time there’s somehow never enough!

Joshua Tree

Bishop, CA: Happy and Sad

We spent nearly a week in Bishop, one of the most popular bouldering areas in the US. The climbing we did there was amazing and fun! There are several different locations with two very different kinds of rock and ambiance. We drove northwest from Death Valley on Sunday night, it was a spectacular drive as we headed north through a valley between the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains and the western side of the White mountains (no, not those White Mts NH people). We arrived at the campground just after sunset, exhausted and wishing for bed. The moon was almost full and cast an eerie blue glow over the snow covered mountains…..it was just incredible, I’ve never seen mountains that high! The next morning was clear and beautiful, but we were so tired from our weekend adventure that we decided to take some time to relax, sit in a café in Bishop and catch up on organizing photos and blogging and such. In the afternoon we went to one of the main bouldering areas—the Buttermilks-- just a few miles outside of town. We got there to find the road partly covered with snow, and a good deal of snow on the ground! We tromped through shin-deep snobanks in our t-shirts to get up to the slope where the boulders are. Pretty bizarre. The afternoon was lovely, but sadly it was our last nice weather for the week. Alas! We went to the place that’s famous for nice, dry, warm weather in the winter and we got rained and snowed on. Tuesday and Wednesday it was just cloudy and cool, and we went bouldering at an area called the Happy Boulders (yes, there are Sad Boulders too, hence the title). The rock is really interesting, it’s volcanic and it weathers away to lots of bizarre shapes and overhanging roofs that are fun to monkey around on! With just two of us we managed to get completely worn out in just a few hours each day, but it was great fun to just wander up the little canyon from boulder to boulder, look at an interesting line of holds on the rock and say ‘Let’s climb that!’.

Wednesday night we were lucky enough to have clear weather for the lunar eclipse....it was a phenomenal sight! Mike took a lot of great pictures with his new camera. Once the moon was covered we got our first real view of the stars!

Thursday our arms just couldn’t pull us up any more rocks, and the weather wasn’t great, so we went for a little drive and exploration. We’d planned to go up to Mammoth, a popular ski town just 45 minutes or so to the north, and we did get there eventually after a little detour. As we drove up the highway, Mike saw a sign for Hot Creek and we decided to go find out what it was. A little swim in a hot spring sounded pretty good at that point, so we kept our fingers crossed. A mile or so down the road the plowed area stopped, but there was another sign saying Hot Creek was a mile and a half away, and we thought that sounded like a nice little walk so off we went. The road was covered with at least 8 inches of snow but it was all packed down from people walking and snowshoeing and stuff, so it was a fairly easy walk. We eventually took a side trail down to the edge of the creek, it wasn’t hot by any stretch of the imagination but it wasn’t frozen over either. In the distance we could see some steam rising, so we trudged along, eventually getting there to find that it was all fenced off and not safe to swim in because of increased arsenic and unpredictable temperature spikes! So sad! We did stick our hands in; it didn’t feel all that hot but we decided it was best not to risk it seeing as the stream had obviously been eating away at the banks and looked a little dodgy. As we turned around to start back to the car, the gray clouds I’d been seeing creep up behind us turned into….a snowstorm! Huzzah! (that’s sarcasm, in case you were wondering). Luckily we had both worn hats and coats, so we didn’t get too cold, but walking a mile and a half with wet snow being blown into your face isn’t all that entertaining! Still, it wasn’t too terrible, and we got back to the car very glad for the opportunity to get warm and dry. We went up the road a few more miles to Mammoth, drove around the little ski town (wasn’t very exciting), then headed back to camp. We arrived late in the afternoon just as the rain was starting. Sigh. Had an elegant dinner date in the car (dinner and a movie…our own personal drive in! Portable DVD player sure is handy.) and went to bed with snow falling.

Friday’s weather was just as delightful so we spent the day holed up in a café drinking coffee and getting restless. We did take a fun walk around downtown; Bishop is really a cute little spot. Almost all of the stores have a very late-60’s feel to them, obviously locally owned and run; not much evidence of standard corporate America which is a nice change. One of the highlights is Schat’s Bakery, which makes unbelievable breads and pastries and was very crowded every time we went in. I planned to take pictures of some of the stores, but we didn’t have the camera and ran out of daylight on our last day. So you’ll just have to imagine how great it was! Saturday started out pretty nice, but another storm was predicted to start in the afternoon so we packed up and planned to leave after we finished bouldering for the day. Mike’s friends Ben and Dan joined us (they live a few hours away), we climbed at the Sad boulders and made the best of the day, though it was cold and sprinkled for most of the afternoon. The rain started in earnest around 5:00, so we said our goodbyes and hit the road, headed south for warmth and sunshine in Joshua Tree!

Bishop

Alive in Death Valley

Last Friday we left Las Vegas to go to Death Valley for the weekend. We joined Mike’s friend Bruce and three other folks for a canyoneering trip. We arrived around 9:00 Friday night, and found a spot to camp in the backcountry…aka primitive camping, which means find a spot out in the desert far enough from a main road and plonk down your tent! No water, no bathrooms, no picnic tables, just a lot of small scrubby creosote bushes and gravelly dirt. Good times! J Saturday morning we all got up at 6:00, before the sun and long before any warmth. It was 25 degrees overnight…..let me tell you, it’s not easy to drag me out of my warm sleeping bag into that! Still, it was beautiful to be out there in the middle of miles of desert and mountains; very isolated and peaceful. The six of us had some breakfast and loaded into Bruce’s truck by 7:00 to drive up into the mountains a bit more and find the trail head that would lead into the canyon we planned to descend. After 40 minutes of winding along a rough dirt road (thank you 4 wheel drive!) we found the spot and started hiking in. The sun was up and we were finally starting to feel warm; hiked about ½ hour or so before we reached the first rappel and the official beginning of the canyon. This was my first experience canyoneering, luckily it wasn’t a very hard canyon to get through. Some hiking along the gravelly bottom of the wash, some downclimbing of steeper sections carved out by the water, and rappelling of the steepest longest parts that would be too dangerous to climb down. This is a dry canyon, so we didn’t have to deal with any swimming or descending into pools! The weather was beautiful, and we all had a great time getting ourselves through the obstacles the rock gave us. It’s a pretty well traveled canyon, so there are fixed anchors to rappel from, which made it pretty easy for us. We’d just get to the top, set up a rope to rap on and descend one by one, then keep on hiking. We had two ropes to work with, so generally the first couple of people down would head off with one rope to get the next rappel set up while the rest of us got down. That way we could move faster and be sure to be out before dark. We probably rappelled 20 times total; some were as short as 10-15 feet, and one was 100 feet long down a smoothly carved channel of limestone. It was beautiful! At the end of the day we reached the last rappel before the canyon emptied out into the Badwater Basin. There was an incredible balanced boulder over the last waterfall, we all sat on it and basked in the sun for a few minutes, enjoying the warmth and the good feeling of having worked hard and finished a very successful day. I think we descended a total of over 4000 feet in the course of 8 hours! We ended near Badwater, 300 feet or so below sea level. After finishing the last rappel we piled into the other truck that Bruce’s friend had left at the base of the canyon and drove about an hour back to our campsite. Mike went with Bruce and Todd to pick up the other truck from where we’d left it in the morning, Lori, Rick and I stayed at camp and relaxed while we watched the sunset! (and made dinner). The guys got back an hour or so later, we all ate and chatted for a couple of hours and collapsed early into bed. Sunday we’d planned to try another canyon, but ended up just hiking for a few hours. It was hot! At least 80 degrees by mid-afternoon…quite a change from 25 when we woke up! Mike and I did one last little exploration of Golden Canyon (a touristy spot, but we found a side section to explore that was fun) then we left to drive north to Bishop, CA where we’ve been doing some more climbing. But that’s a story for another time!

Death Valley

Levitation 29…..completed!

On Tuesday Mike and I tackled ‘Levitation 29’, the long canyon route I wanted to do. We did it without a hitch! I’m excited to have done it, and totally exhausted! Here’s the rundown: We arrived at the park just a couple minutes after the gates opened at 6:00 a.m. (yes, that means I was up at 5:00, miracle of miracles). Drove around the loop road and were on the trail by 6:30. After about ½ hour of easy hiking we descended into the wash to start the tough part of the approach.

We spent about an hour scrambling over and around huge boulders up the base of the gully between two mountains. When I say huge boulders I’m not kidding, we’re talking boulders as big as cars and small houses! There were quite a few good size pools and some little waterfalls that we had to navigate around as well; the water was perfectly clear and just beautiful. Just as I was feeling like we would never get there, we arrived at the base of the cliff….sort of. First we had to hike up about 1000 feet of slabby rock. Just imagine climbing 1000 steep stairs and you’ll have some idea of how my legs were feeling! Two hours after leaving the car we got to the bottom of the climb, geared up and got on the wall. The climbing was incredible, very different to the other stuff we’ve done here. We didn’t see a single other person the entire day….it was so nice to enjoy the peace and solitude (duitude? J), focus on the climbing and feel like we were the only people for miles around. It’s probably one of the only times I’ve been so far out in the middle of nowhere. I really enjoyed the route, the crux pitch was definitely hard! And long! For the last 20 feet or so I was just grunting and clawing my way up, hoping my arms would hold out long enough to get me to the end. They did…just barely! A few more pitches after that and we were done, I couldn’t believe it! Well, done with the upward portion of the day anyway. Then came the hardest part…getting down off the wall and hiking out! We rapped down with no problems, ropes didn’t get caught on anything which was a big relief.

I was totally exhausted by then and not looking forward to hiking myself out of there, but I didn’t see any helicopters hovering by waiting to pick me up, so on foot I went! J We descended the slabs as quickly as we could to get to the bottom of that section by dark….not an easy prospect given how steep and slippery they were. Mike showed me his technique for moving down quickly, and off we went, crab walking away! Too bad there was no one to take a video of us, because I’m sure we looked pretty silly! Had a little snack and a rest just as we entered the long gully section, put on our headlamps and continued the hike in the dark. It was a beautiful night, lots of stars, a quarter moon and luckily for us it stayed nice and warm. Because it was dark out we took our time getting down through the boulders, which was perfect since I was too tired to move faster anyway! By the time we got to the last easy section of the hike it was all I could do to just keep putting one foot in front of the other, everything hurt and I felt like I could just lay down and sleep for about a week. We could only see the 20 feet or so in front of us that were lit by our headlamps, so we had no way to know how far away we were from the car, and the trail just kept going, and going….. Finally, at 8:15, we got to the parking lot. Yippee! I’ve never been so excited to sit down. Total time: 13 hours 45 minutes! What an incredible experience.

Levitation 29

Stellar Weekend

We had an amazing time last weekend! Gorgeous weather for climbing, so sunny and warm! On Friday Mike and I did our second try at Solar Slab to practice for Levitation. Everything went well, we started a little later than last time but still managed to finish the route, despite encountering a water obstacle. At the end of one of the pitches there was a waterfall running over the rock, directly over the bolts for our anchors! Mike had to make an anchor with our gear off to the side, and I had to climb carefully around the water to try to keep the ropes dry. It was funny, because some guys rapped past who had done the pitch a couple hours before us, and they said there was no water when they came through! I guess the snow up high on the mountain started melting finally.

On Saturday we met some great people and did lots of fun climbs at Sunny & Steep Wall, and on Sunday we climbed with some of the same folks at Cannibal Crag. Not a lot to report, just a lot of fun in the sun! Here are a few pictures of our escapades:

Feb part 1

Weather woes and good company

We haven’t had the best weather over the last couple of weeks. It’s been pretty cold here, at least 10 degrees colder than normal for this time of year, and believe it or not there’s been quite a bit of rain! There have been several big rain storms and even a fair amount of snow in the higher elevations. Kind of crazy!

We’ve been very thankful to have a place to stay here instead of camping lately…we’re dry and warm at night and have a shower whenever we want which is pretty luxurious.

Despite the weather’s attempts to thwart us we’ve been having a lot of fun; the climbing is fantastic and we’ve been hanging out with some great people. We’ve climbed several times with our friends Pete and Erin; they treated us to a great dinner at their place one night and a soak in the hot tub. Also visited with Mike’s friend Bruce who lives out here but is originally from Maine. They’ve climbed together quite a lot over the years and they seemed to have a great time catching up and reminiscing about past adventures. We spent a day hanging out with our friend Dana from Rhode Island, he was out here for work and we had a great time showing him some of the wonders of Red Rocks. Almost every day out here we meet new people, it’s one of the great things about the climbing community! People tend to be very friendly at the crags, always have stories to share, and it’s great to find out where everyone comes from. Inevitably people will offer to let you stay with them if you’re ever visiting near them……it’s amazing to me how this activity pulls people together! We’ve met lots of folks from all over Canada, several parties from different places in England, people from Oregon, California, Idaho…..everyone flocks to Red Rocks in the winter! We’ve also met a number of local people through our friend Mike (who is letting us live with him).

Here are some pictures from the last couple of weeks:

Jan part 2

Wildlife sightings for the week:

Coyote, group of quail (covey? gaggle?), red-naped sapsucker (looked like a woodpecker), a jack rabbit, a side-blotched lizard, and several interesting birds that I haven’t had time to identify yet. Dana said he saw a gray fox, so I’ll count that in my list.

That’s all folks! Love, health, and happiness to all!

5:15 a.m. It's not my favorite time....

One of my goals before we leave Vegas is to do a long, multi-pitch route called Levitation 29. It’s in one of the canyons at Red Rocks, so instead of a 15 minute hike up to the sport climbing crags where we climb routes 30-80 feet high, we’ll have to hike an hour and a half to a huge wall where we’ll climb a total of 1000 feet before rappelling back to the base. It’s a huge endeavor! To prepare Mike and I decided to take a practice day on a wall that’s somewhat taller but much closer to the trailhead and much easier climbing.

First, a little vocab lesson for any non-climbing readers:

Pitch—a length of rock face to climb. On long routes, pitches will generally be 50-150 feet long, usually between natural ledges. One person climbs the pitch first, anchors in, then belays their partner up. That person continues climbing up the 2^nd pitch, arrives at the next anchor and belays person #1 up. Lather, rinse, repeat until you get to the top!

Anchor—a way of connecting yourself directly to the rock at the stopping point of a pitch. On these routes the anchors are bolts drilled into the rock, you secure yourself to them, then belay your partner up from below you.

Belay—a method of feeding the rope through a special device that will allow you to catch your partner if they fall.

Rappel—a way of sliding down your rope to get back to the base of a climb. You use the same device for rappelling as for belaying. Descending a route requires a number of rappels, you have to stop at anchors and pull your ropes down every 100-200 feet

Away we go…..

The alarm went off at 5:15. Anyone who knows me will understand how painful that is! By 5:45 we were dressed and out the door, I was still half asleep, drinking my tea and munching on cereal while Mike drove. About 6:30 we arrived at the trailhead, put on a couple layers, packed the final stuff in our bags and got on the trail. It was cold. And dark. I wasn’t fully awake yet. The hike was pretty easy; about 15 minutes of flat trail winding through the desert into the mouth of the canyon, then 5 more minutes or so of steeper hiking and scrambling to reach the base of the wall. The sun came up and we finally got warm, but it wasn’t supposed to get much higher than 45 degrees, so we were hoping to stay in the sun as much as possible and avoid becoming ice cubes. A drink and a snack; harnesses, gear, and shoes on…and we’re climbing!

Pitch 1 went well, I led and ended up doing 2 pitches by accident because the info from the guidebook was a bit off. No big deal, I still had enough rope to get to the next anchors and belay Mike up. He led the next pitch, then I took the last one (2 combined again) to get us to the top of the first part of the climb. There was a huge slabby area where we could sit and have a snack and get ready for the second part of the route called Solar Slab. Mike led up the first pitch and we continued on our merry way. On the third pitch he got off route a bit and we ended up losing some time. We realized next time it would be good to make a photocopy from the guidebook showing the line of the route instead of just trying to trace it on our own little paper. But that’s the whole point of the practice run! The main problem was that I was belaying with my feet in the shade, so by the time he got back on route and up to the next anchor my feet were popsicles! We were both pretty cold by the time I got up to him, the sun was starting to move off the rock and we decided it was time to finish up. I led up one more pitch to get us to a good spot to descend from, then we started to rappel down. We had 300 or so feet left to go, so we didn’t quite finish the whole route.

Brrrr! With the sun gone we were really starting to get chilled. My hands were almost as frozen as my feet, but we still had almost 1000 feet of wall to descend so it was time to just grit my teeth and bear it. We got down to the mid-point where we stopped for lunch and bumped into a couple of English guys we’d met a few days earlier. We rapped the rest of the way down with them and had a good time chatting and hearing about what they’d been doing during their trip. We made it to the ground safely at about 4:30, cold, tired and glad to be back to our down jackets and wool socks! Packed up the gear and hiked back to the car and were on the road by about 5:30. Eleven hours from car to car! Phew. It was hard, I still have a lot to learn about this type of climbing. Keeping the ropes organized, setting up belay anchors efficiently, route finding….the climbing was the easiest part! It was a really good opportunity for us to work as a team and figure out some of the skills I need to work on to get ready for the big route I want to do.

Solar Slab

It’s funny, I was pondering some stuff while I was climbing. I got to one point and reached my hand up, thinking to myself ‘It’d be great if there was a good hold right here’….and there was! It occurred to me that climbing has taught me a lot about living. Sometimes you think you need a hold right there, and there it is. And sometimes you think you need a hold right there, but all you get is a tiny edge. Suddenly you have to redefine what you think you need, and learn how to work with what’s in front of you. You have to draw on strength you’re not sure you have in order to keep moving forward. So you place your feet the best you can, start pulling on that tiny edge and trust that it will be enough to get you through. And you know what? It almost always is. What you’re presented with might not be what you expected, or what you wanted or what you hoped for, but if you’re creative and trust in your own strengths and have a little faith….well, it can be enough.