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.

You can't recycle in Las Vegas

It’s hard to imagine that a major metropolitan area like Vegas wouldn’t have some kind of recycling program. But, I guess that’s just the essence of this city. Conservation seems like a dirty word in a land of excess and unbridled development and sprawl. Mile after mile of new housing developments and shopping plazas, all with irrigated landscaping and pools. In the desert. And at the same time every apartment complex has multiple vacancies, they’re all advertising move-in specials; and some neighborhoods we’ve driven through have for sale signs in at least a third of the yards. Being in this city is frustrating that way; there’s so much waste on such an incredibly large scale. At a time when I’m trying to be more conscious of reducing my impact on the planet, it’s disheartening to be surrounded by an enormous city that seems bent on creating the most damage possible.

(Oh, by the way, I did find a way to recycle. Whole Foods has bins outside their store….I don’t think they intended for me to bring my household stuff there, but nobody stopped me!)