This really hits home with me and wanted to share.
Monday, January 26, 2015
Friday, January 23, 2015
A Neon Cactus in the Night
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| Sunset from Mount Lemmon |
It’s just about that time of the month again. I finally left Texas and spent a few weeks
in Mexico; the first time around for New Years with an old Army buddy who I deployed
to Afghanistan with, and the second time around with Melissa who is no stranger
to the adventures of Bertha. Will and I spent our time in El Potrero Chico
which is the premier winter climbing destination in North America. Will doesn’t climb so we spent our time hiking around the mountains of Potrero
and exploring the markets in the neighboring town of Hidalgo. Melissa and I split our time between Potrero Chico and another world
class climbing destination called El Salto. After droping Melissa off at
the airport, I made a split decision to drive to Tucson, Arizona instead
of Key West, Florida which had been the original plan.
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| El Potrero Chico |
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| Soaking up some sun |
Even before Will and I first crossed the border we didn’t know what
to expect. After speaking to many locals in the border towns of Texas, we were
convinced that we were going to be kidnapped, hijacked, or both and then that would be the
end. Crossing into Mexico was actually quite easy and we weren't even stopped but we knew that there is some paperwork necessary to
legally travel further than the border cities, so we stopped to complete the paperwork and then set
on our way. Within 10 minutes of crossing the border, we were stopped at a military check point and we
thought that was where it all was going to go down hill. They searched the van and
had the drug dog sniff around, of course all while BB was freaking out, and then sent us on
our way. From there on it was smooth sailing. Mexico is definitely not as scary
and dangerous as the mass public may think. There is most certainly a drug war
going on and a huge show of military force complete with machine gun trucks driving all around
but my impression was that the military was doing what they were supposed to and keeping the roads safe for those not involved in the drug trade. It
felt strange to be playing the civilian role after spending so much time being
the one up in the gun trucks during my deployments. Arriving at El Potrero
Chico, we were in awe of the massive limestone cliffs rising up to 2500 feet high just south of the town of Hidalgo. We set up camp and spent the next couple
days exploring the hillsides and even hiking to the peak of “El Toro” which is one of the highest peaks in Potrero. New Years was uneventful and we were in bed
before midnight (this has become a reoccurring theme for my last couple New
Years). We took the direct route back to Texas but made the noobie mistake of
crossing the border at peak season and had to sit in line for 5 hours. It was
brutal but somehow we survived. I dropped Will off in Ft. Worth then the journey continued.
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| "Home is where you park the van" |
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| Melissa enjoying the Summit of Yankee Clipper after crushing the Crux final pitch |
Melissa and I quickly made our way down to Potrero and got
to work. We climbed the whole time that we had good weather. Unfortunately the
weather was not quite cooperating but we made the best of it. The highlight for
me was getting 1500 feet off the deck with nothing more than a
handful of quick draws, belay device, and a rope. During some less than optimal
weather, we found a hidden paradise at an underground developed hot spring.
This place reminded me of an ancient Greek bathhouse and was another highlight
of the adventure. With a dreary forecast looming over us, we decided to explore
another climbing area about 2 hours from Potrero called “El Salto”. El Salto is
the name of a waterfall high up in the mountains of the Sierra Madres just
outside of a town called Cuenega De Gonzalez. We drove 25KM up into the
mountains, gaining over 3000 feet of elevation, crawling and sliding up a partially washed
out muddy road. It was almost like driving into a fantasy world or something
you would see in a movie. When we made it to Cuenega De Gonzalez we found Kika, an older Mexican
woman who runs the local convenience store, and for 30 Pesos (about $2) a night
she let us camp in her yard. Whereas
Potrero had well over 100 climbers scaling its cliffs, El Salto only had a
handful and there were maybe 4 other cars parked at Kika’s aside from ours. We
hiked along the riverbed for about a mile to the Las Animas Wall. I had never
seen limestone tufas before but my jaw dropped when I saw this place. A tufa
is a kind of bulbous rock formation similar to a stalactite that hangs down
from the wall. These features create a totally unique climbing experience, an
experience that is only found in a couple places around the world. We spent only
one day climbing at this amazing location but found ourselves overly satisfied
from the whole experience. From here we made our way back to the US. This time
it only took us about 5 hours to drive from Monterey to Laredo as there was no
wait at the border. Melissa and I said our goodbyes and it was time for the journey
to continue.
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| "El Salto" |
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| Tufa Madness |
I had the general idea that I was going to drive to Key West
after returning from Mexico but at the last minute, following those funny feelings
you get deep down inside, I made a left instead of a right and drove out to
Tucson, Arizona. That’s the beauty of living on the road. Since beginning this
journey back in April, I have rarely spent more than a week and a half in one
location before getting restless and moving to somewhere new. I have decided to spend a whole month here and try to immerse myself in the local community. I’m
torn between continuing to bum around the city or disappear off into the woods
where Van Life is much easier.
I have been thinking a lot in the last month; a lot about
life, what I’m doing, the people around me, the way the world works; just a
lot of thinking. I am not any closer to any kind of grand epiphany or enlightenment. I feel that
I am searching for something but not quite sure what that something is. Of course
I’d like to figure out what I want to do, what I want to be, who I am and all
that but there’s still this something else I feel that I’m searching for. Maybe I’m
running instead of searching? I feel like
I don’t belong anywhere and so, after a week, I get anxious and leave. Or is
that it? Maybe I’m destined to live this ever changing always moving nomadic
lifestyle. At least it sure is an interesting way to live...
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| The road endlessly winds into the future |
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
Pursuing Ideas
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| Shit is Bananas; B-A-N-A-N-A-S
I must say, the epic-ness of my journey has slowed down
significantly in the last month. I believe this is for two reasons: 1. it’s
getting cold EVERYWHERE and 2. I no longer have a full time partner. Although
the climbing has all but stopped, life still happens. I spent Thanksgiving in
the L.A. area with family that I haven’t seen in a long time. After that I have
spent a lot of time driving; leaving SoCal passing through Arizona and Utah circling
Colorado for a while then down to Texas. I have never in my life pictured
myself in Texas but here I am.
I did stop in Indian Creek Utah for a couple days to get
some world class crack climbing in. I met a new friend Matthew who ended up
taking a ton of killer pictures. All the pictures in this post are thanks to
Matthew. You can check out his story at: matthewparentstories.com.
I am laying low for the holidays then there should be a
sharp spike in epic-ness in January when I head down to El Potrero Chico Mexico
for arguably the best winter climbing in North America!
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Sunday, November 16, 2014
A New Chapter
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| Stinky Dawgs |
The longer I wait to write a new post the harder it becomes.
On the road there are new stories unfolding on a daily basis and so many of
them criss-cross one another that I sometimes can’t believe everything that
happens in a months’ time. Dan is no longer living in Bertha and is off on a
new chapter of his journey which also starts a new chapter in mine. Before we
get to that though, there was one final epic month of adventure for Dan, BB,
and I.
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| Goodbye Clear Waters! |
With a promising sign before leaving Tahoe, in the form of
an epic rainbow, we continued making our way down the west coast. Time in California
is starting to feel like the time we spent in Wyoming; a revolving door of continually
circling around familiar areas. Because of this I will probably mix up the
sequence of events over the next month as we did 2 rounds each at Yosemite,
Bishop, San Francisco, all while also pin balling through multiple points in
Southern California. California is pretty much what I was hoping it would be
and I love the weather: 80 and sunny in November?...Can I live here forever?
The Sierras are phenomenal and I foresee myself spending much more time in the
future in this area.
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| Internal Dialogue: "Holy Shit!" |
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| Half Dome |
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| Dan's best Timmy O'Neil impersonation |
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| Top of Nutcracker (Half Dome in distance) |
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| 3000 feet of El Cap Above me...maybe next year |
Yosemite: What can I say that hasn’t been said a million
times before? There is so much history and amazing climbing here that it is
mind boggling; the views are spectacular and awe inspiring. The only downsides
that I personally saw were no dogs on trails (which makes sense but sucks when
you live in a van with your dog) and the tourists. I am not bad mouthing
tourists by any means but just noting the amount of people who visit the park
is overwhelming and this was even during off season. I don’t think I could
handle the swarms of vacationers during peak season. One thing I really like
about climbing is being able to get away from cities and people and living a
more primitive lifestyle. The other plus side to this is that the people you do
run into are usually like-minded and down to earth. Dan and I split ways for
part of our Yosemite visit and were together for the other half. The big walls of
El Capitan and Half Dome are a little out of our league for this trip but that’s
not to say we didn’t have a blast on the shorter less committing rock. One of
the highlights was our outing on Moby Dick (5.10a). Dan impressively led it with
the lack of proper protection which, another climber promptly noted to us that
Moby Dick is known to eat multiple number 4s and that Dan didn’t take any!
After completing the short, easy, rarely done second pitch, we set up a top
rope on Moby and proceeded to have time trials to see who could climb it the
fastest. I believe we were able to climb the 140’ route in the low 3 minute
mark but were still beat by an ex-Navy fellow who was able to knock that time
down into the high 2 minutes. Yosemite was fun but it was time to move on!
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| On top of Magician |
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| We topped out all these spires |
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| Peek-A-Boo! |
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| MMMM the Sierras |
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| Lady of the Needles |
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| Fred |
The Needles: The Needles are a series of granite domes
located in the Sequoia National Forest and are probably my second favorite stop
of the trip only next to the Bugaboos. Similar to the Bugaboos, the approach isn’t
exactly easy and keeps the lazy climbers and tourists at bay! We basically had
the campsite and climbing to ourselves for a whole week besides sharing with our
new found friends Gaelin and Jake. The cost of all this was a 3 mile hike to a
climbing area offering almost no easy to moderate climbs but boasting awesome
multi-pitch splitter cracks on granite domes named The Witch, The Sorcerer, and
The Charlatan. Most of these routes start off at a level which demands at least
some level of proficiency and speed. In the seven days we spent there, I hiked
roughly 42 miles at 8000 feet elevation and climbed 5 routes; 1 route each day
that we climbed. Every day was an adventure and I have never felt in better
shape in my entire life than when we were packing up to leave. 4 of the 5
climbs absolutely blew my mind all while being the hardest climbs I have done
to date. I don’t have a favorite of the
three but Thin Ice, Fancy Free, and Airy Interlude (all 5.10b) were all super
incredible experiences. We also were able to summit 5 of the tallest domes via
the routes we chose. I WILL definitely be
returning here next chance I get. The highlight memory I have occurred while topping
out of Fancy Free. As it turns out, The Needles are a favorite fly by area for
a local Air Force base so during the week you are almost guaranteed at least
2-3 fly bys every day. After finger traversing the final couple moves of the
climb, I grab the top of the rock and mantel onto what I thought was going to
be a large flat ledge but as it turned out actually swiftly dropped down the
back side so I was mantling onto a sharp point of the rock. While I was pulling
myself onto this unexpected feature of the rock, 2 fighter jets flew by upside
down not more than 200 feet away and almost knocked me clear off the top of the
route in shear surprise. Luckily, I held on and got the feeling that they were congratulating
me for completing the climb! A truly heart stopping experience!
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| Dan traversing in the Gorge |
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| Pulling the Crux |
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| BB needs to grow some thumbs |
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| "You looking at my bacon!?" |
Dan and I were starting to accept that The Needles were
going to be the last big adventure we had together. We had roughly a week of
travel left together and were throwing around the idea of going back to
Yosemite to climb the East Buttress of El Capitan and Snake Dike on Half Dome.
While we could have probably accomplished this, the logistics and the chance of
getting stuck on the climbs overnight kept us away. Instead we decided to
attend a climber festival in Bishop which I think was completely appropriate as
our adventure started only shortly before the Lander festival earlier in the
trip. For the most part we took it easy but not before having one last day long
outing: Towering Inferno (5.11b) in the Owens River Gorge. Towering Inferno is
the only route that tops out of the gorge and is marked as unique by the first
pitch, a full rope length 5.11a hand traverse. Dan took a nice clean fall at
the beginning of the first pitch and I spiced it up on the 4th pitch
taking a decent slab fall and drawing some blood. We made it to the top despite
the deteriorating rock quality on each pitch and had our last top out ritual
together which consists of eating a cliff bar, chugging water, taking in the
view for a minute, and then starting to make our way back down. The rest of the
weekend was enjoyed with more climbing, climbing movies, and partying. Sadly,
the weekend had to come to an end and Dan had to move on.
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| Dan officially relinquishing the keys to Bertha |
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| Who is more sad? |
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| Last family photo |
We spent our last day lying on a beach and doing nothing. BB
knew all day that Dan was leaving and was visibly distraught. The time came and
we goofed off one last time in the airport parking lot blasting music, dancing,
and chugging beers and Perrier. We said our goodbyes and just like that we each
closed a chapter in our journey. Reflecting on my adventure with Dan, I don’t
think it could have gone any better and I couldn’t have found a better partner
to do this with and likewise, I wouldn’t want anything to have happened any different
or have a different partner. I think climbing partners form a special bond that
is necessary to be able to do what we do. We literally have to trust each other
with our lives on a daily basis and know that the other person can handle what
we are doing safely. Normally, it’s not easy to form this kind of relationship and
any number of small personal qualities could easily throw this off. I feel this
was not the case with Dan; we gelled right off the bat and were able to even
tolerate each other while living in a van just feet from each other at all
times for 6 months. I say tolerate, but honestly we didn’t have to “tolerate”
each other because we clicked right away and there was nothing but smooth
sailing from there. Unfortunately I am losing my partner and I think I was
spoiled with this experience. Dan is off to backpack Thailand for who knows how
long and I wish him all the luck in the world. I know down the road we will
link back up for some big adventures…hopefully even abroad!
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| This translates to 246,000...37,000 since March! |
So now I have decided that I will continue my journey solo.
I am going to explore how the climbing circuit works when you don’t have a
climbing partner to go climb any time you want. I think this will allow me to
spend more time located in one destination as well as affording more free time
to reading and playing guitar(and maybe blog posts haha). We will see how it
goes.
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| Uhhhh....hurry up! |
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| Beautiful |
I linked up with a friend Lexi and we decided to climb at
Tahquitz. Lexi has been climbing on and off with Dan and I along the way and is
trying to push herself into the Traditional climbing world. She decided she
wanted to start leading traditional pitches so we decided to give it a shot. We
hiked up to Fingertrip (5.7) and after a quick review of anchors got to work.
She flawlessly led the first pitch without a hitch. After linking up at the
first belay, we decided we were running out of light too quickly and I would
take over for the rest of the climb. We were treated to a beautiful sunset (the
150th of the trip!) on the last pitch and topped out shortly after
sunset. With just a little light remaining we decided to rappel off some tat
and rings we found determining it would be quicker and easier than trying to
find the down-climb decent. Unfortunately we only brought one head lamp which
made for a pretty tricky decent. Fortunately though, at the climber festival I took
a self-rescue class which taught me how to ascend a line after rappelling and
this became an extremely useful skill as I had to do this 3 separate times
while trying to figure out which way to go. Eventually, we avoided epic-ing and landed at
the base of the climb only 3 and a half hours after the sun set. Despite the
horrible horrible horrible (and slightly entertaining) karaoke at the bar in
Idyllwild, the burger was very much enjoyed.
I have now made my way to Las Vegas, Nevada and will be
climbing at Red Rock National Preserve for a couple days. Which way will the road
turn from here? I am not sure but I’ll let you know in about a month ;)
Thursday, October 9, 2014
The Clear Waters of Tahoe are Calling my Name
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| Tom Cruise in Action |
Last time I left you with a bunch of photos of my Alaskan Adventure; hopefully, this post will have more words than pictures, but lots of pictures too!
 |
| Dancing in Squamish |
We arrived in Squamish on a sunny Thursday afternoon which
was much welcomed after all the cold and rainy weather we encountered
throughout the past month. The first thing you see entering Squamish is The
Chief which is a 500 foot tall granite dome overlooking the town and we were
instantly drawn to the base. We rented a guidebook for the day and settled on
the climb “Snake” (5.9) which was supposed to be similar quality to the 5 star
route next to it (Diedre 5.8), just slightly harder and much less traffic. We
rack up and head to the base of the climb. We meet a duo who are repelling down
because they got off route onto a much harder route that they couldn’t finish.
We were then met by another group wanting to climb the same route. Dan and I
started feeling rushed to get up it and that’s where the mistakes started. We
planned on linking the first two pitches together but Dan stopped half way
through the second pitch and I wasn’t quite sure why. Upon linking up with Dan,
it turns out the beginning climbing wasn’t quite as easy as we were under the
impression of and there was too much rope out for Dan to feel comfortable. We
reset the belay and Dan is going to shoot for the chains but is once again
stopped by a combination of moves that he didn’t feel comfortable maneuvering
without proper protection. He set a belay on a tree to the climber’s right and
I met him at the tree. He explained to me that the moves looked sketch and that
there was no pro. There are now two parties waiting behind us and I am feeling
the need to rush to get out of their way. I was looking at traversing through
roughly 30 feet of “5.7” unprotected terrain from the tree. I take one look at
it and in the back of my mind I’m thinking “how hard can 5.7 be?” and tell Dan
“I’ll just go for it.” Right off of the belay I found a small nubbin to throw a
sling around and Dan asks “what the hell that’s going to do?” I didn’t think it
would hold either but it was a bit of mental duct tape and I told Dan “well,
this is just a no fall zone.” I start to
move through the traverse; I look at my different options and start to work my
feet out. I can see where I need to get but all I have to work with is sloped
hands, which I can barely even palm, and two nubbins to stand on. I can see a
good foot hold about another 2 feet out and make a committing intermediate move
to get into position to get to that hold. I realize my sequence is off and I can’t
get to where I want to go. I am basically being held to the wall by one toe on
a tiny nubbin and I’ve got Elvis leg. I start to panic but close my eyes and
start to breathe slow and deliberately. My leg stops shaking and I can here Dan
yelling “Just breathe man you got it, you can do it, stick with it!” I try to
reverse the intermediate move I just made but I just can’t hold it anymore. I
don’t have it. I could tell my foot was going to blow and I just went with it
into the “no fall zone.” I don’t know what happened between there and looking
up at Dan but according to Dan I fell down about 15 feet missing a large flake
directly below me and landing on my feet on a more slabby ledge. When my feet
hit, they gripped and I flipped head over heels and fell another 10 feet
landing/slamming into another wall on my back. Somehow, the sling that I slung
as “mental duct tape” had held and saved me from falling another 5-10 feet and
decking on a pointy horn that would have surely landed me in the hospital. Dan immediately
started yelling to me to figure out how bad I was. I was in a lot of pain but I
knew I was in one piece and good enough to be lowered and make my way down. I
could tell by the look on the two parties below us that the fall must have
looked horrible. Even when I tried to make a joke or two while passing by the
other climbers they just looked at me slightly confused and in shock probably
thinking WTF is wrong this guy?
I had to take it easy the rest of the day and the worst part
was that I couldn’t sit, stand, or lie down without being in an immense amount
of pain. It was starting to get to the point where Dan and I started debating
if I actually needed to go to the hospital. I figured if I wasn’t peeing blood
that I’d be ok so we skipped the hospital and I just tried to take it easy.
Later that night in camp we were talking to other climbers who have done Snake
and they were telling us that there are two ways to do the unprotected
traverse: the easier way (5.7) is to stay low and find a foot hold way out
left, which I didn’t see because I was rushing; the second way (5.10) is to
stay high on shitty feet and no hands which is what I ended up doing. The
following day I decided I needed to just sit around and Dan went climbing with
others from the camp. The whole day I couldn’t get the sequence of events out
of my head. This was the first bad fall I have ever taken while climbing and I didn’t
know how it was going to affect me. We have run into multiple people that use
to climb until they took a fall that was too much for them and quit. I have
only been climbing for roughly 2 years and I’m debating trying to make a career
out of climbing and now I don’t know what to think. I’m not invincible. What I’m
doing is dangerous. One wrong decision can leave you in a hospital or dead.
These thoughts keep swirling in my head. I wonder what my mental head space
will be like when I can climb again. What if I get to a scary point and freak
out and can’t keep calm? When Dan meets back up for dinner we start discussing what’s
going on. Dan still has 2 months of travel and climbing planned with me and I don’t
want to let him down; I want to keep climbing. Dan was talking to a local
friend of his and we told him we were on Snake and he says “Oh, Snake I took a
bad fall on that climb 5 years ago and haven’t been back to it since.” I thought
about the prospect of skipping this climb but I think that it would then just
haunt me; the climb that got the best of me. I decided then that I was feeling
good enough to climb the next day. Dan asked me what I wanted to climb and immediately
I told him Snake. He was a bit surprised but said he was hoping I would say
that. I had to conquer this climb to keep my head in check. It was decided:
Snake was going down first thing the next morning.
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| The "Traverse" the second time around |
We get to the base of Snake. This time we have the route to
ourselves with no parties waiting for us. We know what we are getting ourselves
into. We free solo the first pitch and set the belay. Dan climbs to directly under
the traverse and sets a belay which is a much safer position than from the tree
way out right. I follow up and start to look at my options. I find a number 2
cam placement on a flake out right which is super bomber but would still
produce a long fall. I climb up to the beginning of the traverse and start to
look around. There has to be gear placement somewhere. I find a little nook
that looks like I could shove a pink Tricam in and although super sketchy, if
it held, would make the fall much safer. I don’t think it would have held so it
was just more “mental duct tape.” I look out to the same holds I used on the
last go around. I stop and take a deep breath and look some more; I take my
time. I see the lower left foot that the other climbers had told us about. I
look down at Dan and tell him to watch me closely. I commit to the traverse. I
move my foot out left and being lower than my last chosen path, had better hand
holds. I balance out onto my left foot so I can make a reachy move to a side
pull. There’s no turning back from here, but once I hit that side pull, I knew
I was fine. I pulled through and clipped the chains. I let out a huge sigh of
relief and belay Dan up. It felt really good to pull that move clean but this
was just the beginning of the climb. We still had 4 more (5.9) pitches to go
and I needed to lead 2 of them. I decided to take this next one right off the
bat; another traverse: this time about 45 feet straight left with almost no
gear and a difficulty rating of 5.9. I took my time and worked my way through
finding sparse gear along the way. Dan flew up the next pitch of bomber hand
crack with a slabby face. Now it’s back to me, another sketchy traverse! I had
to climb about 50 feet of demanding crack until I made it to a tree that marked
the beginning of this traverse. It moved about 20 feet to the right but under a
roof with no feet and semi decent hand jams. This was physically demanding and
much harder than the two traverses before but it was a clean fall with no
worries of hitting anything. The wind started to kick up half way through the traverse
but I powered my way through, up and around the corner of the roof and clipped
the chains. Dan followed up and finished out the last pitch. We had conquered
Snake and I had conquered my fear.
I am still mentally dealing with the repercussions of the
fall. The following week of climbing proved to be extremely mentally
challenging for me and I had to really focus on keeping my cool while leading.
I think in the end this experience will strengthen me mentally and also make me
realize the dangers of what I’m doing and to take more precautions while doing
it. I know that I’m not invincible and I know that I want to keep climbing.
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| I live in my van |
After Squamish I lived in a junkyard in Vancouver for 2 days
while swapping interiors of my van. Westfalia made a full camper that was only
available in Canada and I just so happened to stumble upon one with a near
perfect interior in a scrap yard. I hadn’t gotten that dirty working on my van
nor have I been in a junkyard in a while so it felt good to be back in my
element.
 |
| Mini Mushroom |
 |
| On top of Eagle Rock |
We were lucky enough to have the opportunity to enjoy mandolinist
Chris Thile and upright bassist Edgar Meyer perform at the Chan Center for
Performing Arts at the University of Vancouver. From here we made our way down
to Bellingham to meet with Peter and Jan who are friends of Dan. Peter is a
sailing enthusiast and decided he was going to take us sailing through the San Juan’s
for the weekend. Jan precooked food for us which was the best food I have had
in quite a time. First we sailed to Vendovi Island to meet with Peter’s
friends. We spent the night docked at Vendovi then sailed to Cypress Island the
following day. We hiked out to Eagle Rock and enjoyed a beautiful sunset. We spent
that night anchored in Eagle Harbor. Next up was more catching up with old
friends of Dan’s in Duvall. Dan lived and went to school in Duvall for a year
when he was 18 and some of his classmates are still in the area.
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| A three hour tour... |
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| Peter is a Badass human being |
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| Dan's eating?...what a surprise |
We were itching to climb again so we moved on to Smith Rock.
We met up with our friend Mary who we met earlier in the trip in the Tetons. Mary
writes for Earth magazine and has been living on the road for 9 years. It’s
really incredible to think about all the places she has been. Even her dogs
have visited more states than me. You can read her blog here:The Blonde Coyote which has a sweet
write up of our adventure here: Smith Rock Adventure I'll be looking forward to reading part 2! We spent the week climbing at the birth place
of sport climbing. This place has some very unique climbing on some kind of
super solid volcanic rock. The climbers at Smith are super chill and respectful
to the point where you can leave your phone at the outlet outside of the
bathroom without worrying about someone swiping it. We finished our stay at
Smith with an ascent of Monkey Face which is the iconic classic route of Smith
Rock.
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| BB Dawgsss is a Circus Dawgsss |
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| I can't count the number of beautiful sunsets we get |
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| Monkey Face in the Background |
Dan and I made it to the base of monkey face just a few
minutes after another party of 3. They were telling us that they have never done
a bolt ladder before and Dan and I were thinking we might have to wait in line
to get on top. We decided we were going to try and climb past this party on a
decent looking crack to the right “how hard can it be?” Sound familiar? Dan
climbed Monkey Face 2 days prior with Mary so I was given the opportunity to
lead most of the pitches. The first pitch was super quality 5.9 crack to bolted
anchors so we knew we were on some kind of decent route. I took the second
pitch as well which looked like a sketchy traverse. It was instantly a flashback
to Squamish. I slung a chock stone and made my way out. Luckily I found a bolt
at the end of the traverse but unluckily it was a rusted 1/4” POS. I clipped a
double length to the rusty bolt and looked at the large corner above me. I made
my way up into the corner and was standing on a solid horn. There was a bomber
number 2 C4 placement behind the horn but I had already used my number 2 and
only had my number 1 so I looked around and all I could find was a number 5
micro-nut. I decided there was better gear up higher and moved into the
unknown. I made it to a sketchy stance about 10 feet above the micro nut and
looked for gear placements. There was none. I looked down and realized I’m 25
feet left of my belay and 25 feet above my last bomber piece. If I fell, the
micro-nut would surely blow and I doubt the rusted ¼” bolt would fare much better.
This fall I would not walk away from and I am past the point of down-climbing. I
am transported back to Squamish and have all the same feelings; I start to
panic. I close my eyes and take deep deliberate breaths; my stance isn’t THAT
bad. Ok, I calm down a little; what do I have to work with? I lean out from the
corner and look onto the face and I see a bolt! Oh shit, it has no hanger…WTF!?
More mental duct tape…I delicately place a sling over the stud that’s sticking
out all of about an inch and a half and clip the sling. I take a few more
breaths and commit. I climb out onto the face and another 10-15 feet above my
last stance and finally find a place to slot bomber gear in. I quickly throw a
.75 X4 and a Yellow DMM nut in the crack and equalize them; this would hold a
bus. I can finally relax and calm down safely, 40-50 feet above my last bomber
piece of protection. I later find out that I was on an X rated route which
means there is no protection and a fall would result in serious injury or
death. We continued the climb, still behind the party of three and finished out
the route via the Pioneer Route which is the most popular route most climbers use
to ascend Monkey Face. There is an A0 bolt ladder to get into the mouth of the
monkey which was the first time I ever attempted something like this. From the
mouth of the monkey, the climber crawls out the cave over a 150 foot vertical
drop onto an easy face to the summit. Of course we were making our best monkey
calls the whole way up; the perfect way to finish up our Smith Rock Experience.
From the top we make a 150 foot simul-repel and I pretended I was Tom Cruise in
Mission Impossible. We have a farewell/victory dinner with Mary then part ways
and head toward San Francisco.
 |
| A0 Bolt Ladder |
 |
| In the Monkey's Mouth (Mary in the Background) |
 |
| 150 feet of exposure |
 |
| Just Monkeying around |
 |
| "Pulling Rope is better than Pushing Rope..." |
 |
| DA DA DA DA NA NA (Mission Impossible theme song) |
 |
| Monkey Man |
 |
| Monkey Men and BB |
I wanted to see The Good Life perform at the Fillmore and
just by chance, our friend Sharah who had lived in the van with us for a few
weeks was also in San Francisco. We all met up and enjoyed the show together
and then went to check out the Haight-Ashbury. I was geeking out with all the
Grateful Dead history all around. We spent the night in the parking lot of a
harbor and enjoyed a beautiful sunny Sunday morning on a sailboat that Sharah
was currently crashing at. Dan and I spent the afternoon at the Hardly Strictly
Bluegrass festival and caught Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn and Joe Russo’s
Almost Dead (A Grateful Dead Tribute Band).
We made it to Lake Tahoe the following morning and decided
we needed a down day to do laundry and catch up on internet. While driving
through town, we were rear ended at a stop light. We pull over and meet Devon,
Dave, and Heidi who just so happen to be climbers. After assessing the damages,
which was worse to their truck (nothing happened to Bertha), I decided the
authorities need not be involved and that we should be friends and go climb. So
yesterday was an amazing day climbing in Lake Tahoe with our new friends and I
now write this post from their couch. Funny how life works out sometimes…
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