Heading South-East

Squamish was wonderful as always.  The climbing is amazing and the weather perfect.  We spent a lot of time in the smoke bluffs area this visit.  There's a climbing website called Mountain Project and we wanted to climb the top 50 routes under 5.10 listed in the smoke bluffs.  It was fun, although a bit of a long day.  We only had to do about 10 pitches as most of them we had done before.  Most of them where awesome while many seemed like just another pitch.  It seems like rating climbs has almost more to do with how you are feeling that day, rather than some objective measure of a routes worth. Also some just suck.  But really good climbs are both good movement, exposure, etc, combined with you just having a good day emotionally. Along with the smoke bluffs we also climbed a fun multi pitch called Rock On.  My first 10a trad in Squamish! woot.  I'm getting better at trad.  Still a bit scared, but better.

Our last day we tried to climb on the malamute formation.  While getting ready we where asked to move our car by a film crew who were moving into the lot the next day to setup for filming.  This same film crew is now making news by cutting down live trees, roping off climbing areas, using metal brushes to clean rock, and in general being terrible custodians of the Canadian Provincial Parks. Apparently they are filming for a Star Wars sequel.  I'll be watching for a bunch of big rocks in a jungle in the next films I guess.  In any case the malamute was insanely windy as it generally is, so we left.  

We found some lizards in love on the path!  Alligator Lizards ( Elgaria Coerulea ) I think.  The female has lost her tail.

The first step to lovemaking as a lizard: grab your mate by the face with your mouth and drag her across a path! 

Windy! (do gifs work on blogger?!?)

From Squamish we headed towards Mount Rainier. It was a lot wetter than I thought it would be, although it's also spring it makes sense.

Moss and waterfalls!

We decided to do a nice day hike in Mt. Rainier NP which turned out to be a bit longer than we thought.  Starting from the White River Campground we headed towards Glacier Basin, summited Burroughs Mountain  ( I think ), then returned by hiking past shadow lake.  I think it was about 9 miles.  Lots of wildflowers and moss.

Another Aquilegia Formosa! We last saw these while hiking the narrows.

Seirra, Jeffrey's, or Tall Mountain Shooting Star ( Dodecatheon Jeffreyi ).  All the same plant. 

I like meadows a lot.  The hike took us much higher in elevation than we expected.

Top of Burroughs Mountain I think.  Watching tiny climbers starting up Mt. Rainier in the distance.

"Day Hike"

A Glacier Lily ( Erythronium Grandiflorum )

I like when the forest floor is so diverse.  So many different plants that it makes a nice pattern.

After Mt. Rainier we headed down to Yellowstone.  Athena hasn't been since she was little and I have fond memories so we thought it would be fun.  Coming in from the north entrance there were bison and elk everywhere - along with the usual hoards of tourists.  I've just learned that bison, and not buffalo, is the correct term... although I think the park used to call them both when I was a kid.

Hello friend! Bison ( Bison Bison ) are a 'type species'.  Like the red fox ( Vulpes Vuples ) or the moose ( Alces Alces ) they have the same genus and species...  many times due to them being characteristic species of the whole genus ( the 'nominal species' ).   All genera ( not geni or genuses ) should have a type species, although many don't.  

After an extraordinarily expensive campsite the first night we planned on spending the next couple nights in the back country.  Although many of the long trails were closed as it was still early season and the creeks were too high to cross, the tails looping Lake Shoshone were open.  Starting at the Lone Star trailhead (because thats what I remember as a kid) it's about 37 miles round trip.  We took three days, two nights, so averaged about 12-13 miles a day.  Sort of brutal for not hiking with a full pack that much recently.

I found this little guy as we started the hike.

Hiking in you pass by Lone Star Geyser.  We didn't know its expected eruption time when we left but we heard it rumbling so jogged a bit and caught it going off.  There is a notebook on a podium by the geyser where people record the time and duration of eruptions ( I assume so the park can keep track ).  A nice lady was presiding over it, telling everyone who was close enough what the book was for.  She was so pleased with her knowledge that she just had to let everyone know.  Another nice lady was walking around asking people if they had seen other geysers in the park... and of course letting them know that they should go see such and such geyser because she thought it was sooooo cool.  This whole time of course she was ignoring the geyser going off behind her.  Just a nest of people trying to let other people know how much they know.

Athena watches lone star! The sleeping pad on her back is one I've had as long as I can remember.  I think it may have been my mom or dads.

Camp the first night.  This is eating breakfast in the morning.  The lake was so clear and the bottom so shallow that I was watching a fish feeding the whole time I was cooking and eating.  Breakfast with a fish.

More symbiotic/parasitic plants? Sort of like the ones we saw in King Canyon NP I think.  Frustratingly hard to identify these. 

The first night we stayed right beside the lake.  After a chilly stream crossing the next day, we hiked up away from the water and stayed next to another stream in the woods.  Lots of up and down, with very little elevation gain overall. Athena was not amused.

The lake! Seems like a really long way around.  This is just one branch of it.

Athena walking through some marshes.

Hiking out we passed through a marsh where the trail disappears for a while.  After trying our best to stay dry we eventually gave up and just stepped in. It was about mid shin and quite muddy.  There were tons of dragon flies about.  This unfortunately meant that the water was probably full of dragonfly larva which are particularly large and terrible looking I think.  In a couple places there were small bridges, although their purpose seemed a bit lost as you had to walk through the water to get to them.

Found these guys growing next to a geyser.

Eventually the mashes end and the Shoshone Geyser Basin begins.  Shortly after this you complete the loop and start the hike back out.  While hiking out we saw a mother black bear and her two cubs.  We sat for a while watching them play while the mom stripped bark from trees and licked at the sap. One of the cubs tried to climb a tree... and then tumbled down.  He did not think his decisions through.  Eventually they wandered away from the trail, so we wandered on.

The Shoshone Geyser Basin was nice.  I'm not sure I've ever visited it before.

Deep deep pools of near boiling water.

All the campsites in Yellowstone were full the night we hiked out. Thankfully a helpful ranger (who we were reporting the bear sighting to) let us know of free camping areas near Grand Teton NP so we made a short drive down and slept in the car next to another lake.

A now familiar flower.

The next day we looked around Grand Teton a bit, then headed for Vedauwoo.

Stuff In-between

Storms moving in over Red Rock

I found a couple more Red Rock photos, even though we left quite some time ago.  We also heard from our friend Tom that those terrible Texans have been telling stories about us.  Tom met up with them again (accidentally) in Eldo where he works running trail crews. The Texans have been letting people know that they saved our group of four from an epic.  They saved us. What shitty people.

Athena waiting for the Texans to aid up a 5.9.  We waited for them at every pitch, taught them to rappel, let them use our rope, and had to correct them on one of the rappels as the girl stopped at the wrong station.  They then offered us beers in the parking lot for being so helpful.  Somewhere along the way the apparently saved us.

Tom and Shiho atop Frigid Buttress.

We stayed in Red Rock a couple days after these picks, then headed down to Los Angeles to find a new apartment.  We did.  It's nice.  We will have a loft and a balcony and a washer/dryer in our place. The apartment complex also has two pools, shuffle board, a pool table, a small theater room, an exercise room... etc.  Apparently much of this is standard in many LA apartment complexes.

Everyone says that you should live west of Hawthorn Blvd.  I think they say this to us as we are not hispanic/black and look decently well off.  In any case we did look on both sides, although east of Hawthorn it seems you need to be OK with bars on your window and broken down cars in the streets.   In any case we lived up to everyones expectations, helped reinforce the class segregation of the neighborhoods, and proved ourselves to be proponents of gentrification.  Lame.

After we had the apartment issue dealt with (we move in end of June) we headed towards Palm Springs to spend some time with my Dad.  He likes the palm canyons, and the town is very nice as well.

No one looks good here.  Just terrible on all fronts.

...but change places and everyone looks awesome!

I'm getting weirder about bugs as I get older, so I don't really like the water that much any more.  It's a shame since I used to have so much fun playing around in the creeks and streams.  My dad is not weird about it at all, and Athena does remarkably well.  Lots of black throated sparrows (Amphispiza bilineata) about, as well as some smaller birds that I keep seeing but can't identify.

A snake! The Western Aquatic Garter Snake (Thamnophis Atratus)

A Lizard!  This is not a collared lizard as I first thought. It's a Banded Rock Lizard (Petrosaurus Mearnsi).  Lots of these guys, as well as Granite Spiny Lizards (Sceloporus Orcutti) and some species of Whiptail (Aspidoscelis Tigris something, but I don't know the subspecies).

Some frogs!  Perhaps a California Tree Frog (Pseudacris Cadaverina)? Seems ridiculous as we only see them near the water on large rocks... but maybe.  I haven't found any other frogs/toads that look similar and also live in CA.

This time of year only one of the palm canyons has water in it.  We hiked it twice, spent time at the pool, and had some nice meals in town.  Sort of normal Palm Springs things I guess.

This photo screams candid.

After Palm springs we headed up to the bay area to visit family.  First Athena's Grandmother, then we spent the night with her sister, her sisters husband, and their dog.  Athena's Dad and his wife also happened to be staying with her sister for a bit so we got to see them as well.  They live in a nice apartment that feels like I think San Francisco apartments should feel.  It's above shops, on a nice street with steep hills all around, you drive through The Castro to get to it,  and it's super expensive.

From a park on a hill you can see both the golden gate bridge and their apartment. Lots of nice walking trails about. 

A bad picture of a nice flower.

We had breakfast with Athena's family then headed towards Berkeley to see my Mom and my Grandma.  My mother works out of my Grandmother's house, so that makes it easy to visit both.  Both are doing well.  We left fairly early to get to Yosemite before it got dark.  We decided that our first day in the valley we wanted to climb half dome, which for us meant waking up at about 2:30AM.

Snake Dike is the easiest way to the top of Half Dome.  It's a 5.7, so not bad at all.  Of course it's Yosemite 5.7 which is at least 5.8 maybe 5.9 other places, and it's super runout so you might get 1-2 pieces of protection in on a 165 foot pitch.  In any case... it's not really that bad and a bunch of fun.  Eight pitches of climbing, then a couple thousand feet of walking up slab, and you are at the top.

The approach and descent are what make it a bit more intimidating than most.  It's 6 miles or so to the base of the climb, then 9 miles out.  The climb takes you up one side of the formation, and the descent takes you down the other, adding the three mile difference.  Some people camp near the base to split it up a bit, as it takes about 12 hours car to car for an "average" team.  It's also really popular, so getting there early is good.  Altogether, we decided to wake up at 2:30AM.

We were hiking by 3:40AM, as we had a bit of a drive to the base, and a bit of trouble getting up in the first place.  We had to use headlamps for the first half of the approach.  It was a bit spooky at first hiking through the woods at night.  It got better after a while, and everything is so pretty in the moon light that it was an extremely nice walk.

Found this guy on the walk in.  Also lots of millipedes a bit thicker than pencils.

First view of half dome.  This is the 'back'.  The sheer face that most people recognize is the other side.  We are climbing up the left slope, and descending the rightmost slope that you can't see in the picture.

Wildflowers on the hike in. 

This is half dome... notice the thin lines arching across the face about 2/3 of the way up.  These are the types of 'dike' that we climb to the top.  Snake Dike follows a series of these for the bottom 1/3 or so, a bit around to the left of this photo.

We were the first party at the base of the climb, so we had it to ourselves for some time. It's always nice to be able to do some of the classics without a crowed.  Lots of people around changes the climbs feel I think.  I also found a BD #1 sitting on the ground... so that's pretty sweet. The climbing is fun but runout.  Lots of space between protection so we moved a bit slowly.

Athena climbing half dome.  No big deal.

After all the roped pitches; resting before the endless slabs.  You can see El Cap in the distance, and the Yosemite Valley floor.

I saw a toad on the way up the slabs.  This was even more surprising than the scorpion on the approach.  He seemed fairly surprised to see me as well.  After a squeak he scuttled into a crevasse.  I tried to use my phone as a periscope type thing to catch a second glimpse... but no luck.  The top of half dome is a bit crowded.  Mostly just people milling about.  I guess they are just "taking it in" or something?  Seems like they got to the top, and don't know how long to stay before starting back down. So they mill about.

If you crop the top of half dome correctly, it looks like a bunch of people wandering around a wasteland.  All these people came up the Cable Route, which is the usual way to hike to the top.  It is also our descent.

A terrible rendition of the iconic diving board photo!  Me, Athena, and a bunch of people who wanted to be seen having lunch in  everyones vacation photos.  I gave my phone to a stranger to take this... I should have picked a different stranger I think.

The hike back was arduous.  We were a bit exhausted to do much the next day, so started the drive up to Squamish.  No issues at the border this time.  They asked how we knew each other, and Athena answered "I met him through climbing" which I found humorous.  In any case, we are in Squamish.  We should be here for about a week or so, until starting the drive back to Colorado.  It takes about 23 hours to drive back.

On the Road for a Bit

Athena and I are on the road again for a bit before I start my new job.  The plan is to climb between here and LA, find a place to live in the city, then continue our trip north up the coast to see family and spend some time in Yosemite and Squamish.

Left to right the guide books map our path.  Also Band-Aids and self rescue books. Teaching Athena about some sweet Munter Mule action.

Before going we finally managed to climb one of the flatirons with my friend Scott from UCB.  Scott chose the first flatiron so that's what we did.  I led all pitches which was a nice exercise, and took a slightly further left route than I have before which was fun.  Scott is finishing his PhD... hopefully he will be a Doctor with a job when we get back.

Scott and Athena on top of the First Flatiron.  Setting up a rap I think.

On top of the first we saw some kids in tennis shoes.  Maybe high school... so adults-ish but mostly kids.  They had gotten up just fine (you can scramble up the down-climb on the back of the First) but one of them was worrisomely skittish on the way down.  I let him rap on our rope after Scott sent me up his harness.   It was the kids first rap... so yay for him.  I guess people learn by doing stupid stuff but it would have sucked if we were not there and he had gotten hurt.

Goodbye Boulder!

We have a couple staying in our place watching our cats while we are away.  They're climbers, and seem nice.  One of them is doing a summer internship or similar at Covidien.  Our cats seem happy with them (they send us pics every once in a while).

Our first stop was is Arches National Park outside of Moab.  We've driven through quite a few times, but never really climbed in the park before so we thought we would give it a shot.  First up was West Crack on Owl Rock.  A fun pinnacle to start our trip.

Up the crack... which I suppose is on the west side of Owl Rock.

On top.  Doing... something?

Athena and her typical "top of a pinnacle" pose.

Behind Owl Rock lies Elephant Butte.  It's sort of a messy heap of rock and cliff, but there is a nice scramble/hike that takes you to the top.  The scramble is a nice follow-up to the small Owl Rock tower so we decided to do it as well.

This rubble filled gully goes further back than it looks.  Up and back and eventually to the right you get a few nice little water filled oases.

It's nice to see how much water is up in the canyons.  It feels so dry in most of the park, but when you start hiking back there are ponds and streams and little marshy areas.  All the neat little micro-ecosystems must be fairly interesting to people that study that sort of thing.

A rap down into a nice wet bowl.  You come down at left, and climb out the slabs up right.

The scramble is fairly short.  There's a 5.3 move at one point, but other than that it's a hike.  Approach shoes are fine.

Three plaques on top of the butte.  They are arranged in a triangle sort of.  The two arrow plaques point towards the middle elevation plaque... although this one did not have an elevation stamped on it.

View from the top.  Very hot here but you can see snow on top of the mountains in the distance.

I made a small friend in the hike out.  He was kind to let me get so close.  I think I'm fairly terrible at identifying lizards as I cannot decide what species this guy is. Perhaps Sceloporus Familiaris due to his disposition.

This worked so much better than I thought it would.

Elephant Butte was worth it.  Fun and a good walk though arches.  After that we went looking for other adventures.  Unfortunately some raptors had moved in close to our desired climb (on the penguins formation) and the other climbs we wanted were either closed or required a river crossing.  As we did not have a boat we moved on.

Down the road a bit from Moab is a large arch known as Wilson Arch.  It's right by the road and generally fairly busy.  It also turns out that there is a nice 5.4/5.5 solo to the top where you can rap down.  Sort of neat so we thought we would try it out.  It was a bit drizzly out, but other than that really fun.

Athena on the way up.

Coming down... some onlookers thought that perhaps we had thrown the rope up and over in order to get up and then down.  

You can do a simul-rap, where one person comes down on either side of the arch but it's bad for the rock.  So don't do it.  Afterwards we went to the Big Bend bouldering area to test out some sweet new shoes that I got.  Thunder and rain and storms stopped us before we started so we left Utah.  Sandstone is not safe to climb after rain, and we didn't want to wait for a day or so for it to dry.

The GRAND canyon.  Woot.

We stopped by the GRAND canyon on our way towards California.  We drove through hours of indian reservation.  Just terribly depressingly poor and run down.  What a sad thing to do to a whole people.  Terrible.  In any case I guess the proud Navajo and Hopi people get to sell trinkets to fat rich americans vacationing in their rented motor homes with their underdeveloped children.  The kids get to experience nature while watching shows on a laptop in the back seat.  The parents get to escape their lives for a bit.

So... the GRAND canyon.  Woot.  The most entertaining part was watching tourists chase rabbits through the brush.  Other than that it was a bit underwhelming.

Im sure she got a sweet picture of a squirrel.  Perhaps a rabbit.  Maybe even... a squabbit.

We continued on to Nevada and spent the night in Red Rock.  There is a campground near the park that is open for the winter.  It closes at the end of May, or early June.  In any case we had a couple days before things shut down.  There is free camping about 30 minutes down the road but it's dirty and far away while the campground is fun and close and not too expensive.

Look at me driving across a dam.  Damn Dan what a dam.  The Hoover!  It used to be called to Boulder dam.  How fitting.

Our first afternoon in Red Rock we did a bit of bouldering in the Kraft bouldering area.  I finally got to try out my new La Sportiva Futura shoes.  These are one of the new edge-less shoes that they are selling.  First impressions?  Good shoes, nothing special. Perhaps not worth the high price tag.   If you didn't climb 5.12 before you won't with these shoes.  If you did, these won't hurt. Of course the last two statements are true about any shoe.   I'm taking them bouldering and sport climbing during our trip; a more in depth review will come later.

What a nice blue! I generally don't like La Sporitiva stuff.  But these are comfy right out of the box.

Athen crushing. "5.3 CRUX!"

Red Rock is close to our new home so we had thought about skipping it this trip.  Our friend Tom was going to be there for a couple days though so we wanted to stop by and see him.  As the rain had forced us out of Utah so early we ended up spending a full week.

Heading towards "First Creek Canyon" to climb "Lotta Balls" I think.  We saw a male Phainopepla ( Phainopepla Nitens ) on the hike.  It's a member of the silky flycatcher family.

Lots of blooming plants this year.  I think the purple flower is some sort of a Phlox.

Our first climb we ended up rapping down with a nice couple.  The guy was old and a bit slow.  It ended up taking us longer than it would have if we hadn't shared ropes.  That was OK though... he was nice.  They were Canadians down in NV for a short visit.

These are unripe berries.  They get larger and dark red when they ripen.  I do not know what they are.

We revisited the same wall a bit later to climb Black Magic.  Again we rapped down with another group.  This time one of them twisted an ankle on the way down, and had to hobble off as the sleet and hail moved in.  The storm was short, and he healed well I think.  We talked with him a couple times after in camp.  I think he was a much stronger climber than us, and thankfully his trip wasn't ruined.

Red Rock climbing to me is notable for it's marble sized chicken heads and it's patina edges.  Both in a sandstone that is just terribly frightening.  These are Iron Concretions.  Subsurface water causes Iron Oxide to form around a sandstone nucleus.  They are more resistant to erosion so... stick out eventually for us to climb on and worry about breaking. 

We did a few more climbs, met some nice people, and spent a night in vegas.  It was fun.  We climbed Frigid Air Buttress with Tom and his lady friend.  I was stupidly allowed to talk with strangers, whom I allowed to go ahead of us as they only had one rope and you need two for the decent.  We ended up spending a whole day on maybe a 7 pitch climb, waiting for this girl to drag her boyfriend up 5.8.  He kept complaining about how if it wasn't for all the gear he was removing, he would totally be crushing these pitches.  He also talked about his mom a bunch. I found myself teaching him how to rapel at the top. This seemed to worry me more than either him or his girlfriend.   Note to all those gym climbers out there: I SOULD NOT NEED TO TEACH YOU HOW TO RAPEL WHEN WE ARE 7 PITCHES UP.  Fucking idiots.  These gym climbers are going to get themselves hurt and the rest of us are going to have to deal with the consequences.

Now we are off to spend a few days with my dad in palm springs and find an apartment to live in.  Afterwards... we are off to climb Yosemite if we have time and Squamish if possible.  I want to finally climb Snake Dike if it's not too warm this year.

Compare this fashion photo to images of south asian refugees.