Teaching, Flatirons, and Indian Creek

It's been a while since I posted, so I thought I would give a quick update.  After leaving Tuolumne Meadows, we headed for Tahoe.  When we got there I got an email from UCB asking if I was available to teach this year... so we spent some time thinking about that.  I didn't want to come back to Boulder, and it's uncomfortable being here, but the job is what I want to be doing... so here I am.

The job is going well. Teaching is always fun and it's a class I like, even if Boulder is a bit stressful.  You can check out the class here.  The website was a fun project for a week or so last year... I have since found a number of annoying "features" which unfortunately I can only blame myself for.  The same is true about all the lecture slides... so I'm slowly re-making them and updating the lab procedures as I go.  This means that the class is a lot more work than it should be for what they pay me.  I made more money and had better benefits as a grad student than I do as an 'Adjunct Professor'.

I've changed a few things about the class since last year.  I moved some portions of each lab into a pre-lab assignment.  We had struggled with students spending the first half of lab just reading the lab procedures... so hopefully this will help.  It seems like it has so far.

We also have weekly quizzes now which I think was the larger change.  There were two goals with this.  The first was to have each student work through some problems similar to what they would do in lab, but on their own.  If they have been relying on their lab partners the quiz grades will show that.

The second goal was to just have another check that students are learning from lab and not just following a series of steps with no understanding.  Writing questions to check this is a bit difficult but hopefully is worth it.  Or maybe not.  In any-case more practice is never a bad thing so I think the quizzes should stay.

In other news, both of us only work three days a week.  Much of my free time is taken up working on the Google Little Box Challenge.  The idea is to build an inverter  with a power density much larger than the current state of the art.  Inverters take DC power and translate it to AC power.  This is a useful thing if you have for example a DC renewable source like solar and want to dump energy to the existing AC grid.  The power density is a figure of merit for power converters, and is a measure of how much power can be processed per unit volume.  Google wants entrants to come up with an inverter with power densities higher than 50Watts per cubic inch.  That's about 80-90% better than existing technologies.  So it should be interesting.

I have a home and can cook again! Some nice stew.  Because fall is for stew.

Other than work... there has been lots of fun climbing.  Fall is a bit windy but the temps are so nice that a bit of wind is just fine.  I've never done the first flatiron, and neither had Athena, so we ran up that one of our first weeks back.

Athena on the north arete of the first flatiron.  Somewhere near the summit.

We thought that early morning in the middle of the week would save us from the usual hoards of people you find on the popular flatirons routes (we wanted to do the classic direct east face)... but apparently no one has to work on Wednesday morning in this town.  We hiked up the south edge for a bit instead of dealing with the lines, and found the approximate start to another route (Fandango).  In the end we didn't stay on any of the usual routes but that's one of the fun things about flatirons climbing: go wherever you want and you will be fine.

We made it up to Vedauwoo in Wyoming as well.  The rock is  bit painful, but it's beautiful landscape and the weather is nice.

Slab climbing ... Athena trying to convince herself that she really can stand up on that nothing-foot.

Tom doing a little try-hard climbing.  His terribly burnt back blends in to the rock well, and my poorly chosen shirt blends into the bush.

 I've only bouldered in Vedauwoo before, so it was fun to explore some of the other areas.  Athena did a bit of off-width, and we left a bail biner.  Then I found a sling and biner on the excellent Edwards' Crack.  So it all evened out nicely.

Back in boulder we ticked a few more flatiron climbs including the seal (East Face North Side) and the third flatiron (sort of the Standard East Face), neither of which Athena had done before.

If you look south-west from the top of the seal, you get an interesting view of the mountains.  Boulder is to the right, and golden way in the distance on the left.

 We took a short break to head down to Cathedral Spires as well where we climbed Cynical Pinnacle (Center Route).

The Cynical Pinnacle.  We overestimated the length of the drive, so slept in the car for a couple hours at the base till it warmed up a bit.

South Platte Selfie.  Athena is becoming less and less amused by these I think.

The route we did roughly follows the line of shadow to the false summit just to the right of the tallest point.

Top of the third flatiron.  From here you can usually see people on top of the second flatiron (just to the right of athena) and people on top of the first flatiron (above her head) at the same time. 

We simul climbed the third flatiron, and almost made it in one long pitch.  Unfortunately I ran out of slings just before the final stretch.  After some creative anchor building on my part Athena ended up leading the last 60 feet or so.

While at my anchor some bro from Golden soloed past us.  We chatted... he told me I didn't need ropes, and somehow I found my self defending my decision to rope up while climbing.  This felt distinctly odd.   I've never been judged for being safe before.  He kept talking about how climbing the flatirons was just like a walk for him now.  He seemed so uninterested in it, as though the experience bored him.  What an ass.  Stay home if it's boring for you, and let the rest of us rope up for safety in peace.

Belay bolt on the back of the third.

This past week I both Athena and I took off some time and headed down to Indian Creek, near Moab Utah.  Athena really likes crack climbing.  I still find it painful but it's growing on me.

It's me!

The extremely popular 'Incredible Hand Crack'.  It's more of a wide hand crack / almost fist crack now, as the hoards of climbers are rubbing the sandstone down and widening the crack.

A pillar/flake fell and formed a cave, behind which you can find... 'Cave Route'.  It's sort of boring and painful, but for some reason people get overly excited about it being in a cave.

Mormon Tea... or some plant of the Ephedra Genus. Called Indian Tea or Mormon Tea as natives and pioneers drank a tea made from the plant.  The plant contains ephedrine and phudoephedrine.  It is a stimulant among other things, and plants of this genus are still used as a supplement. 

Super awkward start. After a sweet jump to the ledge... I decided to scoot behind the flake instead of just mantling.  A terrible mistake.  

I'm just starting to lead routes at Indian Creek.  Crack climbing is not my thing.  I tried to make sure I lead at least one thing every day, which worked OK.  In general I just follow what Athena puts up, which means I do a lot of whining on thin hands.

We visited the Blue Gramma wall.  There's a lot of petroglyphs at this wall, some really well preserved.

Why petroglyphs and not pictographs?  Petroglyphs are tapped or carved into the rock using another small rock.  Petroglyphs are drawn on top of the rock with pigments or paints.

Lots of animals and shapes.  Here we have... deer chases triangle.  I guess.

It's sort of neat to think that some ancient person's hand was right here.  According to some studies, this person had healthy knees and a low risk of prostate cancer. 

One of my favorites, as this guy has the odd shapes above his head.

All the figures are drawn a bit differently than we draw stick figures today.  We were wondering if different cultures just had slightly different ways of representing people, or if there were specific parts of this figure that had been purposely stylized.

Some climbs have had their anchors removed, such as this one.  It starts right over some petroglyphs, and so isn't climbed any more to help preserve them.

The reds and blues are nice.

The elusive Utah Kangaroo makes an appearance.

Andy leads us up some terribly difficult climbs.

Andy's pup.  

Fall and spring are really nice in the desert.  The weather is wonderful and the colors are beautiful.  You just have to try a bit harder to get away from the crowds.

On the drive back we followed this trailer for a bit.  There were tons of little doors on the side... which we assumed each held a super fast pigeon.  This is a real thing; there is even a website.

We got back late Saturday night.  We have a new governor now, and seem to have become a solidly red state.  Albeit a pro-choice, legal weed smoking, gay marriage supporting red state.  So that should be interesting.

Tuolumne Meadows, Matthes Crest

We stopped by REI to exchange shoes on the way up to my moms house.  Both of us ended up with new shoes, which was a nice way to start a monday.  We stopped by the Berkeley Ironworks gym to test them out and kill some time afterwords.  New shoes are painful, but apparently I can still flash gym V6 so thats nice (and meaningless, as gyms grade so soft).

New vs. Old.  The old shoes had the advantage of numerous ventilation slits.

On Tuesday morning we left Berkeley for Tuolumne Meadows, after a quick visit to the Cheese Board and my moms house.  It's a few hours drive, but A Song of Ice and Fire on tape makes it not too bad. (Roy Detreese is amazing, and looks like he would fit right in with the Westeros nobility.)  The weather was much nicer than the last time we visited, and we managed to squeeze in a two pitch route before it got dark on us.

Athena rapping from 'Golfers Route,' as it gets dark.

Just before sunset in Tuolumne.  In many areas of Tuolumne, it's neat to think that the place you're standing used to be covered in a giant layer of ice.

'Knob Climbing' in Tuolumne ascends walls made up of this type of rock, although the embedded stones are frequently much farther apart.

Glacial polishing transforms the stone in the previous picture into this type of smooth surfaced rock. 

We decided to take three days and do the Matthes Crest traverse.  We were hoping to get to this climb on our last visit, but the weather had other ideas and so we opted for Squamish instead.  The Matthes Crest is a 0.8 mile long crest of rock, between 2-10 feet wide for the most part with a few hundred feet of drop-off on either side.  The traverse is usually done from south to north, and in most cases is only climbed to the 'North Summit,' which is about a half mile from the start.  The climb itself takes between three and six hours to complete, and is about a 7-9 mile hike away from the nearest road.  You can do the whole thing in a single day, but we thought it would be more relaxing to take three days to do it: day one hike in, day two climb, and day three hike out.

Bud lake.  Filled with dead fish when we arrived.  Nice clear water, beautiful setting, and a bunch of dead fish on the bottom.

The hike in was a bit strenuous.  When you add climbing equipment to camping equipment, it's like giving a teenager a piggyback ride the whole time.

After following the John Muir Trail for less than 1/2 mile, you take a left onto a climber access trail heading up towards Cathedral Peak.  Before the switchbacks to Cathedral, you cross the stream and follow a smaller trail up towards Bud Lake.  From the lake you head cross country aiming for the base of Echo Peak.  You want to skirt around the base of the Echo Peaks formation on a series of ledges which lead around to the south side.

It's nice to just have a direction to go.  You just walk towards echo peaks, and stay a bit to the right until you pass them to the east.

High elevation meadow with a stream, sub alpine forests a bit below, and some sweet granite mountains in the distance.  Most of the streams were dry this year due to the extremely low snowfall last year.

You can see climbers on cathedral peak from here, and a plane overhead every once in a while.  Other than that civilization just sort of disappears.  Once you round echo peak even the Cathedral climbers go away.

The tiny evergreen-ish ground cover looks a bit like a miniature forest.  I think this is  Purple Mountain Heath (Phyllodoce Breweri), but I'm not sure as it wasn't flowering.

Alpine Gentian (Gentiana Newberryi)

A wonderful alpine meadow.  Some species of plants use a single season to flower and take seed, while some spend years growing and surviving the snows until ready to reproduce.  These ecosystems are amazingly fragile.

Athena dwarfed by echo peaks.

Epic

Once you find your way around the base a faint trail leads down into the Echo basin area. This basin is bounded on the east by the Matthes Crest and on the north by the Echo Peaks.  Matthes lake lies in-between, with the apron of Echo Peak to the west giving way to forested slopes in the center.  The talus field below the Matthes crest takes over as the angle increases to the east until the lower slabs of the crest emerge.

The ground is frequently granite slabs, sometimes gravel, and sometimes sand.  It's a neat mix that looks desert like on occasion.  Depending on slope and aspect, you can get completely different little biomes just a couple feet from each-other. 

The crest at sunset.  The south face start is to the right, while the notch about 1/4 from the left edge is the north/south summit divide.

Campsite one.

We camped the first night closer to Echo Lake than we would have liked.  All the streams were dry, and so it was the closest place to get water.  A small field of dried grass and fallen trees made a nice camp far enough above the lake's marshes to keep the mosquitoes to a minimum.  The next morning we woke up with the sun ( then slept in for a while ) and hiked to the base of the crest.

The climb starts on one side of a dramatic pass through the crest.  This is the view standing in the middle of the pass, looking east.

The climb starts on a south facing ledge/crack system which forms half of a pass through the crest.  This start, along with the last few pitches, are the hardest parts of the climb.  For most of the traverse we were able to simul-climb, only needing to trade off about 9 times to redistribute gear.  We used a set of double ropes, with one tied as a backpack and the other doubled up so we were only 30 meters apart. This worked well, although on some of the easier sections it meant placing more gear than we would have liked just to keep at least one piece in between us.

Matthes Lake to the left, and Echo Lake to the right.

Athena leading, somewhere near the middle.  The north and south summits are visible in the distance.

The basin to the east of the crest is a nice example of glacier carved landscapes.  You can see where the ice has forced its way through and over the granite ridges.  Everything is nice and smooth, at least on the scale of a glacier.

A nice view of the east side of the crest.  Matthes lake is in the distance to the left.

The last pitches are the hardest, although still fairly moderate.  A sketchy down-climb from the south summit to the notch lets you begin the climb to the north summit.  A long reach onto a ledge (Athena had to use a cheater stone) and then a diagonal crack/knob lead to a 5.4 chimney.  We set a belay just below the chimney as I thought this sequence might give Athena some trouble.

The north summit register.  Filled with paper and a pen, so you can sign your name at the top.  Many popular climbs have these boxes at the summit.

After summiting, two full rope length rappels bring you down to the talus field below.  For much of the way the talus field is more like a steep sand box with a coupe larger rocks thrown in for fun.  Your shoes get filled with sand, and you spend a good amount of time trying not to dislodge anything that might reach your partner below you.

A very nicely colored species of wild buckwheat (Eriogonum sp.)  This one is probably E. Lobbii.  Although other species of this plant have a number of uses, the internet didn't seem to think this guy was particularly useful.  A different genus (Fagopyrum) of the same family (Polygonaceae) is the buckwheat that people usually eat.

A neat alpine succulent that does not want to be identified.  Some species of stonecrop (Crassulaceae Family) I think? Maybe even the Oregon Stonecrop (Sedum Oreganum)? I've spent nearly a whole night and a couple beers trying to figure this one out.  You win this time plant.

After returning to camp and refilling our water, we moved up towards Echo Peak to get a bit of the next days hiking out of the way.  All together the climb took us from 8:30AM to 3:00PM, with a 45min approach hike thrown in.

If your water filter has gone bad, do not drink from this stream.

Hiking out.

Camp the second night.

Cathedral Peak in the distance as you round Echo Peaks.

The third days hike was wonderful.  We had already done all the uphill hiking the night before and our trip in had shown us better ways to make the trip out.  We meandered across the slabs and meadows for a while, stopping to boil water at one point as our filter had gone bad.  There were flocks of Clark's Nutcrackers flying and feeding in the stunted pine trees all around us.

Sometimes the grass grows in these little circles.  To wildly speculate, I would guess that one plant took hold, and subsequent plants then took root in the stable soil the first plant's roots provided.  After a couple plant generations a ring is formed as the older inner plants die and the younger outer plants form on the fringes.

At one point I climbed a rock to try and converse with the birds.  This worked better than expected.  They would change their calls in response to mine, and sort of watch curiously as I attempted imitation.

Standing on a rock, holding still, trying to imitate the birds which I'm watching through my phone.

I even tried to take some videos with my phone.  These turned out about as well as cell phone footage of bird usually does.

Wee got back to the car about 11AM.  Unfortunately it was Friday in one of the countries most popular national parks, leaving no open campsites.  So we left.  Currently we are staying south of Lake Tahoe with the hopes of climbing at the Lovers Leap area tomorrow morning.  I-80 is fairly close to us, so after climbing we will hop on the interstate and start heading towards Wyoming.

With enough lens flare people will start thinking I'm a photographer!