Tag Archives: 2015

Jul27

My love of Yosemite National Park: Sentinel Rock, Curry Village, and leaving… for now.

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My love of Yosemite National Park: Sentinel Rock, Curry Village, and leaving… for now.

I’ve never been to Yosemite, but it’s been etched into my adult mind in the same way that the Titanic and Dinosaurs were etched into my young mind. It’s a myth, a legend. The greatest place for traditional rock climbing in the world, and arguably the birthplace of modern climbing itself.

Feats of strength and endurace took place here; first ascents of climbs that no one thought could be climbed by human hands..

Brilliance of engineering even happened; the creation of Cams, and many other unique pieces of protection.

Yosemite is greater than life, in my mind. But I’ve never been there. Until this trip.

Friday, 12-June-2015

The day starts early, when I hear the adventure group rolling out from the campsite next to me… It’s annoying, but it does get me awake and clean up camp…

But screw taking my time – I skip breakfast. It’s not really necessary… I’ll eat snacks. And I’m in Yosemite! I have climbing to do! So I packed up the last bits of the campsite, pulling my food out of the bear thing, and rolled out!
On the drive into the park, I’m reminded about the fun of driving in non-Massachusetts placed: a jeep tries to cut me off… but they really do a half-assed job of it. So… nope. Cut-off denied. No other drivers are any good. New England for life!

Instead of taking the scenic route like I did the day before, I do direct for a spot from the guide book called Sentinel Rocks – I park, walk right in and start working the routes. But damn they’re tough. Still WAY too hard. I’m talking “Ben still can crush some, but most of them he can’t even do the first move of” tough.

But that’s what I’ve noticed: most Yosemite bouldering routes are only a single move. They’re just a “mantle up onto this tiny ledge”, or “slide over from this crap hold, to this other crap hold, and you’re done!”. A lot of them don’t seem to even top out, which is definitely another interesting aspect. I think the real difficulty isn’t the routes themselves; it’s my lack of experience with this style of climbing. I’m used to more sustained movements – strong core and legs, instead of insane crimping.

So I keep my head up, keep chilling, and climbing and reading and watching Adventure Time on the laptop. It’s the usual awesome times.

And then once I’m all tuckered out? Or… when I’m hungry and sick of snack food? I head back into Curry Village, get a hamburger and do some writing. I even picked up a Nalgene bottle as another souvenir, and grabbed some postcards to send to folks out East.

While I’m waiting in line to get said Hamburger, I strike up a chat with two kids who work in Yosemite with the park services. I guess the jobs that they’re working on are year contracts? A year staying in Yosemite… working a few days a week and having the rest of the time off… Nice… I could do that someday!

But “Someday” isn’t “Today”. Today, I’m on an amazing roadtrip across the country, and the final leg is in sight. With a semi-heavy heart, I finish up my burger, and leave Yosemite Valley behind me. The goal of the day is Davis, California – meeting Mike for a weekend of partying, followed by the drive into Oregon.

It was raining as I drive out of the valley. Annoying, but I was going into California – into the throes of a multi-year drought. This was the last rain I was going to see in a long time, so I enjoyed it as best I could.

Jul26

My love of Yosemite National Park: Exploring, and the first climb on sacred rock

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My love of Yosemite National Park: Exploring, and the first climb on sacred rock

I’ve never been to Yosemite, but it’s been etched into my adult mind in the same way that the Titanic and Dinosaurs were etched into my young mind. It’s a myth, a legend. The greatest place for traditional rock climbing in the world, and arguably the birthplace of modern climbing itself.

Feats of strength and endurace took place here; first ascents of climbs that no one thought could be climbed by human hands..

Brilliance of engineering even happened; the creation of Cams, and many other unique pieces of protection.

Yosemite is greater than life, in my mind. But I’ve never been there. Until this trip.

Thursday, 11-June-2015

Today, I climb Yosemite.

I won’t climb the famous peaks. I won’t be ascending El Capitan, dragging two days worth of equipment below me. I won’t be sending a line up the Sentinel, or any other legendary face.

Instead, I’ve got my crash pad on my back, my shoes and chalk, and the goal of getting to know the rock of Yosemite. Learning the bouldering problems, and seeing how the rock forms holds, and how people move up the routes.

First thing I learn? Yosemite ratings are TOUGH. I can climb routes rated V5 at the gym back in Boston. And that gym is generally considered fair, as far as ratings go. Maybe a grade or two harder than outdoors. In Yosemite, I’m climbing V0, and flailing against V1 climbs.

But that’s ahead of myself – first I drove in, took pictures, and stopped in Curry Village. When tourists go to destinations, they get souvenirs. I am no different… but the souvenirs that I get are always climbing guide books. They’re useful, and I can keep them on my shelf to show off where I’ve climbed… and to tease myself about where I can go back to.

So I bought a book, debated getting some new trad gear (I didn’t, I stayed good) and looked for some early lunch… didn’t find any, of course, since it was only 10:00 and the grill doesn’t open until 11:00.

So that’s how I found myself at the Legendary (yes, capitalized) Camp 4. The home of American rock climbing. Seriously. There’s even a plaque saying so!

I climbed, and explored. I met a climber from Chile, who was looking for a partner to climb El Capitan with. Speed climb. With a random partner. Yep, he’s nuts.

We bouldered – watched someone flail at Midnight Lightnig (a V8 climb, arguably the most famous Bouldering route in the United States). We met up with some Brazilians, one of whom climbed at the same level as me – so her an I snuck off to fight with a V0 that took WAY too much effort for a V0.

Then I headed out on my own, looking for more adventure. I found some other climbs, did a bit of bushwacking, and forgot my bug repellent in the car (meaning that I hiked back out to get it, since I’d be dead and drained of blood if I hadn’t).

I loved every second of it.

Routes that I worked:

Honestly, I don’t really remember any specifics. The routes here are hard. The folks that I was hanging out with were pretty fun though, and they definitely made the difficulty more tolerable. I focused on the main “Midnight Lightening” boulder in the beginning, then followed the Chilean climber to a perfect splitter crack that I couldn’t do much more than start on.

I was able to bust out that pretty good V0 balancy route nearby though, after a fair amount of work.

From there, I hit up some smaller boulders on the walk out – much easier routes than the splitter that I had been working before.

Ohh! I do remember one! The Presidential Traverse, a V0 rated at four stars. It was really fun – just a long traverse from one end of a boulder to another, walking on big ledges and using huge flakes. Honestly, it was really easy… annoyingly easy, after the rest of the day.

Jun29

A visit and an adventure in mid-state Arizona – Visiting My Dad, Step-mom, and Grandma in Alpine!

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A visit and an adventure in mid-state Arizona – Visiting My Dad, Step-mom, and Grandma in Alpine!

Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 05-Jun, 06-Jun & 07-Jun-2015

 

 

Friday, 05-Jun-2015

  • Well, this is a nice change… I make it to Alpine earlier than I expected… it’s still nice and light and lovely! Yay the joy of traversing time zones!
  • First order of business – hugs and greetings with Dad and Denise! We hang out for a bit, sitting and relaxing and having snacks. I take a few minutes to unpack a bit of the car; not much, but any chance that I get to decompress… I’ve learned to take them and be thankful!
  • Dinner? Dinner time? Dinner time! We jump in the truck and head into town, grabbing some worms along the way for fishing the next day. There’re a few nice restaurants in town, so we just semi-randomly pick a good cafe that we haven’t been to before. Denise and I split a cheeseburger and club sandwich, Dad has Fish and Chips.
  • Food consumed (mostly, we did keep some as doggie bags) we hack to the camp, set up the chairs and relax outside some more. When it gets too late, we move inside; I share some of the celebration-whiskey that Daniel gave me, spend some time spinning the staff, and end up crashing super early. Like… 9:30. Seriously early.

 

Saturday, 06-Jun-2015

  • Aha! Today is a good day! I wake up on time for once! And with puppies snuggled up to me!  It’s nice and early, though of course everyone else is already up and moving. So I haul myself up, and we chow down on some bacon and eggs and biscuits!
  • After cleaning up the dishes, we quickly grab the fishing gear and pack everything up into the truck, and head down into town. Then we’re outbound toward a spot called Big Lake (surprise, it’s actually a mountain! Not really. It’s a lake. It’s big) where we’ll meet my Grandma Marlon!
  • We cast some lines, do some fishing… but nothings biting. The problem is that there’s too many people… literally half a dozen boats in the same cove at the same time. Like… I don’t have to rotate my head/body at all to see them all. So we roll out. No point in staying, right?
  • For the next stop, we hit up the East Fork of the Black River – the same place that we camped last time I was up in Alpine. The area was actually part of the huge burn that tore through the area a few years back, so it’s scattered with charred trunks. Kind of scary, but really awesome to see all the regrowth that’s happening.
  • Starting in… No luck at the good spot… well, except for crawdads. We get tons of those. Little mini-lobsters who love trying to steal the bait. They’re an invasive species, so we either toss them to the puppies (they do actually eat them, if you’ll believe it) or throw them far enough out into the woods that they can’t get back in.
  • Dad gets one fish, but it’s a tiny one… so it gets thrown back in. Man.
  • Well, nothing to do here… so we keep moving upriver, ’till we run out of river and it starts raining. Dad breaks his pole too… boo! But we fix it… yay! Mechanical and Electrical engineering powers, combine!
  • After making a quick stop into town, we head back to home-base and relax for a bit. Just a mid-day chill, good for the bones.
  • Let’s see… we’ve tried Big Lake, and the Black River… so that leaves Luna Lake left; We drive down and start off on a rocky little peninsula, but we’ve got no luck there either… so keep edging closer and closer to the dock, until the people on it leave and we get dibs.
  • Lures are cool – I’ve never fished with lures instead of bait (for the uninitiated, bait is something like synthetic salmon eggs that attracts fish. Lures are shiny bobbins that look like smaller fish, or flies, or something interesting. The fish gobble them up, and regret it later). So this is the first time I’ve tried a lure, and they’re a hell of a lot more interesting than bait. You have to reel them in constantly, but managing the speed is key. So it’s more motion, less waiting. My kinda thing.
  • Dad catches something, woo!
  • Sunset / dusk is the best time to be out – fish are constantly jumping up out of the water, trying to catch the flies and gnats hovering above the water. It’s beautiful to watch, and the sunset is nothing to shirk at either. But the light fades fast, and the bugs get pretty thick pretty quick…
  • So back home it is, then to the Bear Wallow diner for dinner – it’s the place that we’d always go the last time, and it’s pretty awesome… but they’re closed by the time we get there. But we’re cool kids, and they remember my Dad and Denise. So they stay open for us, even pull some steak specials out for us.
  • We eat, make merry, and then head back home. Relaxing around the camp and having a little more whiskey, then sleep.

 

Sunday, 07-Jun-2015

  • I wake up early again…. but this time it’s not up to the smells of delicious breakfast. It’s up early to the sounds of consternation and trouble
  • During the night, a water pipe broke. Nothing major, just a drain from the sink… but it’s still a situation and so Denise is cleaning it up and fixing the pipe. She’s basically got it set, but it’s triggered another problem where the water filter line quick-release was triggered. I try to help by rotating the quick release away from the door…, and my fix ends up breaking another part – the rotation cuff. And that’s a part that we can’t fix. And it’s a critical leak; kind of huge. Worse than the initial problem. Damnation.
  • Well, screw that thing – I’ve got gorilla glue in the car! So we glue it up. While it’s curing, we hang out and do breakfast. Then we test it… and it doesn’t hold. Damnation.
  • Well, there’s nothing to be gained by me staying, and unfortunately I have a long drive into Utah still ahead of me. So once I know that they’ve got a plumber on the way (the campsite owner) I make my goodbyes, and head back onto the road.