Tag Archives: Truck Camping

Apr3

Weekend of 12-February – Valentine’s Day weekend!

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Weekend of 12-February – Valentine’s Day weekend!

Weekend of 13 &14 February; Saturday and Sunday

 

In the great tradition of Halloween, Sarah and I spent Valentine’s Day rock climbing at Smith.  We had planned on heading down Friday afternoon, but we got a bit overcome by events and the stress of trying to pack and leave the house early enough to get down to Salem and out to Smith… so instead, we headed to Hood River for a relaxing Friday night in town.

Saturday, however, we locked down and got moving.  Not… not super quickly, still, but acceptably early.  I mean, we got to Smith in time to get a few routes in, so that’s what matters, right?

Super Slab – 5.6, trad.  Technically 3 pitches, but we only did the first one.

Route next to super slab (unknown?) – ~5.6, sport, 1 pitch of fun climbing.

Ohh, and camping Friday night?  I used a battle axe to chop firewood.  Just… you know.  FYI.

 

Sunday dawned bright and pretty, doubly-so since we’d camped out at Skull Hollow in the cozy back of Sarah’s truck.  We got moving pretty early, since we had a specific mission that was doubtlessly shared by a dozen or two other teams/couples – Climbing the route called “First Kiss” on Valentines day.

Sarah and I had already climbed First Kiss before, but not since we’d started dating.  So the goal this time was to have just as much fun as before, but also take cute selfies and make out at each of the belay stations.  Yep, sickening.  I know.

But you know what?  That’s like… a huge amount of the fun of life.  Do what you enjoy, with the people you love, and be just as ridiculous as you want to be.

 

So we got up early, trekked our way to the base of the climb, and got in line.  Or so we expected… but somehow, some way, we ended up being the first people in line!  So we racked our gear up, and headed into the first pitch.

(Ed note: By the time Ben and Sarah were actually climbing, three teams were lined up at their backs, and another two teams had turned away due to the long wait.  Turns out: Ben and Sarah have really good timing)

The climbing was just as fun as I remembered it, being pleasant and just committing enough to be interesting.  I think we actually kept roughly the same lead sets as last time – I took the first and third pitches, Sarah took the second and fourth.  Actually, last time I think Sarah did four and five, so I guess we did mix it up a little…

First Kiss – 5.7, Sport, 5 pitches.

Nov29

An adventure to the City of Rocks: Ye Olde Camping Part

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An adventure to the City of Rocks

So for various reasons, Sarah had a week off of work.  

I was going to take Wednesday off work anyways, to observe Yom Kippur.  

I have a job that allows me to take some time off…

So, I took Monday and Tuesday off as well, and we climbed rocks!  This section is a quick note about the camping we did at City of Rocks, in Idaho.  It was my first time in Idaho, so I was kind of excited to see the territory…

 

Friday through Wednesday, 18-Sept through 23-Sept

 

Driving

The drive to and from City of Rocks was long, I’ll admit.  I took a lot of the driving duties on the way out, since Sarah would be driving the whole way home while I fasted and did the whole “reflect on Yom Kippur and the previous year”.  It was… well… different.  The last long drive I’d taken was the roadtrip in the Mustang – the drive to Smith Rock could sort of count as well, I guess.  But either way, the drive had been in the Mustang.

Which, interestingly enough, drives quite differently from a Ranger.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  The Ranger had a ton of advantages. Lots of room for gear, ability to sleep in the back (I’ll get to that in a little bit) and a solid cab that let us sprawl out a bit more than I normally could.  The lack of being a convertible wasn’t awesome, but I’ll admit that being warm while driving was kind of nice.  Sort of.

But with all those advantages in mind, I still prefer my car.  The handling, power of the engine and the response of the brakes are all tighter, and it just feels more fun to drive.  But Sarah’s truck worked; it went forward when I hit the gas, and stopped when I hit the brakes.  It hauled all our gear, and kept us safe on the 9 hour drive.

 

Camping

Instead of setting up a tent and sleeping pads, we used a truck.

See, as mentioned earlier, Sarah has a nice Ford Ranger with a full cap on the back bed. Instead of bothering with a full tent setup and everything, she picked up some foam padding and I packed a few blankets. It was really nice – a simple setup that saved us a ton of time dealing with tents and sleeping pads, and meant that we would always have our gear safely tucked away… not that I usually worry too much about thieves when rock climbing, but it’s always a nice bonus to put that thought completely out of my mind.

So we slept in the back bed, full of blankets and pads and pillows.

“But Ben, what about eating?  Were you really crazy enough to cook food in the back of a truck, surrounded by fire hazards and other things that make that a bad decision?”

“Ohh you… of course we didn’t do that!”

I mean, we did boil water for coffee in the bed, a few of the mornings.  But as a usual rule, we’d cook meals out in the main campsite that we’d reserved – either over the fire, using wood that we’d picked up, or on the big camping stove that we’d set up on the picnic table.

First night – steaks.  Ribeye, cooked medium rare, seasoned purely with kosher salt, and served with Mac and Cheese.

Second night – Honestly, I don’t really remember anything aside from the first night, at least specifically.  We did Mac and Cheese, Chicken, seafood chowder (canned, duh) and a few other various meals.  We also ate at Rock City, an amazing pizza place nearby.  They have a pizza called “the garbage pie”, which basically has everything you could imagine on it.  Pineapple, pepperoni, chicken, olives, onions, happiness, joy, and goodwill toward men.

Camping and eating was amazing.