A New Chapter

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.

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.

Top of Half Dome (Nutcracker in the distance)

3000 ft 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!

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!

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.

Dan officially relinquishing the keys to Bertha

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!

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.

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 ;)

Pursuing Ideas

The Clear Waters of Tahoe Are Calling My Name

“The summit is for the ego, the journey is for the soul.”