playing in the Southern and Eastern Sierra

I'd rather be there, a photo by slampoud on Flickr.

I've taken a couple cool trips recently where the highlight was Huckleberry, my 10 month old lab-boxer pup.

Huckle and I did a backpacking trip in the Southern Sierra, in which we went from the Jerkey Meadow trailhead to the bridge over the little Kern, then backed up a little and camped overnight in the woods, and back the way we came on the next day. It was a painful trip, since my knee wasn't doing well, but it also gave me a taste of how awesome backpacking with a dog is.

On the next weekend I headed up to Rock Creek with Dima. We camped at French Flat, then climbed Iris Slab on Saturday, struck camp on Sunday and headed to Pine Creek, where we climbed this new area of development called the PSOM slab. We did the first pitch of a route called Racing Lizards, but via the direct slab variation, which was stellar. Huckle was also along for this trip and provided mayhem galore: on Saturday he found a putrifying fish and brought it to me. When he threw it at me it burst against my leg, covering my pants in gore and maggots. The rest of the day was fishy. On Sunday he tried to climb 5.7 slab. Yep. Got a few feet off the ground, too, which was extremely scary to watch.