Playing catchup on holiday posts -- Christmas

Christmas was unexpectedly awesome this year! Dan took 4 days off and we hit the Eastern Sierra. I was all for camping at the pinyon forest, but he doesn't have a winter down bag, and my 4 season tent is really a 1.5 person tent, which gets old if I run into real weather and have to not touch the walls. I have a plan for turning our 2-person 3-season into a 4-season, but in this case, we decided to be posh and get a room. After a bit of looking around, I decided we should stay at Tom's Place Lodge, halfway in-between Bishop (where my heart lives year round) and Mammoth, where Dan's interest in skiing was likely to be focused.

Dan wanted to get some skiing in. I, on the other hand, have never skied in my life. So I figured, we'd best get that out of the way and go on the first day. We headed up to Mammoth, rented skis, got lift tickets for three beginner slopes, and Dan taught me how to A-frame, make turns and all that good stuff. He started me out with poles, instead of without, which I'm told is the custom, and I think, in retrospect that was a mistake. When we tried a slope that was half a level of difficulty harder than the bunny hill before it, I got going too fast for comfort. Climber that I am, I figured I'd better fall. And fall I did, but I forgot one leg behind me and something on the back of my left knee (the one that messed up our trip to Bart Dome in summer? that one) popped. Nevermind. Got back up to try it again, same story. Fall I did, and this time my left wrist (the one that spent a few weeks in a brace over the summer? that one) got wrenched by the pole, which I tried to use to control my speed. At that point I decided I'd probably be paying for those two re-injuries for weeks, so it might be a good time to stop. Dan did a couple more runs and we called it a day, with me deciding that in skiing it's safer to keep going until you can slow down than to fall.

We had a great Christmas dinner and whole bunch more fun, which I won't go into details about. What does belong in a climbing blog, however, was the fact that I took us down the gully descent into Owen's River Gorge with snow and ice on the ground. We had no poles, and in retrospect, probably shouldn't have gone. It was quite slippery.

On our last day we decided to break up the driving a bit by stopping to climb at the Alabama Hills. We went to the corridors and did a couple really easy slab climbs on very very bad granite, and an arete 5.6 that I'd been warned was "spicy", but somehow hadn't registered the fact. It was a little worse than spicy, in my opinion. I'm pretty sure I've never had to take on a 6 before! In any case, it was a blast, and I'm stoked to have the "Bishop Area Rock climbs" guide book as a result!

Owen's River Gorge, version 2.0

I spent this Friday + weekend climbing at Owen's River Gorge with Ben. It was my first time back since last winter, so I was really looking forward to this visit. I've been training both endurance and strength in the gym, and climbing alongside some phenomenally stylish people, so I think my technique has improved a great deal, too. My objective this time around was to convince myself I'm a solid 5.9 sport leader, and maybe try to probe my limits on lead a little. I succeeded at the first, but not the second. Oh well, next time!

Here's my ticklist for this trip. Everything was onsight, on lead, casual, except the very last route on Sunday, which was clean on TR.

Friday: High Seas (7), Crowd Pleaser (8), Clip Jr (6), Welcome to the Gorge (9)
Saturday: Enter the dragon (8), China Doll (8), Heart of the Sun (9), Drill Sergeant (8)
Sunday: 5.8 not in my book, at Solarium between Sendero Luminoso and Menace II Society, Child of Light (9), Low Octane (9), High Octane (10d, TR)

Low and High Octane are variations on one 40-50 foot route, really, and they're a little obscure, so I want to call particular attention to them. They're at the Pit Stop area, in the Lower Gorge, at the top of a sand/scree slope. The sun never sees these problems, so they're good for hot days, and they see very little traffic. Being a no-chalk climber myself, I was especially excited to find these problems completely un-chalked, totally virginal. I led the 9, Low Octane, which is the variation on the right. It has some wonderful balance-y moves. Then we toproped the 10d, which is really a slightly longer boulder problem start, on the left. I think it's overrated as a 10d (indeed, the new edition of the guide may have re-rated it, I don't know for sure), since I wouldn't rate it more than a V2. In any case, I TRed it clean, and given that I was able to shake out at big juggy holds, I think I would have no problem leading it. So it can't be 10d. Either way, great problems, both of them, on great, un-slimed rock.

This weekend was a blast!

Heller Rocks

I've failed to document a couple adventures over the last month.

We took another trip to Owen's river gorge on the weekend after Thanksgiving, during which I was getting over a nasty cold. We spent one day bouldering in the Happies, one day in the Inner Gorge (which was mobbed) and one day at Heller Rocks. At Heller we did just one 5.7 trad route which caused me to come up with the designation 5.7 "T" for terrifying. The rock was really really loose and Ben kicked down a boulder, pieces of which landed on my helmet and back.

A couple weekends ago we decided to head to Owens' Ridge. We camped at Heller in 40 mph-gusting 60 winds, survived the night, but woke up amidst sleet and inside a cloud. We aborted the idea of climbing and drove to Death Valley via the Trona Pinnacles, which neither of us had seen before. DV was also cold and windy and not showing particularly well, so we returned to SB on Saturday night. On Sunday we went to Sespe, but the black wall was cold and windy. We continued to the Potrero John trail, thinking the climbing routes of the same name were off the trail, but a couple miles in we'd found nothing. We did an epic approach to a super chossy spot which we decided against climbing, and, on the way back, found out that the routes were on the other side of 33, closer to the black wall.

Eureka & Bishop

This past Tuesday was a holiday for Ben, so he took Monday off, too, and we headed to the Eastern Sierra for a four day adventure. We took off on Friday afternoon and, after finding Red Rock Canyon full of people, decided to camp in the wilderness somewhere. We ended up in a dry wash off of 178 towards Isabella, next to a fence separating us from BLM land. It was a really pretty spot with a sweeping view of the valley below. Very cold night, but my new sleeping bag is something else!

On Saturday morning we proceeded towards the Eureka Valley Dunes, where we hung out until the afternoon. The dunes were gorgeous, but there were tons of people there, including a school bus full of teenagers. We continued on the South Eureka Valley Rd past the dunes, hoping to find a backcountry spot to camp in overnight, but there were spots in the road that were really fine sand, and the forecast called for rain overnight, so I was loathe to be caught on the other end of those. We headed back on Big Pine Rd, and stopped to climb on some boulders on the right of the road, on the first uphill section after the valley. We top-roped one route and then found a spot to camp off a dirt road nearby. There was an abandoned gravel sorting and loading type place nearby that we explored in the moonlight, and then we crashed. It rained and there was quite a bit of wind and lots of lightning overnight, and we woke up to snow on the surrounding mountains. We were just below the snow-line ourselves, and the views of un-snowed Eureka valley and snowy surrounding mountains were amazing! What a way to wake up! We gave the tent some time to dry out and headed out.

Back in Big Pine we decided to head up to the Glacier Lodge, which I'd never been to before. From there we hiked the South Big Pine Creek trail for a few miles, until the snow got too deep in the switchbacks towards the first lake and we had to give up, Ben being in his approach shoes and me in pants that didn't go down around my ankles, even though I was wearing backpacking boots. My Lowa backpacking boots need to be replaced, by the way. They're really uncomfortable. We then headed up to Bishop and checked out the Pit Campground that climbers usually get stuffed into. It was awful, so we headed up to the Pinion Site and camped in the Pinions. Dinner in Bishop and then a tour of the hot springs between Tom's place and Mammoth. Eventually we ended up in Wild Willy's, which was fantastic.

Monday and Tuesday were spent climbing the Upper Owen's River Gorge. We tried going down the Trinity rappel, but the approach to the rappel station was a pain in the ass, so we backed up and walked down the approach a little to the North. First Ben led Crotalulsley challenged, which I seconded, and then Step right up, which I also led and really enjoyed, despite the mind-game in one particular transition from the face to the arete. Ben then led Cinderella and It's the gaaazzz, both of which I seconded. I then led P.D. time, which had a couple long moves, and Ben toproped Pet trackers off the same anchor. Dinner in Bishop, at the wonderful The Petite Pantry, and then a further tour of the hot springs. This time we lucked out and the dude who'd been hanging out at the tub was leaving just as we got there, so we had it all to ourselves. It was a brilliant clear night with a near full moon and the view of snowy Mammoth mountain was unbearably gorgeous.

The next day we'd planned to try to do Flailsafe, which the guide calls a 'trad adventure'. Ben had scored an additional #4, and a #5 cam the night before at Wilson's. We got to the base of the thing, which was next to the river, with literally five square feet of space to work with. There was an initial off-width section to get to the top of a boulder, and the real route would start after that. So we got up it, all prepped with pro and two ropes, only to decide that the real route had a few sections that would be a little too run out, given two #4s and one #5. So we wrapped a giant boulder and rapped back down. We'll have to revisit this in the future, I'm sure, and I'm not so sure I'm looking forward to it. It looked really hard. We then got on Nice jugs, Hole in the wall and C-4 yourself. I abandoned the second, because it looked like a pain in the ass to get into the hole, but had a really fun time with the initial slab on the latter. Of course I fell off the roof section, but it was fun falling. The drive back down 395 at dusk was incredibly beautiful. Then dinner at the High Sierra cafe and back in SB by 10:30.