Big Chief

This morning we drove up to Big Chief, near Truckee. The drive up was uneventful, except for a 45 minute traffic jam thanks to some Caltrans morons who had shut the road down to one lane at Yuba Gap inexplicably. We had stopped at Ikedas earlier, and I was truly amazed at how much it had changed. It used to be a funky little fruit stand with a disgusting fly filled bathroom around back. They used to sell cheap dried fruits, nuts and their own pressed spicy tofu. These days it appears that Mr. Ikeda or his children have gotten a little full of themselves, and charge $8 for a bag of peanuts!

When we got to Truckee, we discovered that the guidebook that we had bought was utterly useless. I should mention that climbing guidebooks are typically obtuse and maddening things. The reasons for this are complicated. On one hand, guide book authors are frequently the ones who have invested their own time and money into developing a crag for climbing, so it makes sense to support them. However, guidebooks are also frequently absurdly expensive. More damning still is the fact that many (most?) climbing guides are produced with 2nd grade literacy, kindergarten layout skills and a stern focus on inaccuracy. It's almost as if the authors want your money, but don't want you to make it to the crags! Anyway, enough of that. Suffice to say that we wasted a long time searching for roads which do not exist, but we eventually made it. By the time we were at the crag, it was in the mid 90's and we almost died warming up on a "10" (according to the guide). After getting thoroughly cooked, we retreated to the south cave sector, where I flubbed the opening moves of the very fun "Realm of the Overhang" and then did "Flying High Again" on sight. Thunderclouds were rolling in during the last climb, so we walked back to the car and got swarmed by mosquitoes.

The rain started falling in sheets of huge drops just as we got back onto I80 and was deluging the freeway all the way to Alta. Along the way I discovered something very interesting: The leftmost lane (fast lane) is much, much, much smoother and quieter than the right lane! Why is that? My guess is that the road destroying semi trucks spend more time in the right lanes and basically thrash and crack them. When we got to Alta, we hacked our way down to the cabin that my parents and I had built. I was 11 or 12 when we built it, and it was a pretty significant undertaking despite its diminutive size. It took a summer of hauling sheetrock, timber, bolts, nails, rocks, cement bags, insulation, tar paper, shingles and a thousand other little bits to build. We didn't have any power tools, electricity or plumbing, either! Anyway, we haven't spent much time up there recently, and it has become the favored target of the local redneck mouth breathers. Unfortunately, they had broken in again and pried off both locking hasps to the door. Thankfully they had spared the windows this time. Chloe and I re-installed new hasps and locks as we were swarmed again by mosquitoes, and we hit the road, sweaty, dirty and dehydrated.