Zoe's Birthday!

Steam Trains!

The steam trains in the Berkeley hills were a favorite destination for me when I was growing up. I have vague but happy memories of the noisy train chugging it's way between sunny hillsides and redwoods forests. Zoe is still a little young to appreciate the trains, but we thought it would be a fun outing for her nonetheless. She really did seem to enjoy herself, and her eyes would widen to saucers as we passed through the train tunnel with the whistle blowing.

Bishop to Oaktown

We drove back home today through Yosemite/Tioga Pass. I never get tired of that drive along 395. Too bad there's no biotech out there!

Bristlecone pines, Silver Canyon Road, Dale's Camp

We got a relatively early start today and drove south along 395, then up a side road to the Ancient Bristlecone Forest, which is a very pretty but LONG (~45 minutes) drive from Bishop. We started off on the Methuselah Trail, but ended up getting a little tired out. I was taking pictures, Chloe was the Zoe Sherpa, and soon we were both winded from the walk up the hill.




After about a mile, we decided to opt out of the four mile loop in favor of saving some energy for bouldering later in the day, and took the cutoff for the shorter 3 mile loop which crests the ~10400 ft

sub peak and then descends past the old mining camp.



When I was looking for directions to the visitor center, I noticed that there was another road up to the ridge: Silver Canyon Road. My five minute google search that morning had suggested that it was a very pretty drive, albeit on high clearance 4WD roads. Since I wasn't looking forward to a 6000 ft ascent on potentially horrible roads, we took the paved route up to the top. After the hike however, Chloe somewhat begrudgingly agreed to try Silver Canyon on the descent.
Here was our first look:

No problem right? Well looks can be deceiving: it wasn't *horrible* on descent, but driving up it looks like a scree/washed out/steep as hell horror show, and I would definitely not attempt it on anything without a low range, let alone our manual subie. After arriving at the end of the steep part, peeling my fingers off of the steering wheel and giving the brakes a chance to cool down, we coasted along the by now quite mellow road. The only complication was a series of increasingly deeper creek/river fordings. Here's the rogues gallery:




The first several were not deep at all, and I had stopped slowing down for them. Unfortunately, the last one was pretty deep, and I ended up getting just a wee bow wave of water over the hood of the car

I think some of this might have made it through the air filter, because the engine hiccuped a bit later that day and the dreaded Check Engine light came on. Happily, after some spirited high RPM driving up to the Buttermilks, the engine light extinguished, the motor was running smoothly, and all was well in the world.
But back to Silver Canyon Road:
Around one bend we came across a herd of what look like Desert Bighorn Sheep:



The drive down the lower part of the Canyon is stunning, and I wouldn't hesitate to drive up from the valley again. It's definitely worth getting out of the car to check the water depth though!

After a quick lunch at Schatt's where Zoe ate the contents of almost an entire half of my roast beef sandwich, we drove up to the Buttermilks to try out a new area: Dale's Camp. For a location within sight of the Peabody boulders, it's surprisingly lush, with a fish filled babbling brook that you need to get across (this time not with the car) and lots of pine (?) trees. We both lurched up the V1 on the heart prow boulder, and after a lot of cursing, I made it up the V2 to the left. That top out is brutal! Since we no longer are able to spot each other (non climbing spouse = Zoe caretaker), I took a nasty fall, bouncing off the pad onto my back, then skidding down the exfoliated granite crystals. The outcome? Let's just say "exfoliated" is the key word here. In between burns, we fed and entertained Zoe on the crash pad

We finished up by sending "Cuban Roll"... a sweet problem in the Zeppelin area


And then down to Las Palmas for carne and beers

Las Vegas to Bishop

After breakfast we said goodbye to Mark, Amy and Charlie and started North on 95 towards Death Valley. Unfortunately, the crash pad that I had secured to the roof started making some troubling noises almost as soon as we got up to freeway speeds, so we pulled over, ripped the headrests out, and stuffed the gigantic pad into the car. It meant zero visibility out the back, but it was an acceptable trade off.

As we motored north on 95 past all of the strange mining, military and prisons (no picking up of hitchhikers!), both of us noticed the huge amount of apparently undeveloped limestone to the East of 95. Some of it looks phenomenal, but is probably in a bombing range or honeycombed with mines. There is certainly no limit to the stone around las vegas: Jtree is three hours away, Red Rocks 5 minutes, St. George crags 2 hours, Mesquite/VRG under two hours, Charleston, Potosi etc etc.

We drove into Death Valley via 190 and got sidetracked by the beautiful mud hills around the 20 mule team road. They reminded me of the Elephant Knees in Anza Borrego





We also stopped at Zabriskie Point to share the views with busloads of tourists, and then started heading west again. Along the way, we passed a caravan of Porsche Carrera GTs: sweet! $1 million in cars passing us by in less than a second. A few hours later we were in Bishop at the Huntsman/La Quinta.

Red Rocks

We started the day with a trip to Bouchon

for another extravagant breakfast: the signature french toast for chloe, the transcendent Croque Madame for me, a delicious sounding crab type of thing for amy, and the excellent waffles for mark. Oh, and oatmeal for the little ones as well as beignets all around. Nice.
From there, it was back to the Suncoast

to gear up, and then we took turns climbing and hiking


Yes, I shoot portraits -- sorry about that, Mark.

Here's Chloe on a nice 10a in the Black Corridor


Mark and I climbed this route, and then headed to the Sweet Pain wall, where we both had a good day: I onsighted Sister of Pain and Slave to the Grind, then bungled the onsight of Sweet Pain. Mark did the crux move of Sister of pain and then very generously belayed me on the other two. Overhanging red sandstone mmmmm

St. George to Las Vegas

After a week of glorious limestone, it was time to go back to Las Vegas. Mark had a security briefing for an upcoming celebrity HDR lingerie photo shoot at the Venetian, so they left a bit earlier than we did.

We were both amazed by the quantity of rock in the Virgin River Gorge -- there MUST be more to it than the crags at the western entrance. I pulled over and gazed longingly at the immaculate caves on the south side of I15. Next time.

I noticed ads for The GUN STORE. Hmm, maybe next time.

Upon arriving in Vegas and checking into the Suncoast,



Chloe, Amy, Charlie, Zoe and I headed to the Kraft boulders for a little climbing for a change. I got shut down by this beautiful V4, and not for lack of trying (or stacking of pad cheating). grrr.


Edit: Yes, it was a tad bit cold, and every once in a while a stray snowflake would flutter to the ground. The weird part is that it was at least fifty degrees.

Woodbury Road Crag

We went to the Woodbury Road crag today, and after forgetting that Amy and Mark didn't have a guidebook (which sent them down some dead ends --sorry guys!!!), we all ended up at one of my favorite crags of the trip. Even the moderates were fun, with huge chunky runnels everywhere. Here are some shots of the left hand side:




Zoe was, as usual not in the mood for sleep, but I *almost* got her to sleep in the tent a few times

My favorite of the crag (and the trip) was the 11b that starts off the big boulder:





which is absolutely stellar. I noticed some other climbs to the right hand side which were unfortunately not in the guide book. One of them looked super cool, but turned out to be a little harder than what I wanted to get on that day, was sort of a choss heap, and as a final kick in the teeth had rap anchors, which made cleaning this steep route a bit of an adventure.



Here is Zoe, happy to be back at the car after a full day of eating Cheerios off the tent floor


Unfinished business: The rest of the right hand side of the wall and of course the Black and Tan Wall.