Zion National Park: The Perfect Earrings & The Anticipation of Climbing

The day after all the hard climbing that Queen Rockstar did we decided our bodies could use a day off and we embarked on the three hour drive to Zion National Park. We arrived around noon to an overcast park. We really weren’t planning on doing any climbing while we were there, and we really didn’t know how long we’d be there anyway, but my curiosity decided it was worth the 25 bucks for the climbing guide – that we would at least return at some point in the future. I quickly became submerged in the book and started to see all the potential at Zion. Kristine was on somewhat of a desperate search for a pair of Native American earrings. The seed was planted when we drove through Bishop, CA and she saw the perfect earrings. She decided against buying them since they were at the gas station next to a casino and she thought that was a bit shabby and that she’d run into something a little more authentic. Well, she hadn’t up until this point and has regretting not buying the earrings ever since. The town just outside Zion had a number of Indian craft and jewelry stores, so while I drooled over the climbing guide she left me to wander and look for ‘the perfect earrings’. She finally found them after having lost all hope and it was at the last store that we entered at the end of the day that she saw them. It was love at first sight and her ears tingled with anticipation as she tried them on. I admit they were very much her, although nothing like the earrings she saw in Bishop.

That first day, we drove around Zion and scouted a few climbs, which made my finger tips sweat from just looking at them. They were beautiful, clean cracks with very few or no face holds. It was a type of climbing that I dreamt about but had yet to climb. We decided on climbing the following day and so that day we simply let the anticipation build while we check out the climbs. In the late afternoon the heavy grey sky parted and gave way to a sun that lit up the rock and the sky and everything. It was mystical. Zion has been called a Yosemite with the rock from Red Rocks, which is a multicolored sandstone. I totally agreed!

At night the wind picked up. We cooked an Indian fare for dinner and had to bundle up to stay warm. A beer a piece also helped, but the 4000 foot elevation at Zion was definitely much cooler than Red Rocks had been. While falling asleep I heard what might have been a few rain drops tickle the top of the van. I popped my head outside to assure myself it was dust or some other UFO, but not rain! I fell asleep without hearing any other suspicious sounds, but was woken up around 2AM to the sure sound of rain falling steadily. I couldn’t believe it. I thought maybe the rain was coming from a ‘snoopy cloud’ that was only raining down on our van in an attempt to depress me. I guess it worked since I cried myself to sleep knowing the chance of climbing that day had been crushed.

The next morning I found solace from the grey somber clouds in warms pancakes, apple-sauce, an egg, and plenty of maple syrup.

Bear Country

My walk to the bathrooms this morning was interrupted by a sudden clamoring and commotion, and an outburst of noisy pots being played (badly) like the drums…It took a second to register, but then I knew it had to either be some already drunk campers, or a bear. I had to deliberate only a moment before I saw the cute little beast. It was a medium sized black bear, perusing the perimeter of the camp. He (she) seemed only slightly put off by the ruckus. More annoyed that it obstructed the path to a potential feast. It just tried to skirt around the army of campers to find a gap to plow through…It didn’t happen, and after a few minute standoff the bear went on its way (hopefully in the other direction of the road).

I know, you thought Alaska was bear country…well, guess again…

Check out these fun facts:

Bear facts in Yosemite
My new favorite saying “speeding kills bears”.

Bears and Vans
Don’t worry folks, we drive a eurovan, not a mini van – its totally different. We only live out of our van, so have multiple pantries of food, and we probably reek of dinner even if all our food is stored in the bear safe… We have been cooking and eating out of this thing for a couple of weeks. I am sure it smells like one big lunch box.

When we go to sleep at night every far off sound of a door shutting or even the neighbor camper snoring brings dreams of bears stalking our snacks.

This is the bear bulletin at our camp – updated weekly! Check it out, sadly there is already one more bear hit from last week.

Fall, Beauty, & Finger Cracks

Yosemite Valley is beauty. I am in love in a lovely place.

Kristine sitting between climbs and looking up at Fall in the Valley (the picture is glowing in part because the shutter speed was slowed to almost half a second in an attempt to capture the flight of the rich yellow leaves to the ground):

This is what she saw:

We both climbed hard today. Kristine made it up her first 5.9 ever, which is especially impressive in the Valley. It was a sustained thin finger crack. Kristine’s preference are hand cracks because she’s very quickly picked up the skill of hand and foot jamming in those cracks. I really love finger cracks. I find the finger jams very solid and the climbing usually very fluid.
We’ll be sore tomorrow. We’ll probably still climb, but maybe mix up the day with a hike up to Yosemite Falls.

Kristine learned the mountaineers coil and did a beautiful job of coiling the rope and tying it to her back.

Yosemite Valley & One Wish

Kristine and I made the drive from Smith Rock to Yosemite National Park in two days. The first night we slept in the van about thirty miles outside of Reno, NV. Early the next morning we drove through Reno and into California. We didn’t like Reno much or anything about the cities in Nevada. The landscape was beautiful but the cities dirty with casinos and the bright lights, lifestyle, and trash that seem to follow gambling like a scent.

Yosemite Valley was serene. We arrived in the afternoon and the clear blue sky and bright sun made our descent into the valley almost magical. This is a picture of our van at top of the National Park, before descending down into the valley.

Here was our first view of the Valley with the Half Dome in the center of the background.

And here we are in the Valley with El Cap rising up into the sky behind the van.

Our first morning we headed for the renown Yosemite granite. The morning started out cold, but by the time we were climbing I had already taken my shirt off and it felt like the middle of summer. Kristine climbed great. The first climb we did was a 5.8 that started out with a thin slab that led into a finger crack all the way to the top. The second climb was a 5.9 thin finger crack that required a lot of balance and smearing, and Kristine climbed it gracefully only taking once at the crux. It was at the end of this climb that Kristine ripped off her left shoe off as soon as she got to the top of the climb. She has had a soreness in the side of her foot that has caused some discomfort and pain from climbing, but now it was worse than it had been. We ate a late lunch made up of mainly of popcorn and cliff bars and then took a break in the creek that ran by our climb. Kristine iced her foot in the cold creek water and we both contemplated what to do next

I was thinking about a time when I was young and I asked my Dad what he would wish for if he could have any one wish, anything. He didn’t think long before replying, “100% health for me and my family.” I tried to convince him he would be wasting what could be a real wish, something like time travel, magic powers, flying, etc.

It’s not until your hurt or sick that you appreciate being healthy; and being hurt or sick can be a devastating setback in sports, school, life, and should be avoided like the plague–literally. Kristine and I decided that we had to do three things: 1. Figure out what was wrong with her foot. 2. Eliminate anything that was irritating her foot and give her at least three days complete rest. And 3. See if we could find her climbing shoes with a wider toe box to accomodate her swollen foot.

Here’s what we’ve done/ figured out:
1. We think it’s a bunionette, which is simply a bunion on the outside of the foot near the little toe as opposed to a bunion, which is located on the inside of the foot near the big toe.
2. Kristine is no longer wearing her chacos, which were part of the reason that the bunnionette originally became inflamed. We headed to San Francisco for a short three days of rest. We figured the Valley would force us to climb if we stayed there, especially with the perfect weather that they were having.
3. We found her a pair of velcro slippers today at REI that seem to fit her foot much better, provide more room around her toes, and are a stiffer shoe that will hopefully give her more protection around the area where the bunionette is.

This post is already rampant and out of control, so I’ll stop. I’m sure Kristine will pick up the pen to describe our adventures in San Francisco.

Migrating SOUTH: Bishop, Yosemite, Red Rocks…

Ok, enough is enough. Yesterday we got to park early and both Kristine and I got into our groove. We started with a fairly easy but interesting crack climb, which was long and required our entire 70M rope to rappel down to the bottom. I then jumped on my first 5.10 at Smith Rock, which was a beautiful climb, albeit short. It was just a bit overhung with dynamic moves and a two-finger pocket at the top to a sloper finish to clip the chains (climbers reading this know what i’m talking about…). Kristine was so amped that she wanted to try the climb as well. She did amazing well but didn’t make it to the top. The irony the entire morning was that every time I was climbing the sun was shining on me and when Kristine began climbing the sun would disappear behind storm clouds of death. This was the case on the 5.10 climb. I felt the sun on my back while clipping the anchors at the top of the climb. Clouds moved in when Kristine got on the climb and torrential rain showered down as soon as she was back on the ground from trying the climb. We piled our gear in our packs and hurried back to the van. The pictures doesn’t demonstrate just how wet we really were, but regardless this is us after getting back to the van.

We then woke up this morning to 25 degree weather. It was cold but we wanted nothing other than a great day climbing, so after german pancakes with some special Hull applesauce and plenty of maple syrup and butter, we suited up and headed for the climbs. This morning we wanted to try a different area that neither of us had been to before, it was the columnar basalt of the Lower Gorge, which has renown crack climbs that are much different from the tuff rock that makes up most of the rock that Smith Rock is known for. We were still freezing before even getting to the climbs, we couldn’t even imagine taking off our gloves to climbing, so we settled for a hike up to the top of Smith Rock. The hike was beautiful. It was only around a 3.5 mile hike, but we ascended over 2,000 feet to the top and got some great pictures of the park:

Monkey face, which is a 300 foot pillar that ironically looks like a monkey’s face (although not from this angle). It actually looks like rock from another planet and just looking at it was intimidating:

A view of the valley below. This is the heart of Terrebonne, OR. It’s beautiful. With this landscape and cute llamas if it weren’t for the cold weather Kristine would probably never leave.

Back at the van we ate a late lunch and as the sun had just about convinced us that the afternoon was going to be perfect for climbing, we had to run for cover from pellet sized hail. “Are you kidding me!!!!” , I screamed, and Kristine knowingly, simply looked at me and said three words, “We’re heading South.” Simple, direct, and straight from the boss. Now it’s just a a matter of choosing between all the sunny and amazing climbing heavens in California and Southern Utah and Southern Nevada.