Spring Thing 2008

Almost every year, many of the climbers of the Northwest travel down to Smith Rock State Park in Oregon and perform a full day of trail maintenance. More than a simple litter pickup or tree planting (although we do that too), this is back-breaking work to construct safer trails on the steep slopes of the park.

Given the delicate desert landscape, having trails is a good way to join both the community and the climber crowd together to promote the park. This little park is a jewel of geological history and of course - it has awesome climbing routes.

The work parties started at 8 on Saturday and spread out across the park, each under a lead that directed the action. The supplies are carted or trucked to the edge of the park or area, but the majority of the work is bucket-brigade or simply walking with a heavy rock, putting it in place, then getting another.

But when the day progresses, finally wrapping up in the early afternoon (the hot afternoons shut everything down), the trails look amazingly new. These events are a great way to meet new climbers and catch up with old friends.

Also, the bolts that have gotten notices about being ready for replacement are all checked and replaced. This is especially reassuring, as the rock qualities at Smith are touch on any fixed gear, due to the high thermal expansion cycles of the desert and the rock actually being a "welded tuft", a form of petrified volcanic ash.

These pictures aren't a great way to capture Smith's expansive vista, especially from the top, where the majority of central Oregon's lower Cascade mountains are visible across a green blanket of farms and small towns. I believe Oregon to be one of the most beautiful places on earth, but you'll just have to take my word for it. No picture would suffice.







Smith Rock is located centrally in Oregon, not far from the larger town of Bend. It gained popularity in the 1980's as "this birthplace of American Sport climbing", which is to say, some local climbers cleaned the loose rock , bolted the walls into very tough routes, and invited the world to try the climbing. The entire process was bumpy in a few ways, including getting a community used to a new tourism feed in their area, and getting a climbing world used to a few "new school" techniques of putting a climbing route on a wall without always starting from the ground each time.

Many times, routes were so difficult that they demanded a series of "practice sessions" of small sections until they could all be linked up into a single, highly gymnastic sequence. This was new to the world of climbing, where a more mountaineering atmosphere was the norm ever since "traditional climbing" broke into a sport of its own decades prior. During the 1980's, "sport climbing" sought to create or find routes that didn't achieve a goal height, attain a peak, or adhere to a crack-based, naturally protected route. Instead, stone anchors were drilled into the wall and thus every face, however devoid of features, become yet another "project". When records for difficulty appeared at Smith (5.14b), it finally attained status world-wide as a place to visit on every climber's list.



We climbed later that day, in the shadier areas, then met up again that night for a party of beer and burritos. A slideshow, a few movies of some outrageous climbing from around the world (shown by attendees of the party) and the highlight of the evening, an auction and raffle of some great donated gear. This year, a huge amount of gear seemed to appear from some new sponsors.



We're very happy and thankful to get an opportunity to join in with our friends and help make a park a bit prettier and a lot safer for everyone to enjoy. I recommend anyone who has time to visit that park, and a few others, here in Oregon. And if you can find a way, throw some donated labor into your community. It feels great.

Back to the Front Page

Thanks to some prodding from friends, we're back to blog more regularly. Aw - you guys are great. So there should be a few posts appearing more often than the usual "every blue moon." In this post, I'll catch you up on whats been news lately.

If you've not heard the old news, flip back and read about our trip through Patagonia, which wrapped up in January. Since then, I've switched jobs - haha, yet again. I decided to recognize that tougher times are just around the corner and picked up a full-time position at an old client. They're a good shop and have their eye on the long-term, instead of what seemed like very short-term thinking in some other places I've seen. Plus, the people are wonderful.

On the home front, we're still fuzting around with our bathroom remodel - slowly picking through the final pieces and putting them together now and again. We've definitely fallen into the "long tail" finish of this project. There's around 5 things left, its all going well though. We use everything in the room and it all works great.

We overhauled the "back 40" on our lot and tilled the yard up, spread compost everywhere and planted a mix of grass and wildflowers. It's been a cool, wet Spring so the sprouts are slowly coming along, but there's a peach-fuzz of green across the yard.

The chickens have been moved to the side yard. They don't like this area as much since their view is obscured and their sunlight is more limited. However, it gives the back yard time to revitalize and allows us to set up the garden without worrying about their scratching and pecking at all the sprouts.

I'm learning to bake bread! We don't have a bread mixer or a bread machine, so I'm perfecting the use of the food processor (the "chopper") for some initial mixing. I'm quite impatient so the "rising" portion of the making sometimes gets cut short. I still don't know what a second rise is all about, so I skip it. The first loaf was horrendously bad, as I didn't understand the purpose of gluten. (Imagine an all-gluten loaf of gum) The second loaf was better, but it was a little dense, as my yeast poured right through the chopper's center hole (note to self: turn machine on).

Han has been out in the nicer Spring days on paid shooting gigs. She's also picked up a very fun assistant position as a web designer for a sustainability blog. She's quite busy when those schedules converge, and the post-processing is a big job.

The bikes have been tuned up for Spring. I performed my first "brake job" on the mountain bike the other day - it was tricky but when finished, the lines have no bubbles and I could flip over the handlebars as easily as my first day. I rode to the new job yesterday and it was one of the most magical, wonderful routes I've ever enjoyed on the way to work. It's close to 15 miles each way, with a few steep hills, so the evening was a hot bath in the gigantic tub.

Hanmi set out the sprouts and our first round of garden plants are just about ready to go in the ground. She also prepped the plot and sowed seeds directly last weekend. I'm very excited. After a break last year from tomatoes and similar plants (peppers) - we're back with a full-range of vegetables: Potatoes, Cucumbers, Peppers, Tomatoes, Strawberries, Blueberries, Swiss Chard, Cilantro, Basil, Oregano, Sage, Spinach, Snow Peas, and 2 different kinds of Beans. The lots of Carrots and Brussel Sprouts, Mustard Greens, Kale, Lettuce, Chives, Onions, Garlic and other stuff are all around the house in planters. We also have a fig tree and a persimmon tree we planted last winter that will hopefully bear fruit this year. Should be interesting!

The eggs are arriving steadily, about 3 a day. We have given a lot away lately, which feels good. We received a cute Thank You note from a small child (and family) that walked by to "visit" the chickens, since they are now visible in the front yard. The chickens are quite friendly, almost to to point of being nagging in their quest for food, sunlight and attention. Riding on shoulders is a common sight when we're in the yard. We let them out to clean the front yard of slugs now and then. It's a fun, carefree feeling to relax with chickens napping on your legs on a lounge chair on the porch.

We are harvesting rain! The first 2 rain barrels are in place and full already. I'm slowly adding delivery pieces to the output side of the system. Our barrels are "nonstandard" in their storage, so that I could fit them under the back deck. But after a few tests everything seemed to work out. I'm very happy with it. We'll have the garden on a pH-balanced and filtered water system, run off a battery timer, flowing every morning for an hour or so. It's drip irrigation so there's not a lot of waste. The pressure from the gravity feed, with 110 gallons about 2 feet about ground seems fine.

We've played a lot with the numbers and the space we could devote to this concept. We have room for 6 more barrels for a total of ~400 gallons (about 3200 pounds!). I've been imagining some neat uses for all the water in later phases (toilet, basement sink, bird feeder, etc). For now, I've been advised to finish some older projects first. Wise, those unnamed advisers.

Jump On the Bed!

Treats + Hungry Dogs + Two Beds gapped just right


(Take 12)

Slot Canyons

Utah is famous for it's rock formations. After Zion, Bryce and Grand Staircase, we thought it would be fun to get off the beaten path. Some friendly locals directed us to a lesser-visited bunch of slot canyons near the foothills of Escalante, UT. Slot canyons are an interesting phenomenon, and they can seem quite spooky. To get to these, we had drive off-road for about 27 miles across some open grazing land and BLM areas.



We weren't disappointed, and even though the heat poured on during the start of our hike and rainclouds threatened later that day, we thought it'd be fun to take the short (about 1 mile) hike around the washes and canyons next to the access road. We didn't have a map, but there were footprints and some cairns that guided us.

They certainly were fun to walk through, and as they got shallower into the prairie, they narrowed dramatically.



PeakABoo and Spooky both narrowed or curved in such ways that it resembled climbing. We didn't try to push the doggies through all the twists, staying content to reach a safe distance in, let Han shoot photos and then turn around.



There were some guests waiting for us on the way back. First, a rattlesnake was heading across the path. I spotted him before he spotted us, and I got the doggies away and let him continue onward. That rattle, when they do get spooked, sure is an alarming sound! There's no mistaking it. It's so continuous its like hiss.



Also heading out, some cows were grazing along the road. For the most part, they move away from cars but one small group had a stubborn male that faced full-on to the car and I thought we may have a bullfight of sorts. But after about 30 seconds of some yelling and slowly moving forward, he decided he'd rather not head-butt our front fender.



After that we headed on a long rally drive through Utah, into one of the most wild and exciting parts of the trip. You'll have to stay tuned for that one, coming up in a few posts, but I'll give you a hint: Deer, Elk and a Wolf at 9000 feet!

Zion

Camping in Zion was fun. It was crowded and a bit noisy, with some interesting "camping" around us, but we had fun prepping for each day's adventure and getting a little R-n-R at night. The doggies seemed to like it. The park has quite a few restrictions on pets, and I can understand why - it's a madhouse of people. Over 3 million people visit each year. Sheesh!

We boarded the doggies just outside the park on the days we spent climbing. We left them at the Doggy Dude Ranch, which was awesome, and the dogs didn't want to leave. They were plenty tired from playing with the other dogs there, but happy to see us when we picked them up and headed out to Bryce Canyon. Cindy, who was taking care of the dogs for us, was fantastic. Turns out she's a climber as well and told us many stories about her adventures in Zion and Yosemite. She was also very understanding when we didn't show up to collect the dogs Saturday night! Thanks Cindy!!

Honey, have you seen the salsa?

Zion was a great time (see the Equinox Epic story) and the climbs were stellar and unique. We won't get to see all popular the Utah sandstone climbing on this trip, but I feel like we got a hearty meal of it this time.

Dad is such a slob.

More Creatures We Have Met

Instead of posting again, we simply updated the creature menagerie. Check out the new lineup.

Red Rock Canyon

The rock shapes are amazing

We’re here in Red Rock Canyon, and have been for 5 days. It’s a great place, with tons of climbing, perfect weather (most of the time) and some neat “attractions” nearby. The campground is situated just outside Las Vegas, between town and the Red Rock Canyon National Park. We’ve been to this park several times in the past for climbing, and always had great fun. Once you get used to the dramatic weather patterns (high winds mornings and evenings, with cold nights and hot days) you can find places in the park at almost any temperature you want.

To whet our appetites over the weekend when crowds were higher, we stayed out of the main park circus and hiked into the Calico Basin where some shorter, easier climbs exist. Hanmi continued her mojo by working a fun 5.7 for a while, learning how to deal with tricky placements without a solid stance and managing rope drag. I got a small meal of a mild 10 that had a “boulder start” – which means all the climb was in the first 5 moves. Red Rocks is notorious for the some climbs being a bit light, meaning the higher numbers are still easier compared to locations elsewhere. However, earlier in the week it was raining and snowing (sometimes without hitting the valley floor, which made for great curtains of rain that simply disappeared).

Hanmi rocked up Tonto

Yesterday, just to get a workout, I coaxed Han out to the front side to a short (45ft) crag called the Magic Bus. There, I ran up and down all the climbs, TR’ing ot leading whatever and even down climbing. They were 8’s and 10’s but they all felt rather easy, with some aesthetic moves on otherwise Smith-like faces. I got my heart pumping but they weren’t the best routes of the trip.

Hanmi has her mojo back.

Las Vegas! Casinos! Every visit, we stop at the “Red Rocks Casino” and play a few games. The first year we made a few dollars, but this year was a bust. We skipped the weekend and hit it on the Sunday night, which was low energy and nobody at the table had any good streaks. Some dude next to us proceeded to lose about $1500 - he wasn’t in a good mood. I was content to lose what I brought, knowing that I could make it up when I get back.

Funny enough, the casino has a huge bowling alley and I played two games (159, 147) just to burn time while waiting for Han. The lanes are new and slick, but their ball selection is weak. I didn’t find grips or weights matched to really feel solid. By the end of the second game though, I thought climbing and bowling might be good combinations – both working the arm and fingers. I felt it.

Plan F is a more exciting line than Ragged Edges

The doggies have been having a great time. Their scrambling skill to the cliff bases is at an all-time high. Malo is hitting higher-angled stuff than ever, and Ellis can almost climb whatever we point her towards. On the ways home, they always get excited and climb best, whether up or down – they know when the food times are. Malo loves his full-body, balanced harness. When he feels me get ready to haul him, he leaps into a superman pose, holding it until he lands.

Yesterday we put them in the doggie daycare “evaluation” so that we could simply drop them off whenever we want. It worked out pretty well. Malo has a strong pack-animal sense (but certainly not Alpha-minded) – he holds his own when animals prod him. Ellis had a bit of separation anxiety but got over it (we were told). There were some fun dogs there, a friendly Boston Terrier and a huge black Great Dane stood out.

Ragged Edges is a great crack.

We’re spotted a ring-tailed cat, a few desert hares and one small coyote. We haven’t seen the desert tortoise rumored to be in the vicinity of the campground, but with these crowds I’m sure it didn’t stay long. So far, only one tourist has asked us about “this climbing thing” – pretty good. The dog celebrity continues, with people fawning over Ellis’s ears and Malo’s um, charm.

Today we went over to the Ragged Edges wall – which has some shorter classics. The route “Ragged Edges” itself is pretty great. There’s “Plan F” which we all thought was a good climb. Hanmi lead “Tonto” which she tells me is pretty easy. The routefinding was tricky though, which caused a bit of rope drag. She had to downclimb and pull some pieces. She has become quite a leader and while always progressing through the grades, is getting great experience with all the nuances about rope management and trad belay/rap stations.

We climbed with a great fellow Loren, who needed partners for his trip and was glad to take a “slow day” with us. Originally, we planned to split up and I’d climb a multipitch with Loren, but Han felt good enough to join in. So, we brought the whole family and just cragged 1 or 2 pitches. Thanks again, Loren. We’ll meet up again to do “Chicken Eruptus” soon!

Multi-pitching with Loren

Gear Lineup

For those keeping score at home, we thought it’d be cute at the end of a short day to demonstrate the gear. Although Rosie carries quite a bit more, here’s lineup of the day walk-along gear:


Hanmi and I carry about 1.5 standard trad racks when planning to hit an unknown crag. We don’t carry the largest sizes, but in the small hands/large fingers we have a bit of overlap. Also included is a bag of slings, rap slings, a small emergency pack, food (no dog food), guidebooks, 4 liters of water, shoes, helmets, a rope (sometimes two if we want to hit 2 pitches at once) and some rescue gear – which all adds up to maybe 30 lbs per pack. Dogs for scale (they actually just wanted some of Rachel Ray’s yummy Wheat Thins).




















Our tent is a heavier expedition-style 4 season 2-man tent. It has a full fly which we use more often than not. We’ve sometimes broken it down to just 2 poles and the tent for short backpacking trips – which is about 5lbs, a tolerable weight.

The desert camping has typical high winds in the mornings and evenings. Our last tent had the door torn open on such a night, so we beefed up on this tent. It is super calm inside on even the stormiest of nights. The two vestibules get lots of use for shoes, packs and stuff. There are lots of great pockets to hold your pocket junk, headlamps, etc. The doggies fit inside well and we’re all pretty cozy.







We lay down two thermarest-style pads, then some 30-degree sleeping bags with extra silk liners. I also have my woulbie (flannel sheet) which I use more often than zipping up the sleeping bag. We use stuff-sacks filled with clothes as pillows and sometimes covered with a fleece. All of this overnight gear fits in about 1 backpack and weighs about 30 lbs.









The doggies Malo and Ellis have a small sleeping bag to themselves, which they sometimes use. We’ve also gotten them a doggie bed to ride in the car (it helps keep them comfortable atop all the boxes and gear. It also makes a nice loafing pad for me in the morning sun.

Pardise Forks

We are sitting in the tent and Hanmi is demonstrating how band-aid wrappers flash blue when you open them. She is placing the band-aid on her knee, which has become an ugly collection of poison oak bumps. Placing the finishing touches of a band-aid on top of a few wraps of flexible gauze, her knee resembles more of a runner’s injury than a spreading itch. But after a week, she’s desperate to try anything, and it seems to spread to her other leg while she sleeps.

Today we drove Northward from Prescott, Arizona to a small town called Williams. There is nothing out of the ordinary there; it is a typical Arizona desert town, full of ranchers and land subdivisions for sale, trying to continue the recent years of population spread to the area. It looks about over, from the abundant supply of For Sale signs.

Williams has a large US Ranger Station, and there we picked up several maps to the area. From studying these maps and using the hand drawn maps I made last night from our friend’s guidebook, plus the poor instructions in the Rock-N-Road book, we made it to Paradise Forks. It is here that we’ve set up camp.

Paradise Forks is about a 2 mile gorge cut into this high desert from a small river. It splits at the South into two legs, and is fed from the North by two smaller streams, each of which has cut another two legs into the gorge, making the entire feature resemble a large X on the map.

The sides of Paradise Forks are of a volcanic rock that has formed large semi-regular columns comprised of basalt. Beneath these columns is thin layer of red sandstone. Rock climbers cherish this area because it presents unique climbing compared to the rock features in other areas nearby. One arrives at Paradise at the lip of the gorge and can scramble down one of a few steep gullies, or rappel from the top of a popular climb.

The climbs are highly prized for their unique crack systems, which develop from the separation of the basalt columns as their slowly erode away from the sides of the gorge. Since the loose rocks were removed from the area by the original climbing parties, performed long ago, the climbs are of a clean and solid shape.

In Arizona, I’ve been told that crack climbing is not as prevalent as face climbing. However, from yesterday at Sullivan Canyon I’ve realized that there’s lots of crack to work on one’s technique here.

Dude – these climbs rock! Today, we found our buddy Ben in his local Prescott College rock climbing class. He had told us last night that they’d be here and we thought it was a great opportunity to meet up again (3rd time) and hit a crag along our planned route.

I set up an anchor from two stout trees at the top next to his, and rapped down to the base. Then Hanmi joined me, leaving the dogs tired to a tree at the top. I climbed first, and found it to be somewhat of a stretch in places but very exciting. It demanded full scouting for good holds, looking outside one’s typical shoulder-width climbing path, and it had solid hand and foot jams whenever you searched for them. It was slightly overhanging and in a dihedral, making some of the moves feel desperate. However, for my height, every two or three moves was followed by a solid stance. Hanmi had several more between stances, and is blessed with the ability to enjoy more technical moves from every climb than I. This also works her a bit harder, but when our day starts late and we’re taking it easy, she’ll let me climb multiple times between hers.

So I did, after she topped the route, I climbed it again – and again laughed at how fun it was. Ben and friends climbed to our left and each had a struggle on a more demanding crack climb. Crack climbing can sometimes be considered a specialized technique but eventually one must master finger locks, stacks, jams, hand jams, fist jams and so on, as the cracks widen. Fingers and larger-than-hands are both more strenuous than simply a cupped hand size, but once added to your repertoire, climbing in place like Paradise Forks are fun and exciting.

So I lowered down the next route over and Hanmi belayed me up again. This route has two starts: The direct, which is a wide stem problem with nearly no cracks or edges to help, is said to be a mid-11 grade. The easier start traverses from the first climb we did and then joins at a about one-quarter of the way up.

I tried the direct first, and made it about 5 moves before falling. The fall swung me around to the other climb, so I went there and traversed back, skipping the direct start entirely. Once on the rest of the route, it was solid hand and foot jams, with extra feature along the faces whenever you wanted them. However, the crack was a perfect size for large hands and feet, so I felt solid and jammed my way up the climb.

Tomorrow, we’ll be dropping lines down again to find climbs that interest us. It should be interesting because we won’t know what climbs are possible from looking down at them. So, we’ll probably drop one line and bring another in case I have to jug back up and drop one elsewhere. We’ll just have to see. Our entire trip so far is like that, since we have no real schedule or pressure to pack a lot of activity into a short time, we can look and play until we’re tired.

Sullivan Canyon and Some New Friends

We met some folks in Granite Dells recently, students taking a climbing class at nearby Prescott College. The next day we ran into some of them again at Sullivan Canyon, a columnar basalt gorge outside town. After sharing ropes and beta, we got to talking and found them very fun and friendly. We joked about climbs, travels, school and everything in-between. At the end of the day we all lined up to tick off a particularly fun roof problem on TR and some nearby climbs.








Afterwards, we inquired about camping nearby and they invited us to come back to town with them and crash at their place. Always up for adventure and realizing these were good folks, we accepted. After a trip to the store, we stood in the kitchen to share food and formally meet each one of the group. Zak, Ben, West, Filipe, Matt, Rachel, Chaya are all very cool (did we miss any names?). We had great fun talking about climbs/places we’d been (nothing epic to amaze them, but they realized our trip wasn’t to peak bag or chase stars in the guidebooks). Their place is an outdoor enthusiast’s dream, with gear for almost every outdoor activity somewhere and someone who knows something about it.

I tried to make some food to add to the yummy corned beef and cabbage they had stewing all day, plus beer-roasted bratwursts. We ate some, drank some and crashed in the basement – in a real bed! The next day we hung out with Felipe for a few hours before heading out to Paradise Forks – again to meet a few of the students in their class again. We found them late in the day and ended up on some stellar 10ish handcracks. I cannot believe the quality of the climbs there – simply amazing. We put Paradise Forks and Granite Mountain on the list for our return trip of focused climbing.

Hey guys – you’re all invited up to our place any time. One or all, let us know when you want to see the NW climbing areas and we’re easily available. Of course, you already have a free place to stay. Thanks again!

Granite Dells at Watson Lake

The past three days have been of us climbing in different crags in this area around Prescott. The Watson Lake area (Granite Dells climbing crag) was short and interesting. It was here that Hanmi felt more open to start leading again, and put up a mild climb, then top-roped a steeper short problem I wanted to play on.

Then, we scrambled over to “Thor’s Wall” – which holds a menagerie longer and more difficult problems. The rock at this crag overall is of an eroded quartzite, similar to Joshua Tree in rounded blobs, however they are even sharper and of larger crystals than J-Tree.

Ben had mentioned of a few 10-ish trad leads on Thor’s Wall, so we went to scope them out. I became distracted for a short time by an intriguing problem that seemed like a hard 11 or low 12. I made it about 2 moves up that one, then down-climbed and pulled pieces.


Humbled, I racked up and began another climb in the 10 range. After 2 moves, again I froze and found myself refusing to commit to the balance of a thin problem above my gear. After several tries and lots coaching from Hanmi, I lowered frustrated. In my annoyance, I suggested she give it a shot.

After only a split second of consideration, she was shoes on and rack-ready. At the move, she threw a high foot and slowly rocked onto it, hands only balanced on the thinnest of features. She clipped the last sparse bolt and then had a great time climbing up and placing solid gear. She topped out shortly afterward and belayed me up on a trad anchor.

I couldn’t have been more delighted and proud of watching her meet the anxiety of a true lead at her climbing limit and sending the route onsite. After a lot of hugs and kisses and a scramble down, we headed into a hotel room to clean up for celebratory dinner. Going back to where we found great lunches, we ate braised lamb shank and whiskey glazed pork loin. We had skipped a proper lunch, so dinner had all the courses, from a salad with bread, to soup, main course then dessert. A bottle of wine and a short trip back to the hotel room and solid sleep followed.