Ropeless

Thank You!

2011-09-28T22:01:00.000-04:00

I guess that's it for the blog posts, at least for now.

Most of the local climbing we're doing now isn't really that epic, and once winter hits we will be stuck in the gym. It does feel a little strange to go climbing without having the blog in the back of my mind though. I have this weird feeling that I need to be sharing what we are doing with the world. At the same time it's nice to leave the camera at home, and just enjoy the climbing.

Hopefully we'll hit the road again next summer. Despite the number of climbing destinations we visited, there are still some amazing ones that we missed. The Grand Tetons in Wyoming and The Bugaboos in British Columbia are high on the list. We might start blogging again then.

There are a lot of people we'd like to thank for making the trip so amazing:

All the new friends we met on the way, even if it was just for an afternoon of climbing or the sharing of a campfire. It was awesome to hear all your stories and share your experiences.

All our old friends and family who joined us for various parts of the trip. It was always a joy to climb and hang out with familiar faces from back home, and we were so excited to be a part of your own adventures.

All the people who opened their doors and let us stay on the inside. You have no idea how awesome it was to sleep in your bed, use your shower, enjoy your climate controlled air, and steal your internet.

And all the people who read any of these blog posts. I'm sure most people just looked at the pretty pictures, but I hope we entertained some of you for a while.

Thanks for coming along for the ride.

"Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories."

- Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451

"The law of gravity will be strictly enforced."

- Climbing access sign at Rocktown, Georgia

Memorable Moments

2011-09-24T21:06:00.001-04:00

During the trip we had our fair share of memorable moments. Of course a lot of them came from the various routes and problems we climbed, but I'm sure just as many came from the many entertaining people we met.

One of the funniest moments, at least for us, came when we were at Lake Louise,in Alberta, when some other climbers walked past us. One of them stopped, looked at Kristal and I, and excitedly said, 'I know you guys!" It's actually not that uncommon to run into the same climbers in multiple places, so for the next split second I was desperately trying to remember where we had met this guy before. He finally said, "From the boulder video of Hazlet!" It turns out this guy had not only seen our video of bouldering in Saskatchewan (probably one of only a few hundred people), but he actually went to climb the Hazlet boulder after watching it. And to top it off he actually recognized us! We were laughing about it the entire rest of the day.

When we met Smiling Wes the first time, it was an unforgettable moment in its own right. He came rolling in to Horse Pens 40, Alabama, at about 11pm, set up beside us, cooked himself some supper and headed into the woods to work on his project by lamplight. Naturally we joined him, and were thoroughly entertained for the next few hours. Then we met him again, 7 months later, in the exact same spot, still working on the same problem, and neither of us had been back to Horse Pens since the first time we met there!

In addition to surprising coincidences, we often got interesting reactions from Americans when they found out we were from Canada. Like the over the top climbing guide we met in Joshua Tree, who proceeded to tell his client all about how awesome the Tragically Hip were. Or the hippie we met in Tuolumne Meadows who said, "Right On!! You must own, like, every Rush album!"

Then there was this guy we met in Lake Tahoe, who related his story of planning a road trip to Alaska. He was thoroughly confused about why the mileage wasn't adding up, until he finally realized there was an ENORMOUS COUNTRY between Alaska and the continental United States. I felt a little sorry for his kids.

Some memorable moments fell into the 'tents are not soundproof' category. One evening in Arkansas we shared a campfire with the couple camping next to us, and were entertained by what we thought was some fun witty banter between them. Later that night, as we were trying to sleep, we had to listen to them arguing about it: "Why do you always make fun of me in front of other people!?".

But of course, nothing quite beats the countless moments like the one below, enjoying the company of new friends at some amazing climbing destination. I hope those moments never end.

Kristal hanging out with Max, Dan, Laura and Chelsea.

Favourite Routes - Part 2

2011-09-19T00:26:00.000-04:00

5. New Wave/Assembly Line 5.10a 550 ft, Devils Tower, Wyoming

Kristal Imagine a massive granite monolith towering 700 feet above rolling prairie. The climbing is also pretty amazing, if you can avoid the thunderstorms, biker gangs and slow parties in front of you. On New Wave/Assembly line, two pitches of varied climbing lead you to a perfect pitch of fingers and hands. The summit is also an impressive place, a true island in the sky.

Jason Yeah, talk about slow parties! We had the slowest party ever ahead of us on this one, and as a result came our closest to having an epic. The climbing was awesome, the summit was amazing, and the descent gave us enough adrenaline to last a lifetime.

4. West Crack 5.9 700 ft, Yosemite, California

Jason Tuolumne Meadows offers many classic routes in a spectacular alpine setting, but is somewhat marred by the number of people milling about, both tourists and climbers alike. West Crack was an excellent route just far enough off the beaten path to give us that remote climbing experience that we really enjoy.

Kristal West Crack had a couple of super memorable crack pitches, but I think the most memorable part was the American hippie we met on the summit who couldn't believe that, as Canadians, we didn’t absolutely love Rush.

3. Endgame 5.10a 610 ft, Cochise Stronghold, Arizona

Kristal Once the last holdout of Apache warriors, Cochise Stronghold is an isolated maze of granite domes. Endgame climbs both steep, big plates and thin friction slab 600 feet up the Rockfellow dome, near the heart of the maze. The exposure is great and the summit superb, if a little windy.

Jason Yeah, even though this route is mostly bolted, it provided some exceptional climbing: sustained vertical crimping, runout slab, and some ridiculously exposed traverse moves. Also, nothing quite beats Cochise Stronghold for that back country climbing experience. We didn't see another soul the entire day.

2. Moby Grape 5.8 1000 ft, Cannon Cliff, New Hampshire

Jason This route scored the highest for actual climbing from both Kristal and I. The climbing is superb, with more crazy features than on any single route we've climbed. The experience was slightly lessened by the fact that the I-93 runs right along the base of the cliff. Nothing quite ruins the serene climbing experience like watching and listening to transport trucks barreling down the interstate.

Kristal Oh, Touthomme, you forget. By the time we were four pitches up the wind was howling so badly we couldn't hear anything at all. There’s nothing quite like friction slab in a 100km/hr wind.

1. The Wasteland 5.8 600 ft, Cochise Stronghold, Arizona

Kristal With a vicious chimney, cranking on steep jugs, and two pitches of delicate traversing across chicken heads, with nothing but air beneath your feet, The Wasteland was an exhilarating experience. It had some of the best climbing of our trip (except for that thirty feet of painful chimneying) in one of the most beautiful settings. Plus there’s nothing better than climbing in 25 degrees C in the middle of January.

Jason Absolutely! Winter climbing at its finest. I also thought the chimney was kind of fun, but of course I didn't lead that pitch. This was another amazing Cochise climb where it felt like we had the entire place to ourselves. The day we climbed The Wasteland had everything we look for in a perfect climbing day: a moderate approach; 6 pitches of interesting and fun climbing; a distinct summit; spectacular views; comfortable climbing conditions; an easy descent; and, most importantly, getting back to the car before dark.

Favourite Routes - Part 1

2011-09-14T23:43:00.000-04:00

When you live out of your car, without the distractions of television, the internet, and often even other people, you end up having quite a bit of free time. In addition to gossiping about anybody and everybody, we spend a lot of time discussing the merits of the various routes and problems we climb.

As we neared the end of the trip we decided to rank our favourite multi-pitch routes. These routes sometimes require a significant investment in time and effort, often taking a full day to complete. As such they can be pretty memorable, for good or bad, depending on how things go. When things go well it can be pure joy that you never want to end. When things go bad, it can be complete misery, with no better feeling in the world than finally getting back to the car.

So, without further adieu, here is part one of our top ten favourite multi-pitch routes, ranked on a completely subjective scale based on our experience climbing them.

10. Frogland 5.8 770', Red Rocks, Nevada

Jason This is one of the most popular routes at Red Rocks, and for good reason. The climbing is fun, varied and pretty sustained at the grade. Unfortunately its popularity also means that it suffers the inevitable issue of overcrowding.

Kristal If you can get past the crowds and the terrible rope drag on the traverse pitch, there’s a spectacular view of Las Vegas from the summit.

9. Cathedral Enchainment 5.9 400', The Needles, South Dakota

Kristal The Enchainment had the single most committing move I’ve ever done. It links the climbs between three granite spires and involved lunging over the void between the first and second spire. The rest of the climb included some delicate, spicy climbing and a narrow miss with a thunderstorm.

Jason You can’t ask for much more than three distinct summits (each with its own summit register!) in 400 feet of climbing. Pretty unique, and far away from the usual touristy madness that goes with climbing along the Needles highway.

8. Ancient Arts 5.8 A0 250ft, Fisher Towers, Utah

Jason When I stepped up to the top of the fourth pitch, to the start of ‘The Sidewalk’ with the Corkscrew Summit in front of me, I distinctly remember saying to Kristal, ‘Screw that, have fun, I’m staying here!’ I did eventually suck it up and climb to the summit, but wow, the exposure is intense!

Kristal Not only was it super exposed, but we were buzzed by base jumpers as we started to rap down. Definitely a unique experience.

7. Outer Space 5.9 1000', Leavenworth, Washington

Kristal The fifth pitch is truly spectacular, a perfect hand crack which splits a vertical face covered with knobs. Definitely one of the best pitches I’ve ever climbed. As for the other pitches, well, the poor rock quality on the crux pitch and the long traverse pitch keep this climb from being in the top five. However, the setting is beautiful, remote and rugged. And the mountain goats are ridiculous.

Jason Yeah, Gaston the mountain goat was pretty entertaining. As was the couple climbing ahead of us, who we eventually called Ken and Barbie. We climbed the last pitch in the dark and got back to camp at 1:00am, but at least we got two new Metolius cams out of the ordeal.

6. Recombeast 5.9 475', Cathedral Ledge, New Hampshire

Jason The Beast flake and the upper corner/dihedral are huge, unmistakable features visible from the ground. When Kristal first pointed them out to me from the road there was no question in my mind. We HAD to climb this route.

Kristal Not only was it a really impressive looking line, but the climbing was exceptionally good. Each pitch was sustained and interesting, though occasionally scary. Highlights include the exposed traverse move to get onto the flake and the bit of 5.9 downclimbing that really meant throwing yourself into a chimney and hoping your feet stuck.

The End?

2011-09-09T01:16:00.000-04:00

After 1 year and 5 months, our life on the road has finally come to an end. It has been an incredible journey, full of amazing people, places and climbing.

I just wanted to post a quick note to say that although the trip has ended, the blog posts aren't quite finished yet. We have a few wrap up posts planned, which we'll put up over the next week or so.

The climbing hasn't ended either of course. This weekend we're heading back to the Adirondacks, to settle up some unfinished business.

Irene

2011-09-04T01:45:00.002-04:00

We heard there was a hurricane coming. It was always our plan to finish up the summer in the Adirondacks, in the north east of New York state, and it seemed like a good time to head there. We figured the Dacks would be far enough west to avoid the brunt of Irene, and hopefully we'd just have to write off a day or so due to the rain.

We drove across Vermont and took the ferry across Lake Champlain.

Our first stop was Poke-O Moonshine Mountain, located in the north east section of the park, and featuring a few nice cliffs and an easy approach. On our first day we made such short work of the popular Gamesmanship, 5.8+, 600 feet, that we hiked over to the slabs and climbed the classic slab Catharsis, 5.5, 490 feet as well. At almost 1100 feet of climbing, it was one of the biggest days we've had in a while.

Here is Kristal coming up the excellent first pitch of Gamesmanship.

And leading the first pitch of Catharsis, one of the best slab climbs we've been on.

Then the storm came. Through the power of social networking I discovered my friend Deborah was in Lake Placid for the weekend, celebrating a family reunion in some enormous lodge. Kristal and I didn't think twice about accepting her gracious offer of crashing their party to escape Irene. It was so awesome to spend the day and night on the inside. Thanks again guys!

The next morning we got our first taste of the carnage. Our swanky digs (on the left) escaped relatively unscathed. The house next door, not so much.

Over the next week we would discover the true scope of the damage. After bouldering for a couple of days, waiting for the cliffs to dry, we headed to Chapel Pond Pass, a popular destination with a tonne of climbing. After driving through the devastated town of Keene, with many houses completely destroyed due to flash floods, we hit the end of the road.

While milling around we ran into a ranger and were informed that the High Peaks, Dix and Giant wilderness areas would be closed for a least a week. Unfortunately most of the climbs we wanted to do were in these areas. Fortunately we were still able to access the classic Quadrophenia, 5.7+, 350 feet. Here is Kristal belaying me from the top of the spectacular 3rd pitch.

And the nice view from the top.

It was time to make some new plans though. We headed south-west, hopefully to some lesser affected areas. Unfortunately this was what was left of the road to Crane Mountain.

Scratch that idea. We headed west to Indian Lake to go bouldering at the small, but excellent Snowy Mountain Boulders. The approach follows a small trail about 20 minutes through the woods and the amount of newly downed trees was incredible. Here I am working the awesome Never Been to Hueco, V7.

And Kristal working the ridiculously fun moves on The Fin, V6.

Before leaving the Adirondacks we made one more stop on our way back up through Lake Placid, to climb the short, but highly rated The El, 5.8, 180 feet. It was an interesting climb for sure, with a nice easy first pitch, a terrifying traverse for the second pitch, and an excellent crack climb for the third pitch. Here is Kristal heading around the corner on pitch 2.

Hopefully we'll be back in the Adirondacks this fall, to enjoy some better weather and tick off some of the classic climbs we couldn't get on this trip.

Cannon

2011-08-28T12:05:00.002-04:00

'There's a jug right there', I tell myself as I stare longingly at an angling crack above me. I'm standing on a narrow, slopey ledge, 600 feet off ground. Between my nice stance and the taunting holds in the crack are 8 feet of friction slab. The wind is absolutely howling. With every move it feels like I could be blown right off the rock. I just stepped off the tip of the Finger of Fate, and my last piece of gear is 15 feet below me and to the right.

'Balls', is what I'm thinking, 'I need more gear'. The slab is easy enough, 5.6 or something, but with the wind it feels horribly insecure. I gently reverse the move back down to the top of the Finger, the tip of which juts out sideways. I crouch down and try and drop a sling over it. The wind whips it back up in my face.

After leaving Pawtuckaway we decided to head back up the White Mountains, this time to the west side and the impressive, 1000 foot high, Cannon Cliff.

It also happens to be a pretty impressive pile of choss. There's a reason the talus slope at the base is so big. Rock fall is a common occurrence, and over the years entire chunks of routes have fallen to the ground. Even New Hampshire's famous state emblem, the Old Man of the Mountain, used to make his home at the top of the cliff. It was a chunk of blocks that when viewed from the side revealed the profile of a man's face.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man_of_the_Mountain

Sadly, in 2003, the whole thing came crashing down to the ground. All that's left of him now are the man-made devices that were put in place to try and prevent his inevitable downfall. Lesson learned: Nature always wins.

On day one the cliff was still wet from the previous night's rain, so we drove back to North Conway, on the other side of the White Mountains, to climb the fun Sea of Holes, 5.7, on the quick drying slabs of Whitehorse Ledge. Here is Kristal at the top of the unprotected, yet easy, first pitch.

And me heading up the crux pitch 4, which was pretty chill except for some wet mossy slab near the top.

On day two Cannon looked in good shape, so we headed up the all time classic Whitney Gilman Ridge, 5.7, which climbs up along the edge of the distinct 600 foot high ridge on the left side of the cliff.

This route sees a lot of traffic, some climbers more experienced than others, and we managed to scavenge a nice collection of gear that other climbers had bailed on or abandoned.

We climbed the excellent 5.8 hand crack variation on pitch 3. Here I am standing on the small belay ledge atop pitch 3, looking straight down into the black dyke gully.

There was a nice section of scary exposure on the fourth pitch, with holds all angling the wrong way on rock that looked like it was about to slide off into oblivion. Thankfully Kristal led that pitch.

Day three started out calm and beautiful, and we started up another classic, Moby Grape, 5.8, which climbs up 1000 feet near the center of the cliff. With so many named features, like Reppy's Crack, the Triangle Roof, the Sickle, the Finger of Fate and the Cave, Moby Grape is covered with interesting movement and unique features. It is a spectacular climb, and one of the most varied we've ever gone up. Here is Kristal heading up the amazing Reppy's crack.

Here I am on pitch four about to finangle some gear in a non-existent crack before slabbing up to the Sickle.

Unfortunately what started out as a beautiful day turned into a what felt like a tornado. We've definitely climbed in windy conditions before, I've blogged about it more than once, but this was intense, and the worst we've ever experienced.

I eventually had to completely lie down on the edge of the Finger of Fate to work my sling into place, and with the extra protection I sucked it up and made the slab moves up to the crack. The last three pitches turned into an interesting exercise of 'not getting blown away'. We were so relieved to finally scramble over the top and down into the protection of the trees on the lee side of the mountain.

When Wasps Attack

2011-08-21T11:03:00.001-04:00

During our last day at Cathedral Ledge, we were a few pitches up and came upon a wasp nest smack dab in the middle of a crack we were climbing. It provided for quite a bit of excitement, and more than a little cursing on my part. When it was all said and done I got stung three times on the fingers of my left hand. Somehow Kristal managed to make it by unscathed. I guess they had taken out all their anger on me. We managed to finish up the climb without any more issues, but by the next day my left hand was trying its best to form into the shape of a pumpkin.

I could barely bend my index and pinky fingers, so climbing was out of the question. The weather decided to cooperate though, and a couple of days of rain forced us off the rock and gave my hand a chance to recover. During the break we went to scope out the nearby Madison boulder, the largest known glacial erratic in New England, and one of the largest in the world.

Even if it was dry, this enormous boulder is pretty featurless, so there's not much in the way of bouldering potential.

Our next stop was Pawtuckaway, a scenic state park at the base of New Hampshire, that also happens to be a decent bouldering destination. On our first day out I managed to get stung by a wasp again! This time on my arm, so at least the swelling didn't affect my ability to climb.

This place is pretty cool, with large boulders nestled in a nice forest setting. Here I am pulling on to the cool balancing boulder.

Kristal about to send Debbie Does, V5.

And taking a break between attempts.

Me pulling on a cool undercling start.

And Kristal climbing some sweet slab.

There are some pretty awesome problems here, but with the frequent showers, baking temperatures, and high humidity we definitely aren't pushing any grades. The heat makes for good swimming conditions though!

North Conway

2011-08-15T12:30:00.003-04:00

After returning home from our vacation out west, we wasted no time in packing up the car and hitting the road. Our first stop was the ridiculous resort town of North Conway, New Hampshire. With its outlet malls, hordes of tourists and constant rush hour traffic, it would normally be the last place we would want to be. Except for the fact that just outside of town lie two impressive cliffs, Cathedral Ledge and Whitehorse Ledge, each boasting some pretty awesome multi-pitch trad climbs.

Over the last four days we climbed many great routes up these two cliffs, from slightly terrifying 5.7 runout friction slab to extremely committing 5.9 face/crack climbs, with a lot of enjoyable moderates thrown in the middle.

Here's a view of the Whitehorse Ledge slabs from a climb we were doing on Cathedral Ledge.

There's nothing like 800 feet of runout slab to get the heart pumping and the calves burning. Here I am heading out to start Sliding Board 5.7, 8 pitches.

And looking back down from the top of the first pitch.

Is there any protection on this thing? Answer: not a whole lot. During the entire climb we place a combined total of 14 pieces of gear. Thankfully, it was mostly pretty easy climbing. Here's Kristal on the fourth pitch.

And the view from the top.

Which was covered with delicious wild blueberries. Hmmm, blueberries.

I didn't get many pictures of the other climbs we did, though here is Kristal belaying me up the last pitch of the amazing Recombeast, 5.9, 5 pitches.

And her nearing the top.

Topping out on Cathedral Ledge can be quite the experience. There's a convenient road to a popular tourist lookout at the top. One day I followed Kristal up the last pitch of a climb that came out just below the lookout. As I come over the lip I see Kristal anchored in front of a nice chain link fence, with a crowd of 20+ tourists on the other side giving me a round of applause. Where else does that happen?

The Rockies

2011-08-10T03:39:00.001-04:00

It was nice to be in the realm of real mountains again, even if it was only for a couple of days.

We headed out to Canmore for the weekend with Kristal's parents, and met up with her brother and his wife to clip some bolts.

Day one was spent at the tourist heavy, yet absolutely gorgeous, Lake Louise. It's easy to see why it's such a tourist attraction, with its incredible milky blue glacier fed waters.

It was a bit torturous to be cragging while surrounded by huge mountains, but it felt good to be climbing again, and we did find a nice 2 pitch route that took us above the trees, giving us a stunning view over the lake. There were also some mixed and trad routes, and it was nice to place our own gear again. Here is Mark on the awesome looking Standing Ovation, 5.10b.

While his parents nervously look on.

On day two we stayed in Canmore and headed up to Grassi Lakes, a limestone sport crag that felt very much like climbing in a gym.

But the climbing was fun, the day was beautiful and the lakes were pretty.

It was a good weekend of climbing, and even if we didn't get on any epic multi-pitch routes, we did find a few to add to our tick list that sound pretty awesome. We can't wait to come back next summer to climb them.

Vacation

2011-08-04T18:32:00.001-04:00

Like many other Canadians, we spent the August long weekend on vacation, enjoying some time off from our regular life. We headed to the shores of Lake Diefenbaker, in Saskatchewan, with Kristal's extended family, to enjoy three days of beautiful weather, sandy beaches and warm water.

Kristal and I decided to stage a 'Family Olympics' challenge, pitting team Grandma versus team Grandpa in several events over the course of the weekend. Events included a couple of playground obstacle courses, a round of mini put, and a thouroughly entertaining canoe race. In the end it came out a draw, (I mean really, who organizes an even number of events?) but no one seemed overly concerned about breaking the tie. I guess it will just have to be continued next year.

It was a fantastic weekend, full of good food, good fun and good people. We didn't even mind that there was no climbing involved!

Jamie on the first hole of the mini put course.

Kristal putting under the pressure of her dad and grandma.

Olivia and Chantel rounding our makeshift buoy during the canoe race.

Olivia raising the gate on our epic sand castle.

Every castle needs a dragon.

Me working on my cliff dwellings.

Kristal's castle.

Kamouraska

2011-07-28T00:18:00.001-04:00

It's been a while since we've had a deadline, but tomorrow we have a plane to catch. We are flying out west for 10 days, to visit Kristal's family and hopefully do some climbing in the Rockies. As a result, we had a limited amount of time in Newfoundland. We had hoped to head to the east coast of the island, but with the deadline looming and the miserable forecast, we decided it wasn't worth the drive just to get rained out.

By skipping the east coast, we could take our time heading back to Ottawa. Before leaving we explored the Corner Brook Caves, bouldered at Long Gull Pond, hiked to the tip of Long Point on the Port au Port peninsula, and picnicked at the scenic Codroy Valley Provincial Park.

In New Brunswick we saw the worlds largest lobster in Shediac and camped at the beautiful Kouchibouguac National Park.

In Quebec we returned to Kamouraska, where we were rained out a few weeks ago, when we were first heading out east. We were pretty excited to put some solid climbing days in after all the non-climbing we'd been doing.

Day 1 started out nice, but rain threatened once more. This is not what you want to see when you are on the rock.

Fortunately it blew past, the sky started to clear,

the rock dried quickly, and we enjoyed three great days of climbing.

We happened to be there over the weekend, so the place was crazy busy (it's like climbing in a gym!), but we had a great time hanging out, sharing stories, and climbing with some new friends from western Canada and New Hampshire. Here is Ron sending one of the classics, Moby Dick, with a beautiful view over the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Beach Mussels

2011-07-22T14:46:00.002-04:00

Before leaving Gros Morne we wanted to do a little back country camping. There are several options for doing this, but ever since listening to our friend Caroline talk about cooking freshly picked mussels on the beach, Kristal was intent (obsessed) on hiking the Green Gardens trail and camping overnight on the coast.

With camp set up, the next priority was to scope out the mussel supply. Our timing was perfect, as the tide was well on its way out. Here is Kristal sussing out the tide pool situation.

Jackpot!

Hmmm, mussels....

Time to get down to business.

Did I mention how psyched Kristal was?

Delicious!

In between courses of mussels we hiked along the coast, checking out the nearby sea caves, scrambling on many of the cool rock formations and collecting driftwood for our epic fire.

Later in the evening, as the tide came in, so did the jellyfish.

Day 2 did not start out all that great. It had rained overnight, and current conditions were cold, foggy and miserable. The pump for our fuel canister decided to seize up, making our stove inoperable. That meant cold oatmeal for breakfast, no coffee for kristal, and the prospect of no hot lunch.

We then discovered that with all the recent rain, the next section of the trail was an absolute mud-fest. Combined with a lot of tall, wet grass, by the time we made it back down to the last beach area we were cold, completely drenched and muddied from the waist down. The prospect of 6 more kilometers of that, fueled only by Clif bars, was not all that appealing.

But as we were catching our breath the sun started to poke through the clouds. Oh, glorious warmth! We hung out for a couple of hours as the sky cleared and I found enough dry wood to get a small cook fire going.

By the time we headed off again we had a hot lunch in our bellies, Kristal had her coffee, and most of our clothes had dried out. The last section of the trail was much more pleasant hiking, and in the end it turned out to be a beautiful day.

We ate a delicious home cooked meal in a small, nondescript motel restaurant overlooking Bonne bay, watching whales swim by in the distance. It was a great end to our time in Gros Morne.

Climbing!

2011-07-20T13:38:00.001-04:00

We had to wait out a couple of more days of rain, spending a lot of time in the swanky cook shelter (complete with wood stoves) that our campground had. It was actually a pretty cool way to meet fellow travelers, and we met several with some interesting stories. Our favourite new friends were a family from Connecticut who had 3 awesome kids. Kristal and I had the best game ever of Lava Monster on the playground with them and my laptop is now covered with some awesome Star Wars LEGO stickers.

We eventually snagged another day of good weather and decided to check out Arches Provincial Park.

It's a cool scenic stop along the coast, and gave us a chance to finally go climbing again! It had been a full week since we were bouldering on Dover Island. The exposed faces dried quickly in the sun and the wind, but the rock is pretty fractured, so most of the holds underneath the arches were seeping heavily after all the recent rain. Still, it was nice to be climbing again and we had a fun day sending some easy problems.

Next up we hiked into West Brook Pond to get a closer look at the amazing glacier carved terrain that Gros Morne is famous for.

It was a beautiful hike, passing over bogs, marshes, streams, and a lot of pretty flowers.

That night we went for a run on the 4 km sandy beach beside our campground,

and were treated to yet another spectacular sunset.

July 11, 2011 - Part 2

2011-07-18T11:15:00.001-04:00

It was turning out to be a pretty nice day, so we decided to do some more exploring instead of heading back to the lackluster campground we were staying at. We were driving through the traditional fishing village of Raleigh,

when we noticed the turnoff to Burnt Cape Ecological Park. There wasn't much information about it in the Newfoundland travel guide, other than some notes about rare plant species. Usually plants alone aren't enough to get us interested, but after some non-committal deliberation, we decided to check it out.

15 seconds later Kristal spied a seal sunning on a rock about 50 feet from the road. As we were driving onto the cape, I thought I spotted some whales just offshore. We parked the car and madly ran the few hundered meters down to the shoreline to see a pod of Minke whales casually passing by

and a couple of icebergs in the distance.

We spent the next 5 hours exploring of the western shore of the cape,

finding some amazing tide pools,

cool small sea caves,

and the largest sea cave we've ever seen.

We cooked dinner as the icebergs floated by, listening to the whales just offshore, watching the spray of another pod in the distance, and with the coast of Labrador sitting on the horizon.

It was such an amazing place, and we spent a lot of time hiking around enjoying the amazing terrain and views.

We stayed to watch the sunset. It was an awesome end to one of the most exciting days we've had on the trip.

July 11, 2011 - Part 1

2011-07-15T20:18:00.001-04:00

Before heading to Newfoundland I had two goals: to see some icebergs, and see some whales. With that in mind, we headed north to the tip of the northern peninsula. The weather still wasn't playing nice, but this day wasn't looking too bad, and we were going to make the most of it. We started off by bundling up in all the layers we had and taking a boat tour out of St. Anthony. We were on the hunt for ice.

It was actually pretty late in the season for icebergs, but thanks to a massive 250 square kilometer chunk that broke off of a glacier in Greenland last August, it was turning into a banner year.

We circled a couple of large bergs, one of which gave us quite a show, as the relentless pounding of waves caused it founder right in front of us. It was a pretty awesome sight.

The icebergs were pretty far offshore, so we didn't have time to chase down any whales, but the show was so impressive we couldn't help but feel completely satisfied. Coming back into harbour it was cool to get a close look at some of the local fishing gear and boats.

From St. Anthony we headed north up the coast, passing many cool seaside houses...

small fishing villages...

and epic offshore islands...

all with a steady stream of icebergs visible just offshore. It's easy to see why the area is called iceberg alley.

Next stop was L'Anse aux Meadows, the first known European settlement in the new world, founded by Leif Erikkson, Norse explorer extraordinaire. The recreated sod houses were pretty awesome.

And were full of cool artifacts of the times. Here is Kristal chatting with one of the local Vikings, who was busy making himself a new pair of shoes.

Kristal took the opportunity to channel her own inner Viking.

We hiked around a bit, enjoying the rare nice weather, and some more epic views.

As we were leaving another moose crossed our path, literally, running right through the parking lot.

Had the day ended right then and there it would have been an awesome one, but it was only half over, and the best was yet to come.

Gros Morne Mountain

2011-07-13T21:34:00.001-04:00

After leaving Dover Island we blew through northern Nova Scotia to catch another boat.

I'm sure Cape Breton is beautiful, and we did see some cool scenery on the drive through, but we had bigger fish to fry. Or, more accurately, bigger islands to visit. We arrived in Newfoundland at 6:00am, after taking the red-eye ferry, and drove directly up to Gros Morne National Park. The long term forecast wasn't looking all that great, so we needed to take advantage of the whatever decent weather we had.

There isn't a lot of established climbing on the western coast of Newfoundland, so we decided to do some more traditional touring to see the sights. First up was hiking to the top of Gros Morne Mountain, a 16km hike round trip, with 800 meters of elevation gain. Here is Kristal about 4km into the hike, approaching the base of the mountain itself.

The crux is the steep ascent up the rocky gully seen above. It wasn't really much worse than many of the approaches to remote climbs we've done over the last year though, and without heavy climbing packs on it didn't actually feel too bad. Here's the view looking back from the top of the gully.

As far as summits go, Gros Morne's isn't all that distinct, and if it wasn't for the sign at the top you might be hard pressed to point it out. It was pretty crazy to see a huge field of talus at the top of a mountain.

The backside of the mountain provided some pretty impressive views, with some amazing looking cliffs.

We were excited to see our first moose of the trip as we started down the back side. It wasn't until a few days later that we realized how many moose there actually are around here. Apparently it wasn't that big a deal.

We also saw some pretty cool flowers on the way.

The terrain around here is pretty amazing, and even though we'd rather be climbing, we're actually looking forward to hiking around to see more.

Island Life

2011-07-10T19:06:00.006-04:00

Arriving in Dover in a thick fog leaves you feeling thoroughly isolated. As we set up camp, we couldn't see more than a dozen meters in front of us and all we could hear was the dull crashing of waves off in the distance somewhere. I felt a million miles from civilization, until the fog cleared several hours later and I realized we were really only a few hundred meters from the mainland.

The bouldering on Dover is predominately on short seaside cliffs and the granite is exceptionally sharp. Sliding off a sloper or popping off a crimp will leave you nearly in tears, but if you can ignore your screaming fingertips, there are some pretty cool problems. Here's me on The High Plateau, V1.

Jason on Orange Crush, V6.

The very cool Orgasmatron, V0.

and the near holdless Third Whale, V7.

And should you find a problem that looks cool, make sure to try it; it might not be there the next time you visit. It seems boulders have a tendency to wash into the sea. As we walked along the shoreline flipping through the guidebook we found boulders the size of small cars that were present in guidebook photos but had entirely disappeared.

We had just as much fun exploring the island as we did bouldering. Though it is pretty small, we spotted a deer and spent an evening trying to chase it down. We were completely unsuccessful, but we did find a giant buoy that provided hours of entertainment.

And the sunsets were spectacular.

Ocean Bound

2011-07-08T23:10:00.001-04:00

Halifax, Nova Scotia, just outside the city. We roll up the stoplight at a major intersection, heading downtown but not really sure what the best way to get there is. Not that I'm all that concerned, 'head to the ocean' seems like a good enough strategy. Not 2 seconds after I reach for the map, some guy in a minivan pulls up beside us and motions to roll down the window. 'Where you headed?', he asks. Then proceeds to tell us the best way to go before the light turns green. Just one example of why Nova Scotians have a reputation for being so friendly.

We left Ottawa about a week ago. Our first stop was Kamouraska, a small sport climbing crag in Quebec that boasts some beautiful climbing and even more beautiful views overlooking the Gulf of St. Lawrence. As it turned out, a small army of our friends from Ottawa were there for the long weekend, and it was awesome to hang out with them, even it was just for a short while. We got half a day of climbing in before the rains came, resulting in no pictures and us deciding to move on. Hopefully we'll have time to stop again on our way back to Ottawa.

Our next stop was Dover Island, a bouldering destination located on a small, uninhabited island just off the coast of Nova Scotia. It's a pretty unique destination, given it's location. If you don't have a boat of your own you have to arrange transportation with the local fishermen to get you out there. How often does that happen?

We had a bit of time to kill before our pre-arranged ferry ride, so we decided to check out the local tourist attraction, Peggy's Cove. Usually the place is crawling with people, but we arrived pretty early, so had some nice uncluttered views of the lighthouse.

As you can tell it was a bit foggy.

As we were leaving we were pretty entertained by the busloads of Japanese tourists from Toronto who rolled in. Words cannot describe how excited they were to be there.

We also hiked out to some of the bouldering along the shore of the mainland. Although Kristal seemed more impressed by the wild plant life.

Some sort of orchid?

Especially the multitude of her favourite carnivorous plant.

Pitcher Plants as far as the eye can see.

We finally met up with Lawrence, loaded his boat with enough supplies to last us a few days, and headed out into the fog.

He dropped us off, wished us luck, then dissappeared back into the mist.

We had arrived.

Georgian Bay

2011-07-02T01:25:00.001-04:00

The bouldering at Halfway Log Dump is pretty cool, but what really makes it a great destination is its location. The shoreline around some of the boulders is comprised of these large rock shelves that extend into the water and then just drop off. Throw some large boulders on the shelves you end up with an amazing place to scramble around and jump into deep water. Here is my brother Roman exercising his cannonball skills.

I can't stress enough how awesome the waters of Georgian Bay are. Clean, clear and absolutely beautiful. You can see Kristal here finishing off her dive under water.

The water is a bit chilly, but as long as it's reasonable warm and sunny out, it's not too bad. Roman and his girlfriend Dominique joined us for our last two days there, and thankfully the weather cleared and gave us some good conditions for enjoying the water. Here they are soaking in the sun.

They also grilled up an amazing dinner for us one night.

It was also fun tootling around the lake on the tube we brought, an essential item for this place in my opinion.

It also makes a great viewing platform. Here is Kristal climbing Loggerhead Shrike V0-, as seen from out in the lake.

Sadly our time on the Bruce Peninsula has come to an end. Up next we will be making our way out to the east coast to see what the Maritime provinces have to offer. Hopefully we will get to play in some more water.

Halfway Log Dump

2011-06-29T01:26:00.002-04:00

We spent the last week at the northern end of the Bruce Peninsula, at a small bouldering area in Bruce National Park called Halfway Log Dump. It's a beautiful area with boulders right on the shore of Georgian Bay. Here are Kristal and I among some of the boulders, photo courtesy of my brother Roman, from the top of the escarpment.

During our first few days there the weather proved to be all over the place, with quite a bit of rain and cold. Here is Kristal escaping the cold in style.

Despite the rain, which mostly fell at night, or in the early morning, the boulders dried out super fast and we were able to climb most days. The area isn't very large, but there are many quality problems. Here is Kristal on Queensnake, V2...

climbing Cliffbrake, V3...

and topping out the easy slab Whooping Crane, V0.

We were once again treated to the variety of life on the peninsula, with several encounters with turtles...

snakes...

plants...

The carnivorous Pitcher Plant

and more amazing views...

Sunset over Cyprus Lake

Sunshine

2011-06-21T14:00:00.002-04:00

The weather over the last week has been fantastic, which has, of course, made great climbing even better. Jason and I spent a day enjoying the sun at Lion's Head, where the white cliffs overlook water so clear that from hundreds of feet away you can see fish swimming. Seriously. It's ridiculous.

Last weekend, an old friend of mine, Deryl, came up from London. We had a great time climbing, eating cake for breakfast and lunch and were thoroughly amused by hikers. As one group came up the trail we heard them loudly scolding their kids to stay out of the caves 'cause they're full of raccoon crap. Seconds later they came around the corner, spotted us and hollered, "Hey! Are you freebasing?" We didn't quite know what to say, but hiker number two quickly corrected him, "No, no. They've got rigs."

We finally managed to get some climbing shots. Here's one of the classic sport lines at Cape Croker, Secret Garden, 5.10a.

We also checked out some of the new sport lines at TV Tower, short but fun.

TV tower also has some amazing cracks. Every time we climbed one, I'd think, "wow, that's the best line on the escarpment" and then the next one would be even better. Here's me cleaning the amazing Excalibur, 5.11b, a splitter crack that starts with some stemming and ends up overhanging about 45 degrees.

After five days of hard climbing, we figured some ice cream was well deserved.

Life on the Peninsula

2011-06-16T20:50:00.002-04:00

We've climbed some super fun routes over the last few days. Here is Kristal hanging out the top of the escarpment at Cape Croker. Although it may not look like much of a cliff, the trees hide a surprising number of quality climbs.

Here I am leading Jojo 5.10c.

As impressive as the climbing has been, the beauty of the area has been even more so. I could do without the fields of Poison Ivy, the bushwhacking through dense foliage and the swarms of mosquitoes, but otherwise it seems every day we stumble upon some cool plant...

Lady Slipper

animal...

Red Spotted Newt

or view.

Vulture circling over Sydney Bay

The Bruce Trail, which runs roughly 800km, from Niagara Falls to Tobermory along the Niagara Escarpment, provides some amazing hiking, and often takes you to cool areas off the beaten path.

The beaches on the west side of the peninsula are also pretty amazing. Here I am running in search of deep water at Oliphant beach.

You have to wade out about 200 meters before the water even reaches your knees. Because it's so shallow the water is incredibly warm.

Even the seagulls, usually the most annoying bird on earth, provided some entertainment. Here are a couple who decided to do some synchronized squawking for us.

And if all that doesn't keep you satisfied, you can always go hang out with Wiarton Willie.

The Bruce

2011-06-11T14:33:00.000-04:00

As the Niagara Escarpment makes it's way north through the Bruce Peninsula, various sections of the exposed cliff line provide some excellent climbing opportunities. Most of it falls into the single pitch sport climbing category, which as most of our friends know isn't really our first choice of climbing style, but the scenery more than makes up for it.

We spent the last three days climbing at Lions Head, TV Tower and Cape Croker, and will probably spend the next week rotating between them. Our first day at Lions Head turned out to be a bit on the wet side, as we had to take shelter from passing showers on several occasions. Here is Kristal trying to keep dry under the tarp from our rope bag.

Thankfully the cliffs are incredibly exposed, and with the strong wind blowing we didn't have to wait long for the rock to dry. While we were waiting we decided to hike part of the Bruce trail down to the shore line.

Lions Head is pretty interesting as the climbs are approached from the top, and many of them only climb the top half of the cliff (the bottom half tends to be relatively poor quality rock). This means you rappel down from the top to a hanging or semi hanging belay stance (if you are lucky there will be a good ledge) and then climb back out. It makes for some pretty interesting and exposed climbing. Hopefully we'll get some decent climbing shots in the next week or so. In the meantime here's an epic shot of my feet as I'm sitting at the top of the cliff lowering Kristal down.

It's been mostly cloudy since we've been here, and pretty cold and wet, with rain cutting our climbing days short. Hopefully that changes soon and we get more clear skies like this.

The Glen

2011-06-06T02:33:00.001-04:00

We left Ottawa a few days ago, and were pretty excited to get back on the road. For a change we've decided to stay relatively close to home for the summer. Our plan is to climb on the Bruce Peninsula for a few weeks, enjoying some of the beautiful areas on the shores of Lake Huron and the Georgian Bay. From there we will probably make our way to the Maritime provinces, to check out what the east coast has to offer.

But first things first. We spent the last couple of days bouldering at Niagara Glen, a cool spot along the banks of the Niagara River, just north of the Falls.

The hills below are littered with limestone boulders hidden among the trees.

We've actually climbed there quite often in the past, but it was nice to come back and check it out after having been gone for so long. It was really great to once again meet up with some friends from Ottawa, who were there for the weekend. Here are Dax, Kelly, JM, Jeff, Jorge and Vittoria hanging out in front of the popular Danzig boulder.

Here is Vittoria on the classic Glen sandbag, No U-Turn 'V1'. The holds have been so polished from all the traffic over the years that it's probably more like V3 these days.

And JM topping it out.

Here I am on the classic Life O'Rielly V6, confident in JM's atypically good spotting technique.

Here is Kristal getting ready to climb in front of the Crusade Wall boulder.

And climbing the awesome Gillronamoe V3.

It was great to enjoy the awesome weather in such a great setting. Hopefully a good sign of what's in store for the rest of the summer.

Home for a Rest

2011-05-24T01:40:00.000-04:00

The winter leg of our trip has come to an end, and we are now back in Ottawa. On our way back from the Red we made the usual stop at my parent's farm to relax for a few days, clean out the car, and enjoy some awesome home cooked meals. Of course we were put to a bit of work, and we were excited to have an excuse to rope up again, this time to cut some dead limbs from the trees in front of the house. Safety first!

The last four months were once again incredible, highlighted by return trips to some of our favorite destinations, and the discovery of some awesome new ones. We pushed our limits in pretty much all aspects of our climbing, and for the first time on these trips we actually did more trad (37 days) than bouldering (32 days). We even did 10 whole days of sport climbing! Towards the end we were definitely feeling the affects of accumulated fatigue, so it's been nice to take some time off to rest and recover.

It's also been awesome to see some of our friends back home, and hopefully the weather will cooperate enough to get at least a couple of local outdoor climbing days in. We'll hang around Ottawa for another week or two, dealing with some 'real life' stuff, before hitting the road again. We don't really have a concrete plan yet for the summer, but we'll figure it out. Check back in June to see where we are at. At the moment we're pretty content to spend some time enjoying the comforts of home.

Return to the Red - Part 2

2011-05-17T00:18:00.002-04:00

We stayed at the Red for just over a week. Despite the forecast constantly calling for rain and thunderstorms (and them occasionally actually happening) we were able to climb pretty much every day. We were also joined by Matt and Kyla, more friends from Ottawa. One day we even managed to convice everyone to do some trad climbing!

Matt, Kristal and I all led Cheaper Than a Movie, 5.8, while Max, Kyla and Marita all followed it. Thanks to Marita and Max for the following pictures. Here I am leading the lower section.

And Kyla following the top half, which does a cool traverse under a large arching roof.

It was great to see everyone switch it up from the usual sport climbing they do, like Max here, working the moves of Kaleidescope, 5.13c.

Otherwise Kristal and I were still on the hunt for awesome cracks to climb. The occasional rain still kept us off many of them (cracks typically take a lot longer to dry out than face climbs) but we still managed to find some. Here is Kristal on the incredible overhanging finger crack Where Lizards Dare, 5.9+, one of the hardest '5.9's we've ever climbed. Thanks to Matt for the photo.

Our favourite route here, and one of the best pitches we've climbed in the last few months, was Arachnid, 5.8. Here is Kristal racking up. Check out that awesome low angle hand crack!

Here she is getting ready to traverse under the imposing roof, which looks a lot more intimidating than it is.

And here's a shot of the top half of the route, which follows a short offwidth crack to easier climbing up top. Awesome!

Return to the Red - Part 1

2011-05-13T17:18:00.001-04:00

When we first left home last April, our first destination was the Red River Gorge in Kentucky. Back then living life on the road was shiny and new, I was terrified of trad climbing and we had no real clue what lay ahead of us.

A lot has changed since then, and even though our biggest improvement is probably in the time it takes us to pack the car, we were excited to come back and climb some classic trad routes that would have scared us away on our last visit. It was also great to run into some friends from Ottawa who were also visiting. Here are Max, Marita and Kristal hanging out by the fire.

The Red has about equal numbers of trad and sport routes, so we did a bit of both, as weather permitted. We decided to warm up with a day of sport climbing. Marita suffered through the cold and hung out at the top of one of the routes to take pictures of the rest of us. Thanks Marita!

Here I am leading 5th Bolt Faith, 5.10c.

Max was climbing pretty hard. Here he is during his awesome send of Jesus Wept, 5.12d.

Once it was dry enough we were in search of epic trad lines. Here is Kristal leading what is probably the most popular trad route here, Rock Wars, 5.10a. Thanks to the random climber we met who took these pictures.

Although most routes here are only one pitch, we were on the lookout for multi pitch routes to get on. It's always a little more satisfying when you actually climb to the top of something. Here we are at the top of Fortress Wall, after climbing the easy 2 pitch classic, Bedtime for Bonzo, 5.6.

The Manhattan Project

2011-05-05T20:19:00.002-04:00

After our stay in Chattanooga, we decided to take a few days off and visit one of Kristal's old friends in the town of Oak Ridge, just outside of Knoxville. It was nice to relax and spend some quality time on the inside, enjoying such novelties as daily showers, unlimited internet and air conditioning.

Oak Ridge is renowned as being one of the production sites for the Manhattan Project, helping to develop the atomic bomb. Here's The Guest House, closed down now, where such notable scientists as Openheimer and Fermi stayed during that time.

Sharon and Dave were excellent hosts, showing us all there was to see in the area. We spent a day hiking through the beautiful Frozen Head State Park.

We spent quite a while salamander hunting near the waterfalls.

Sharon is an ecologist, so the hike was quite informative, and we made several stops to check out many of the interesting plants and bugs. It felt very much like being on a grade school field trip.

We also experienced some awesome southern cooking and had a fantastic visit. Thanks guys!

Code Black

2011-05-02T15:03:00.001-04:00

The last week has been interesting to say the least. We happened to be camping outside of Chattanooga when the tornado storm system blew through. Needless to say we didn't go climbing that day.

We waited out the first tornado warning sleeping blissfully unaware in our tent. Thankfully all we saw of that one was a torrential downpour. Once we got up and headed into town we realized what was going on. Our quest to find a post office turned into a mini tour of the city, encountering many downed trees, closed roads and power outages. By our fifth post office we finally found one with power.

We spent the rest of the day waiting out the subsequent tornado warnings in a grocery store, a Walmart, a Chinese restaurant and a McDonald's. It all blew through by around 11pm, and were finally able to go comfortably go back and sleep in the tent. Which managed to survive quite well despite the many downed branches and a nearby toppled tree.

We spent the next few days bouldering at our favourite golf course/boulder field, Stone Fort. They apparently had a large Easter Egg hunt among the boulders over the Easter weekend. It was fun to find the left over eggs, which all contained delicous candy, in the nooks and crannies of the boulders.

Despite the conditions not being as ideal as during our last visit, we still had a great time enjoying the huge variety of climbing. Here I am working the moves of the amazing hard slab, Space, V8.

Kristal on the interesting and fun, Black Carpet, V4.

One of the more intimidating (and awesome) lines here is the tall, somewhat terrifying and aptly named, Tall Crack, V2. Here is Kristal preparing for and climbing on it.

Back East

2011-04-27T17:46:00.001-04:00

It was a bit sad leaving Colorado, despite the crappy weather. We had planned to spend a good month or so climbing there, enjoying the wide variety of climbing the state had to offer. I guess springtime just isn't the time to do it. We hit the road, hoping for some better luck with the weather back east.

First stop was Elephant Rocks State Park, a small area of granite boulders in southern Missouri. With visions of hanging out with a buch of people who were afraid to go outside, we headed to the nearest camping area - Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park. Imagine my dissappointment when I discovered that a Shut-In was just a fancy name for a type of river rapids.

Kristal enjoying the Shut-Ins

Unfortunately for us the weather continued to be uncooperative. Since we hadn't planned to stay long, and knowing there would be a chance of rain, we had decided to sleep in the car. Thank goodness for us! What had originally been forecasted as scattered thunderstorms turned into a full blown storm of epic proportions, complete with tornado warnings right where we were camping. We couldn't get to sleep all that easily with the constant lightning, torrential rain and thoughts of tornadoes carrying us away. When Kristal decided to visit the little girl's room in the middle of the night she discovered 3 inches of water outside the car.

About half an hour later the water had risen to 6 inches. Good thing we weren't sleeping in the tent! It turned out there was a small creek about 50 feet behind our site that decided to flood its banks. We quickly moved to higher ground.

As the storm continued to rage the next day, doing any kind of climbing anywhere in Missouri or Southern Illinois was obviously out of the question. We decided to head to Chattanooga, which appeared to be far enough south of the epic storm system to be largely unnaffected.

First stop was Tennessee Wall, an excellent trad crag that we had somehow never made it to on our many previous visits through the area. We enjoyed two excellent days of climbing, despite not having a guidebook and running into no other people at the wall. We just decided to jump on whatever looked good, and looked easy enough for us to climb. As it turned out we managed to jump on quite a few of the classic moderates. Here I am on Puppy Ride, 5.9.

The views from the top, overlooking the Tennessee River, were pretty awesome.

It's been a while since we've been in the land of dense deciduous forest. The sheer volume of bugs will take a few days to get used to again. At least there are also a lot of pretty flowers about.

The End of Colorado

2011-04-22T13:54:00.001-04:00

For the last week, the weather in Colorado has been, well, subideal. With nothing but more rain and wind in the forecast, we reluctantly decided it might be time to start heading east. However, I refused to go without first climbing one of the Flatirons, these awesome looking sandstone slabs that tower over Boulder, Co. (For the record this stubborn behaviour is completely uncharacteristic, I swear). Despite his better judgment and the rather questionable weather forecast, I coerced Jason into going out. From the parking lot, the sky looked clear and the climbing inviting.

The first couple of pitches offered easy, but pretty runnout slab climbing.

But at the top of the second pitch, we started to get a bit nervous. The wind picked up, there was thunder in the distance, the sky didn't look too good and I began to think that maybe Jason had been right after all.

We passed the slower party ahead of us and made a run for the summit. Here's Nick and Tara at the top of the fourth pitch.

Thankfully, the storm passed us by and the view from the summit was well worth the anxiety.

Spring is in the Air

2011-04-20T23:43:00.001-04:00

After Great Sand Dune National Park we started working our way up central Colorado. At our first stop, Shelf Road, we continued our recent foray into sport climbing.

Me on John Cruiser Melloncrimp, 5.10a

It would be short lived. After climbing only two routes, and on an otherwise beautifully clear and reasonably warm day, we bailed due to the wind.

It was pretty frustrating, especially when the conditions were otherwise so nice. But the wind out here is relentless, and when you are 100 feet off the ground at the end of a rope it's hard not to feel like a human kite. It doesn't take long before the climbing ceases to become fun.

The forecast for the next few days wasn't much better, but we decided to suck it up. Apparently wind is par for the course during spring in the mountains. It's not like we had anything better to do, and the thought of sitting around trying to wait it out wasn't appealing either.

The next day we went to Turkey Rocks, supposedly one of Colorado's best crack climbing areas.

Kristal on the first pitch of Gobblers Grunt, 5.9

The climbing was good, but having just come from Indian Creek we couldn't help but feel a bit let down. At least we were back on the trad! After all the recent sport climbing it felt good to get on some multipitch routes that actually took us to the top of something.

The next day we headed to a cool park just outside of Colorado Springs called Garden of the Gods, which contains some really cool sandstone formations.

It is also a popular park for people to visit, and we were there on a Sunday. It felt like were were back at the Needles in South Dakota with all the tourists milling around. While we were warming up on a short easy route a cute little girl provided running commentary. Here is Kristal at the top, with the little girl on her own little boulder summit.

From the top we spied this crazy looking fin, second from the right in the picture below, which we just had to climb.

You can't beat the approach, 5 minute hike on mostly flat paved pathways.

It's called Montezuma's Tower, and the north ridge goes at a nice leisurly, though ridiculously exposed and a bit run out, 2 pitch 5.7. Below you can just barely see Kristal at the top of the first pitch.

Despite the gusts, which had me literally hugging the narrow ridge for minutes at a time, the climb was fantastic. A super cool easy route in a spectacular location.

Great Sand Dunes

2011-04-18T13:58:00.001-04:00

During the last week we've been on a whirlwind tour of Colorado, somewhat literally. The wind has been a force to be reckoned with. But that will all come in the next post. After leaving Penitente Canyon we decided to stop in the nearby Great Sand Dunes National Park, boasting the tallest dunes in North America.

These dunes are massive, with the tallest hovering around 750 feet. We decided to hike up to the second tallest, High Dune, distance about 1 mile, height around 650 feet. Hiking up a 650 feet of sand is not all that easy, so we decided to take a mountaineering strategy and approach via what we dubbed the 'Southeast Ridge'. This would make the approach longer but less steep, and a bit easier hiking as it turned out. The sand along the ridges is harder packed that on the steep hills.

Here is Kristal, still pretty much at the base of the dunes, as we were making our way to the base of the ridge.

And here she is starting up the lower sections of the ridge.

Here she is at the top of one of the lesser dunes on the way. We thought this was the top of High Dune for a while as we were approaching, but it turned out to be a false summit.

After an hour of hiking we finally made it to the top, which boasted some impressive views.

Coming down was much easier, and much more fun of course, with us mostly running down the steep hills in a flurry of sand.

As we were descending the wind picked up something fierce, a harbinger for the days to come.

Los Hermanos Penitente

2011-04-14T01:55:00.001-04:00

It was sad leaving the Creek, and all the friends we had met there, but after two weeks we were starting to feel the effects of continuous crack climbing. Gobies, Creek Toe and muscle fatigue were all taking their toll. It was time to move on.

While we were at the Creek we had heard talk of the Crackhouse, a small bouldering cave outside of Moab with the sickest set of roof cracks you've ever seen. As we were leaving we decided to go in search of it with our friend Sarah. After a couple of hours of driving around in the middle of nowhere, and just as we were about to give up, we finally found it. It's definitely worth the hype. There are several completely horizontal splitter roof cracks, the longest running about 50 feet. Despite it being a rest day I couldn't leave without at least pulling on. Here I am at the start of one of the shorter cracks.

From there we headed to Colorado, with our first stop being some bouldering in Unaweep Canyon. We had stopped there last fall during a rest day to check it out, and decided it was worth a return trip to climb some of the boulders. Unfortunately mother nature conspired against us.

Despite how nice it might look, what the picture above does not capture is the 100 km/h gusts of wind that made the thought of bouldering laughable. We reluctantly moved on. We could use another rest day anyway.

Next stop, Penitente Canyon, a small sport climbing area nestled in the foothills of the San Juan Mountains, and bordering the impressively flat San Luis Valley.

Yup that's right, despite our normal aversion to clipping bolts we decided to suck it up and go sport climbing. The owner of the climbing gym back home mentioned this place to me when I was visiting over the holidays, and everyone we met who had been there had nothing but good things to say. It's a small canyon lined with short cliffs of volcanic tuff, with a variety of pockets and edges making for some incredibly fun climbing.

It also has some unique history. In the early 20th century a Catholic sect of hispanic men called Los Hermanos Penitente (the Penitent Brothers) lived and practiced their religion in the canyon. On one of the prominent walls of the canyon they created a painting of the Virgin Mary.

With the combination of beautiful scenery, convenient camping, easy approach and fun climbing, we ended up spending quite a few days climbing and hiking. I can see why Los Hermanos Penitente chose it as their place of worship.

Milestones

2011-04-07T11:45:00.000-04:00

April 5th marked a couple of important milestones. The first was that it was Kristal's birthday.

Which we celebrated by, well, going climbing of course.

The second was that it marked exactly 1 year since we started this grand adventure. Over the last few weeks I've been contemplating what to write about in the 'year in review' post. We have all manner of statistics that I could spray about. Number of days climbing, number of routes/problems ticked, longest routes climbed, hardest problems sent, distance traveled, destinations visited, etc, etc. At the end of the day though these numbers are really for our own amusement, and in my view are largely meaningless.

When we left a year ago, it started out as a year of climbing. Looking back it has turned into so much more. For me the climbing has become secondary to all of the experiences that surround it. The joys of living on the road. The wonders of traveling to so many new and beautiful places.

The sheer number of hours of every day just being outside. The countless beautiful sunsets and clear nights spent stargazing.

The incredible company of friends, both old and new, at the crag and around the campfire. The amazing stories of all the people we've met.

The long days of solitude on epic multipitch routes. The generosity and helping hands of strangers. The sheer beauty of the world around us.

Of course it hasn't all been sunshine and roses. There are a lot of people back home, family and friends, who I miss seeing. We have certainly missed living on the inside on occasion. Especially when the cold, wind or rain has forced us to retreat to the tent or car for extended periods. But otherwise life has been pretty awesome.

And yeah, I guess all the climbing has been pretty good as well...

Status Quo

2011-04-02T17:21:00.000-04:00

There's really not much to report since our last post. We are still at Indian Creek, the weather has been great, and we have been climbing pretty much every day.

There has been some excitement, which luckily didn't amount to anything serious. One day our friend Cameron took a pretty scary ground fall, but he thankfully walked away from it with nothing more than a sore back. Another day our friend Sarah got a flat tire on the way to the crag and didn't have a spare. Kristal drove her into Moab while me and the boys continued on to the Way Rambo wall.

Here is Cameron chilling out on a cool rock at the base of the wall.

The Way Rambo wall is stacked with great climbs. Here is the cool looking roof with Serrator Crack 5.11- on the left and Layaway Plan 5.11+ on the right.

Matt did most of the climbing that day, as the rest of us were in various states of rest and recovery. Here he is climbing Serrator Crack, just as it was getting into the sun.

And again on The Monk, 5.10.

Later in the afternoon Sarah and Kristal returned from their mission in town, and Sarah proceeded to warm up on the incredible Slice and Dice 5.12.

It was amazing to try such an awesome climb on top rope. Thanks Sarah!

The weather is looking a bit more unpredictable for the next little while, but hopefully we'll get a few more good climbing days in before we decide to move on.

The Creek

2011-03-29T22:55:00.002-04:00

Ah, Indian Creek, home to some of the most incredible cracks you will ever find. We have been here for a week now, and are slowly becoming accustomed to the style of climbing required to make it up some of these beauties. Here is Kristal at the top of her first clean lead of our current visit, an unnamed 5.10 hand crack.

Granted, we still have a heck of time getting up some climbs. But we are well versed in all the tricks, from gratuitous hang dogging to flat out aid climbing. Of course the most effective way of jumping on hard stuff is to get yourself a 'rope gun'. It's pretty easy to make friends at the crags, many of whom are willing to climb hard stuff and leave a top rope for you to use. So far we've had the pleasure of climbing routes that have been led by Mike, Scott, Emil, some Spanish dudes and Sarah.

Here is Emil leading Way Rambo, 5.12-.

The real crux of the last week though has been the weather, which has usually been at least one of the following: cold, windy, rainy or snowy. And occasionally all of the above.

It hasn't actually been bad enough to prevent us from being able to climb on most days, but it doesn't really make for enjoyable conditions.

A day may start out nice...

View from Way Rambo, 10:00am

And end up like this...

View from Way Rambo, 4:00pm

We got off our climb just as the above storm hit us, and ended up getting drenched on the hike back to the car. Thankfully the last two days have been really nice, and hopefully the trend will continue.

Regardless of the weather, this place is pretty incredible.

Rest Days

2011-03-25T18:17:00.000-04:00

We left Vegas to get away from the bad weather, but it turned out to be pretty crappy everywhere in this part of the country. We decided a few days of rest probably wouldn't be a bad idea though, so we could be fresh when we started climbing at our next stop.

We spent a couple of nights in Moab, and though the weather wasn't really conducive to climbing, it was good enough to go hiking. We checked out some cool areas we missed when we were in the area last year. First up was the Fiery Furnace area of Arches National Park.

It's a pretty amazing area, full of cool spires and narrow canyons.

Of course even when we are just hiking, we can't seem to stop doing at least some climbing.

Next up we went to check out The Needles area of Canyonlands National Park, another area with spectacular scenery.

We went on several small hikes, which led us through some of the amazing history of the area, including old cowboy camps and various relics of the native Pueblos.

We've been in Indian Creek now for a few days. Despite the fact that the weather still hasn't been all that cooperative we have managed to get some climbing in. The crack climbing feels as intimidating and burly as the last time we were here. But oh so much fun!

Red Rocks

2011-03-19T20:39:00.002-04:00

Red Rocks is a notoriously windy place. If you spend any amount of time camping here you will see some tent carnage. Getting stuck hundreds of feet up a wall when the winds start to howl is not fun. Much to our surprise, our first week here was refreshingly calm, and we enjoyed many nice, stress free days on the rock. All that changed a few days ago, and our planned climbing schedule was, pardon the pun, torn to shreds by the wind.

Thankfully we had one more day nice enough to get on a long route. We decided to head up Dream of Wild Turkeys, 5.10a, which climbed 10 pitches and over 1000 feet up the almost vertical Black Velvet Wall. Here is Kristal leading the long angling crack of the second pitch.

Following up the fifth pitch.

And again coming up to the top of the seventh pitch.

It was an awesome climb, on a mostly overcast, barely warm enough day, which could have been miserably cold and unpleasant had the wind decided to pick up.

We had hoped to get on a couple of more long routes, but instead had to resign ourselves to go bouldering. Which presents it's own challenges when the gusts start up. Despite the many instances of having to scramble to keep the crash pads from blowing away, we still managed to get on many fun problems. Here is Kristal on an unnamed V0.

Me on the cool Peruvian Flake, V2.

Kristal topping out the super fun Sorange, V3.

And me on an unnamed V1.

All considered our stay in Red Rocks has been awesome. We climbed the two longest routes of our trip so far. It's tempting to stay longer, but the forecast is not looking so great for the next few days (and it is currently raining). We aren't patient enough to wait it out. Tomorrow we leave.

Solar Slabs

2011-03-15T16:02:00.004-04:00

For several months now, Jason and I have been talking about getting on a really long route. None of this measly 6 pitch, 700 ft stuff, but something substantial. Something tall. Something with thousands of feet. Leafing through the red rocks guidebook we found Solar Slabs, 5.6 and 2000 ft.

For weeks we've been considering it. Do we climb fast enough? Is their enough daylight to both climb up and manage the long, scrambly descent? We've been discussing tactics and carefully planning. One of our chief concerns was getting stuck behind a slower party. On our last rest day we hiked out to the climb to assess the approach and the crowds. On Sunday, we carefully sorted through our gear and packed our stuff.

Yesterday we woke up at 5:00am, ate a quick breakfast and headed out. It was still dark when we threw on our packs and started the hour long approach.

Even from the trailhead we could see headlights. Despite our early start, there were people already on the climb! Still, we figured it wouldn't be a problem. They'd be at least an hour ahead of us and there was little chance we'd catch up to them.

When we got to the base of the climb and racked up, the sun had just risen and the party ahead of us was only halfway up the 5.3 gully that lead to the base of the main wall. Still, we didn't think too much of it. We started up the alternate start, Johnny Vegas, a highly starred 5.7. The climbing was spectacular, steep and exposed despite the easy grade. The first 500 ft took us 1 hr 45 mins.

Then we sauntered over the rise to the base of the Solar Slab wall. And found 6 other people! The first party we had seen was only half way up the first pitch and two other parties had caught up to them. We sat down on the ledge for a long wait in the sun. The next seven pitches of climbing proceeded pretty slowly. We'd climb up one pitch and then chill out on a ledge for an hour chatting with the people ahead of us and basking in the sun. The next 1000 ft took us 7 hrs.

Because the walk off descent is long and complicated, most people choose to rappel after the seventh pitch. So after 7 pitches we had the climb to ourselves and quickly made our way up the last 500 ft. The view from the top was pretty spectacular.

Still, despite all our climbing, the mountains still loomed over us! Apparently, 2000 ft is nothing in Red Rocks.

The descent involved an few rapesls (one into a chimney and off a rather questionable anchor: a nut and a piton in a pocket) and a couple of hours of bouldering hopping through a wash.

We we both pretty happy to get back to the base of the climb where we had extra water stashed. We made it back to the car just before dark. And celebrated our success with a massive quantity of pizza and gatorade.

Death Valley

2011-03-11T20:08:00.000-05:00

We decided to drive through Death Valley on our way to Vegas, and take our time to enjoy a few of the sights. It's an incredibly beautiful place for having such a morbid name. First stop was the ever popular sand dunes.

Where of course you can't help but feel like a kid again.

Next up was Badwater Basin, which, at an elevation of 282 feet below sea level is the lowest point in North America.

We went out and walked around on the cool salt flats.

Then a bit up the valley to the Devel's Golf Course. It's a few feet higher in elevation than the basin itself and as a result the ground remains dry, allowing the wind to sculpt the salt into a seemingly endless sea of formations.

We've been in Red Rocks now for a few days, and are slowly readjusting to climbing on sandstone. It feels a bit insecure, to say the least, compared to the bomber igneous rock we've been climbing on for the last couple of months. Nevertheless, it's been awesome to get back into climbing longish routes. Here is Kristal finishing up the last pitch of Olive Oil, which was a fun 600+ feet of climbing to the top of Rose Tower.

Moving On

2011-03-07T20:10:00.001-05:00

Sadly, our time in Bishop has finally come to an end. Today we went bouldering in the Buttermilks one last time.

In the end we spent three and half weeks here, filled with good friends, good boulders and some awesome sends. Not to mention a few good fires.

Kristal and I both pushed our limits, and sent many problems that we had left unfinished on our last visit. Of course it's still hard to leave. There is so much here that we still haven't done, but three weeks of bouldering takes its toll on the body, and the long moderate routes of Red Rocks will be a welcome change. We are heading there tomorrow.

Bishop, we will mis you!

Will We Ever Leave?

2011-03-03T23:51:00.001-05:00

Yup, we're still in Bishop. The weather has improved considerably, making the nights more comfortable and the days pleasantly warm. In the last few days we said goodbye to Karl, Phil and JM, who sadly had to head back to Ottawa. But not before another couple of fun days of climbing with them.

Here is Kristal on the classic Heavenly Path, V1.

Phil, fully engaged on Toxic Avenger, V9.

And Phil and JM taking a break from said problem.

On their last day here we headed up to the Buttermilks. Here is Kristal on an unnamed V0.

We all jumped on Bowling Pin, v4, with another large group of people. The problem is pretty unique, in that it climbs about 10 feet of overhanging rock to a large comfortable ledge at the lip, followed by about 8 feet of thin, insecure, and somewhat scary slab to the top. What ends up happening is most people hang out on the ledge for a while getting up the nerve to finish. Phil was working the moves of a hard extension into it, and actually stuck the moves while one of the other climbers was sketching out before the slab. Thankfully the other climber got up the nerve and topped out just as Phil was pulling on to the ledge. It was pretty ridiculous, and somewhat frightening. Thanks to Denise for the picture!

For the last problem of the day, Phil and JM decided to pull on Evilution, V12. Here is JM sticking the first move, with a lot of climbing left to go.

It was really great to have the boys around. We will miss you guys!

Incredibly though, the Ottawa group send fest will continue, as the day before the boys left, our friends Joe and Denise arrived from back home. Here is Joe after sending the classic Solarium, V4.

Will we ever leave? Time will tell.

Ups and Downs

2011-02-27T03:53:00.001-05:00

We've been in Bishop now for just over two weeks, yet the end is still not in sight. In some ways it is tempting to move on. The long trad routes and warmer temps at Red Rocks beckon to us, but the list of problems we want to get on here seems to just keep growing! There are so many awesome boulder problems here, it is easy to see why this is one of our favourite destinations.

In the last week we've had some ups and downs. Our Ottawa crew lost a member, as Kelly's time with us sadly came to an end. She flew back home to Ottawa a few days ago, but not before dispatching her hardest send here: Carrot Top, V3.

While working some problems in the area, we saw what has been the cutest scene of the entire trip. A father was out bouldering with his kids, one of which was his tiny daughter, seen here making short work of what to us is a nice warmup problem. To her it must feel like a ridiculous highball!

Kristal and I made another trip up to the awesome natural hot springs. Thanks to the snowfall from the last storm she was able to put her cross country skis to use and make short work of the approach.

The views up there are pretty stunning.

We got on some more excellent problems, one of the most striking being Atari, V6. It's got a pretty spicy landing, which makes the moves a bit exhilarating. Here I am working on it (photo courtesy of Kelly).

Phil and JM spent more time working one of their projects, the excellent Soul Slinger, V9. Here is Phil on the opening moves.

While the rest of the gang look on.

Unfortunately, a couple of days ago another storm system blew in, bringing more rain, snow and cold temperatures.

It chased us back into the motel for a couple of nights, but the next few days are looking good. After two days off we are rested up again and good to go. Can't wait to get back on the rock!

Winter Wonderland

2011-02-21T00:34:00.004-05:00

Since our last post, it's gotten pretty chilly here.

Instead of suffering through cold weather camping, we've all splurged and moved into a motel (at least temporarily). I'm thoroughly enjoying life on the inside; internet, movies, digital monopoly and daily hot showers are such a luxury!

Despite a couple of snow storms, the bouldering has still been pretty great. Jason and I and the crew from Ottawa have spent a couple days in the Happys, working on projects and enjoying some easy high stuff. Here I am on Althea, V0.

Our friend Chance, trad climbing master, novice boulderer, also joined us. He seems to have taken to the bouldering pretty well; we even caught him brushing holds (photo courtesy of Kelly).

Today, we decided to brave the snow and head up to the Buttermilks. All the north facing problems were covered in snow and ice, but we still got on some great lines. Here's Phil on Saigon, V6:

Kelly, mastering her highball skills on the Sunshine Boulder.

Jason, showing us how friction slab is done on Yo! Basecamp, V0+.

Me, on the painful crimps of the Leary Bard Arete, V5.

And JM working the moves on Bubba Gump, V10, while Karl spots attentively.

Back in Bishop

2011-02-17T04:42:00.002-05:00

The drive from Joshua Tree to Bishop was highlighted by an unexpected supper in the small town of Ridgecrest. As we were driving through, looking for some acceptable form of fast food, Kristal spied a Vietnamese restaurant out of the corner of her eye. Glorious Pho! It didn't compare to back home, but we gave it a solid 3 stars, which seemed perfectly acceptable for being in the middle of nowhere in the desert.

Upon arriving in Bishop it was awesome to see our friends from Ottawa who were already down here. In many ways it feels a lot like we are just going out for local bouldering sessions back home, but we are in California! Pretty cool. In addition to providing a welcome increase in the social aspect of our sessions, the additional pads and spotters makes jumping on many problems much more comfortable. Here is Karl, JM and Phil chilling out and enjoying the sun with Kristal.

Here is JM sending Molly, V5.

And Karl working through the low pockets of the same problem.

Here is Phil working the moves of Pow Pow, V8, which he made short work of during his next session on it.

A few days ago Kelly also flew in, to join in the fun for a couple of weeks.

The surrounding mountains are much more snow covered than they were during our visit last June. Here is Kristal standing atop the Golden boulder after climbing an unnamed V1.

One big difference we noticed since our last visit is that many of the highball problems don't actually seem that high to us anymore. On our last day in the Buttermilks last year we looked at The Hunk, V2, but didn't have the nerve to try it. Here is Kristal making short work of the 20+ foot problem, despite the not so attentive spotting techniques of JM.

The weather has been awesome, up until yesterday at least, when a storm blew through and dumped a bunch of rain. The forecast for the next few days isn't looking much better, as another storm system is on its way. Hopefully will we be able to get a decent session in tomorrow before the next round of precipitation.

Leaving Joshua Tree

2011-02-09T22:49:00.002-05:00

Today was our last day at Joshua Tree. Another week has gone by with more awesome climbing and bouldering. We've pushed some of our climbing limits, and sent several boulder projects from last year. Despite some chilly evenings, and some windy days, the weather has been pretty awesome. Kristal's parents showed up a few days ago and once again joined in the fun. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking...

Me leading Sail Away, 5.8-.

Kristal's dad Lyle, following Kristal up Toe Jam, 5.7.

Lyle has just started leading trad, and here he is on his first trad lead, Beginner's Two, 5.2.

We climbed it as two parties of two. Here is Kristal leading it, being belayed by her mom.

Kristal on Junior, V0-.

Me on Piano Rock Crack, also V0-.

During one outing into the back country we found some cool gourds, and a LOT of tics, all over the place. Most of the gourds were already dried up and hollowed out, but we did find a few still in one piece. It was pretty strange finding these in the desert.

It's always hard to leave amazing destinations like Joshua Tree, but the time has come. Tomorrow we leave for Bishop, where friends from Ottawa are already cranking hard. We can't wait to join them!!

Return to Joshua Tree

2011-02-02T17:34:00.002-05:00

We've been in Joshua Tree for a week now.

The last time we were here was way back in May of last year. Back then the summer heat was already creeping in. Climbing in the sun was unthinkable, and getting up anything requiring friction seemed impossible. With that in mind, we were pretty excited to return during a season with more favourable climbing conditions.

Here I am frictioning my way up South Corner, V0, a compression slab problem with no holds. This would have been impossible for us on our last visit.

Climbing in the sun is now comfortable, and often required when the days are chilly and the wind picks up. Here is Kristal on the first pitch of Mental Physics, 5.7+. It climbed a super cool hand crack, which ended at the top of the first pitch. Pitch two continued with 80 feet of unprotected slabby face climbing with 1 bolt. Spicy!

And here she is at the top.

Although most of the routes here are single pitch, we've been seeking out multi-pitch climbs to jump on. One such climb was Dappled Mare, 5.8, 3 pitches, which we climbed during a pretty warm day. Despite it being the end of January we still got a bit of that baking in the sun feeling. Here is Kristal about to embark on the third pitch.

One of the advantages of being here during the on season is that we meet a lot of other climbing bums doing the 'circuit'. We met Chance in Cochise Stronghold, and he showed up at Joshua Tree shortly after we did. He was nice enough to join us for a couple of days and be our rope gun. Here he is leading Tumbling Rainbow, 5.9.

In addition to being a super cool dude he's a pretty strong climber, so led a number of harder climbs for us to follow. Here is Kristal nearing the top of one burly fist crack he lead, Fisticuffs, 5.10b.

So far we've spent 4 days climbing and 2 days bouldering. It's been fun jumping on problems we tried last time and seeing what a difference the conditions make. Which of course varies depending on the type of problem. Here I am at the top of our favourite off-width boulder problem, Hobbit Hole Offwidth, V0-, which still felt as burly as last time we were here.

One disadvantage of being here in the winter is that it can get pretty cold. Here is Kristal taking a break from bouldering in a makeshift crash pad tent.

Today for example, we are taking a rest day, because the high is 4 degrees Celsius and the gusts are up to 50 km/h. Not comfortable climbing conditions, even in the sun. Thankfully the forecast is looking more favorable. Can't wait to get back on the rock!

Tucson

2011-01-26T19:14:00.001-05:00

We spent the last week climbing around the Tucson area. We just can't get enough of this awesome weather. Although a 'cold' front has moved in, so the last few days have been a bit chilly, with highs in the the low teens (celsius). Yeah, it's rough.

We spent a couple of days doing some single pitch sport and trad climbing at Mount Lemmon, which is literally just outside the city of Tucson. Here I am pulling the roof on the East Face, 5.10, of the Hitchcock Pinnacle, with Tucson in the background.

Kristal's parents once again joined while we were at Mount Lemmon. Here is Lorraine nervously standing atop Hitchcock Pinnacle.

And here is a shot of the moon rising, taken from our campsite.

We also spent a day bouldering on the other side of the city, at a great local spot called Gates Pass. From there we decided that Cochise Stronghold was worth a return trip before we headed to California. We climbed two more excellent long routes, both mostly bolted and both in the 5.10a/b range. The first was The Peacemaker, 7 pitches, 750 feet, which went up the slightly slabby Sheepshead dome, on the left of the picture below.

It was a great climb, and quite sustained for the grade, with more than a few thin slab moves. Here's Kristal coming up to the anchors on the fourth pitch.

We also climbed Endgame, 5 pitches, 600 feet, up the End Pinnacle of The Rockfellow Domes. The base of the climb was well shaded and pretty chilly, so we built a small fire so Kristal wouldn't freeze to death while I led the first pitch.

That climb itself was awesome, but the conditions were not. The breeze was pretty mild when we started, but by the time we were at the last pitch, which climbed up a gap between the main formation and the end pinnacle, the wind was howling. Despite the climbing being only 5.8, I have never felt more insecure while leading. I had to stop several times and just hug the rock, for fear that I would be blown right off. Thoroughly unpleasant.

Between these two climbs, we took another rest day and enjoyed a hike through the area, which offered some more great scenery...

... and more awesome desert plants.

Rest Days

2011-01-21T20:42:00.000-05:00

We took a couple of rest days after climbing at Cochise, to recover from the long climbs and spend some time touring the area. First up was a stop at the infamous town of Tombstone, which is only half an hour away. I was pretty excited to see some authentic buildings and artifacts from the period. What a dissappointment! It is unfortunately mostly filled with privately run tourist traps, and though I'm sure there are interesting things to see in some of them, we weren't in the mood to fork over the money. The whole place reeked of tackyness. I was so bummed I didn't take a single picture.

Next up we went to Chiricahua National Monument, which is chock full of awesome pinnacles.

Sadly, climbing is not allowed, which made our hike feel like torture. It seemed around every corner would be another another collection of awesome granite towers that we would of loved to climb.

This one had an awesome, well protect-able, crack running up it.

We had to resign ourselves to scrambling up a few of the short ones.

The views from the trail were also pretty stunning.

This entire area is full of great scenery. The various mountain ranges are called 'islands in the sky', as they poke out of the relatively flat desert basins, and provide various micro climates supporting a huge variety of life.

I still can't get over how cool the blooms of some of these desert plants are.

Glorious Warmth

2011-01-17T18:07:00.001-05:00

We spent the last four days climbing in Cochise Stronghold, just east of Tucson, Arizona. It has been nothing short of amazing, with excellent climbing and incredible weather. Here is Kristal hanging out at one of the crags in a tank top and sandals. That's right, it's the middle of January. Awesome.

We jumped on a couple of multipitch climbs. Here is Kristal belaying me on The Wateland, 5.8, 6 pitchs, from an anchor of questionable quality. Notice the poorly slung chicken head. Not recommended.

We also climbed Moby Dick, 5.8, 6 pitches, up Whale Dome, named for obvious reasons.

Both of these climbs were stellar, and involved more than a bit of runout and/or terrifying climbing. On one 100 ft pitch I was able to place four pieces of protection - 1 cam and 3 slung chicken heads. Thank God the climbing was easy. More than half of The Wasteland involved super exposed climbing on pretty much nothing but slung chicken heads. Amazing.

Here is Kristal belaying me up the fifth pitch of Moby Dick.

In addition to the long routes, we did some bouldering and sport cragging. Kristal's parent's are on a road trip of their own, and when we heard from them it turned out they were only half an hour away! They came over the Cochise, hung out for a couple of days, and we spent a day doing some easy sport climbing together. It was great to have some other people with us to belay, so that I could get some pictures other than the typical 'butt shot' or 'follow shot'.

Here is Lyle leading Baby Jr. Gets Spanked, 5.6.

And Lorraine cleaning the route, with Kristal giving moral support.

Here is Kristal leading it with Lorraine belaying her.

And again leading OK Corral, 5.7.

There are still a couple of long climbs we'd like to get on here, but it's hard to stay too long with so many other awesome destinations on the horizon. We'll see what happens after a couple of rest days. With the forecast calling for warm weather for the next week, it's hard to go wrong no matter what we do.

Enchanted Rock

2011-01-13T03:38:00.001-05:00

Our original plan was to spend some time in the south east, maybe a week or so, before heading west. Unfortunately Mother Nature had other ideas. We managed one day of bouldering at Horse Pens 40 in Alabama, then decided to hit the road before the weather turned sour. Despite the short visit it was awesome to be climbing on real rock again, after almost a month of being relegated to the gym.

The drive through Louisiana and eastern Texas was interesting, highlighted by a full on blizzard. Didn't we come south to escape that stuff? It was obvious the locals were not used to the amount of snow that was falling, as we saw zero snow equipment, and more than a few vehicles in the ditch. Some of the interstates were even shut down, but thankfully none that we were on.

We eventually made it to Enchanted Rock State Natural Area, just west of Austin, Texas. And thankfully on the other side of the eastward moving storm. Enchanted Rock is a pretty impressive large pink granite dome, and has a variety of climbing on and around it.

Most of the formation consists of pretty low angle slab, which makes it a popular destination for anyone that likes hiking on cool rocks. If you click on the picture below you can see hordes of people scrambling around on the main dome.

The rock is large crystal granite, which is incredibly sharp. It was also of pretty varied quality, which meant the occasional crumbling foot holds did not always give us that nice warm fuzzy secure climbing feeling. Regardless, in the two days we spent at the park we got on some fun routes and problems.

Here is Kristal on the awesome crack, Sweat 5.6.

And again on a cool warm up slab, Dairy Dog V0.

And setting up to pull the mantle on Schmantel Fest V4.

We could have easily stayed longer, but despite the fact that the storm system had moved on, it left some pretty cold weather in it's wake. We decided to continue west. Southern Arizona, with it's promise of year round summer, was calling to us.

New Year, New Look, New Trip

2011-01-07T10:41:00.000-05:00

New Year

First of all we wish everyone a happy new year!

Kristal spent most of the holidays visiting family out in Alberta. From what she tells me it sounded like good times were had by all. I spent Christmas back home on the farm, and had some friends over in Ottawa to celebrate New Years Eve. Here we are at midnight testing out the smoke detectors in my house, which, incidentally, do work.

We both got some climbing related items as gifts for Christmas. Kristal recieved a copy of 'Climbing Self Rescue: Improvising Solutions for Serious Situations' (something we probably should have picked up ourselves before we left last April). I got a copy of 'The Rock Warriors Way: Mental Training for Climbers', which I'm pretty excited about. I can't wait to improve my ability to wage war on the rock!

New Look

Over the holidays we also changed the look of the blog a bit and added a map up over on the right. It's a regular old interactive google map, so you can click and drag to pan, and zoom in and out (assuming of course that it works). The red circle represents where we currently are, or at least where we were when we last updated the blog. The green path is the summer trip, the orange path is the fall trip and the blue path will be the current winter trip. The yellow dots are the climbing destinations we've been to, and you can hover over them to pop up their names.

I also added the ability to comment anonymously, so no more using the old 'you need and account to comment' excuse.

New Trip

We left for this trip yesterday, and it has so far started off with a bit of uncertainty. Although it is well documented that you may only stay in the United States for six months on any given visit, there is a bit of a gray area, subject to some interpretation by the border guards, on how long you may stay in any given year long period. The onus is on you, the foreign visitor, to convince said border guards that your intention is not to actually ditch your homeland and become an illegal immigrant. Saying things like 'We're not exactly sure when we'll be back' probably does not help your cause.

The border guard who handled our case was pretty gruff, and even used the old 'interview them separately to make sure their stories match' tactic to try and poke holes in our ridiculous claim of taking a year off to go rock climbing. There was a lot of nervous waiting on our part, during which we contemplated what else we might do for the winter if we were denied entry. Our second plan of visiting New Zealand started to seem like it might have been the better choice. In the end the he called us up, casually handed us our passports, and simply said 'have fun'. We were in!

Home for the Holidays

2010-12-19T23:59:00.003-05:00

Our Fall trip has sadly come to an end. We hit the road right after climbing our last day at Stone Fort, and drove straight back to southern Ontario. We will spend a few weeks over the holidays visiting friends and family, enjoying the comforts of living on the inside, and recharging our batteries for the next leg of the trip.

Although low temperatures make for great friction, the inescapable cold does tend to wear you down. Especially when you spend most of the day dressed like this.

It was nice to be back home, and Kristal took advantage of a quick stop at my Parent's to learn some of my Mom's Christmas cookie recipes. If only we could easily make these while on the road!

The trip was once again incredible, highlighted by the many awesome climbs we did in southern Utah. In just over 3 months we traveled 19356 km, visited 30 destinations in 12 different provinces and states, and spent 60 days climbing.

Due to the prevelence of chilly weather we spent quite a bit more time bouldering this time around. For those interested in the stats, this is how it broke down...

We spent 20 days trad climbing, during which we climbed 40 routes with a combined total of 84 pitches. The longest route was 10 pitches and over 1000 feet. The hardest was in the 5.11 range (although grades at Indian Creek don't really mean the same as they do elsewhere).

We spent 39 days bouldering, during which I sent 511 problems, maxing out at V7.

We spent a whopping 1 day sport climbing, in which we climbed 16 routes ranging in difficulty from 5.1 (yes, we actually found, and bothered to climb, a 5.1 sport route) to 5.10c.

In the new year we will hit the road once again, heading south and then back west. A large contingent of Ottawa climbers is heading to Bishop, California in February, and we look forward to meeting up with them there. In the meantime we probably wont be updating the blog. Check back in early January to see what we're up to.

As the sun has set on another leg of our awesome adventure, we wish you all the best for the festive season. Happy Holidays!

Friction

2010-12-13T01:14:00.005-05:00

Our return to Chattanooga would be greeted with mostly clear skies, and a chill in the air. With highs hovering just above freezing, it would make for some cold days, but unrivaled friction on the rock.

We spent 3 days bouldering at Stone Fort (aka Little Rock City), taking advantage of the perfect conditions to go on a sending spree. Here I am Storming the Castle V1.

Perhaps no climbing hold benefits more from crisp, chilly conditions than the sandstone sloper. Here I am riding The Wave V6, a problem that felt impossible in the relative heat when we visited in April, but went with ease this trip.

Kristal is always looking for cracks to climb, to hone her already considerable crack climbing skill. Here she is executing a bomber, even if completely unnecessary, fist jam to throw for the lip on an unnamed V3.

Here she is again on the fun Dragon Traverse V0.

And on the insecure feeling Fire Crack Flake V1.

Here I am going for broke on Block and Tackle V2, by far the tallest face I've climbed without a rope.

Kristal also sent her first V6, named Fortune. Go Kristal! Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of her on it, but here I am rocking onto its slabby topout.

North Carolina

2010-12-09T21:17:00.002-05:00

We had planned to hang around Chattanooga for a few days and take in some of the excellent nearby climbing. Unfortunately both of the areas we planned to visit just happened to be closed! Tennessee Wall due to a hunting closure, and Stone Fort in order to prepare for the upcoming Triple Crown competition. We weren't in the mood to sit around idly and wait for them to re-open, so we headed east into North Carolina. We would be back.

While we were in Horse Pens we heard a lot of talk about Rumbling Bald, so we went to check it out first. There was plenty to climb - trad, sport and bouldering - but with the recent rain and chilly temps we decided to stay off any roped cimbs. We spent 2 days sampling some of the bouldering. Having climbed exclusively on sandstone for almost the last 2 months it was quite a change to be pulling on granite again.

Here is Kristal on a nice warm-up slab.

And again on The Basetball Mantle V3.

We had a great time climbing with Brian and Keeling from Illinois, and had a blast with some ridiculous vines hanging from the trees. Here is Brian in mid-swing about 12 feet off the deck.

Next stop was Looking Glass Rock, which is a cool granite dome litterally covered with these crazy 'eyebrow' features.

We decided to jump on a nice looking 4 pitch moderate called The Sundial Crack 5.8. The cold and wind almost had us abondoning after the first pitch, but we pushed on and made it to the top. The climbing itself was incredibly fun, and it would have been a stellar day had it been a little warmer.

Here is Kristal leading up the second pitch.

And again belaying me up the last pitch.

And at the top, trying to conserve some warmth before heading back down.

Despite the cold temps we were planning to suck it up and spend another day at Looking Glass, but some rain in the forecast changed our minds. Instead we headed up to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. After waiting out the rain for a day we decided to go for a hike along the Appalachian Trail. The weather once again changed our plans, as enough snow had fallen in the mountains to close the road to the trail head. Thankfully The Great Smoky Mountains are full of hiking trails, so we easily found a nice one we could get to. The freshly fallen snow in the forest made for a beautiful hike.

Old and New Friends

2010-12-06T19:51:00.003-05:00

Horse Pens 40 would be only our second repeat destination since we left in April. Despite all of the places we've been, nearly 50 destinations and counting, I still rank Horse Pens as one of the best. So many classic problems. So much diverse climbing. So many ridiculous topouts.

Our return would bring the downfall of several projects from the spring. Grooverider, Millipede and Orca to name a few. And add new projects for our next visit. So close on Trick or Treat! For most of you those names won't mean a thing. For me they are synonymous with pure climbing joy.

We made many new friends this trip: Jim, Eric, Katelyn, Katherine, Jorge and a fellow Canadian from Calgary, Alex, who is also on an extended climbing road trip. We also had a hilarious run-in with an old friend from our previous visit.

In April we met Wes, who rolled in around 11:00 pm one night, cooked himself some dinner, and headed into the woods to work on his project, Skywalker, by lamplight. Having nothing better to do, we joined him of course, and eventually left him in the wee hours of the morning to continue his work. The next day, as we were finishing up our session he was still there, toiling away, and would chill out with us on whatever problems we happened to be working on.

Fast forward to this visit, as we were wrapping up one day near the Skywalker problem, Kristal turns to me and says 'I think I just saw Wes!'. And lo and behold there he was, come back to work on Skywalker once again. Neither he nor we had been to Horse Pens since April, and yet here we met again, in the exact same spot, 7 months later! It was awesome catching up with him, and I only hope we get to meet up again someday.

Here he is taking a break from Skywalker to give Trick or Treat a go.

We put the camera away while we were climbing. I think we did a decent job in the first Horse Pens post of capturing the place in pictures. Aside from the picture of Wes above I only took one other shot, of one random sunset.

We got 3 days of awesome climbing conditions before the weather decided to rain on our parade. We once again moved on, and just like with all my previous visits to Horse Pens, all I could think about after leaving was when I would be back.

With the rain coming down, we decided to play tourist once again, and went for a tour of Ruby Falls, a 145 ft underground waterfall, in Chattanooga. The tour itself wasn't all that exciting, but the cave leading to the falls was full your typical cool underground cave formations.

The waterfall itself is pretty awesome, and is only somewhat marred by the crazy light show and music that they play while you are there.

At least it was a nice distraction from the pouring rain outside.

Goblins, Canyons and Cannonballs

2010-12-04T15:47:00.006-05:00

Driving across the middle of the continent is never something you really look forward to. Although I'm a big fan of the wide open expanses of the prairies, it still kind of sucks when they stand between you and your next climbing destination. Whenever we make the journey, we try to find interesting things to see or do on the way to break up the long driving days. Getting from Saint George, Utah to Horse Pens 40 in Alabama took us a leisurely 4 days.

Our first stop was Goblin Valley state park in Utah.

It's a really cool valley full of crazy rock formations.

We spent a morning feeling like little kids running around and climbing them.

We also made our first foray into canyoneering that day. When I first suggested hiking a slot canyon to Kristal she looked at me a little skeptically. It probably didn't help that my description went something like: 'It's like going for a hike and doing some rappelling'. You see, hiking is something we do to get to a climb and rappelling is something we do to get off of a climb. Why we would do the former and latter without actually doing any climbing seemed a little silly. But after some discussion and internet searching it looked like hiking through a slot canyon might be pretty fun.

We hiked the Little Wild Horse Canyon trail, conveniently located Just outside of Gobling Valley. Thankfully Little Wild Horse Canyon is about as technically easy as slot canyons come, rated a mere 1A II on the Canyon Rating System, which means no rappelling and very little in the way of technical obstacles. It's amazing how enjoyable a hike can be when you aren't hauling a full pack of climbing gear and gaining 1500 ft of elevation. It was a super cool hike, the canyon becoming barely wide enough to pass in some sections, weaving through crazy water worn sandstone in others, and involving some fun easy scrambling. Unfortunately my camera battery died so we didn't get any pictures, but there are plenty online.

In Kansas we took a short detour off the interstate to visit what is probably the only climbing 'destination' in the state. Rock City is a collection of unique sandstone balls in a landscape that is otherwise barren of any climbable rock.

Though there isn't really much in the way of hard problems, there are some really fun easy ones, making it a great place to stretch your legs during a long drive. We only spent an hour bouldering there, but could have easily stayed longer it not been so cold.

The rest of the drive was largely uneventful, though I was excited to get a glimpse of the St. Louis arch as we drove past.

We rolled into Horse Pens late in the evening. We were thankful to have the long drive behind us and a few days of bomber climbing conditions ahead of us.

Weather Woes

2010-11-30T22:22:00.003-05:00

We planned to spend another couple of days climbing in Zion, unfortunately the weather had other ideas. But even though the forecasted rain kept us off any longer climbs, we decided to hang around and check out the boulders until it hit. Zion would not be considered a bouldering destination by any means, but there are some established problems, and we managed to get on a few cool ones. Here I am on one of the best we found, climbing up the left arete of this boulder right off the main road.

We also toured around the park, which is incredibly beautiful. Here are some bighorn sheep we ran across.

And for the climbers reading this, here is the iconic Moonlight Buttress.

From Zion we headed to the Saint George area to boulder at Moe's Valley, a sandstone bouldering destination litterally just outside of the city. After taking a forced rest day due to the rain, during which Kristal dragged me to the latest Harry Potter movie, we were able to spend a couple of days bouldering. Kristal snapped some pics of me on a few problems.

The fun warm up, Cornered V0.

And right beside it, the cool Hermione V3.

And the short, but super fun, Anviloid Left V4.

There is a wealth of climbing around Saint George, and we were hoping to spend more time in the area. But the weather would again alter our plans. The rain had passed, but a cold front had moved in to bring daytime highs to just below freezing. Despite the potential for unrivaled friction, climbing in sub-zero temps was not our cup of tea. After much discussion we decided to start the long journey back east a little earlier then planned and spend some time in the (hopefully) warmer south east. Alabama, here we come!

Unfinished Business

2010-11-24T23:40:00.010-05:00

After nearly three weeks in the Moab area, we were ready to move on, but first we had some unfinished business. The Kor-Ingless route on Castleton tower had been on our tick list since we first got to Moab, but poor weather had kept us off it. Castleton Tower is an impressive skyscraper that dominates the desert skyline and I couldn't bring myself to leave without attempting it.

The downside to the Kor-Ingless route is that it's one of the Fifty Classic Climbs of North America. Now, I know that sounds like it would be a good thing, but mostly it just means big crowds. We figured we'd be safe on a Wednesday in November, starting later than most reasonable climbers would be willing to start a four hundred foot climb with a hour long approach up a scree slope. Nope. There were three parties ahead of us when we staggered up to the base and then a crazy Swiss pair showed up half an hour later. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have the tower to yourself it you decided to climb it on a new moon in a January blizzard.

The climbing itself was pretty interesting, but made much more insecure by the slick coating of calcite that covered much of the cracks. With our late start we were a bit anxious that we wouldn't finish before the sun set. The Swiss pair behind us must have been even more nervous- I've never had anyone follow quite so closely. I was terrified to slip on top-rope, sure that if I fell I'd knock their leader off the climb. At times he was less than a couple of feet below me. As Jason followed the last pitch, their leader actually beat him to the summit!

Anyways, the tailgating Swiss party got a pretty good shot of us on the summit.

And the view from the top was definitely worth the climb.

Finally finished our business in Moab, we headed to Zion National Park. Zion has been called the sandstone Yosemite and hosts some of the world's steepest and tallest sandstone walls. The fist view of the canyon is awesome, and a bit intimidating. I feel like I'd need to spend a lot more time practicing in Indian Creek before I'm willing to attempt any of these walls.

Instead, we opted to climb a chill, slabby route called Led By Sheep up Aries Butte.

The approach itself was pretty cool. After passing a wall of petroglyphs, the trail led up steep slickrock to a saddle between two buttes.

The route climbs a gentle, but runnout slab. Here I am on the first pitch after clipping one of the few bolts.

With 13 bolts (and one marginal cam placement) in 600 feet, we were pretty glad the climbing was easy. It was a pretty nice change from all the steep crack climbing we've been on recently. Here I am, leaving our mark on the summit.

Mesa Verde

2010-11-22T19:24:00.004-05:00

While at Indian Creek we took a rest day and popped into Colorado to check out the cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde National Park. Despite many of the areas being closed for the winter there was still much to do, and we went on a tour of Spruce Tree House.

It was fascinating to learn how these people lived, and even more so to see how well some of these dwellings are preserved after 700 odd years.

Below you can see a pictograph on the wall of one of the living quaters.

In the courtyard you can see the tops of the ladders leading down into underground meeting rooms, called Kivas.

And here is Kristal in one of the Kivas we were allowed to go into.

After the tour we went for a hike to check some of the local petroglyphs.

And then drove one of the scenic loops to see some of the other ruins. Here is the largest of the dwellings, Cliff Palace.

There are signs of ancient peoples all over the desert, and Indian Creek itself was no exception. Petroglyphs can be found near many of the climbing walls, and one wall in particular, called Newspaper Rock, was the most impressive collection we have ever seen.

Otto's Route Video

2010-11-21T14:32:00.002-05:00

Kristal and I decided to haul the video camera with us while we climbed Otto's Route up Independence Monument in Colorado National Monument.

Be warned this is not the most exciting climbing video in the world. Since it was just the two of us we were also trying to safely belay while shooting. As you can imagine this limited our options a bit.

Otto's Route from Jason Allemann on Vimeo.

Sport Climbing on Gear

2010-11-20T14:42:00.005-05:00

We were a little intimidated before arriving at Indian Creek. We had two major concerns. One, did we have enough gear to climb anything? And two, could we climb anything at all? Usually on our multi-pitch trad climbs we rarely climb anything harder than 5.9, and flipping through the guidebook there was very little in that grade range.

Thankfully the style of climbing at Indian Creek is about as far removed from trad climbing as you can get while still placing your own protection. Our normal trad outings are usually comprised of many of the following: sketchy gear placements, runout sections, route-finding, problem solving, uncertainty, and fear. Pretty much all of these issues are removed at the Creek. Climbing here is like sport climbing on gear. In some ways it's even easier than sport climbing, as you pretty much know before you start exactly what moves you need to do, and often times it will only be one or two different moves repeated from the ground to the chains.

Here is our friend Chelsea leading Generic Crack 5.10-, 120 feet of pretty much nothing but hand jamming.

You will rarely encounter a crux. Cleanly sending a route is more about endurance than figuring out any crazy beta or getting stronger. Gear placement is for the most part bomber and continuous (which also means you can easily hangdog your way up). Cams literally slide into the cracks. There is little need for slings. The documented grades are more an indicator of the size of the crack than anything else, and jamming cracks is so dependant on the size of your hands that the grades lose much of their traditional meaning.

Here is Chelsea leading Battle of the Bulge 5.11, 70 feet of thin hands, which can be climbed as a crack climb (the way she did it) or by lie backing the entire thing (which is how we did it). It's pretty amazing that an entire route can be climbed with such wildly differnt techniques.

As you can imagine, one problem with having such awesome uniform cracks is having enough gear to climb them. Some climbs require upwards of 8 of the same sized cam. Thankfully not all of the cracks are so uniform, and thanks to our good friend Karl back home, we had a full triple set of cams, and even quadruples of a few of the smaller ones. Although our rack was inadequate for many of the long uniform cracks, we had no trouble finding routes we could climb on our own.

Here I am leading Chocolate Corner 5.9.

And here is Kristal preparing to rap off of The Warm-Up 5.9.

As you can also imagine, not everyone visiting the Creek has an enormous rack of gear, so it is quite easy to join other parties on routes and/or share gear. We conveniently ran into Chelsea and Laura on our first day there. We had first met them bouldering in Joe's Valley and we had a great time hanging out with them again for a few days. Not to mention Chelsea is a crack climbing master, and she graciously led some awesome climbs so we could top rope them. We had the entire Blue Gramma wall to ourselves one day along with their friends Max and Dan.

One day we ran into a group getting ready to climb the impressive offwidth The Big Baby 5.11.

Kristal offered them some of our big gear to use, which the gladly accepted, and they later lent us some smaller cams so that we could jump on the nearby Cave Route 5.10+. Here I am about two thirds of the way up.

And if you look real close you can see Kristal in the next photo near the top of the cave preparing to rappel off.

And here she is on her way down.

Many of the areas at Indian Creek have a 'sport crag' type feel to them, with people setting top ropes and working projects. It actually felt a bit strange after all the multi pitch climbs we've been doing lately. There are multi pitch routes up many of the walls, but most of the traffic they get is only on the first pitch. There are some impressive towers too, which we unfortunately did not get a chance to climb. We will just have to come back.

Fisher Towers

2010-11-18T00:10:00.004-05:00

Our next climb would bring us to the top of the wildest summit we've ever climbed. The Corkscrew Summit of Ancient Arts, 5.8 A0, at the Fisher Towers.

The Corkscrew Summit is the one in the center of the picture below. Note the sheer vertical wall of the Ancient Arts tower. We'll be coming back to that. The climb itself starts about a third of the way up, on the right side of the tower.

Here is Kristal (tiny in the lower right of the picture) at the top of the first pitch, with the summit up on the left.

The climbing to the base of the summit was pretty varied, highlighted by a long 5.8 chimney that was incredibly fun. This in spite of the fact that the rock quality was not always that great. They don't call these 'mud towers' for no reason. The best was saved for last of course. After 4 pitches of climbing you step onto the shoulder of the summit. Next up is a 20 foot walk along the 'sidewalk', which was one of the most 'exciting' things I have ever done. Remember the sheer vertical face? The other side of the tower is much the same at this point, and the sidewalk is a rounded ridge about 3 feet wide with 300 feet straight down on either side. Here is Kristal at the base of the summit, standing on the 'diving board', after walking across the sidewalk.

The summit is aptly named as you have to corkscrew up and around it to get the top. It also has it's fair share of excitement, with questionable rock quality and incredible exposure. Here is Kristal standing at the top.

The excitement didn't end there. Just as we got to the top we were surprised to here some yelling from above and spied two base jumpers floating down.

They came whizzing by about 20 feet from us. Super cool.

We also spent another day bouldering at Big Bend and had plans to climb another classic desert tower, Castleton Tower. Unfortunately some inclement weather rolled in the night before, and we decided not to wait it out. We might be back to try and climb it before we head back east, but for the moment it was time to move on.

Next up, the incredible, incomparable, and not to mention chilly, Indian Creek.