a good day is….

… having a double espresso and then going to give a 3 hour customer/partner presentation without screwing up.

of course anytime you can give a 3 hour preso incorporating farting birds as your graphics should be considered a win.

after that, i endured a painful reminder of how much i don’t miss the 880 commute before i hit the rock gym where i finally nailed a V3 i’d been working on the past couple of times. in fact, i managed to sink two V3’s, making them the first two V3’s i’ve bagged! the first one involved a wicked dyno which i thought was going to wrench my right shoulder out of my socket, and second involved latching onto a little crimper with one fingernail and squeezing every millimeter of reach out of my armspan.

well i’m sore and starving - but feeling pretty good. t’was a good day indeed.

Add comment January 22nd, 2008

death at Cathedral

Oakland climber dies descending Cathedral Peak

A bit late, but I only just found out about this from the SuperTopo monthly email. A bummer to hear about, to be sure - especially with them having already ascended, and descended and only being a mile and a half from 120.

I have my own love-hate-hate relationship with Cathedral Peak having tried to climb it 3 times and only been successful once. Indeed, two summers ago we got stuck in our own late-afternoon Tuolumne-special storm, though early August is considerably more forgiving than mid-November.

Jesse and I have planned to tackle Cathedral Peak again this summer. I’m hoping to bump my success rate from 33% to 50%; but we’ll see… I know I’m bringing a barometer and will be pushing for an early morning, early summer start.

Sigh. It’s always a little unnerving to hear about someone dying on a route you’ve climbed… worse yet when it’s a route you’re planning to climb in the near future. My sympathies go out to Noble’s family and friends. At least he died doing something he loved.

Add comment January 4th, 2008

power up!

just came back from the great western power company, the new climbing gym that just opened (last week!) in downtown Oakland.

man, it felt great. i haven’t really really climbed in a few years now, so it felt great to just go there for a couple of hours, and boulder by myself. the gym staff were friendly, the other solo boulderers offered good spots and even better advice, and i had a fun time despite not completing the V1 i swore i would do today. (just couldn’t match my hands on the last hold, and came tumbling down everytime). but i was able to do one V1, for what little that’s worth.

my hands are all dried and scuffed, i’ve got scabs on both my knees, and my arms are pumped beyond belief.

i bought a membership.

Add comment December 1st, 2007

symmetrical blisters

This past weekend, I finally got back out to the rocks and got in some great climbing. We went to meetup with some friends in Bishop to climb at Owen’s River Gorge. Friday kind of sucked, it turns out they closed the Tioga pass through, and we definitely didn’t want to drive up to Reno and back down to Bishop, so we figured we’d just head up to Yosemite to our hotel, and come back on Saturday. Friday evening got a little exciting when Isis ate 11 oz’s of chocolate chips and came down with some mild chocolate toxicity. After a fun sidetrip to the pet emergency room, they pumped her full of IV fluids and told us she’d be fine. So we headed up to the hotel with our beagles in tow to spend the night.

The hotel was great… really cozy cute inn, and it turns out the innkeepers have a beagle as well. In the morning we slept in, woke up late, had a great breakfast buffet, and packed up to head home. We called Yosemite on a whim, and…damn… it turns out they opened the pass.

After an hour of debate (we were worried about heading over and then having them close the pass and being stuck in the eastern Sierras), we decided to go for it and headed out to Owens River Gorge.

I had a great time climbing, doing some fun sport 5.9 and 5.10a routes, and ripping symmetrical blisters on both hands. Very strange.

After that, we camped out at Millpond Campsite. Camping with dogs is a lot of fun. We had 11 people and 4 dogs running around, and the dogs had a great time. Sleeping at night was probably a little cold for the dogs…given that I was woken up in the middle of the night by Isis burrowing in between our heads, and later on Char-siu crawled on top of me and slept on me. Next time we’ll have to bring more blankets than we did to keep them warmer.

Anyway, it was a fun weekend… I’ve definitely missed climbing and camping, and it’s nice to know I haven’t completely regressed in my climbing ability.

Add comment October 10th, 2006

praying (and sacrificing) at the cathedral

In what is becoming a summer tradition, I attempted to climb Cathedral Peak (in Tuolumne Meadows) again… doing the same route, a relatively easy, but fun 5.5/5.6 route. This time I was going with Poorna and Connie.

Noting Tuolumne’s classic afternoon thundershow risk, I checked the weather, and scanned the skies… all looked clear. Everything was set for a beautiful sunny day of easy climbing. Remembering last year’s arduous camp/hike combination with Dan, we decided to squat in a National Forest Service fire road (pitching tent right next to a sign that said “No overnight camping”), so we were able to drive to the trailhead and start hiking by 7. We got to the base of the climb at 9:30, rested for a bit and then tackled the climb (I think we started around 10:15 or so, as we were waiting for some other climbers to get up before starting ourselves)

It was a bit tricky with 3, but we ended up finally settling on a good rhythm and I was at the top of the 3rd pitch bringing Poorna and Connie up when all of a sudden rain started lightly coming down. Damnit.

All of a sudden, the rain turned into a crazy downpour of hail. I could feel it “plink plink plink”-ing onto my helmet, and I could look down and see it hitting Poorna and Connie as they were tandeming up to where I was. I have to be honest, part of me really wanted to push for the summit - but then we heard the thunder roar - and it sounded like it was right on top of us. The hail turned into a huge rain downpour, with the rock carrying a river of water down the face. My backpack, all my gear, and my rope were sitting in a one foot pool of water at my belay station. (note to self: I’m glad I bought a dry rope). At this point we saw a Yosemite SAR helicopter come buzzing by the mountain. I presume they were checking the status of climbers on Cathedral and nearby rocks.

I brought Connie & Poorna up to the belay station and we huddled in the dished out area deciding what to do. We debated between rappeling straight off from where we were, or pushing for the 4th belay station where there is a rap station to come down off to the side. All of a sudden we heard lightning crack and hit the rock above us, and we heard the thunder break right on top of us. We decided to bail. There. NOW.

So we setup a rappel, and came down fast. I setup a rappel off a slung chockstone, and we rapped down one rope length where Poorna and I found a good rock to sling. (I’m glad I didn’t have to leave any cams.. two slings is a great cheap sacrifice to rappel off in a storm). But as we pulled down the rope to setup the second rap, the loose end (coming down) somehow knotted and go stuck in a crack. I took out my trusty pocket knife, sawed away for 20 seconds or so, and cut my rope. My beautiful 10.2mm dry treated 60m rope that had only taken 3 leader falls. It had a ton of life left in it… alas. With the remaining rope, we were able to rap down to about 15-20 feet off the ground which we downclimbed to get off the mountain.

At the bottom we talked to a climber who was near the summit when lightning had hit the summit.. he said that all his hairs on his arms came up on end.

Freaky.

That was hands-down the most scared I’ve been on a climb. Nothing strikes fear in your heart quite like thunder breaking on top of you. It really makes you appreciate the power of mother nature, and how quickly you can be turned into a nice roast. Anyway, in the end… we made it back, safe, sound, and considerably water-logged. I lost 2 slings, and about 10-15 meters of my rope… but those are small sacrifices.

4 comments August 8th, 2005

jtree trip report

The TSA security official’s eyebrows raised as he took out my Communist-red Chinese lighter from my backpack which had just gotten yanked unceremoniously from the X-ray machine. They went even higher when we flipped it open and it started playing the Chinese national anthem. Our Joshua Trip weekend was off to a great start…

20 minutes later, after being told my lighter was a jet/torch lighter that was hot enough to melt metal, I found myself downstairs mailing the lighter (and Dan’s big friggin’ leatherman which he had left in his carry on accidentally) back home so we could get our trip on its way.

We predicted a 9:40pm arrival in LAX, back to Wendy’s by 10pm, and on the road by 10:20pm so we could get to Joshua Tree by around 12:30am. We didn’t leave Wendy’s until 11pm, but we figured it wasn’t a big deal… hahaha, how wrong we were.

See…LA, in all its shitty magnificance, has traffic at all fucking hours of the day. We hit a small patch of traffic right after getting onto the 10 when there was an accident, but the worst was when they closed 3 lanes of the 10 outside Cabazon. We didn’t get to JTree until 2:45am. And then we got to cruise around the Hidden Valley and Ryan campgrounds looking for a campsite. We didn’t get a campsite until 3am when we managed to get the very last one in Jumbo Rock. We pitched our tents in exhaustion and finally crashed at 3:30am.

We woke up at 8am the next day to the hot hot sun streaming into our tents making my 0 degree sleeping bag a tad warm. We went out to climb Loose Lady, a 120 foot 5.9+/5.10a face climb at the “House Buttress” in the Real Hidden Valley area. I led it, and had a great time… it was a really fun face with a lot of small edges and lots of smearing. Ah….climbing shoe rubber is a good thing.

Later that afternoon, after a lunch of Cranberry-Apple-Cherry Clif bars, we headed over to the Lost Horse Wall to climb The Swift, an “easy” multi-pitch 5.7 trad. This was going to be our first fully traditional lead, so Dan and I were psyched about it. We scrambled up to the base and left our packs at the base of the climb, and started up. Dan led the first pitch, an awkward traverse following an undercling of an arc. It was a bitch to protect, and made for a ton of rope drag. Dan setup an anchor and brought me up to lead pitch 2. The second pitch was great…it was a bit tough getting over the initial hump into the crack, but then I was able to comfortably run out a lot of rope setting pro when I thought I needed, and running it out when I didn’t. This was a great pitch, a lot of fun to lead, and just some really fun relaxing 5.6/5.7 climbing. I set an anchor when I got to an obvious place, and, can I just humbly say, it was one of the best fucking anchors ever. Multi-directional with two nuts, a cam, and a hex. Fucking nuclear-BOMB proof, dare I say. Dan started up the third pitch which started off continuing the easy 5.6/5.7 scrambling until he got to a split. At first he started up the left side of the split, which seems to be about a 5.10a difficulty. He set a piece of pro there before giving up and heading back right. He then attempted to tackle the right crack setting a piece of pro before giving up on that one due to the rope drag. The rope drag at this point was insane…I could see Dan straining to pull the rope through … I swear it looked like he was going to cut his body in half. Anyway, at this point he shouted down that he was going to go back and unclip the left pro. He worked his way back left, and it was all I could do to stop from laughing at the ridiculous rope positioning. Dan had basically drawn a trapezoid with the rope…he unclipped the left piece and got back to the right, before building an anchor and bringing me up. At this point, we were off-route…apparently we were supposed to go out and right and climb up the face, instead we stared dumbfounded at the inner corner crack scratching our heads and making intelligent sounds like “huh.” and “what the fuck.”

Anyway, by now the sun was setting and we started to get serious. It’s all fun and games till you turn around and see the valley getting dark. At this point, thoughts start running through your head mainly consisting of “we are so fucked.” Anyway, we looked at the climb, looked at the sun, looked at the valley, and decided we were going to unceremoniously aid-climb the crack. I plugged in a shitload of cams, sewing that crack up nice and tight, and then basically aid-walked my way up it. I flew up the remainder of the pitch running out some serious rope (would have made for a nice 30-40 foot fall I bet), before getting up to the top, setting a quick anchor and bringing Dan up to me. By the time Dan got up to me, the sun had completely set, and we were working by the ambient light of dusk. We cleaned up our gear, and started the “walk-off”.

Can I just say, whoever wrote the guidebook has a COMPLETELY FUCKING DIFFERENT interpretation of “walk-off” than I do. I envision a walk-off as a nice literal WALK OFF the climb. Maybe with a little scrambling involved, and hey, a Jamba Juice along the way wouldn’t be half bad either. Instead, Dan and I found ourselves downclimbing, scrambling, and sliding on our asses trying to get down before it got pitch black. Can I also mention at this point that having a cam shoved up your asshole when you’re trying to slide down a rock on your butt is most definitely not a good feeling? Oh yeah, by the way, I also had to wear my prescription sunglasses the entire time, cause I didn’t bring my regular glasses. Dan was basically leading me through most of the scrambling because I had trouble with little things like “depth perception” and “shadows”. Oh, and to top it off…guess which two dumbfuck climbers didn’t bring a light with them. One guess, and if it ain’t Dan & Steve, then quit reading this now, pick up a gun, save the human gene pool, and blow your brains out.

Maybe an hour and a half later, we found ourselves down at the “trail” and by trail, we mean more fucking knee-scraping, ankle-twisting, loose, shaky rocks and boulders we had to scramble over. We half-assed our way back to the shadow of a pine tree where we had left our stuff. I waited with our gear while Dan went up to try and retrieve our packs. I lay there leaning against a rock staring at the blinking lights of planes flying overhead, and the bright lights of the stars in the sky. Deep thoughts ran through my mind like “man, i’m so thirsty right now… i could go for a gatorade. and a double-double. a big fucking double-double, animal style…. awww yeah…. i wonder what i have back at camp? oh yeah, instant ramen. damn.”

I heard Dan grab our packs cursing and yelling something about “when I get back, I’m gonna buy a shitload of those small LED lights and keep one in every pack I own.” I thought to myself “damn…that’s a good idea…I should do that too.” Then I realised, shit…I did that before…I bought 20 LED lights and literally put one in each backpack….which means, there’s one in my pack that Dan just retrieved. I yelled out to him that there should be one in there, and then a few moments later I see the glorious light of a single white LED cutting through the darkness. I tell you this, there is no greater brighter, more hope-bringing light in the world than a single white LED when you’re stuck in the dark. I don’t care how bright the stars is, they didn’t have jack over my beautiful white LED.

He made his way back to my position and we reorganised our packs to walk out with our brand new light, and the confidence and hope that it brought. I turned around to Dan as I was packing, and I saw him fumble something, and then I saw the light tumbling out of his hands as he dropped it into the rock field below us. The world grew silent and all I heard was the metallic tinkle of the keychain as it fell to the ground, and the light turned off. I stood their stunned, and turned to Dan and asked a pleading question “the light didn’t just turn off did it?”. The silence screamed the affirmation that Dan didn’t have to say. He dove to the ground and fumbled around until I heard another familiar tinkle as Dan grasped it before it fell into a crevasse. My reaction? “Dude. I’ve got light duty now. Gimme that.”

With the light in hand, I started to lead out with Dan behind me. The rest of the hike out was over the “trail” of broken boulders and rock fields still. One funny moment? I was walking and Dan said behind me “You know, I can actually see fairly okay in the dark.” A split second later, I hear a big “oof” and a slam as I turn around and see Dan trip and slam his knee into a rock. That was about the only moment of brevity until we finally found the main road and walked back to the car. As Dan summed it up perfectly “I have never in my life been so happy to see a Camry before.” Dan and I hugged the car, as we loaded it back up and headed into town in search of Bactine/Neosporin, and wet wipes.

All this, and that was only within the first 24 hours of our trip.

We ran our errands in town, and headed back to camp looking forward to a nice meal of instant ramen. We got back to our campsite to find two guys who had fucking squatted our campsite. wtf?? We confronted them, and they said they thought the campsite was empty. Oh, my mistake, I thought by our pitching TWO tents, we had kind of claimed it. Silly me…. they gave some crap about saying how there was nothing on the picnic table, so they took the campsite. What followed was about 2 minutes of awkward silence as we (Dan and I) stared down the two squatters across from the campfire they had built in OUR FUCKING firepit. Then, realisation struck me, as I said “well…we got here last night, and we paid our campsite fees, so I really think this is our campsite”. The moment the two squatters heard me say campsite fees, their faces turned, and Dan and I knew we had won. Their reaction was “Campsite fees?”, and that just solidified the win. Beeeyotches, the campsite was ours. As they started to take down their tent and relinquish the campsite to us, Dan and I walked back to our tents, and I muttered to Dan “hey, can you run over to the campsite fee stand and pay our campsite fee?” Yes, I made a bluff, but it was a bluff that won, and I got our campsite…. man, the poker champion of the world couldn’t have made a better bluff…

Dan went and paid the fee, and got back, and we setup our camp chairs, tossed a couple logs on the fire, and ate our cup of noodles. We sat back, and spent the night smoking pot, and having witty conversation about things like how few people realise that the brand is actually called “Cup Noodles” not “Cup A Noodles” or “Cup Of Noodles” or whatever. Truly, an intellectual conversation.

Wendy, Lisa, and Chris pulled up at 1am, and we passed out to start the weekend proper. We woke up the next day where I made blueberry pancakes, and we scouted through our guidebooks to find a place to climb. We decided to head over to the Atlantis Wall in the Lost Horse area again where we hoped to get on some easy 5.5-5.7 climbs since Wendy & Chris had never climbed before. We got there and it was seriously PACKED. We managed to find a 5.6 that was in the shade and unclaimed…the only problem was it was next to a big friggin group of loud annoying climbers. Jesus christ, do people have to be so fucking loud? I mean, we’re there to enjoy the outdoors… the peace and quiet, NOT some 70 year old guy espousing the wonders of doing a hip belay (”I’ve never dropped anybody before!”… okay grandpa, maybe you haven’t, but someday you will, and that day will snap your fucking spine in half because you didn’t want to spend $30 on a stupid harness).

Anyway, we played on Solar Technology, a 5.6 crackish-ridge climb for a few hours until we had all done it (with the exception of Wendy who was having fun just watching and alternately napping in the sun… I swear…somewhere in her is a cat just screaming to get out). We left after we were done with the climb and headed over to AFPA rock to try a 5.7 face climb I’d done a few times before. I scrambled up the backside, and proceeded to setup a top-rope. For the life of me, I couldn’t toss the rope down to Dan. After 5 or 6 aborted attempts, I was getting pissed off, hauled up the rope, tossed all the cams I had in the rope bag, and tied the rope bag to the rope and threw it off. Man…that thing flew. I could see the dust cloud come up as it hit the ground. We setup the climb, and I top-belayed Lisa up, and then Chris attempted it. The sun was setting, so he didn’t get to finish it, but Dan got up afterwards, lowered me down and then he took the climb down and walked off the backside. We met up and headed into town to grab some ice & milk. We got back to our campsite and head an AWESOME dinner of korean bbq (kalbi, and bulgogi), with all the requisite kimchi, seaweed, and bean sprouts. For dessert? Bananas and strawberries dipped in chocolate fondue. OH yeah….we were freaking roughing it, I tell ya.

We sat around with Dan, Chris, and Lisa smoking cigars, and Wendy and I smoking our bud, until we grew sleepy and retired for the night.

We woke up the next morning with determination in our eyes. We knew Atlantis would be packed again, so we headed out there and got out there by 8:20am. Only one group had beaten us there. We staked our claim on the 5.6/5.5 routes we wanted to climb, and then setup our stoves and cooked our breakfast right at the base of the climbs. Dan led up the trad 5.5 crack while I belayed. Chris had blueberry pancake duty, following it up with some eggs. Wendy took up her customary napping position. I went up and took some photos of Lisa & Chris climbing before teaching Chris how to rappel down. All in all, we had a great fun time. Wendy woke up to make me a killer ham and egg sandwich, and that was pretty much it for the day. We took down the climbs, and headed back to break down camp and head home.

All in all, Dan and I got to climbing some really fun routes. We did a tough 5.9+/5.10a, led our first truly pure trad route, got lost, got scared, and then led a bunch of easier 5.5-5.7 trad routes for the rest of the group. Good food, good company, and good climbing….a weekend doesn’t get much better than that. (oh wait, yeah it does…. good flashlights help too)

2 comments March 22nd, 2004