A salveged day.

Today I had made plans to climb a couple of pitches of the Rostrum with climbing ranger extraordinaire Jesse McGayhee. Just about the time I was starting to expect his arrival I got a call from my boss, Tori, asking if I'd help "work up" a bear that had been trapped the night before. Fortunately, Jesse is an understanding fellow and took this opportunity to spend a few hours taking care of domestic duties.

Here you can see me give "Blue 1" the old reach around. Just trying to make him comfortable.

The best part about living and working in Yosemite, from a climber's perspective, is that after work you can easily get in a fulfilling climbing fix. That is exactly what we did today. Jesse and I headed over to Lower Cathedral Rock for some cragging and I made amends by helping Jesse with his job. First we recovered a fixed line that had been left on a project for about three years. It took a while but I owed him. We climbed a couple of really nice routes there as well. In particular a 5.11d (I don't know the names of any of these routes), which I was able to onsight just barely. The rock quality was spectacular, the movement was varied, and the view was second to none...unfortunately, I left the camera at home.

As a consolation prize here is a picture of my friend, Jesse Burkhart bouldering a problem called "Circuit Breaker." I highly recommend this problem if you like crack boulder problems.

For perspective, here is a shot of me on the same problem.

Back in the Ditch

This is the view from my new front porch. Whatcha think?

I'm back at the center of the climbing universe (at least that's what they tell you in Camp 4) and I'm psyched to climb and chase some bears. It's a bit hot for the really hard stuff but its still good enough conditions to go cragging. Still, I couldn't resist exploring for new projects yesterday and of course, Yosemite never fails, I was rewarded with some promising looking lines.

This one looks really hard.

I was very disappointed in the amount of garbage I saw in the stream bed yesterday. I would like to say I was surprised but that would be a lie. I know that there will always be some incidental litter wherever there are people but I would like to think that in a National Park people would be a little more careful with their garbage. Unfortunately, the Disneyland mentality prevades and people assume that because it's a Park they will be cleaned up after.

This rubber duck has seen better days. I gave him a proper burial in a dumpster.

Bishop in August?

Ryan finishing the "Iron Man Traverse"

Ryan West and I decided to make a short bouldering trip to Bishop the other day...er... night. It was actually well worth the effort. We arrived at the Buttermilks around 10pm and were welcomed by sixty degree weather and we were the only ones there. Can't remember the last time that happened, probably sometime between '00 or '01. Truth be told, the session we had Thursday night was probably the most fun I've had in the Buttermilks in a long time. There was no moon out while we were climbing that meant that our only light was from our two Coleman lanterns. It was like climbing on little orange globes in a sea of blackness. It was romantic for sure, I only wish Ryan would have been more willing to snuggle. Before calling it quits for the night I wanted to do one last problem on the Birthday Boulders, the aptly named "Birthday Direct". Just as I was about to pull on with my right hand I noticed this little guy.

He's facing down on a vertical wall of patina, just showing off.

The next day we chilled out at Lake Sabrina before heading up to Rock Creek for a short session. We were fatigued from the previous night but laying around and bouldering a little amongst quaking aspens and a gurgling stream is really good for the soul and we had a good time just hanging out.

The begining of the end

We begin with a Dragonfly.

Well, I've gone and done it now. Another blog begins, more inane ramblings intended for a grand audience yet destined for the obscurity of close friends and relatives. Let's all hope for the best because this blog is a slippery slope towards a fine line between uncharted waters and cliche. Hmmm.

I make no promises as to the nature of this blog's content, quality, nor it's frequency or grammatical standards. I am also willing to acknowledge that this may be a doomed experiment destined to survive only a single post.

Are you on the edge of your seat yet?