Winter cragging

California has has a very WET winter! Great for the mountains, the reservoirs and the skiers, less good for the rock jocks. The bad weather has meant a bit more gym time than I am used to, but it has probably been a net positive for my climbing. I've pushed through some important mental barriers in the past month.

In the gym, I am routinely sending 5.12 now, which has been historically been very difficult for me. I have also had a lot of "air time" taking  many falls on lead in the gym. This has translated to greater comfort leading outside, and has let me push my limits sport and trad climbing.

Despite the unusually wet and cold weather we have had for the past 5 weeks, I have managed to get in a fair amount of climbing, although I have had to drive far and wide for it!

We have made a few trips to Barstow, I sent several 5.11s, which again has been historically a mental barrier for me. Michelle Johsnon has become an enthusiastic climbing partner, I find her interest in hard sport climbing has been a good motivator for me to try hard.

Michelle takes the sharp-end at Barstow

Me leading at the Bighorn buttress

We took three trips to Barstow since January, despite chilly temps,each trip was quite good. I had a few fantastic moments where I got into the zone, entering a flow state and on-sighting some difficult (for me) climbs. 

New Jack City - Sport climbing in the high desert near Barstow

 

Onsight!

I have also spend a fair amount of time up at Danland. Dan and crew put up a new crag with some very fun overhanging cracks. 

Danland!

 At Danland I met up with a climber from So-cal, and I brought my aiders out of retirement, which was quite fun. Maybe I'll even get back into wall climbing....

Toby getting the aiders out

 

Climbing the nose at Squirrel Creek. If only the real nose were so easy!

Also to the list of winter cragging was a trip out to Kernville to climb at New Directions. Despite sub-freezing temps, and a bit of snowfall, the nice West facing sunny crag gave us a nice day of climbing.

Penny came long for the ride

 

Getting ready to climb

Not so impressed with the snow fall....

The next few weeks are busy for me, conferences and workshops. Hopefully the weather will be good by mid-March and I can get back to the rocks!

Sunset at Danland

 

Cayman Brac Climbing Trip

Teresa insisted that we do a "beach vacation" over Christmas break this year, so we headed to Cayman Brac, a tiny Caribbean island, just south of Cuba. Although there was tropical weather with clear blue ocean water, there also happened to be some awesome sport climbing (and no actual real beach)!

Cayman Brac - tropical island... with sport climbing?

The island is a bit of an obscurity, its one of the three Cayman islands, and has only 2000 inhabitants. Its mostly known as a dive vacation location, but in the past few years has seen significant development as a sport climbing destination.

We flew into Grand Cayman island through Fort Lauderdale. From there we took a tiny little plane over to Cayman Brac, rented a car and made our way to our rental house on the ocean.

Rental house

 

The house was lovely and very affordable!

Our first full day on the island it was cloudy and threatened to rain, but that gave us a chance to climb at the Orange Cave. The cave is on the south side of the island, and sits right next to the ocean.

Heading out climbing

The orange cave

The climbing was super fun, steep, featured and interesting. The cliff was so sheltered and steep, that even when it started to pour rain we were able to continue climbing!

Teresa samples routes in the Orange cave

Steep and fun!

Each day after climbing we did some serious relaxing. The weather was perfect, not too hot, not cool, always a nice breeze blowing. The island was so chill and relaxed.

Its easy to relax with ocean views like this.

Chillin on the patio

 In addition to climbing we checked out the local sights. The island is full of caves and and the east end of the island has a tall bluff where sea birds, the brown footed boobie, nests. We hiked out to the bluff and encountered a bunch of the birds nesting and courting. 

Nesting sea bird

 

Photographing birds

Brown footed boobie

The sun stayed out for the rest of our trip, the crags on the south side of the island were a bit too hot to climb in the sun, so we mostly climbed the routes on the North side of the island. The limestone was very high quality, and we had the place to ourselves. We only saw a handful of other climbers in passing.

Tuffa climbing at the Heritage wall

Evenings at the house

A nice treat was that one of the neighbors had a super friendly dog who would come by and visit. He would hop over to the ocean, take a cool-down dip and then head over to us for pets and belly rubs!

Friendly pooch!

 On our rest day we did a bit of snorkeling. Neither of us had done it before, and it turned out to be more fun than I expected. The water was crystal clear, and as the island is just a giant coral reef there is tons of sea life right off the shore. At first, we tried going right out of our house. There was lots of fish, but they were pretty small.

Heading into the warm Caribbean sea

 After some interwebs searching, we went to an excellent snorkeling location a few minutes down the road. It was amazing! We saw squid, and tons of super colorful fish. 

Snorkeling!

 And more climbing. The best wall we climbed at was Dixon's wall, the wall carried on of the most fun 5.10s I have ever done. Tuffas, steep, a traverse - super fun.

5.10 doesn't get more fun than this!

And of course, many more lazy afternoons....

Post swim drinks

 

Sunrays

 The island has a bunch of caves. They were pretty neat, some of them had large bat colonies living in them. Unfortunately since the caves are roadside, they have been heavily vandalized. What is wrong with people? 

Cave

Cave entrance

Mostly on the trip I was on-sighting climbs within my comfort zone. It took a while to get used to the steep climbing, not something we have a lot of in my regular caves. On one of our last climbing days, I took the time to redpoint something a bit harder (for me anyways), an interesting and enjoyable 5.11. I managed to get the redpoint, right before a thunder storm blew in, what luck!

Teresa working my little project.

 Soon enough our little trip was over. I feel very recharged, it was probably the most relaxing vacation I have taken in a long time. A really special place!

Bye Cayman Brac!

Alabama Hills and Tollhouse

With exams graded and the semester over, Teresa and I headed over to Lone Pine for a couple of days of climbing at the Alabama Hills. The weather was warm and sunny, perfect for a couple of days of clipping bolts

Alabama Hills bathed in early morning light

 We spent a full two days climbing, we did a nice mix of easy routes and some of the "harder" routes at the hills. Teresa even did a bit of leading.

Teresa leading a nice little sport route at Paul's Paradise

Stick clip!

Penny came along of course, and got some good sleeps in

Sleeps?

We checked out some area I had not been to before, including the eye of Horus,  and we tried (and failed) to find the Oz wall.

What should we climb next?

 We a great time! When we got back, I still had some free time, so the following day I headed out to Tollhouse and climbed a bunch of easy multi-pitches with Lauren. We were treated to some cool clouds and fog in the valley

Summit of Tollhouse

Lauren topping out "Free and Easy"

Cloudy sunset

Danland in December

I love climbing in Danland. Its a wonderful place, located deep in the foothills at the edge of the Mineral King branch of Sequoia National Park. I went out there with Michelle and her friend Lauren, we had a great time playing around on the granite slabs and cracks

Michelle on P1 of DZ arete (5.10a)

I got to lead a several routes, including both pitched of the very interesting DZ arete. The first pitch was a short 5.10 crack, followed by a bolted slabby arete. 

Lauren on P1 of DZ arete.

The 2nd pitch of DZ aerte was a short, well bolted and very technical slab/face, which went at 5.10d/5.11a. I took a little whip on the crux, so the on-sight eluded me, but I got it 2nd go.

Me leading out on the crux pitch

P2 of DZ arete (5.11?)

WE then took some burns on my long standing project - Lizard run, 5.11d/5.12a. I almost made it through the crux, but not quite. 

Taking a shot on Lizard Run

Michelle takes a-go.

Michelle's dog Bart watched us the whole time. Well not the whole time, he did excavate a rather large hole at the belay station

Bart - looking regal

A great day!

New Jack City

After a couple of weekends off of any climbing, I managed to convince Teresa that we should head into the desert and climb at New Jack City. 

NJC - Parking lot filling up

 Its not a pretty place to climb, but the rock is challenging, and is not in a style that I am very good it. Steep and technical sport climbing on slippery volcanic rock.

Hmmm.. what should we climb

 It was pretty crowded, lots of 20-something straight out of the climbing gym. I am not the at best climbing when things are crowded, I feel weirdly self-conscious. I think also I am used to the nice solitude of places like Shuteye. I need to work on my self-confidence a bit maybe.

We spent a bit of time climbing in the Western canyon, which is a lot quieter, which I enjoyed. 

Sunset in the Western canyon

 

Some solitude in the Western canyon

 We found a nice mix of moderates for Teresa and challenging climbs for me. I took a lot of whips working through some of the routes.

Happy family!

 Overall a nice little trip to the desert. I'm looking forward to heading back sometime over the winter for some more!

Penny had fun as well