Yosemite Climbing Trip
Peter and I had a great trip to the valley for two great days of climbing. We made three routes - Swan Slab Gully, Mungenella, and The Grack on Glacier Apron. It was one of the best trips of my life. The weather was perfect. The views were spectacular. We saw a bear cub way up in a tree - followed by momma bear a little below. And, the rock was every bit as amazing as I'd heard from friends and forums online.

Hike to Island Lake Kernaghans and Currans

On Saturday Chris and I left our camp at Ice House Reservoir on a 'quick' trip to the store to get some ice. Irony that there was no ice house nearby, just a honky tonk slash convenience store. Chris suggested we drive up to Wrights Lake, which was only a blue blob on the map to me. Wow, what a find. It's quite a bit higher and it's motor free. There were lots of people out floating, fishing, and kayaking in the blue blue water.
We continued up and discovered the trail head to Island Lakes which looked like a great place to get into Desolation Wilderness without driving up to Echo Summit.

Sunday we'd planned to go for some kind of a hike and the Island Lake trip seemed like just the thing. We left 'early' at 9:30, but that was no problem because it was clear all day with none of Saturday's thundershowers.

The trail was really well marked, clean, and beautiful. Close to the lakes there were wide sections of slickrock much like T-meadows. We grabbed lunch and let the dogs swim up at Island Lake. Dan amazed us with his crazy prehistoric sling. He was whipping rocks at least 150 yards. As far as I know, he never hit another hiker. For a parking lot trailhead under 5 miles, this was the best alpine lake hike I've been on. It was really accessible and remarkably beautiful. There were several bagable peaks around the lakes, but we left them for another day.

Hard New Choices

Over the weekend I decided a couple things. First off, I was reading trip reports on cascade climbers in prep for a trip to Yosemite in a couple weeks with Peter. It's going to be awsome. And, I stumbled across a report from a climb I did last fall. Cool I though, I'd like to see the pics. I was blown away. The climb I did in 36 hours was only 11 hours for this speedy punk. And, he had better pictures. I later found out from Eric, from Seattle, that the guy holds some speed records. So, he is serious business. But, the reality check did kick me out of just whining about the little luv handles I've developed. So, I'm going to run to the ocean and back each morning at 6 am. ouch. that's the only time that's fairly guaranteed to be protected from chaos in life. Another bennie is that I'll have an extra hour a day to listen to good speeches and lectures on mp3.

Let me know if you've got some I should hear.

And, I'm quitting sugar. I've heard for years about how bad it is for me, and people have promised that I'd feel so much better. Well, I had the most bitter cup of coffee this morning. I'll be able to say for myself soon.

fishing

I did a good-ole-boy thing Monday and went fishing with my 5 year old cousing, Derick. We caught 3 of the smallest fish I've ever seen on a hook. DMan is convinced that we caught 2 fish - one twice. It was a pretty good fishing trip all things considered. At first we couldnt find bait and ended up going to a fish market in China Town - which is always an experience. And, we had a great time watching the tri athlete swimmers, the pirate ship, and wondering togeter about Alcatraz.

new smoking spot

Some of my best thinking is done while pipe smoking.

The DeYoung garden is beautiful at night and I've found a great bench over there that's out of the wind in the children's garden - this is not all pipe smoke and I do try to avoid blowing it on children.



This is my new favorite spot:

I'm really delighted to say that I've completed another little journal - filled the bugger up. I just wish the moleskine journals weren't so expensive.

Steel Rock

From steel rock

one of my favorite sculptures at the De Young. read about the artist, Zhan Wang , here.

New Blog

I've been away from blogging regularly for over a year and... I'm back. This summer Chris and I have some free 3 day weekends, so there should be some trip reports. And, I want to post up some occasional thoughts about life, updates on books I'm reading and little updates here and there. Thanks for dropping in and please leave comments!

Shasta Climb Slideshow

Peter Russo and I had a great climb up the West Face of Mount Shasta in early May.
photos

Here's a quick rundown from Peter. "We got to Bunny Flat on Friday a little past midnight and camped below the road. Saturday morning 9am we snowshoed in to Hidden Valley via Horse Camp where we cooked a little water. Route finding past Horse Camp was tough and the snow was soft, so the approach took ~6hrs. Set up high camp in Hidden Valley around 4:00, and got to sleep ~7pm which was a little later than we'd planned.
We woke up ~2am Sunday, and started the climb ~3am. It was a good Alpine Start, but we should have packed our summit packs at 7 in the light when we were fully awake. Again, route finding was difficult -- this time because of dense fog -- but we eventually found our way to the West Face Gully. On the way down we could see our misguided path in the fog go up a few hundred feet over the route and then hairpin back down. It was funny later. The snow was soft for the first couple hours out of the valley, but it firmed up as we got higher. We were plunging to knees and sometimes thighs in those early hours. We saw two larger groups w/ 6+ climbers on Casaval, which later traversed around the catwalk to the upper part of the west face. I don't recall seeing any other parties on the lower west face. Winds were ~30mph at the top of the gully, and temps were in the 20's. We summited at 11:30am, ~ 8.5hrs out of high camp. There were 10-15 people at the upper plateau & summit area... mostly skiiers who came up Avy Gulch.

We glissaded down most of the climbing route, but had to plunge step the last 1,000 vertical ft or so because the snow was too soft. Total descent time was ~2-2.5 hrs. We got out of high camp at 4:30, and back down to the trailhead at 7pm. Route finding on the way out was aided by GPS waypoints set on the way in, as well as a faint climber's trail that we found between the valley and Horse Camp. Most of the hike out involved alternating soft snow and scree. Yay.