Christian

This past weekend was Christian's birthday. We decided to camp out in Joshua Tree. We learned our lesson though, no more campgrounds in Joshua Tree. This time, we would go to the backcountry. We would have to hike out a ways but it would be worth it for some peace and quiet...or so we thought.

Anyway, it's been a while since we went out to do some real climbing and we have been itching to do so for a while now. We went out to an area called the Towers of Uncertainty. We climbed on a rock called the Crow's Nest.

It was a beautiful day out. It was a little chillier than we anticipated though, just because there was a breeze but overall, we got pretty lucky that it was the warmest day of the week. Our first climb was called Eating Crow. It was a fairly easy climb to warm up on so Christian lead and had the rest of us "sport" lead it up...that is, we did not top rope the climb as we usually might but clipped into Christian's gear as we climbed up.

Caitlyn had a bit of trouble at the crux, just because she is so small, but she did a great job on the whole climb.

Emily seemed to have even more trouble than Caitlyn and whined on several parts of the climb...we could not quite fathom why.

She eventually made it up as well although, our patience was quickly dwindling. We were worried because, one of the big plans for the trip was for Emily to lead the next route. We were not sure that she was up for it.

The route was called "Trench Connection" and went up an obvious trench in the rock. She was to use cams since they are the easiest and quickest to use. It's a moderately easy route up a 60' crack. A good choice for a beginner lead.

As luck would have it, as she started the route, a stream of tourists and other rock climbers came through and they all paused or stopped to comment on Emily's climbing and take pictures. Unfortunately, we have noticed that Emily climbs best when she has an audience, so she worked her way up with very little complaint. She did a really great job too. Christian followed after she made it up to evaluate her protection placements. There was one that was not put in well but all her other pieces passed muster. Christian gave her an A- overall.

The sun was starting to set by the time I climbed up and Caitlyn decided that she was good after pulling through the crux move on the other climb and opted to sit this one out. We did not push her as she did great and we were running out of time quickly.

We packed up and headed out so that we can go look for our campsite.

We went back to our truck and had dinner before heading out to find our campsite. We settled on a nice flat spot in a wash some ways away. By the time we got the tent set up and I went in to fix the inside of the tent. We heard a bunch of cars going back and forth on the road with people screaming out of their vehicles. Christian went back up to investigate while I continued to set up our sleeping bags and such. He was gone a while and there was still all sorts of noises from the road. Apparently, some boulderers came and parked next to us but thought that the sand was too soft and would get their car stuck so they decided to park in the middle of the road. It was dark by now and they claimed that they were going climbing. Christian suggested that they move up a little down the road where there was a better pullout but they were too lazy to walk so far. I guess they just wanted to sit at the bottom of a boulder, get drunk or high and wax poetic. They had no real interest in being out here and we were afraid of them out there making noise all night. We had enough experience with that in Joshua Tree already.

So in the end, Christian came back to get us and we repacked everything and headed out in the middle of the night. We got back home late and slept in. Christian started to get sick after a week of Emily being sick, coughing on everything and keeping everyone awake. We had a quiet evening at home, opened gifts and called it a day.