January at a Glance

The kids got back into the swing of school. Caitlyn had her Science Fair at school shortly after we returned. She managed to get 2nd place.

She will be moving on to the next level (although, I thought you had to place first at your school in order to do so).

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We had to ease into returning to daily life, so we took off for Joshua Tree for a day of climbing. We

climbed on the east side of the rock this time. Unfortunately, I did not bring my camera for some reason and have no pictures to show for it. We climbed a route called "Filch." It starts with a shallow off width and leads to a hand crack above. It is only a short 40' route but we found the off width very difficult. Emily couldn't seem to make it up at all. We didn't end up getting to do anything else as Christian was insistent that we learn how to do it. So we just did laps on it. Christian went up probably 4 or 5 times. Caitlyn went up twice and it got easier as she practiced. I did it pretty well the first time but the second and third time game me a lot of trouble. Emily tried it several more times but was still unable to get passed the off width no matter how many tourists came by to watch her. She was in whiny mode so even the tourists got uncomfortable watching and moved on.

I think that we will probably have to come back and try again some other time. Christian is determined that we learn how to climb a simple off width which is easier said than done. It is not big enough to fit in and it keeps wanting to spit you back out. If you can't figure out to get your heel and toe wedged into the off width, there is nothing to keep you from slipping back down and nothing to help you progress up to easier holds. 

Christian was going to do a face climb next to our route, but the sun started to get low in the sky and wanted Emily to end with some kind of achievement. So, we headed back over to Cyclops Rock and she jumared up the big giant rappel with big wall ladders and Christian's new ascenders. Christian went up as well. It was too late for anyone else to try and Caitlyn and I didn't think we had enough energy left to attempt it anyway. There was a beautiful sunset though and Caitlyn and I kicked ourselves once again for not bringing our cameras.

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Emily finished her first semester of middle school. I think she ended up with a better note that her first quarter but it was like pulling teach with her bad homework habits (and attitude). We have not received her report card as yet as they were still doing testing the week AFTER the semester ended. I don't even ask anymore. You just have to deal with it.

Her elective was art and she loved it. However, we found out that it was only a semester long and there were not a lot of alternatives for the 2nd semester. They assigned her to a Spanish Culture class and she was not a happy camper. I went in with her to talk to a counselor and they explained her options. Since she has a couple of Gate classes and an accelerated math class, they are not able to move her around very much, which limited her options even more. Because she was doing well in school and she brought a parent in to talk to them, they were willing to work with her a little bit but after they narrowed down the other possibility to choir unless a couple of other openings came up, she started to see the Culture class in a better light!

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Caitlyn's school is trying to start a STEM based Girl Scout Troupe. We went to the first meetings to

see if we were interested in having her do something like that. I was pretty skeptical going into it but after the first meeting, Caitlyn and I are still interested so far. Three meetings are planned. We have to decide by the end of the third meeting whether we want to join or not.

They taught them the Girl Scout Promise and Law. They sang some songs and they worked on decorating a handkerchief. They showed them something like 50 things you can do with a handkerchief. Caitlyn has some friends that are also investigating, so that certainly helps. She didn't get very far on her handkerchief, so she has been finishing it at home and is supposed to wear it to the next meeting.

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Emily only has another month or so of Primary before moving on to the youth group. We have been trying to pressure her to make some plans to finish her Faith in God program but she has been procrastinating. We finally got her to put down some definite plans as she is quickly running out of time. We will have to see now if she will follow through with her plans.

Death Valley - Grotto Canyon

After we got back from Mosaic Canyon, we headed over to spend the rest of the day in Grotto Canyon. It is an area that we have not yet explored. There were only two or three other groups in Grotto Canyon as there is no paved road going in there and some parts of the road was quite sandy. The other cars stopped along the road once they got too nervous about driving in any further. We have 4x4 but even we had to tread carefully.

On first inspection, the canyon seems pretty unimpressive. The canyon seems to be composed of mostly dirt and pebbles. As we wanted to check it out, we continued into the canyon. We came upon a small wall that was a little precarious the climb up but we got over it with our hiking shoes (except for Caitlyn who needed a little help from dad). You continue in a little ways and end up on another short wall. This one is a little more difficult (or actually, a little easier if you are tall enough to reach the hand holds). Christian was the only one that could get over it. He went back to get some rope for the rest of us (and I guess we could have bypassed this entire section but it was kind of neat). Emily half climbed and half got pulled up with the rope but it seemed pretty painful. Christian made a little aider with the rope for Caitlyn as we did not like the method Emily tried. The loops were kind of far apart and Caitlyn still had a difficult time with it but I helped boost her onto the rock. I tried the aider but the rope stretched too much under my weight and I could not reach the next step on my own as there is an overhang at the bottom. Christian tried another version but I still could not get up. It was a frustrating and painful process. Finally, he came up with a rope ladder that he made and I managed to get up that way.

Once we got through, the canyon opened up again for a ways. We got into a more interesting canyon after but it stopped at this big smooth chute with very little features to climb so we had to turn back but then Christian found a way to get up and around it and we were able to continue in.

The further in we got, the neater the features got. It was pretty amazing and we had the whole place to ourselves. At some point, Christian and Emily got way ahead of us which is just as well as Caitlyn and I wanted to stop every 5 minutes to take pictures. There were lots of little chutes we had to go over, but none of them posed much of a problem.

When we finally found Emily and Christian, they were on their way back. It was getting late and we needed to head back as we did not bring any head lights with us. Apparently, it was even more beautiful up ahead, but neither Emily nor Christian took any pictures for us!

The sun was starting to set by the time we got back to our vehicle.

In light of the fact that it was going to be another extremely cold night, we had no where to camp and our tent was broken, we decided to cut our trip short and head home.

We passed the New Year in the relative peace and quiet of Death Valley. When we returned, we found out that the cold front that came in also brought snow to Temecula and even some in Perris and we missed it all. All we knew at the time was that, we expected to come home to a nice warm home and it seemed unseasonably cold when we arrived back home.

Death Valley - Mosaic Canyon

For the remainder of the kids' winter break, we decided to head back to Death Valley. We had a lot of ideas where we wanted to go camping, but it is just too cold in most places at this time of year. We departed later than we originally planned as we were not feeling so hot after all the Christmas festivities. After we recovered, we took a couple of days to pack, organize, shop and cook for our trip.

Just as we were about to leave, a weather system came in and we had to expect a fairly cold trip, even in Death Valley. When we got there, we headed straight to Mosaic Canyon. We wanted another shot at getting in deeper into the canyon. This time, we were devoting the majority of our trip to this project.

There is no overnight camping at the canyon trail head so Christian had to drop us and all our gear off and drive back down to town to park. Then he had to hike 2.5 miles back up to the trail head. When he came back, we all got our gear on and headed in.

We seemed to have a ton of gear but even so, we had to only go with the bare minimum and carry only what was absolutely necessary. Naturally, Christian carried the bulk of the gear (145 lbs). But the rest of us still carried what we could. I had 40 lbs, Emily had 30 lbs and even little Caitlyn was carrying 20 lbs in her pack.

We headed into the beautiful canyon, hiking and clambering up boulders and ramps all while balancing our packs. I think we hiked maybe another 2.5 miles before getting to the first wall. We got up and over the first wall without too much incident as we have already climbed this wall. But it took a while and we were starting to run out of daylight. After Christian led up the wall and fixed an anchor for us, Emily and I went up to set up a tent. By this time, the wind picked up and we had a heck of a time setting up the tent as the wind kept trying to yank it out of our hands.

Christian hauled all the gear up and transported it to the campsite. Caitlyn stayed down with the rest of the gear until it was all up and then jumared up with ascenders.

Christian had to help us stake the tent better as the wind was really bad. He ended up staking it to the rock on one side with pitons as there was no where else to stake it on that side. We were right up next to the rock wall. It was bitter cold and the wind just ripped through you. We ate a hasty dinner and retreated into the tent for the night.

The next morning, it was not much warmer but we got working on trying to get up the second big wall. Christian got about two-thirds up and was not sure what the features looked like up past a certain point and did not quite want to commit to continuing until we got a better look at it. If he went any further and could not place gear, we would have to bail and probably leave gear behind in order to get back down safely. We decided to go around and hike back down and see what it looked like from the top before we went passed the point of no return. The kids stayed in a little chute at the bottom as it was the only place that gave any kind of protection from the wind which had not subsided.

When we hiked up to the top, we found that there was a lot less wind and the sun actually hit the area which made it pleasantly warm. We hiked a little way before we found the entrance back into the little canyon that we were in. Christian put up another anchor and we rappelled back down in the canyon. We found two more big chutes as we worked our way back to where the kids were and did the same. By this time, we were wondering if we even had enough gear to get back to where we left off on the wall. 

While we were working back to the kids, they were starting to wonder where we were and went looking for us. You can only hear Christian pounding pitons and stuff intermittently as we went on. They finally found us as they went searching for us and some sun. I thought that their chatter and laughter was getting louder as we neared where we began, but the noise was not coming from ahead of us any more, it was coming from above and behind us. By the time they found us, we decided that we needed more gear and rope and went back out to gather supplies and some late lunch. We took the kids back through from the top, rappelling through the back end of the canyon until we finished setting the last anchor back into the original wall we were attempting to climb.

Unfortunately, by the time we got back to where we started and found that there was indeed places to place gear and continue on our climb, it was getting late and we were running out of daylight. Christian decided to go back through and clean all the gear while we went to start dinner. We considered just finishing the climb of the second wall or leaving the gear and finishing in the morning but we had plans for the next day and so we decided that it would all have to wait until our next trip. I went to start dinner and the kids stayed in the chute to play some more. They spent half the day there already and wanted to play some more. I have no idea what they were doing there as it is a very small isolated area.

The next day, we packed up our gear and hiked back out. We found that our tent pole broke in the wind (probably from that first night before it got staked down really well). We could not tell initially as Christian staked it down so good, you could bounce quarters off of it. I'm pretty disappointed in the tent as this was not the first problem we have had with these tent poles. Luckily, I have some spare parts from the fiasco of trying to get a replacement after the last problem we had. I won't even attempt to try to go through the company again. If I run out of parts or am unable to fix it, I think I would rather order some better quality aluminum third party poles instead of getting these cheap fiber glass ones that come with it...that is, as long as the break doesn't tear through the tent next time.

On a side note, we used out free $200 North Face gift certificate from Gear-CoOp to buy a new family tent before the holidays. We had our eye on a $300 tent and had been waiting for a sale. It came up before Christmas and we ended up getting the tent for $24! It is a lighter tent that we plan to use for backpacking trips. Unfortunately, they don't make the tents like they used to, so we will see if it will hold up to the elements any better than our cheap Browning tent. I will reserve judgement until after we put it through similar situations.

We hiked back out on the upper crest above the canyon. At some point, we rappelled back into the canyon and ended in some small side canyon. Unfortunately, tourists seem to enter this small fork of the canyon only to urinate so we had to make sure the kids avoided the wet spots! The girls and I went back out into the main canyon and headed back to the trail head. Christian decided to continue on the upper trail for a while. I am not sure where it took him, but he ended up back out on the main trail a short time after we got out there.

We had a small lunch before deciding to head back to the car. We decided to all hike back to the car together instead of waiting there for Christian to bring back the car.