Joshua Tree - Cap Rock

We had not been out climbing for a bit because of the heat and other matters so we took the first opportunity available to head out to do a bit of training.

We found ourselves on some easy climbs on Cap Rock.

Christian had us do some leading practices. Christian went up first to put up the anchor and then we each took turns leading the route. Christian would then come up after us to check the protection we placed. Unfortunately, not all our placements were that good.

The route is called Circus (5.2). It is a 50' pitch up an easy crack.

It would have been a fairly nice day out in Joshua Tree since it was warm in the sun and almost chilly in the shade but our timing was not so good since there was some big biker jamboree out in Joshua Tree somewhere. Big groups of bikers went by all around us all day. We could not even hear ourselves talk half the time. It was pretty annoying. 

Our leading exercises took all morning and then some. We had a late lunch and walked around to the other side to do a 60' pitch called Nutcracker. It is supposed to be another 5.2 but Christian found the crux to be harder. Christian had me go next to see what I thought of the rating. I sport led it and I agreed that the crux, which is supposed to be a chimney but at best appeared to be something that bordered between a squeeze chimney and an off-width, was not quite so easy.

The kids ended up mostly doing a sport lead. Christian went up to help them clip in right above the crux so that they were essentially on top rope. 

Caitlyn froze a little at the crux but Christian finally got her moving up and through the the crux. 

Emily had a little trouble as well but Christian go her through it but then made her go back down and do the crux twice so that she could practice what she used to get up and remember it but she seemed to have a even harder time the second time up!

By the time we finally finished the route, the sun was starting to set and we packed up to go. Christian had wanted to do a more challenging climb himself, but we ran out of time. It was starting to get chilly and the kids did not pack even a light sweater. We had some warm soup back at the truck for dinner and then we stopped by the mountain shop on the way out to check on a few things but did not end up getting anything...a rare event!

Island Ohana Dance Recital 2015

Saturday was the girls dance recital. Marian, Christian's dad and Jackie came to watch them perform. Unfortunately, they had to wait a long time to watch the girls dance. They only had one number that they performed a little before intermission. Our girls did not perform any of the dances from Hawaii this year. We took a break from dancing most of the year and had just started back up at the beginning of the school year so it was hard to play catch up when most of the dancers have been learning and dancing all year.

Also, since returning to dance class, the girls are moving up from the Keiki group to the Junior Wahines and the dances are decidedly more difficult. So we chose the easiest dances that required the least to learn. Unfortunately, the Hawaiian implements needed for the Hawaiian dances are quite expensive so it was easy to opt out of those dances.

The first dance the girls performed was a poi ball routine, a Maori dance, from the people of New Zealand.

This is one of the girls' favorites but there were many tears shed before they were able to get it down because swinging those poi balls around your head and shoulders hurt when you mess up! They were also excited because they had already learned some of the harder movements and some of the newer Junior Wahines had not learned them yet and were not able to do some of the moves for the performance. The instructor ended up having to put them in the back row with alternate movements that were easier.

After a couple more dances from the Wahines, we had intermission. There were refreshments and the girls were able to come out to greet their guests.

When we returned from intermission, they did a Samoan number called the Sa Sa. The group that did this number were from all the older groups combined so there were a total of something like 31 people on stage. It looked pretty neat but it was hard to take pictures with so many people spread across the stage. Caitlyn was in the back row too so that didn't help since she is so small.

Then they moved on to the island of Tahiti. Caitlyn and Emily did the Otea with the Keiki's as a favor for their teacher. When we took a break from dancing, there were so many girls, there was hardly room to dance on some days. It was frustrating because they were going way to slow for our girls. Some of the girls were much younger and some of them were brand new, so they did not progress very quickly and the girls were sometimes frustrated or bored. When we returned, there were only two little Keikis left. A couple of girls had moved away and some of the other dropped out. They need a bit of help to lead them still so she had Emily and Caitlyn dance this number with them. The teacher ended up dancing the other two numbers with the Keikis since Emily and Caitlyn didn't really want to dance with the Keikis again. I didn't want to have to make and buy outfits that they would never use again so this was the compromise.

The last dance they did was the ending number that all the older groups participated in as well. It is another Tahitian number called Pate Pate.

Again, it was a really crowded number so it was hard to get pictures. Plus the lighting was terrible at the facility. They also had helped out in the audience participation part of the recital. 

There were so many other dances and dancers. It is quite a show really. We didn't finish until after 9:pm so the kids were tired and hungry. They aren't allowed to eat just before or during intermission because it will cause them to get a stitch in their side while dancing. A lot of the dancers will snack still during intermission because it is just too long to have to wait since we all arrived at 6:pm to get ready.

 We are very grateful to those who supported the girls by coming out to the recital and/or just buying tickets. After all the craziness of getting ready for the recital, we get one week off. Tonight we are getting together to have pizza and to watch the video from the recital. Aloha!

Endless Summer (weather)

It's been a hot couple of weeks. There seems to be no end to this summer weather. We get a bit of relief in the form of some rain showers and flash flooding here and there but then in a couple of days, we have near or over 100 degree temperatures again...especially on the weekends. So the weather systems have not brought the cooler weather of Autumn, instead we have gotten hot & humid weather.

In our restlessness, and in between dramatic weather systems, Christian and I have been investigating the local areas for places to possibly put up bolt ladders to practice aid climbing. For some reason, the new "modern" sport climber thinks that aid climbing is something left over from some bygone era so they have chopped or vandalized most of the old routes so we have had quite a time finding some place to practice. We were investigating an area in back of Sugarloaf Mtn when we parked Christian's truck in a warehouse parking lot. We did not find anything that met our requirements and decided to head back to the truck to look elsewhere when we found that his car had been vandalized. We were gone maybe 20 minutes. Someone broke the lock on the driver's side door and was about to steal the truck when they probably saw us returning. This isn't some dark seedy area exactly. It is an open parking area next to the mountain side with trucks parked all around us costing 3 times as much as ours and yet, our car was the one they tried to steal. Needless to say, we were pretty upset. The lock is totally destroyed, some of the other parts are a bit mangled but probably salvageable.

On another week, we hiked up the hills in back of our house find a place to practice bolting. The rock we picked was not of very good quality and so our bolting exercise was not exactly successful but we did learn some things after our exercise. We will have to try again.

We had a thunderstorm one evening this past week that shook the house most of the night. We got woken up by loud thunder and blinding lighting strikes lighting up the night sky. It was exciting but we didn't get a whole lot of sleep that night for many reasons. Christian got some really neat pictures of the storm outside of the house. It was pretty spectacular.

We spent one weekend watching General Conference and working on History Day and Science Fair projects.

After school, the thing that has consumed the rest of our time has been dance practice. We have been going to practice twice a week. This last week had been non-stop. We had practice on Monday as usual (although the time allotted for practice has been getting longer and longer). We had to take group pictures Tuesday night. We had our first dress rehearsal Wednesday night and again Friday night. We only had one day off all week and the rest of the time was spent sewing last minute costumes, ironing, labeling and packing to get ready for the show. I think we were at dress rehearsal for nearly 3 hours that last evening. I can't wait until it is over. It has taken over our lives!

San Bernardino Mtns.

After last week's heat, we decided the thing to do was to go to a higher elevation to take advantage of the cooler weather up there. We headed out to the San Bernardino Mountains. The girls and I brought light sweaters or jackets for the morning since we headed out fairly early and I'll tell you, we were actually chilly still.

We went to find an area called Deep Creek Narrows. It was a little difficult to find as there is a lot of private property we were trying to skirt around to get to our destination. We took a pretty round about way to get there.

The girls enjoyed the hike since we were following and criss crossing a river along the way. It's been a while since we have found a river that isn't mostly all dried up. I'm sure that there is normally a lot more than what we found but still...there was water! Unfortunately, we also found a lot of trash along the way. This place could be really beautiful if it wasn't for all the trash that has gotten carried along the river and left where the river left it when the flow of water decreased. It's pretty sad that so many people come out here that don't really enjoy nature and ruin it for those that do.

We had some problems finding our climb but we finally found our destination by late morning. We had picked out an easy climb on the Southeast Face for us to practice leading a route. The route was called Crack Zero (5.2).

The girls took turns building part of a little fort when they were not climbing. 

We definitely want to come back here some time. The girls want to come when it is warmer to play in the water. It apparently is a place a lot of people come to do cliff diving from the sides of the little canyon that the Narrows is nestled between. That would explain all the new trash lying around the immediate area. We packed out two garbage bags of their trash and it barely made a dent. The kids were trying to figure out how deep the river was but even though the river was low, they could not find a stick long enough to reach the bottom.

We left just in time as some people were coming up the canyon as we were heading out.

We hopped back in our car and headed out towards Keller Peak. Our next climb was in the Children's Forest area at Kindergarten Rock.

We did a couple of climbs that we couldn't quite determine what the route was. One of them we figures was a 5.6 because of the difficulty of the climb. The other we think was a 5.8. We think that the route is Kid Rock (5.8) but we are not positive. Only Christian did that route. He thought that it was a 5.7 route but he said it was a lot harder. After we came home and reviewed our notes, we are certain that it was not the 5.7 route that we thought it was. So he inadvertently did his first 5.8 lead. He actually wasn't very happy about that. He was saving his first 5.8 lead to be in Yosemite Valley. Up until now, he was just doing top rope and sport leads in that grade to work his way up.

We did a few other routes as well. One Less Mouth to Feed was a 5.5.

Emily did the crazy 5.9 route called Kindergarten Cop. It is a very steep friction climb most of the way.

It was pretty difficult and she slipped off a few times but she was on top rope so she didn't fall or anything but she was pretty tired and frazzled before she finished and wanted to quit but as she was nearly there, Christian had her get back on and finish the route. She was pretty psyched about climbing it but she was definitely done for the day.

The kids did play around a little on the rocks in between climbs. They practiced doing some full body bridges between the rock walls!

By the time we were done, a storm was moving in pretty quick and the girls started getting chilly as they left their sweaters in the truck. The sun was going down as we packed up our gear to head out.