Yosemite

For our Thanksgiving break, we planned on another trip to Yosemite National Park. Last year it went so well, we planned to go again this year. It was touch and go at first as we were recovering from being sick and there was a storm moving in towards the end of our trip but we forged ahead.

We packed up Friday and got ready to go. We got a few hours of sleep and everyone got loaded up in the car by 2:am or so and we were off. Christian stayed up and drove the entire way. I tried to nap as I did not sleep very well but the road was rough and I could not get any good rest.

We arrived in Yosemite early Saturday morning.

There was a little snow on the higher peaks but not too much. When we got down to the valley, we stopped to take a few pictures on the way in.

It was a bit chilly but not too bad if you kept moving. We went back to Camp 4 to choose and set up our campsite before heading off for the day. Plus stow away all our food stuffs in the bear box and we had to register and pay for our stay.

We drove out towards our climb to sort and pack our gear. We planned to go back to climb the Regular Route on Sunnyside Bench (5.4). An easy multi-pitch route that we have done before. The kids liked it and wanted to go back to do it again.

The beginning of the route starts a little to the right of the bottom of the Yosemite Falls so we stopped by before it got too crowded to take pictures.

Since the kids wanted to come do this route again, Christian decided that the kids should now be able to each lead a pitch of the route themselves.

We all scrambled to the beginning of the climb. Christian lead the first pitch.

Caitlyn lead the second pitch (which is the shortest and easiest pitch) and Emily lead the third pitch. Protecting the third pitch would be a bit difficult because of the traverses so Christian had Emily use an alternate (5.5) route. 

Christian climbed behind each girl checking their pieces as they went and then the rest of us would follow. It was kind of fun climbing together. Usually, just one of us climbs at a time.

The first time we did this climb, we barely had enough light to find the descent trail. It was a bit scary. This time, although we knew where the descent trail was, we still had some daylight left. The climb starts near the bottom of the Lower Yosemite Falls and ends near the top of the Lower Falls. We wanted to go check it out as there is supposed to be some nice pools up there that we could potentially swim at during the summers. We had a very late lunch and headed over to find the pools.

It was a beautiful short hike over to the falls. We looked around and took more pictures before heading down. Although, we were familiar with the way, we did not want to have to rely on headlights to make our way back down again.

We got back down with just enough light. As we got back to the campsite, I saw a robber (raccoon) wandering about looking for an easy meal. We had our dinner back at our campsite and headed over to warm up at the evening Ranger Program which was a film on John Muir. They were doing it in two parts as it was kind of long. Luckily, we arrived in time to watch part one on our first evening.

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The next day was a Sunday so we didn't do any climbing. Instead, we opted for a nice hike up to the top of Yosemite Falls (the Upper Falls). It is actually quite a long and steep hike. Unfortunately, we kind of got side tracked at the beauty of the falls as we stopped for lunch at the bottom of the upper falls that we ended up staying most of our time here and did not actually end up finishing the hike to the top! 

I guess it worked out for us as we wanted to take it easy and we got to enjoy this part of the falls on our own. The trail was quite crowded but we took a slight detour to find a bit of solitude for lunch and ended up right next to the falls. It was beautiful and we all took hundreds of pictures of the falls!

When we were done, we went up a little further on the trail to do some exploring but stopped probably 3/4 of the way up the trail and turned around to head back down as we knew that we would not have quite enough light to finish and get back down.

We stopped by a lookout to see the sunsetting on Half Dome. We were waiting for Half Dome to light up with the fire of the dying light. We usually only catch the end of it as we are always out doing something at the time.

Of course, we found out that it doesn't actually light up like that until the end so we had never really missed anything!

We headed back down to camp with the last of the light, had dinner and went to watch the last half of the John Muir film before calling it a day.

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On Day 3, we found ourselves next to the Pacific Ocean wall on El Capitan. Christian is helping Caitlyn with her engineering science project which is due shortly after Thanksgiving Break. She is doing a project on hauling up the big wall using various mechanical advantages.

Christian did his first (C1) aid climb up to the top of the first pitch on the Pacific Ocean wall. 

Christian had to free climb the first 1/3 of the climb which we had not expected. The rest of the climb was still a bit more difficult that we anticipated as well since it is slightly overhanging and gear placements got more difficult on the last 1/3 of the climb but Christian managed okay.

After he got up, Caitlyn jumared up and they worked on the project for quite some time up there. After belaying Christian up, Emily and I worked on filling the haul bag for them to haul up. I think it worked out to be about 100 lbs of gear. They ended up kind of running out of time, they had to finish up and get back down. By the time they came back down and we packed up to head out, the sun was already starting to set. By the time we got back to the car, it was dark.

Unfortunately, the Evening Ranger program tonight was on "Curry Memories" of which we were not even remotely interested in. We dragged out the portable heater and turned into our tent early. Regrettably, we also had to deal with a rowdy crowd in the camp ground on this night. So we had to endure several hours of bad singing along with bad guitar playing with some hooting and hollering in between.

Plus, there seemed to be a coyote running around the campground. I chased one out of our campsite before turning in for the evening.

The noisy campers gave us headache and left us rather irritable but amazingly, they did stop around curfew time...we suspect that the chilly temperatures helps the jerks do the right thing and turn in for the night regardless of campfires and belly full of alcohol. It is definitely one good thing to camping this time of year.

However, I did not sleep well still. I tossed and turned most of the night. At one point, either a bear came again and started pounding on various bear boxes all over the campground hoping for an irresponsible camper who did not close their food box well or an irate ranger was walking around finding many irresponsible campers who did not close their bear boxes completely and was then going around slamming them closed! It's hard to tell when it is still cold and dark out and you haven't had enough sleep what might be going on. But as the ranger doesn't normally come in until mid morning usually, I think we had another bear in the campground. I also heard some heavy footsteps walking by at the time and the kids thought they heard some snuffling noises. At another point in the wee hours of the morning, we heard a whole pack of coyotes barking and yipping in fairly close proximity to the campground. I tell you, there was no rest for the weary that night.

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In the morning, after checking on the weather report for the day, we decided not to stay another evening. One, we did not want to camp with these people one more night and two, we did not want to have to pack up the next morning and shuttle all our gear in the rain or snow. Luckily, we only paid for three nights and left the fourth up in the air for this very possibility. We spent the morning taking down camp. We stopped by the mountain shop as we heard that there was a rumor of the shop closing when the new company takes over the concessions in Yosemite next near. The people at the shop, at least, does not think it is possible but there will be a lot of change coming so we will see what happens. We probably spent way too much time in the shop.

It was getting a little late by the time we headed out for out last climb of the trip which was, Harry Daley (5.8) on the Glacier Point Apron. It is a two pitch climb. The beginning of the first pitch was pretty slippery and steep. The clouds were moving in pretty quickly as we climbed. Christian and I had made it to the top of the first pitch and Christian began the second pitch when we first started feeling a drop of two of water coming down. We could see that the rain was already coming down in the distance. Christian did manage to finish the second pitch when we decided that we were out of time and retreated from the side of the mountain. The kids were down below and we had them pack up and head back. We met back up near the car and had a late lunch. The rain was coming down pretty good at this point.

We were eager to see snow in the valley and was hesitant to leave just yet. Also, we did not want to be on the road fighting with the rest of the people fleeing their vacations and trying to get to their destinations for Thanksgiving. The kids wanted to go track some mud through the Ahwahnee Hotel so we went there to use the facilities and to walk around a bit.

Eventually, we headed up the hill towards the CA 41 leaving Yosemite. As we got higher, the rain turned to snow and we were pretty excited. It was just beautiful. Unfortunately, at some point we came to a stop on the road. We thought that maybe it was just a check point for snow chains and four wheel drive but apparently a bus got stuck somewhere up ahead and was blocking both sides of the road! They said that it would be some hours before it could be cleared up so instead of parking on the side of the road for a couple of hours, we opted to head back down and wait in the valley.

We drove back down to see if we could find some shelter to heat up some dinner but our choices seemed to be either snow or rain. We finally just pulled over at the shuttle stop near the Yosemite Falls where they had a covered waiting area to have our dinner. We felt like true climbing bums sitting homeless out in open having our meager meal of ramen. We had to wave the shuttle on a couple of times. It was kind of funny but I tell you, ramen never tasted so good as it did that night!

I tell you, there is nothing like a hot steaming (and salty) bowl of broth in the cold. It was snowing by this time in the valley as well, so the temperature was definitely dropping. We still had some time so we went in for the Evening Ranger Program to keep us busy (and warm). We had checked at the front desk of the Lodge and found that our road was still closed.

The ranger, Erik Westerlund, was the same ranger that gave one of our favorite programs from last year on the art of Charley Harper. It was supposed to be on the nature of the Sierra Nevada but he couldn't get his slide show to work. He ended up just answering questions and playing and singing with his guitar. And even though it was an impromptu kind of program, it was still really great.

In the end, we headed back to check on the road conditions at the front desk of the Yosemite Lodge and found that our road had cleared up and that it was once again open. It was a little later than we had hoped to leave by but we were grateful that the road was once again open and hit the road before another accident occurred. We did stop by a couple of places and Christian took a few pictures of the snow covered park in the dark. We were so amazed at how beautiful the pictures still came out!

It was so nice out that we had some second thoughts about turning around and camping out in the snow after all, but ended up leaving anyway. Alas, all good things must come to and end at some point it seems.

Catching Up

I am behind on my posts again so I will note a quick run down on what we've been up to. The kids had Veteran's Day off so we went to the Quarry to do a bit of climbing. After doing a warm up on a route on School House Rock, we went over to the Alcove area to try some aid climbing. Someone had left a long rope hanging from one of the routes. It had been there for a while so we decided to take advantage of it sitting there to climb a difficult route there, using the sport climbing bolts to aid up it. That way, if we run into a problem, we could use their rope to bail off the route and we would not have to leave any gear.

Christian was able to get up without too much difficulty with the help of a stick clip. And then we did some jumar practice up on the fixed rope. Unfortunately, the rope was pretty stretchy so that made it extra difficult to ascend the free hanging rope. Christian and Emily made it up. Caitlyn made it most of the way up but I could not even get off the ground. I just could not get the hang of how to do it.

It was pretty frustrating. I guess a lot of people had the day off as well and the place was full of climbers.
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Christian and I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary this past weekend. We've been together for a total of 26 years! Well "celebrated" is kind of an overstatement. It's not like we could go off and spend time away from the kids or anything. But since we wanted to go do something and since UCR was having their big homecoming party that weekend so we knew that we had to get out of town.

We decided to go out to the Lucerne Limestone Quarry. When we got there, we were pretty worried as the thermometer on the car showed that although it was mid morning, it was still super cold. But when we parked and stood out in the sun, it wasn't too bad.

We proceeded to our first climb on the Main Wall which is supposed to be low angle slab (5.6) called Wind Tunnel. We found that it was pretty steep with very thin holds and sometimes, those holds would just break off!

Caitlyn decided that she did not really want to climb this route. It was supposed to be the easiest route here so she ended up just climbing around and making her own routes with her sister.

We moved on to the Moderate Wall. The girls stayed where they were to play while Christian and I climbed Cold Shoulder (5.7) and Limestone Louie (5.8). Cold Shoulder was up mostly up the arete with some dirty awkward cracks.

Limestone Louie was kind of fun though, so after we were done, we went to get Emily to try it. It is right up her alley. 

We still had some time left in the day but we wanted to make sure that we were able to find a good camping spot. We have had too much trouble in the recent past with just bailing and going home. We found a good spot on the other side of the quarry. It was not exactly nice as lots of people go there to camp and shoot. It was littered with bullet shells and broken glass and stuff but it was isolated and shielded from some of the other noise out in Lucerne. Apparently, there is a dry lake bed there that people congregate at to shoot off rockets. There were hundreds of people out there.

We were able to make a campfire...something we have not had in quite a while since a lot of places don't allow them anymore.

That was nice, especially since it was pretty chilly out there. The kids had some fun writing with light. We thought that we would end up having a long night ahead of us since it gets dark quickly these days and it will be cold out but the fire kept us out until pretty late, so when we finally ran out of wood, it was time to turn in for the night anyway. Everyone was tired.

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Caitlyn had Thursday and Friday off for parent teacher conference. She is doing great in school so there wasn't much for us to discuss. We got to see some of her work and visit with her teacher.  Emily got her grades for the quarter a couple of weeks ago, she seems to be doing a little better in keeping up with her math homework but still needs some serious work in her english homework. I'd like to say that she has learned her lesson and is being more responsible with her time this year but it is still a daily battle. 

We spent most of Friday getting ready for Thanksgiving break. We are heading back to Yosemite!

Christian's Birthday

For Christian's birthday, we were supposed to spend the weekend camping in Joshua Tree. There was a climb called "The Lost Pencil" that Christian wanted to climb and set up the portaledge to sleep in with Emily for their daddy daughter campout this past summer but we discovered it too late. Christian still wanted to do it so we attempted to go up for his birthday. It was kind of windy and cold so we were a little worried about the conditions.

We had to hike a couple of miles out to the base of the rock. The girls played while Christian and I hiked around the rock, trying to find the way up. We could not find an easy way up. We were a little short on time and decided to look around for other possible places to make our bivy.

We finally decided on an alternative. It was not quite ideal as it was a little small and not that high but it was easy to get to and it provided some shelter from the wind. We took all our gear to the new sight and set out to set up the portaledge but as Christian was setting up all the anchors, we kept getting harassed by bees. At first it was just a couple and then there was more. We could not stand still without getting tormented by them. We were starting to wonder if there was a nest somewhere in one of the nearby cracks but could not find one. It was awful. We finally gave up and had to retreat as it was rather unbearable.

By this time, it was getting pretty late in the day. We threw up our hands and decided that the conditions were just too miserable to stay if we couldn't set up our portaledge and we were running out of time to do that. In the end, we just decided to go home. We were all pretty upset. Every time we try to camp in Joshua Tree, it always ends in some kind of disaster or we end up just leaving.

To salvage the rest of the trip, Christian and I went back to the Lost Pencil to investigate further. We finally found a way up to the top, only to find out that the bolt ladders that we were going to use had been chopped. Very frustrating. Then the climb down was a little scary.

We had a bit of daylight left and decided to do a little more exploring to see if we could find something to suit our requirements as we definitely wanted to come back and try again. We finally did find a few alternatives as well as a chimney that Christian was really excited about for next time.

But as for this day, we were out of time and had to pack up and head out. We were losing daylight quickly and had to hike the last stretch with headlamps.

When we were driving out of the park, we saw something in the distance, above the horizon, like a glow of orange which seemed to be traveling. It let out this bright light and left and blue green arc of light in it's wake that just hung suspended in the air for about 10 minutes or more. It was the most bizarre thing we ever encountered.  It almost looked like it was headed right for us at some point but then disappeared. Only the blue-green light remained in the sky. We could not fathom what it could be. When we got home, we did a search and found out that it was an unarmed trident missile that they had fired off the coast of California. I guess a lot of people all over Southern California spotted it.

Christian's actual birthday was Monday so we had a dinner for him and saved his gifts for this day.

Halloween 2015

The Friday before Halloween was the end of the 1st quarter for middle school so Emily had the day off. In the morning, she went out with Christian to do some more bolting practice. They had better results than our first time.

Caitlyn still had school in the morning but of course, they had their Halloween parade and party in the afternoon. She dressed up as Cleopatra.

 On the morning of Halloween, we took off to the quarry to do a bit of climbing. Christian did some aid climbing and did another practice bolt on the granite.

The quarry was packed with climbers this day, so we spent some time just watching some of the other climbers. We did manage to do a few climbs on School House Rock that we have already done previously and then it got too hot to do anything but retreat.

We were still out a lot longer than we had anticipated. We missed lunch so we had a snack when we got home, got cleaned up and headed to the chili cook off and trunk-or-treat at church.

Christian opted to stay home in case any trick or treaters came by again. He worked on chopping wood for our wood pile while he waited.

Emily dressed up as some kind of sorceress and Caitlyn changed into a witch. After dinner and after the girls made their rounds at the trunk or treat, they played in the bounce house a while and then we headed back to meet some friends and other kids in the neighborhood that was going trick or treating.

The girls had not really done any real trick or treating at people's houses except for a couple of token houses each year. Sometimes we try to get them to go to a house or two more and they usually will decline. For some reason, they seemed very eager to go this year. I'm not sure if it is just their age or the fact that they would be doing it with friends that gave them the courage to go this year.

Their favorite house was at the end of the neighborhood. There is this large property at the main street that collects old stuff (trains, automobiles, memorabilia, etc.). We had heard that they occasionally opened up their house for neighbors but have never actually been on their property. I must say that it was pretty neat...kind of like going to Knotts Berry Farm back in the old days.

They had little buildings scattered through the property. Replicas of old school houses, mercantile, dentist, jail, bank, etc. And in each building, there were treats to be had. I wish I could have spent more time looking around but I was too busy chasing the kids who were so excited and running all over the place. It was all I could do to catch up with them and snap a few pictures.

At the end of the evening, the kids had their buckets filled to the top with candy and the handle was cutting into their hands because they were so heavy. Plus we did not expect to be out so long and our feet hurt from all the walking. The houses giving out candy these days are pretty scattered throughout the neighborhood. It isn't like when we were kids and almost all but a couple of house in our block were handing out candy.

Emily ended up with over 4 and a half pounds of candy. Caitlyn had a little less at a little over 4 pounds. 

No one but the kids that the girls went out with stopped by our house so Christian ended up getting a lot of wood done!