Climbing

Christian let Emily decide what we were going to do one weekend and she decided that we should go climbing again. We'd casually talk about it now and then but have not gone in a long time. Christian and I made a slight attempt before I screwed up my knee and that was the end of that story for quite a while.

So anyway, we literally dusted off our climbing shoes and headed out to Joshua Tree early one morning and hit Trashcan rock to try to get our toes wet with an "easy" climb. It was not quite as easy as it should have been. Emily led and had forgotten how scary that is, so that was a bit of a struggle!

We are all out of shape and Christian and I have also gained a bunch of weight since we have stopped climbing but I didn't expect to have quite so much trouble with these little climbs. There was a spot on each of the climbs that I simple could not reach anything solid enough to hold on to. I don't think I have shrunk that much since the last time I've been up here but I guess being out of shape and out of practice makes certain moves a lot harder.

You also have to get back into a mind set to accept that when climbing in Joshua Tree, you become part of the attraction. As you are struggling to make it up the rock, random strangers are stopping to watch and even take pictures. Sometimes you are trying to concentrate or psych yourself into doing a difficult move and you can hear people discussing what we are doing.

The nice thing about going back to Joshua Tree was that we spotted two new birds while we were at this one location!

We spotted a Black-throated Sparrow and a Cactus Wren. It was a bit distracting actually. It's hard not to get distracted when you spot a new bird no matter what you are doing.

We did successfully finish three climbs while we were here before it got too unbearably hot. We also forgot that the last climb kind of puts you in a bit of a corner that is difficult to get out of. There is a walk off from the top but the last climb puts you below a big overhanging boulder that you have to get over in order to access the exit and there is no anchor to rappel down from. Emily had to go back up the walk off to make a little anchor to belay her dad around the big boulder. Despite the fact that we like rock climbing, we don't actually like to take unnecessary risks.

As we exited the park, we decided that we would make a concerted effort to go climbing more often again. Probably nothing like we had done before but we will do what we can. We got into the park before then rangers started work, so we decided to put the entry fee towards an annual pass so that we could return. We were surprised that the annual pass was still somewhat reasonable. If we make it out to the park three times, it will have been worthwhile. 

We decided to push our luck in the heat a little and stop by the bird feeders at the Big Morongo Preserve. We grabbed a snack and headed over. Emily had not ever been there and it was on the way home.

We had heard that a Blue Grosbeak had been around and wanted to see if we could catch it. Unfortunately, we did not get a glimpse of it. We did, however, see a Yellow-breasted Chat and a young Black-chinned Hummingbird though, so that was pretty exciting.

We did not stay very long as it was pretty hot and we had already been out in the heat too long already.