Yosemite Facelift - Part 2

On our second morning in Yosemite, we got up, cleaned up and had our breakfast before making our way back across the valley, once again, to sign up for another day of service.

We volunteered to go to a place a bit out of the way this time. It is the trail to the Golden Wall. Christian wanted to get familiar with this trail anyway, as there is a climb there that he wants to do. The hiking was a bit harder and the air was infested with gnats so it was pretty miserable. First we headed down a hiker's trail for a bit and we were supposed to turn off to find the climbing trail. We went down quite a way but did not manage to find the climbing trail.

The view, however, was spectacular. But we knew that we were really getting away from our destination, and decided to back track to find the right trail. It was a bit warmer today and it was already lunch time. Christian decided to go scout around while we worked on getting lunch together. Unfortunately, we had all our supplies except for our stove, so we had to go back down to the car to get the stove first. We picked up some more trash on our way back near the logging areas. When we got back to near where we were supposed to meet up with Christian, we actually found the trail. It was probably only about a hundred feet or so from where Christian headed into the brush to locate the trail!

After some time and much bush wacking, Christian found the trail and checked the area for trash and headed back down the trail to where we set up for lunch. Needless to say, it was a lot easier going on the actual trail!

Afterwards, we had a bit of time left and went in search of more trash at the El Cap Meadow. We were also searching for a particular climbing ranger that we had met several times previously so that Caitlyn could get an interview for her paper. We did not find him. We did manage to get a bit more trash there though as the kids were a bit disappointed at our progress on this day.

After another 6 hours of service rendered, we managed to collect another 7 pounds of trash, so it was not as bad as all that. We found some place to have a quick dinner while we waited for the evening raffle. The kids were heady with excitement over the possibilities after our first day of winnings.

Caitlyn got a cute little daypack. Emily got a water bottle. I got another jacket but it was too big for me, so I gave it to Christian. Christian got a goodie bag full of miscellaneous products (books, climbing chalk, chalk bag, etc.). We could not believe our luck! 

After the raffle, we went to watch a film that we bought tickets for at the Yosemite Theater called, "Return to Balance: A Climber's Journey." It was a 1.5 hour film presented by Ron Kauk. We stayed to talk a bit with him afterwards as well.

--------

On our last day, we took it easy. We slept in and got up to do some scripture reading before breaking down camp. We needed to check out and head home in the evening. After breakfast, we headed back once again to the visitor center to check in for our last day of service.

This time, they sent us to another off the beaten path climbing area. The hiking was moderately difficult but the views were gorgeous.

We got to go inside and check out the Yosemite Valley Chapel on our way to our first destination. We found and explored that area for a bit. The approach was difficult and dusty. Afterwards, we stopped for lunch on a giant boulder before continuing on our way to our next destination. We hit a field of boulders that we had to head up and it took a lot of time and effort. We did not quite find what we were looking for, however, and it was getting late. They were cutting the day short today because it is the last day for the event and they were preparing a dinner for all the volunteers in the evening. Christian sent us back down while he made one last effort to make it to the top to see if he could find what we were looking for. He did not.

Meanwhile, we raced back to hand in our meager offerings. Fortunately, and unfortunately, there was not a great deal of trash for us to collect. Only 2 pounds of trash altogether after we each put in 3.5 hours of work. The kids were pretty disappointed. On the one hand, we don't want people leaving trash everywhere, but on the other hand, we wanted to feel like we were making a big difference so we were a bit conflicted about our accomplishments for the day.

We had some time afterwards to walk around a bit before the afternoon raffle, so we headed for Lower Yosemite Falls. It was bone dry. Apparently, this is where we should have gone to clean up though because Christian easily picked up another pound of trash there. Too bad it doesn't add to our total but we made the place nicer by picking it up and depositing it in the trash anyway. That's why we were there after all.

Christian and the girls looked at some climbs near the falls. I was too tired to clamber over polished boulders and stayed behind.

Afterwards, we raced back for the raffle. It was crowded, as usual, and we just made it back in time.

Christian and I didn't win anything on this last day but counted ourselves pretty fortunate, nevertheless. Emily got a long sleeved Yosemite Tee. Caitlyn got a Scarpa t-shirt, a North Face trucker hat, chalk bag and even more climbing chalk. She made off like a bandit.

Afterwards, we stuck around for dinner. We thoroughly enjoyed the meat fest after three days of camping and hiking. It was much appreciated. We headed home after that. We arrived home at about 1:30 am. The kids slept on and off in the car. They took their showers and got back to bed at around 2:am as they had to get up for school the next morning...or later that same morning, that is. It was totally crazy, but we all had a blast.

After carefully reviewing all our swag, some of which I didn't even name before (like free park passes for volunteering on National Public Lands day and commemorative Facelift Klean Kanteens for water), we estimate our free swag at a retail value of over $900. Is that crazy or what? We just wanted to help clean up one of our favorite places in the whole world. How's that for good karma?

Facelift was another total success. These are the current numbers on all our efforts. Every year, the number of volunteers increases while the amount of trash decreases. I can honestly say that Yosemite is definitely one of the cleanest parks we've been to due to the unceasing efforts of so many volunteers.

2016 Totals:

Volunteers

• 1,477 Unique Volunteers
• 2,493 Volunteer days
• 11,714 Volunteer hours

Weights

• 5,733 Lbs. of litter
• 6,464 Lbs. Special Projects
• 12,197 Lbs. Total removed from Yosemite National Park

Yosemite Facelift - Part 1

This year, our family decided to get involved with Yosemite Facelift. The Facelift is a volunteer park-wide clean-up effort held each September to clean up trash in the park after the busy summer visitor season. This clean-up effort is a joint project between the National Park Service and the Yosemite Climbing Association. This will be their 13th year.

Unfortunately, Facelift starts after the school year begins, so in order to go, the kids had to play hookie from school for at least a day as Yosemite is a good 6 plus hours away from us...depending on how fast we drive.

We left home in the wee morning hours between Thursday night and Friday morning. We arrived and checked in to our campsite in the Upper Pines Campground and then headed over to the Visitor Center to check in as volunteers. We set up our tent and put away all our food stuffs into the bear box before heading out. As parking in the valley is a bit of a nightmare, we decided to just make our way around by walking or taking the shuttle. The new concessionaire in Yosemite does not run shuttles nearly as often as before, however, so we ended up just walking all over the place since it was faster than waiting for the shuttle. It was pretty tiring and took a lot of time but we picked up micro-trash all along the way, so it was not totally a waste.

After checking in, they assigned an area to us and we were on our way. We stopped back over at our campsite to pack a lunch for ourselves and walked along the river to pick up trash. After six hours, we accumulated a total of 10 pounds of refuse...mostly micro-trash that did not add much bulk or weight. The bulk of our micro-trash seemed to comprise mostly of cigarette butts, the tips of candy and granola bar wrappers and the stickers off of fruits. What gave our trash any weight were mostly items of discarded clothing like t-shirts, socks, shoes and hats plus a few bottles here and there.

We stopped a bit early because Christian wanted to attend a walking tour through Camp 4 with Glen Denny. They were giving away 20 free copies of his new book, "Valley Walls." Christian did not arrive in time to get the free book, but he did get to go on the tour. Most of the people that ended up getting the book did not get to go on the tour as space was limited and they spent their time getting the book. Christian did end up buying the book for himself later when he met back up with us.

Meanwhile, we returned our equipment and weighed in our trash for the day.

We got raffle tickets when we signed up to work in the morning and they planned to have a raffle for neat prizes and gear every evening. The girls and I stayed to see what we would win with that and Christian went back to collect our dinner. The kids are pretty much assured some kind of prize but we thought that it was highly unlikely that we would win anything.

Sure enough, Emily won a really nice Osprey hydration bag and Caitlyn won a neat Mammut camp pillow. Plus they got a couple of mini Cliff Bars. The surprising thing was that Christian and I won gear too. Not just any gear but I got a really nice Fjall Raven jacket and Christian won a pair of Butora Climbing shoes. It was totally crazy.

There were people there that had been there for three nights and had not won a thing. We really raked it in! We felt a little bad for the others though...

After all the craziness was done, we found someplace to have our dinner. We wanted to take Caitlyn to an evening program about Stephen Mather and the National Park Service. It was being presented by Steve Hale, historical interpreter. It was sponsored by the Sierra Club and was being presented in the LeConte Memorial. We had not been inside the Memorial and were excited to get to go in there. Plus Caitlyn's History Day Project is on the National Park Service, so this was a great opportunity for us. Unfortunately, it was an hour long and it was late in the evening so Caitlyn was fighting to keep awake as we have had a very long day. It was a good program though with lots of great information. We bought a small booklet from Hale with all the information that he covered and more for her so that was a great find as well. We spoke briefly to him at the end and he signed Caitlyn's book and offered to answer any questions she runs into in her research by e-mail!

We headed back to our campsite for some well deserved rest. We did not plan ahead and bring headlights. however, so we trudged back in the dark of night. Luckily Christian knows his way around the valley very well, whether we can see or not! We crashed in the evening after cleaning up a bit.

September

The kids are officially back in school by now. We are just trying to get used to our new schedules and routes to pick up and drop off the kids. Emily also has Seminary in the mornings. I thought that we were going to have a lot of trouble getting her to Seminary on time. She's not usually much of a morning person, but she has taken to her new schedule remarkably well. She sets out her clothes in the morning. When her alarm goes off, she gets dressed, eats breakfast and cleans up and takes herself off to church. She has been pretty responsible for herself lately, for which I am very glad.

After Caitlyn gets up and gets ready, we pick up Emily after Seminary and I drop the kids off to their respective schools.

The weather is still pretty atrocious, so we have still not spent much time out of doors. We have been spending a lot of time getting ready for the Mid Autumn Festival. We have made a ton of moon cakes. We have made many kinds and have been slowly learning a lot.

We even made our own salted eggs to go into the mooncakes. Lots of friends and neighbors have tasted some of our creations. We even dropped some off to my mom to try.

--------

Christian has also been spending a lot of time trying to figure out what is wrong with my car. He's been doing a lot of research and we started ordering some of the parts but we have yet to make any other repairs yet.

On Labor Day weekend, we got one slightly cooler day but unfortunately, we spent the day clearing out our drains. We have been having some problems with our main sewage line for some time now and no matter what we tried, it would not drain quite completely. So, Christian finally went and rented an industrial snake and we cut through whatever was blocking up the pipes. He ended up snaking the whole thing up to the septic tank just to be sure. We had the equipment rented out to us for a few more hours anyway!

--------

We ended up celebrating my birthday a bit early because we would be really busy that next week. Christian spent all weekend making all sorts of tasty food. He made us some homemade smoked corned beef and sourdough bread one night. The next night, he made my favorite smothered cabbage and naan. Emily started to make some cream puffs for me but it didn't quite work out and we had to let the batter firm up in the refrigerator for a while before it could be used. She used a new recipe and I guess it was quite different.

I got lots of fancy new cookware for my birthday.

On my actual birthday, I was able to use some of my new cooking swag and we finally got to have Emily's tasty cream puffs.

Back to School

The summer was a bust. We did not do very much. The kids started working on their National History Day projects in anticipation for the new school year. I tried to get the kids to catch up on their piano practice. I was hoping that they could finish their current levels and move on at the end of summer, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen either.

Emily had some summer reading also assigned to her for her honors english class this coming year. It was difficult to get her to crack down and work on it. She wanted to read fun books like her sister who was reading like a fiend all summer. She was going through a stack of books from the library every week. Emily did read a lot more than she did on previous summers but she was resistant to read the dry books assigned to her from school.

We were actually quite social this summer (much to Christian's dismay). We had dinners with friends and visited with relatives a lot this summer. We stayed in a lot as well and did a lot of cooking. Alas, lots of good food with little or no exercise does not bode too well for my waist line.

Since we were stuck inside a lot. We finally got around to doing a sewing project that I had gotten the kids a couple of years ago but never got around to doing. It was a simple envelope pillow case. We went through the basics of stringing the sewing machine, winding thread on the bobbins and they had some exercises in sewing along straight and winding paths before starting. They had fun and the pillows came out great. I totally forgot to take pictures of them. We are ready to start something a bit more ambitious next, but as summer is all but over, that will have to wait until next year.

We went to back to school orientation and registration for Emily. She is starting high school this year and was very nervous as the school (and the kids) are so much bigger there. We got there early and had to wait in a long line out in the sweltering sun. They let us in late and we had to wait in one line after another to get her books, have her picture taken, get her ID, etc. We walked her around the campus so that she could get a lay of the campus. In the end, we find out that we still don't have her exact schedule. Apparently, she doesn't get that until she arrives for her first day of school. She went back later that evening for the Freshman BBQ. We did not go with her but she arranged to meet up with one of her close friends from Junior High.

After what happened with Emily, we did not bother going early for Caitlyn's registration day early. We mostly knew what to expect since we had already gone through it all before when Emily went there. We had to sit through the chromebook meetings all over again and Caitlyn had to take her school ID photo and receive her chromebook. 

August

August went by as another hot steaming blur. It has been a pretty miserable this summer. None of our plans worked out and it is almost too hot to go anywhere.

The kids have been swimming a lot with their friends in the neighborhood. We even met up with Caitlyn's friend from school once at the public pool.

It seems to be the only thing we can do in this weather.

On the second weekend of the month, Christian and Caitlyn took off for their daddy-daughter camp out. They were headed out Friday morning to Laurel Mountain. They had been planning on the trip for a year now. I got several texts from Christian as the progressed up the 395. By the late afternoon, I figured that they had arrived to their destination and was setting up for the night as they were to get up for an early start. However, later that evening, I found out that they were in Lassen!

Apparently, there were fires all over the place and the air was thick with smoke. Plus, Caitlyn was getting cold feet about their climb. Christian decided to let her off the hook and let her choose a new destination on the fly. She chose to go to Lassen Volcanic National Park since she has never been there before.

The hiking was easy and the place was crowded and smelly, but beautiful. They spent the day exploring the park. Unfortunately, as they were going back to find a campsite for the night, Christian's truck started running roughly. We are not sure what the problem was. They decided that they had better just start heading home and see how far the truck will take them. It was a risky decision for them to go so far since my truck has been having all sorts of problems as well and we were not sure what a long drive would do to it. 

I got several messages during the night updating me on their progress. I thought for sure that we would have to pick up and go after them at some point, but they drove through the night. Christian only pulled over briefly to get in a quick cat nap before continuing on their long journey back home. They made it back safely in the morning.

While they were off on their adventures, we spent time locally as we did not want to drive very far with my questionable car. We did some shopping on Friday and went out to lunch. On Saturday, we went to Roller City so that Emily can practice with her roller blades. I stuck with the old fashioned roller skates.

I still fell once in the beginning as I had not gone to a roller rink since before I was Emily's age! It hurt a lot more than I remember from when I was a kid. I don't know if it is because I am bigger and heavier now or they just don't make roller rinks like they used to! It is basically a laminated cement floor. There was even some puckering on one side of the rink from water damage or something so the floor was not entirely even where I fell. Anyway, I was pretty sore afterwards and apparently hurt my right wrist because it hurt for the rest of the month!

Emily did pretty well, but fell several times still. I think her butt was pretty bruised in the end and we called it a day after her third fall. We decided to go out for Ice Cream to soothe or sore butts and egos.

After Christian returned, we tried to figure out what was going on with his truck but it seemed to be running fine and normal after that!

July

July has been a scorching blur. It has been an incredibly hot summer. I am woefully behind on my posts.

We celebrated the Fourth of July with the usual friends.

Caitlyn and Christian were supposed to go on their daddy-daughter campout at the beginning of the month, but since there was still snow at the end of June, they delayed until the end of the month. 

Meanwhile, Christian has been working on my truck. We've been having transmission problems on and off for some time now and it seems to be getting worse. Since it has been too hot to do much of anything, we have been spending a lot of time tuning up the car and trying to diagnose the problem with the transmission. Unfortunately, because of the heat, the only time it has been cool enough to work on the car is usually in the middle of the night.

We have not gone climbing all month. The girls have been spending a lot of time swimming and playing with some of their friends in the neighborhood. They have been spending a lot of time indoors between swimming. They even finished their Summer Reading program at the library in record time. Too bad the program rewards were less than spectacular.

The girls finally finished their crochet projects that they started two summers ago! Neither of them actually finished with the original project that they started with but they finally managed to finish it!

We've been spending a lot of time tinkering around in the kitchen. Christian got some mooncake moulds for Father's Day last month.

It's been fun and we've been enjoying all Christian's new experiments and concoctions!

Marian came by one weekend to spend some time with the kids. She took them out for treats and a movie.

Emily gave her first Sacrament talk as a youth. She was really nervous about having to go up to talk in front of so many people but she did great and gave a really good talk on choice and accountability. On the same Sunday, she had to play the piano for the young women as their leader, who normally takes care of the music, was out of town. It was the first time she has done that and she did really good. She messed up a little once, but she was able to continue on without any trouble. 

By the time that the end of the month came, we were having additional problems wth the car. The radiator is now leaking. We were not having any problems with it before, but in our tune up of the car, we flushed the radiator to clean it out and now it is leaking quite badly. 

In the end, Caitlyn and Christian put off their trip once again until the beginning of August. 

Suicide Rock, Idyllwild

It has been exceptionally hot out this summer. Ever since we returned from Yosemite, we seemed to be stuck in a never-ending heat wave. It has severely damaged our apple tree. A ton of apples are rotting off of them. It is a pretty sad state. One of our roses in the front looks like it has been fried to a crisp. It has been through many summers and has never suffered like this. The rose was already established when we moved in but we don't know if it will survive this.

It was supposed to be a bit cooler this weekend, but that is all relative. We decided to take advantage of the slightly better weather conditions and go out to do some climbing. Our choices are pretty limited as it is still pretty hot out. We decided to go out to Idyllwild since it is at a higher elevation and therefore, a bit cooler.

We got up as early as we could to take advantage of the cooler mornings. Plus, if we don't get there early, we won't be able to get parking. There are not a lot of parking spots and it is a holiday weekend. We arrived in good time and got parking, but the place started to fill up pretty quickly as we  had our breakfast and applied sunscreen/bug repellent for the day.

We opted to got up to Suicide Rock instead of Tahquitz since it is usually the least crowded of the two.

On our hike up to Suicide Rock, we ran into veritable swarm of bugs. When we waved them away from our faces as we walked, it would not just disburse them temporarily, we would actually hit them with our hands because they were so thick in the air. We started to think that we should just go home!

Luckily, as we ascended higher, the bugs were a little less thick and we started feeling a breeze now and then that kept them from being so highly concentrated. We decided to continue up and hope that it would keep getting better. By the time we reached the base of the granite portion of Suicide Rock, the insect situation was much better. We headed up the rocky trail where our climb was supposed to be. There was 3rd and 4th class scrambling up a gully to our left. The trail started to get pretty steep and sketchy at some point. We tried a variety of ways up but none of them seemed good. We retreated back down a bit to see if we could find a way around, but to no avail.

We stopped for a rest break to take off our packs and get a drink. Christian would not accept defeat and took off again in search of where are trail should go, leaving his heavy pack with us. The kids played around for a bit but after a while, we settled down on a rock and we all took a nap as Christian was gone for quite a while. The girls were tired from getting up so early and I did not sleep very well the night before.

Eventually, Christian came back after successfully finding a way up. We had our lunch and had to decide what to do next since he noted that although he found the way through, it was not easy. We decided to go ahead up to the climb, since we came all this way already. Caitlyn was a little nervous free soloing a couple of the spots and Christian had to spot her. She was mostly nervous about having to come back down some of the places where we had to climb up!

Our last hurdle was having to crawl through a small tunnel between boulders in order to get to the upper portion where our climb was. It was dark and Christian had to shuttle our packs through for us. It seemed pretty crazy.

The climb looked pretty good. It was supposed to be a clean 5.3 fist crack up 90'. Emily was not so happy about leading it as the crack was not so clean. The crack was dirty and muggy and not deep enough to get your fist in a little ways up. She had to come back down after a bit and let her dad go up first.

I sport led the climb after Christian and then cleaned his gear on my way back down. I agreed that the climb started out as a dirty fist crack, but it quickly became too wide for my fist and I had to do a variety of hand and fist jams or even a double fist jam to work my way up. The top of the climb was definitely off-width as I had to even do a chicken wing in a couple of places. My biggest hurdle was getting a place for my feet as the crack was too wide for my feet but too narrow for a heel toe move. I would rate the climb closer to a 5.5 for someone my size.

Emily went up next and she attempted to lead the climb again. She got stopped at the same dirty shallow crack area a little way up. This time, she managed to get passed it, but it took a while. Unfortunately, she used up all her easy to place big cams in the beginning and ran out of gear halfway up. She was totally distraught. Christian ended up handing over her belay over to me while he free soloed a slightly "easier" crack to her right in order to bring her up some more gear.

She was then able to finish up the climb without too much more trouble. She cleaned most of her own gear on her way back down as Caitlyn was unsure of whether she wanted to climb and it was getting late.

Christian quickly jumped on the next climb to the left of this climb to a route called Major (5.7), which is a much wider crack. It seemed to alternate between being a large off-width to being a squeeze chimney. Christian was the only one to make this climb.

It was difficult and we now how to race the setting of the sun back down retreating, as Caitlyn had feared, back down the way we came.

We made it back down in good time, but my aged bug repellent was no longer effective by this time and we left our extra supplies in the car.  I started getting eaten alive by mosquitos. The kids got bitten up a bit as well. We jumped into the truck and fled the mosquito infested area.