El Cajon Quarry

Last weekend, we went to the El Cajon Quarry to do some aid climbing practice. The weather finally cooperated (for the most part), so we took advantage and headed down to San Diego. We were practicing on the Bolt Ladder. It is a two pitch aid climb up 100'.

Emily actually went up the bolt ladder, at least to the top of the first pitch. She's had some pretty good practice so far and she did great.

I just jumared to the top of the first pitch to belay Christian up the second pitch. Jumaring is still difficult for me, but we are starting to figure it out.

It was still pretty warm out there. There was not a lot of shade but we made due with what we could find. The girls hid in the shade of a bush to work on puzzles or read while they waited for us.

After Christian finished the route, Caitlyn and Emily jumared up to the top of the first pitch while Christian practiced setting up the portaledge.

Caitlyn seems to be a jumaring monkey. She just races up the line like it is nothing, while I struggle most of my way up!

After everybody was up, we pretty much had to pack up and head out so that we could see our way back down the trail while having enough light to see if there are any snakes curled up in our path!

Halloween

Last weekend, we attended the Dean's annual Halloween party.

The kids dressed up to hang out with their friends. Emily went as a pirate. Caitlyn dressed as a mummy. That outfit was more than we bargained for. The strips of cloth didn't stay where we wrapped it so we ended up having to sew little tacks in everywhere to keep it in place. It was a nightmare but turned out pretty nice. Christian and I were going to dress up, but he spent all day working on my car and I spent too much time working on treats to bring to the party and Caitlyn's outfit so in the end, we were too tired to do anything.

The kids played games but in the end, we left fairly early. We had not had any dinner and there was not a whole lot of food at the party. The food I brought all but disappeared at the blink of an eye while we spoke to the hosts. I barely got a taste of the food I made. Plus, we were pretty tired.

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On Friday, I took the girls to our church chili dinner and trunk or treat. Christian stayed home to prepare for our trip to El Cajon. The girls just put on the same outfits they had on before. This time, we wrapped Caitlyn up without sewing any of the loose pieces together. They did not stay together too well. By the end of the night (after playing in the bounce house), she looked like she was in a fight! I forgot my camera as we were running a bit late and didn't take any more pictures.

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On the actual Halloween day, which was on a Monday this year, we stayed home. I made a meal in a pumpkin. While it tasted pretty good, it wasn't quite cooked enough, even though I baked it for an extra 20 to 30 minutes. I think next time, I will have to bake it for two hours or increase the temperature. 

We did not get any trick or treaters.

Joshua Tree

We had been waiting for months for the weather to cooperate enough for us to go climbing again. It was a beautiful weekend and we headed to Joshua Tree. Unfortunately, it was one of the only things that was working out.

We headed to Split Rocks in Joshua Tree. Our first climb of the day was supposed to be an easy 5.4 climb called Nectar to get us warmed up. The kids were supposed to practice leading.

Christian went first to check out the route. It was a little more difficult than we expected but not anything that we couldn't handle.

Emily had a couple of stalls, but was able to lead the route without too much trouble.

I ended up just top roping the route after I saw that it wasn't that easy for Emily. I got a T-DaP booster and flu shot the day before and my left arm was pretty sore.

Caitlyn was given the choice of how she wanted to climb as well since we have not climbed in a while and this would be her limit for leading. She chose to just top rope the route as well.

Unfortunately, she froze up just a little after getting started. Emily had some trouble at the same spot but she figured it out and continued on her way. When Caitlyn freezes up, she becomes scared and unresponsive. She won't try (even though she is being held up on a top rope and is perfectly safe). She also won't come down, so she just stands there, clinging to the rock while one of us has to hold on to her rope until she decides to snap out of it. This can sometimes take an hour or more (which it did). It is very tiring and very trying to our patience.

Emily and I played around on the slab, which was part of the approach to this climb, while we waited for Caitlyn to decide what she was going to do. When Caitlyn finally started moving again, she didn't seem to have any trouble getting up the route.

After Caitlyn finally finished the route, Christian tried to have her go up again, this time, just practicing mock leading to get her comfortable with climbing and so that she knows that she can do it without panicking. She ended up stopping at the same spot again.

By this time, two poseurs were coming up to our route. They wanted to use the rope Emily and I were playing on to climb up. Since they looked like a couple of drunk, possibly stoned, jerks, we did not want to be liable for any part of them hurting themselves and so, refused them the use of our old fraying rope. We figured that if they could not even get up to the start of the climb, they had no business being on the rock anyway.

I told Christian to just make Caitlyn come down so that he could climb his route. She finally came back down but Christian was pretty irritated and decided to leave. After some time of placing and pulling on their gear, the idiot poseurs finally made it up about this same time and talked a bunch of smack about climbing the hard routes that were up there.

We decided to leave and the idiots started blasting their music as they sat there "contemplating" their climb.  Caitlyn and I got cleaned up to rappel down while Christian and Emily climbed around a bit in the back side of the rock.

After we got back down, the two obnoxious poseurs came back down too, without climbing a single thing. We kept wondering why they kept looking our way when we were rappelling down. They were essentially waiting for us to leave so that they could get back down too after they annoyed the hell out of us and finished sitting their spraying about climbs they had no intention and probably no ability to climb.

We had our dinner and called it a day. It was a less than productive day back climbing.

ER

Christian and I spent the better half of Saturday in the emergency room. Christian woke up early with some severe pains in his lower abdomen which got progressively worse. After a couple of hours of writhing in pain and throwing up, we ended up rushing him to the emergency room. We left the kids at home.

They set him up with pain medication and anti-nausea medication with his IV. He got a CT scan and we waited for the results. The initial pain medication didn't do much of anything but the second dose seemed to take the edge off enough for him to rest a bit more. At some point, it was bearable enough for him to take a nap...if the monitor didn't go off constantly because of his slow heart rate. Between that and the machine going off occasionally to take his blood pressure and having to get up constantly to use the restroom because they gave him three bags of IV fluid, rest was pretty fleeting.

Finally, in the afternoon, the results of his CT scan was in. He had a kidney stone about 2mm big. The only thing we could do was wait to flush it out of his system. They had just given him his 3rd IV bag, so we decided to let it run through since it was the fastest way to flush so much liquid through his system.

Once it was finished, they processed his papers for him to go home and we picked up some drugs to help as we continued to wait for it to get flushed out.

We got a hold of some friends to go check on the girls, give them an update on the situation and had them log into their computer so that we could chat with them.

In the end, we are not sure if he actually did get it out at the hospital or not. We couldn't tell because Christian felt so awful from the trauma of the ordeal and the drugs. He did not feel as bad anymore, but didn't feel good still with some residual waves of pain. He took some of his medication that day but tapered off the day after until he was sure that it was no longer a problem and actually went to work Monday morning.

It was a pretty stressful and traumatizing weekend for us all...not to mention painful for Christian. Apparently, once you get kidney stones, you are susceptible to getting them again and again in the future. We think that it is possible that he has had them before, but we had dismissed it to his stomach not agreeing with something he ate, or something to that effect. It was just never this severe and lasting so long. But we are definitely thankful that it is not something even worse.

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.

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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.

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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!

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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.