one with the moon

Jascha's announcement that he no longer wanted to solo 4th class+ with fatal exposure put a major damper on this year's alpine climbing plans. The season had already gotten off to a slow start with busy work schedules and lingering t-storms, but now I had to either quickly round up partners or adjust my wishlist. Having soloed Venusian Blind last summer with Miguel, Moon Goddess didn't seem totally out of question. Granted it was a grade higher (5.8 versus 5.7), but like most High Sierra routes I knew it wasn't sustained. I was familiar with quality of rock on Venusian (just one arete over), so I took reports of horribly loose rock with a grain of salt. I also knew that there was a gully to the left of the route into which one could bail if things got too sketchy. My main concern was getting off-route on more difficult terrain, but I figured between the detailed route descriptions from summitpost and Supertopo I'd figure it out.

The night before the weather report daytime max temps in the high 40s, but I hoped it would likely be warmer as it was the weekend before on Spire Col. I gave myself an extra hour of sleep to let things warm up and left the trailhead at 6:10 am. It was 42F. Fortunately, as I got into the sun things started to warm up. There was one other party on Dark Star, but amazingly no one that I could see on Venusian or Moon Goddess. Last July there were at least 3 other parties on Venusian on a Wednesday. I made good time to the bottom of the snowfield, reaching its base in little less than 3 hours. Unfortunately, no parties ahead of me also meant no steps kicked into the snowfield and I hadn't bothered to bring crampons or an ice axe (I realize this happened last year as well). The snow was too firm to kick more than tiny ledges with my approach shoes. I grabbed a sharp rock and stepped from sun cup to sun cup. At the spots where the sun cups ran out I chipped out handholds and gingerly traversed the slope. This whole exercise added at least 20 minutes.

The first part of the route is shared with Venusian and consists of heading up a series of 3rd class ledges. The next six or so pitches were 4th class and provided the perfect warm-up for the exposed 5.7 traverse I knew would come when I reached the first tower. At the bottom of the tower I changed into my climbing shoes and peeked around the corner. For once the descriptions were accurate when they said exposed. Granted the holds were positive, but the wall was completely vertical and it was a long way down (more descriptive photo courtesy of Miguel here). The thing I find so satisfying about soloing it that once I'm on a committing section my mind is completely clear to focus only on the task at hand. Even doubts about my ability to complete the moves or concerns over holds pulling out completely disappear. Other than lane-splitting on my motorcycle it's the only activity I've found that truly frees my mind of its usual thought storm.

With the traverse past me I climbed into the notch that leads up to the Ibrium Tower and the crux. From the cushy belay ledge the crux looked somewhat intimidating, a 5.7 lichen covered chimney followed by a 5.8 dihedral. I could see a reasonable escape route into the gully, but decided that I might as well give the route a go since I was here. The chimney was fairly easy and despite the two desperately placed cams jammed for eternity in the dihedral, the crux wasn't too bad. I scrambled up to the white marble belay ledge and around the corner to the narrow 4th class ledge system. I could how other parties got sucked into the harder terrain above, but with Dave Daly's excellent route description routefinding wasn't an issue.

I easily found the "diving board" chockstone (as described by Dave) that marked the top of the next pitch. The 5.7 gully took me up the back side of Ibrium tower. The 5.7ish downclimb into the notch was more like 12 feet than 20. I approached my final challenge, an exposed 5.7 crack requiring committing lieback moves. This section wasn't as steep as I expected and although it did require a few lieback moves, there were large intermittent footholds and it wasn't sustained. With that behind me I knew I was home free. The final 5.6 tower was uneventful, and before long I was on the class 2-3 terrain that led up to the summit. It had taken me 3 hours, 30 minutes to climb the route. In another 30 I would be at the summit.

There were still no signs of other parties once I topped out. The views of the Palisades were spectacular as always. After the requisite summit register session I headed down, hoping I'd easily find the Contact Crack downclimb. The route was well cairned and I remembered that the crack lay to the left of the usual rap station. Once at Contact Pass I made the mistake of descending too close to Temple Crag (hoping I could get in a glissade) and traversing the loose moraine debris to reach more stable ground. I was happy to be back on the more stable talus field and even more so back on the trail. I cruised back down to my car stopping only to take a photo for some guys from Bakersfield. They asked if I'd been hiking. I pointed to Temple Crag and said "See that ridge in the middle. I just climbed it." They were shocked. I hurried back to the trailhead, hoping to get back close to our Temple Crag time. I clocked in at 10:55, just 6 minutes short.

finding light on dark shadows

note: This trip report also appears on summitpost.

Thursday rolled around and I knew that the only thing that could free my mind from thoughts of work was climbing. A day of sport climbing or a 5-pitch trad route was not going to cut it; I needed to go bigger, so I set my sights on the full 10-pitch version of the classic route Dark Shadows. The vast majority of people climb the 4-pitch version of Dark Shadows and most of guidebooks were spotty on details for the remaining 6 pitches. Jerry Handren’s Red Rocks guide had the most info on the route but provided only vague information about the descent from the Mescalito summit. He made mention of two walk-off options (neither recommended). I knew that we could descend Cat in Hat, that is if we could find our way from the summit to the top of the route. Given our workloads there was no way we were going to beat the late afternoon traffic to Vegas so we didn’t end up getting out of town until 8:30 pm.

Not surprisingly, we didn’t make it to the Pine Creek parking lot until around 10 am. We made the mistake of leaving the main trail too early and had to bushwhack to get back on route. Had we stayed on the trail we would have ended up directly at the base of the climb. No time was lost though because we had to wait for a party of two from Denver/Boulder to finish rapping. They had spent the last hour getting on of their ropes down after it became lodged in a crack (par for the course on many Red Rock raps). We were surprised by the lushness of the canyon vegetation so late in the year. The rope soaking pools of water were still present at the base of the route.

At 11:15 I started up the first pitch, a bolted slab. One of the CO crew kindly yelled up that I could link the first two pitches. The second pitch was a 5.6 polished dihedral. I wasn’t quit ready to commit to smearing on the slick rock so I used the crack and edges for my feet. At the traverse to the belay I was halted by a party of two from Tacoma, WA, who were just finishing a rap to the second belay. They originally said they were from Seattle until I disclosed that I grew up in a redneck town close to where they lived. After ~20 minutes the belay ledge was free and Jascha headed up.

The next pitch had a short 5.8 crux early on, forcing me to place gear on a somewhat tenuous hand jam. Fortunately, the climbing eased up higher in the crack and face holds saved me from smearing on the polished walls. Pitch 4 followed a left leaning, narrowing crack. I was unable to get any pro in the main crack but found a reasonable placement in a smaller crack. I was thankful because the next set of moves felt off-balance. I set up a belay on the standard pitch 4 anchors. As I waited for Jascha to come up I looked at what I thought was the path ahead. Above and to the left of me was a seam with two pieces of fixed pro that led to a crappy white sandstone roof which looked devoid of any jugs from below. All of this was accompanied by pretty much non-existent footholds. Once Jascha arrived I consulted my route description. I was pleased to learn that I was at the wrong anchors for the extended route, so I had Jascha traverse around the corner to the correct belay.

Pitch 5 started off with a bolt leading to a juggy roof, then up a crack to an anchor on a pillar. Handren’s description wasn’t specific about which of the 2 pillars to choose, but I ended up correctly selecting the one on the left. By now I was fully exposed to the elements. The wind made communication difficult, but it also made the temperature more pleasant under the blazing June Vegas sun. The quality of the rock wasn’t as good as the lower sections; I was now climbing on the softer white sandstone, although some of the coveted brown varnish remained. Unlike the lower pitches the anchors weren’t set up for a rap, although someone had created an ad hoc one with webbing through the bolt hangers. I suspected we’d have to find another way down.

The description for the next pitch mentioned a step across to a chimney protected by a bolt and a piton. From my vantage point I couldn’t see any fixed protection. I had 2 options, a wide chimney on the left that offered no good gear placements and a narrower off-width to the right. I chose to climb the face between, using the right-hand crack for pro. Higher up I found a bolt to the right of the crack. I found the alcove as described and made the traverse up and left to a now single bolt anchor.


Pitch 7 started off with a finger crack and ended with a small ledge below a roof. Not finding many opportunities for gear placement at the ledge I continued up the next pitch to the right of the roof and on to a series of shrubby ledges. I set up a belay just below the first ledge, but as I feared Jascha could barely hear me with the terrain between us and the gusty winds. Eventually he figured out that he was on belay and headed up. Once he arrived we took down the anchor and scrambled up to the official belay at the base of twin cracks up and to our left. The next pitch followed the twin cracks and ended with a single bolt anchor on a large ledge. Handren described this as 110’ but it was closer to 80’.

We were making good time, but I tried not to be overly optimistic given what I’d read about the difficulties of the descent. The description for the final pitch mentioned a facing-corner to huecoed roof. To my left was a white-sandstone dihedral ending at a blank-looking slab traverse to a roof. To my right was a varnished, shallower, but also right-facing corner, which led more directly to the roof. I chose left. As I approached the roof I could see good edges on the slab traverse (maybe next time). I found a horizontal crack to place a cam below my final stance before starting the roof, but then nothing to protect the roof moves. Fortunately, the roof revealed sizeable handholds and a spot for an excellent nut placement once I stood up at the lip. I scampered up the remaining terrain and before long I topped out on the large ledge about 150’ below the summit. Jascha soon followed, and we finished the last pitch in just under 5 hours.

After a rest we packed up the rope and looked for a way up to the summit. We found a series of ramps interconnected with short 5.7-8 sections. Once we topped out we looked at the task ahead. I knew the approximate location of Cat in the Hat, but not what the buttress looked like from above or how to navigate the ramp systems to get down to the appropriate level. We found a bolted anchor with UV damaged webbing, but decided to look for something better. After getting cliffed out a few times trying to find the top of Cat in the Hat we headed along on the summit plateau up the canyon. Eventually we encountered a series of cairns. I had read about several walk-offs so I figured there was a good chance that they marked the path down. From time to time the path disappeared into the bushes. The cairns wound around the plateau and eventually led down a series of ramps on the north side of the formation. We thought we were on the descent trail until the cairns ended abruptly at the edge of a cliff.

Fortunately, we were not the first to cliff out there and there was a fairly new tri-cam/nut/tree anchor. To be on the safe side we set up a double rope rappel and headed down. The ledges were covered ferns and large trees. Once we were done with the first rap I waited to make sure the ropes pulled cleanly then headed down to scout our next rap. Though difficult to see from above I found the second rap station and we headed down to the canyon floor. We were ~10 minutes upstream from the start of the route. It took both of us pulling to get our ropes down, but thankfully they pulled cleanly. We walked over gnarled tree roots, past frog-filled pools, and back to the car.

more like it

After anxiously waiting for a break in the t-storms, last Sunday we saw our chance to head back to Tahquitz. We had our sights on The Long Climb (with the Wong variation). Our prior trip to Tahquitz involved a major traffic jam on Whodunit, so I was hoping for an additional parting of the crowds to return to our normal pace. Our original plan was to go on Monday, but after checking the weather forecast Sunday seemed like a better choice. Consequently, we didn't leave L.A. until 10:30 am.

I made a last minute decision to ditch my #4 Camalot in the car despite the 'gear to 3.5"' recommendation. It had been an intensive month of work for both of us and I was feeling lazy about carrying extra gear. We started up the route around 1:30 pm seeing only one party several pitches up. As usual there were quite a few people on Whodunit, but nothing like Memorial Day weekend.

Right off the ground I realized that there would be no easing into the grade on this route. It was solid 5.8. My brain was having a hard time adjusting focus from search engine optimization to gear placement and my erratic sleep schedule wasn't helping. I was feeling far from efficient, but I wasn't ready to give up quite yet and pressed onward. At the top of the pitch I selected the left-hand belay to get longer range view of the path ahead. Mummy Crack loomed above me and I hoped that I wouldn't regret leaving my #4 cam in the car.

I prepped Jascha on how to haul his pack (as recommended in the summitpost description) and headed up. I was pleased to discover a nice slot which started out just inside of the crack. This allowed me to climb it more like a lieback instead of doing grovelly chimney/offwidth moves. The only caveat was that the slot angled further into the crack the higher up I went until I could barely reach it. I set my belay slightly short and to the left of the usual spot near the left-facing corner to take full advantage of the sun. With the wind and passing clouds it was starting to get chilly. My belay spot gave me a great vantage point to watch the various parties on Whodunit. The downside was that the gear placements were a bit shallow and sparse. Jascha started up and was having difficulties with his pack getting stuck in the crack below (and out of his reach), so he decided to fully weight the rope to haul up the pack and wear it. It took all of my strength (and a few leg wraps) to hold his 230 lbs while he fidgeted with his pack for what seemed like 10 minutes. OK, so in retrospect my sparse belay was probably not exactly the best plan. I was happy to feel him finally unweight the rope and continue on.

We had several options for the next pitch and I chose the 'crack to slab' option from the route description because it seemed like it required more finesse than burl. The moves turned out to be somewhat tenuous, and I briefly entertained (but abandoned) the idea of traversing back left into the crack. After a few moves I was back on easier ground and soon found the dead mahogany tree that marked the belay.

On pitch 4 I ignored the route description and headed straight up the (5.7+?) crack, which seemed better for rope management. I had a bit of difficultly following the route description afterward, only finding one pine tree above instead of the two described. I decided to keep going to the next ledge and found the broken piton in the corner as noted in the route. From below I had trouble believing that this was 5.8, but I got a solid nut placement next to the piton to protect the awkward moves.

I finished the climb by going up and slightly right, topping out near the top of Maiden Buttress. I could see where one of the large blocks up top had recently slid off the top (scary). Jascha had a hard time hearing me yell 'on belay', but eventually got the message and headed up. He topped out ~5:15 pm, much better than the >7 hours it took us to get through the Whodunit clusterf**k. It was just the break we needed to get through the next project push.

taste of tuolumne

Memorial Day weekend rolled around and Jascha and I were both deeply entrenched in meeting project deadlines. A 3 day climbing trip was out of the question and I was craving multi-pitch trad, so Tahquitz was an obvious choice. With its high quality granite Tahquitz is like a mini-Tuolumne Meadows a mere 2 hours from our house. I had picked out the classic 7-pitch 5.9, Whodunit, knowing full well that we might be waiting in line. The route was first climbed as an aid route (5.8, A1) in 1957 by Joe Fitschen and Royal Robbins, then in 1966 freed by Tom Higgins and Bob Kamps.

We got a relatively late start for our endeavor, leaving the house at 7:30 am. In retrospect, barring a 4:30 am departure, we made the right choice. The group of 3 in front of us had apparently arrived much earlier only to sit and wait in line for an extended time behind several other parties. Nevertheless, it was frustrating to watch them refuse to start a pitch until the follower had left the belay above. It wasn't like they were flying up the rock and for some reason there was always a 15+ minute delay from the time their leader(s) yelled "off belay" to when they were ready for the others to start following. To top it off one of the guys was a fairly new leader so that took even longer. I guess it could have been worse; it was a pleasant 75F and we spent our time lounging on pristine granite cliffs.

The first crux was on pitch 1 and entailed pulling an overlap on a very thin finger crack with friction holds for feet. For once I was thankful to have small fingers/hands and with that I was lucky to get in an occasional finger lock. The set of TCUs that Jascha bought me for my birthday came in handy. I didn't attempt any heroics like using only passive gear. Unfortunately, we weren't able to link pitches 1 and 2 because the parties above us refused to do so.

The next pitch transitioned from slab to dihedral and brought us to a cushy ledge below the chimney, where we sat waiting for at least 45 minutes. To pass the time we watched another party of 3 on The Consolation (also 5.9), and from whom we learned the classy phrase "Shut your whore mouth." Despite looking sketchy, the soloist we had seen earlier on The Long Route (I think) pulled through and was now far out of our view.

Finally, it was our turn for the chimney, which I knew held an awkward 5.9 "mental crux" to exit the combo chimney/roof. Fortunately, there was a comfy stem leading up to it. I managed to get a good nut placement to protect the exit move (so much more satisfying than a cam). At first glance the move looked improbable. It involved reaching way behind for an offwidth, thankfully made easier by a wide stem. The next set of moves weren't exactly confidence inspiring but I made it up to the next belay without a fall. I was entertained by Jascha's grimaces as he approached the anchor.

The next pitch started off with parallel cracks which offered the choice of a hand or a finger crack. I alternated between them. At the top I wasn't sure which way to go and opted for a somewhat sketchy traverse to a small pillar. Jascha yelled up to me that he saw something red fly by; I had a strong suspicion that it was either my Omega Link cam or my C4 Camalot. When Jascha arrived I realized that I had lost my ~1 year old C4, which must have come unclipped from my gear slip when I was leaning against the left side of the dihedral. I was most annoyed when I realized that I had just missed the last round of gear sales and was looking at ~$65 full price to replace it.

I was starting to realize that all of the pitches so far were fairly sustained at 5.7+. Pitch 5 was no exception and provided me with a tenuous reach for a sort of jug. After having my foot slip off once I reset my nut to reduce the potential of decking on the ledge below. Once again we caught up with the party of 3. I figured we had another 2+ pitches ahead of us, but was pleased to learn that the piton marking the last 5.8 section was just above us. I ran the rope out just below the summit, so when Jascha arrived I had him lead the final friction slab section. We made it on top ~7 pm, >7 hours after we started (we usually average 30 min per pitch for almost full rope length pitches). Oh well.

We picked up my pack and made it back to the car in time to watch all of the Idyllwild restaurants close. All in all it was a stellar route, and we're anxiously looking forward to a repeat trip on a less crowded day.

close encounters with the fowl

In early February I ended my planned 12+ month corporate hiatus a few months early after landing a technical project manager job in the Enterprise Architecture group of yellowpages.com, thanks to a referral from Andy. Three weeks later Jascha and I started moving into a rental house in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. Initially it seemed like a great find - dark hardwood floors, two bedrooms (one for gear storage) with a spacious living area, plus a kitchen with a ton of counter space, garden space, on a dead-end road, and most importantly, biking distance to work. This would be my first permanent dwelling since placing most of my belongings in storage and leaving for Bishop last April.

Then came the dark clouds. To our horror we started hearing crowing coming from what seemed like our backyard starting around 6a. I was unable to go back to sleep once they started, and to top it off I started having problems going to sleep at night. Great, this is exactly what I needed for my new job. Let me state for the record that although their brains are the size of peas, I don't mind chickens. In fact, I kind of like them. Any visit to the Tri-County Fair merits a requisite stop at the chicken pens. I even recently owned a book on chicken breeds. This, however, is a far cry from living next door to roosters.

I went online and learned that L.A. does not have a law banning roosters, only one that states they must be maintained at least 100 feet from a neighboring dwelling. Walking to the back of our yard it was clear the roosters were no more than 35 feet from our bedroom. I also read that people's complaints to Animal Control often go unanswered, so I had no expectations of a resolution. Upon emailing my landlord she told me that she was aware that there were roosters before we moved in, but she "did not think they were a problem". I was furious because had we known about the roosters we would not have moved in, but to give her credit she was willing to help.

We both started calling Animal Control on 2 March. The initial complaints trigger a letter to the address with a 15 day warning to remove the animals. I followed up periodically (each time having to call back repeatedly to get through and/or waiting on hold for up to ten minutes) and around day 10 they agreed to send out an officer the next day to issue a verbal warning. The start of daylight savings time and the lengthening days only exacerbated the issue. The first crows would start sometimes as early as 3:40a. Two days later I called back. They initially claimed the officer had gone to the address and had removed the roosters. I said that was interesting because I heard them the day after they were supposedly removed. Next they told me we had provided the wrong address and no roosters were present, and if they send someone out again and don't find any roosters we had no recourse. A fine example of your tax dollars hard at work.

Thoroughly annoyed I rode my bike home from work, grabbed my camera, climbed through the back fence and took photos of the beasts. There were also maybe a dozen hens loose in the yard, quietly clucking away. I drove over to animal control with a letter containing a printout of my photos and a map of the address. I wrote that the hens were not of concern. At this point I considered finding another place to live until the situation was resolved. Thankfully Jascha went to Austin for 9 days and didn't have to deal with my insomnia-induced stress.

Finally Animal Control came out on 17 March and issued a two-day warning. My landlord met me at the house and her boyfriend went by to talk to the owners, who agreed they would "be finding homes for the roosters". I could see light at the end of the tunnel. Three days later we were unable to get through to Animal Control. That evening I arrived home from work to find them still there. I was supposed to go to climbing at Joshua Tree with Dave that weekend, but I was so exhausted I could barely think and I didn't think it would be a good idea to be leading trad.

Monday my landlord and I both attempted to call Animal Control, but found that they was another of the days they don't bother to answer the phones. On Tuesday she went by and spoke to one of the officers to confirm that they would pay a return visit that week. Wednesday evening (22 days from our initial call to Animal Control) I returned home to find the roosters still there, but much to my amazement there were no crows on Thursday morning. Once again I crawled back through the fence and saw that the coops and all chickens had been removed. I didn't see any signs of a massive slaughter, so I figured they all found new homes. I wasn't sure why the hens were also removed, but I wasn't going to worry about it.

It took me another few weeks to mostly kick the insomnia. Yesterday morning I awoke to find a lone hen in our driveway of the same breed as I found in the neighbor's backyard. I had no idea where the hens were now living. Jascha helped me corner it and I picked it up and walked down the street toward the rooster house. Their gate was locked. A man in old Toyota van saw me and rolled down his window. He looked interested in the hen, so I handed it to him. He put it on his lap and drove off.

delusional ultra thoughts

It's that time of year again when I start obsessing about my various outdoor goals for the year. I've already gone under the knife once for running-related injuries and I still have occasional hip tendonitis, but I enjoy grueling hill climbs and technical downhills. Naturally my thoughts turn to racing again. Having a bunch of very encouraging ultrarunner friends doesn't help. My thought train is somewhat along the lines of: Maybe I could just do 50Ks, but I used to do 50Ks as training runs. I could probably do an occasional 50M. It's training for AC100 that did me in. Or, I could the low mileage plan. It's a slippery slope.

At any rate I promised myself I wouldn't jeopardize my climbing pursuits by trashing myself running, so to kick off my new plan (and last few days of occupational free agent status) I decided to do a "short" run in the San Gabriels. Jascha and I had tried to do this ~14 mile loop (with at least 3700' of gain) before but got rained out. The run/hike starts and ends at Lake Avenue in Pasadena and follows Sam Merrill trail up and over Echo Mtn. to Mt. Lowe, which once housed a tramway. I've been on middle Sam Merrill several times previously, as it's part of the AC100 course, and it's one of my favorite local trails. Unfortunately, Jascha couldn't join me this time because of work and affliction with an intestinal flu, which we will blame on Pez & Pezlet Hansen ;), who were both recovering from the flu during our Sunday visit.

I made good time on lower Sam Merrill, despite getting passed by 2 guys who were running to Echo Mtn. and back. The skies were clear and sparkling blue and I recognized the tree under which we huddled during the downpour and the spot where we'd previously turned around on middle Sam Merrill. It was a bit chilly in the forested section (one of my favorites) that passes several granite outcroppings. I wondered if part of the reason I like this section is that it marks the end of the climb out of Idlehour on the AC100 course that seems to go on forever, known by some as the longest 3 miles you'll ever do. At the junction with the Mt. Lowe I stopped to assist a guy (with a topo map) who mistakenly thought he was at Markham Saddle, then headed over the the Mt. Lowe loop.

I took the E trail first and passed several patches of trail that were dusted with snow. The top of Mt. Lowe has some remnants of the old railway, including a collection of peak location aids. I could clearly see Mt. Baldy in the background. On the 7 mile descent I took the W trail to complete my loop. It was a fun downhill with some rocky sections. I backtracked on Sam Merrill (a most excellent descent) to Lake. I look forward to many repeats.

cutting our losses

Two months into our planned 3 month trip to India and SE Asia we were having difficulties entertaining ourselves. We missed the varied climbing and trails back home, and the steep limestone sport routes on friable rock weren't cutting it. Initially we had hopes that each new city/country would be different, but instead we found similar temples, similar food, and similar people preying on the tourists. We still had Vietnam and Myanmar to go, but we were doubtful we would find anything different. Just before Christmas I started having insomnia. When we finally admitted to each other that we were bored out of our minds it was a relief.

Now we had to figure out our options. In my usual style I drew out a flow chart with the pros, cons and tasks associated with each of the paths. We contemplated skipping Myanmar and heading back to Vang Vieng to help the locals rebolt one of the walls or heading home to climb at Red Rocks or J-tree. I drew out a matrix of what cost we were willing to bear if we could get back to the States at various intervals preceding our original return date (6 Feb). I had purchased return tickets online and we were getting the runaround from our S Korea-based airlines (Asiana) about the ability to change the ticket and whether they would issue a refund. It didn't help that we couldn't get a hold of the online booking service because of the New Year's holiday. Finally we managed to get most of our Asiana ticket refunded (or at least a promised refund) and for a few hundred dollars more a flight home on ANA in less than a week.

Once we got back to L.A. we spent two days adjusting to the time change and pulling together our climbing gear. Then we hopped in the car and headed off to Red Rocks with spring-like temps predicted. I felt like crap for the first 2 days with my jet lag and preceding weeks of insomnia, but on the third day we set off for Olive Oil. After an inadvertent detour on the approach we ended up at the base of the route behind Robyn and Mike. Robyn is one of the few lucky individuals to have found regular employment in Bishop. It was nice to be on towering sandstone again. The first part of the route was uneventful although I overshot the 4th belay and had to downclimb to the ledge. The next pitch had a long chimney. As it narrowed I had to climb the neighboring face to get through with my pack. We took in the views before heading down the descent trail.

The next climb we did was a link-up between Johnny Vegas and Solar Slab. Together they make up 9-11 pitches (depending on where you set your belays), but (as we found out the hard way) with its rope eating cracks and edges it sucks up precious winter daylight. Solar Slab was old school 5.6, in contrast to the more modern (easy for the grade) routes we'd been doing. We ended up skipping the final pitch of Solar Slab when the route became shaded and a frigid wind picked up. This was fortunate, as our rope became stuck multiple times and I had to do some somewhat sketchy soloing to remediate the situation. We ended up at the bottom of the route just as total darkness fell.

The next day we caught up with Masa and Chris at Kim Pho Long, who were visiting from Vancouver, B.C. They were unsympathetic to our whining about the cold, although they too had rope issues on their descent. They were planning to return the next day to extract their rope from the first pitch. Masa was originally supposed to accompany us on our Enfield tour, but hadn't received permission from India's tourism department to write up the story for a Canadian magazine. We filled them in on our Asia adventures. Jascha had booked us at the posh Palms Place for a few nights as a belated b-day present for me, a far cry from my undergrad days of shivering in a tent at the old Red Rocks campground.

Next on our list was Birdland, the same route that had eaten Masa's and Chris'. With our 70m rope the route went quickly. The 5.7+ final finger crack on the last pitch was particularly choice. We were also fortunate to spend the last few pitches and entire rap watching a herd of 5 female bighorn sheep who weren't particularly disturbed by our presence. They remained near the base of the route even after we finished our rappel.

I decided to do something a bit harder, so we set our sites on Armatron, a route on the somewhat remote (N) Brownstone Wall, known for unique tile-like rock formations. I was a bit worried when we left the car at 9:20a, but we shaved 20 minutes off the lower estimated approach time on our topo. There was another party on Rainbow Wall and one on Cat Scratch Fever (S Brownstone Wall). We received our introduction to the tiles on the bolted first pitch. The crux came early on the second pitch. The finger crack preceding it took bomber nut placements and the crux itself (a thin traverse to another crack system) was protected by a bolt. The next two pitches were almost exclusively on the tiles and I doddled trying to find the infrequent solid nut placements. Technically the route ends after pitch 4, but it is recommended that you do the final pitches of Requiem for a Tadpole then top out on Juniper Peak. This has the added advantage of a quick walk-off descent. Even though I was trying to exclusively use nuts for pro, I happily used one of the new TCUs Jascha bought me for my b-day at the last belay. We found a fun exposed class 4 traverse just below the summit and topped out. After locating the correct gully (the cairns had likely fallen during the last snowstorm) we headed down. The party on Cat Scratch Fever looked like they might be at it still as darkness fell, but they didn't appear distressed. I was happy that we were heading down in the daylight as there were still patches of ice on the approach slabs.

I had a job interview in a few days back in L.A., so we got in one last day of climbing in Calico Basin. I'm not exactly back in sport climbing condition, so I picked out Ultraman Wall for its 5.8-5.9 runout slab climbs (which Jerry Handren categorizes as mixed routes b/c they are "too runout to be sport climbs"). They did not disappoint, especially Speedracer, a 140' 5.8+ with ~17 feet between bolts requiring multiple moves off of tiny slopers. We had a fairly lazy last day aside from our worked fingertips. It was nice to be once again be home.