Fall is in the air!

After three weeks, we headed back to Joshua Tree for a visit. The weather was looking pretty dang good for the visit, with the highs in the upper 70's or so. Just the right temperature for climbing either in the shade or the sun.

On Friday afternoon, we hooked up with Russ, Susan and Karen to sample one of the lesser known crags in the Indian Cove area. It was a good selection for a late-afternoon launch, but not a destination crag by any means.

Susan leading Road To Utopia (I think).

5.7 or 5.8.

 Dave (caughtinside) leading Bort (5.10a), probably the best route in the area.

Russ on The Todd Gordon Memorial Chossy Pile of Radness (aka The Big Todd), a pretty chossy overhanging 5.11 big pull route. Nobody recommended this one and Felicia got kind of a nasty small finger flapper from it.

Felicia on Bort (10a).

On Saturday, the gang was headed for more obscurities. We were headed down the Lost Horse Road and saw a dearth of cars at the lot for Rock Garden Valley/Shorter Wall area. With mileage signs in our eyes, we passed on the giant hike and did the boulder scrambling instead. This is Felicia coming up Young Lust (5.8). The woman below and left is on Smithereens (5.8), the route we started with.

Felicia near the top of Young Lust. This is sort of like a featured sport climb with a crack for pro. You don't really have to do any crack climbing.

A shot of unknown climber on Rock Candy (5.9) on the Shorter Wall. We ran out of time before we got to that one. 

Unknown climber on Euthyphro (5.8), to the left of Young Lust. I thought this was a nice route and it compared nicely with Young Lust and Smithereens in terms of quality. A smidge harder than those due to a lack of face holds and the need for crack climbing skills.

 Felicia with her HANDS IN A CRACK!! Climbing Double Dogleg (5.7) on the Shorter Wall. A fun romp at the end of the day.

A shot of the Shorter Wall (right) and the upper Rock Garden Valley Wall (Young Lust, Smithereens, Euthyphro, Spitwad). Felicia headed for the parking lot.

Back on the road headed for the truck.

Ginny in an unusual contemplative moment.

Trying out out deluxe supplemental guest accomodations this morning with the help of the mutts.

A little birthday climbing!

Weekend birthday... I get my choice of climbing venues! Which is pretty much saying no need for choice. Granite Mountain, hands down. Felicia had valiantly offered to go with me, even though I know she would rather eat broken glass than hike up there. But Tim came thru at the last minute to take one for the team and Felicia was off the hook. She was broken-hearted, but somehow managed to bear up under the disappointment. :-)

So we headed out of Phoenix early Saturday morning and found the parking lot with only a few cars in it, none of which really looked like climber's cars. Hmmm...


Tim shouldering the pack, ready to head up the trail.


















Good old Trail 261. 2.25 miles and 1100 feet later, we can climb some rock!


















Wildlife sighting! We surprised a pack of javelina browsing on the trail on the way up. They were surprisingly unconcerned with us. Usually, they scatter like scalded cats and you barely get a look at them headed into the brush.









Another javelina shot.














Tim humping it up the trail.


















This was the first time Tim had been on rock in like two years, so we opted for something with a little lower burl factor.












Yeah... Hero cam... HD.


















Got a nice shot of me leading the second pitch, though.


















Tim pulling the short 5.9 section on the second pitch.


















Longer shot of the same section.


















Wheeeeeee!!! We had the ENTIRE mountain to ourselves all day. No other climbers. Might have been because of the heat. It was a little warm, but completely doable.















Tim coming up the High Exposure Exit above the Flying Buttress.

















Crimping away on the High Exposure Exit.


















Rappelling...














Cap'n Crunch rides!
Arrrrrrr matey!

















Hiking out.














Another wildlife sighting! Tufted eared squirrel of some kind.










 

Gorgeous October Weekend!

Gorgeous weekend in Joshua Tree! Columbus Day was Monday, so Felicia had it off. We made an extended weekend of it. We hadn't been out since our week long stay over Labor Day. Everything was pretty much where we left it. We're gradually whittling down the items that need to get done while we're over there, which should allow us to hang out, relax, and climb more. One must-do job this trip was to install the doggie door so the mutts can get outside when we have to leave them behind for the day.

The job has begun... put template on the door, drill holes, then start cutting. Of course when you get that done, the resulting hole is slightly too small, and the holes don't quite line up, but that's why there's a template, right? Ridiculous.

The hole has been cut in the door, then more cutting, then some profanity, and some more cutting and reaming out of the bolt holes, and more screaming, and yelling. After all that, I finally got it all together and tightened down.















Houston, we have success! The backstory here is that by the time I got done putting the doggie door in, I'd been yelling and screaming at it for the better part of an hour, so the dogs were cowering in the living room and wanted NO part of whatever it was I was yelling at. It took a little cajoling to get them in the utility room to try out the new door. After that, they took to it like fish in water!












We managed to get out climbing on Sunday. Gorgeous day, mid-70's and mostly sunny out. Good for climbing in shade or sun.






















































Joshua Tree and con trail.


















Some guy below us with his camera set up to take pictures of himself bouldering.

















Felicia with her hand IN a crack!


















And back to her normal crack technique near the top.



















































Some guy on Dog Day Afternoon.
Nice route.

South side of Intersection Rock.

Tour de Scottsdale 2011

Well, another year has gone and with it the Tour de Scottsdale. This was my second year of this event and we did pretty well, refuting what were some less-than-optimistic expectations we had going into the event. As usual, as fall progresses, my motivation to get out there and mix it up with the local auto-maniacs, sucking exhaust and trying to keep from getting flattened by a 2000+ lb. vehicle causes my motivation meter to start sagging a bit. But I managed to persevere at least enough to maintain some fitness and make the event go okay. We were rejected for parking at 5:45am... lot full. We parked about a mile and a half away, which solved our need for a little bit of warm up since we had to ride to the starting line.

The race launched at 7am and immediately went right to a crazy 30 mph pace headed over to Scottsdale Road, then chilled out a bit headed north on Scottsdale (slightly uphill and into a headwind). We hung on for that, made it through Cave Creek and motored with a pack south on Pima before doing the four mile hill climb up Dynamite. The descent down the 9-mile Rio Verde Hill was a bit of a break before we rode over to Fountain Hills. Doing that part of the ride with a pack this year had our pace pushing up over 25 mph, so we made good time. My legs were doing okay for the most part until we climbed back up the hill on Shea Rd. I just got a little bit of a "we're getting a little tired" notification, though, and never saw the cramps this year that I had last. We held our pace well over to the climb up McDowell Mountain Ranch Rd, coasted down Bell to Thompson Peak Parkway and then took it home, pushing the pace up over 20 mph again for the last two or three miles to the finish line. We came in at 3:09:12, shaving about 8 minutes off our pace from last year and logging an average speed of 21.9 mph.

It was fun, but thank God that's over for another year!!!


Headed north on Scottsdale Rd. in our Wheezers and Geezers kit.











That's us on the far right margin of the picture...


















The finish. Don't know how they got me alone when Pete and I rode across together.