Thanksgiving in Joshua Tree with Dave and Callie

Joshua Tree has been our Thanksgiving spot for about twenty years now. We've gone from roughing it, freezing our butts off making the holiday dinner around a rough picnic table, to some humongously upgraded digs in Russ and Susan's place, to our own place this year. Dave and Callie even drove down from Boulder (via Red Rocks) and Russ, Susan and the other Dave came over to help us celebrate our first Thanksgiving dinner in the new place.

Dave working his way up the tricky dike of Pinched Rib (10b) on Chimney Rock.

Dave on Ride A Wild Bago (10a) on the Sports Challenge Wall. This proved to be a lot trickier than it looked from the ground.

Felicia and Callie scrambling through the boulders over to the Brown Wall.

Dave on Brownian Motion (10b) on the Brown Wall.

Felicia near the top of the Brown Wall.

Dave on the trickier Jerry Brown (10b), the Brown Wall.

Nolina, clouds, and rocks.

To finish off the day, Dave and I went over and froze our taters off doing Run For Your Life (10b), a really nice face route that turns into a holdless horror over it's last twenty feet or so. Great route!!

Another shot of Dave on Run For Your Life (10b) on the Tumbling Rainbow formation.

Traffic jam on Intersection Rock with climbers headed for North Overhang (left), and Overhang Bypass (right).

Dave took me over to initiate me into the end-of-the-day ritual of visiting the Space Station. This is a sort of cave about halfway up Chimney Rock in the Hidden Valley Campground. It's probably a 5.6 (or so) solo to get into the Station, and not a good place slip from, although I hear a Marine fell face-first out of there to the ground once.

Dave enjoying his tall-boy Heineken  and the sunset from the Space Station.

A shot out the side "window" of the Space Station. I'm sure I'm the first to ever think of taking this photo.  :-)

Pre-Thanksgiving dinner crowd hanging out waiting for the grub to commence.

The Thanksiving dinner crew!! 

L to R: Russ, Callie, Dave, Sooze, the "other" Dave, and Felicia.

The other Dave working on Norwegian Wood (5.9) on the north side of the Snickers formation.

Dave trying something out (that didn't quite work) while leading The Maw (10a) on the Little Hunk formation.

Felicia working on The Maw (10a).

To the side of Maw and Paw is this really cool easy 5.7 route called Right Between The Eyes. It basically traverses this crack system on big knobs and such for about 70 feet.

Very fun!

With the kiddie routes out of the way, Dave upped the ante with an ascent of Physical Grafitti (11a) on Anasazi Wall. The route starts with this cool upward traverse along an intrusion dike.

Felicia working the upper crux section of Physical Grafitti (11a). Made me arms hurt just watching.

We joined up with Sooze and crew for the hike back to the lot. Of course discussions of the various routes along the way have to take place.

Dave finished up the day soloing The Eye (5.3) on Cyclops Rock. The lower left arrow shows the big cleft that the route ascends, and the upper arrow is Dave on top of the formation.

 

The last day (Saturday morning), Dave and I went up to the Hot Tub area near Steve Canyon. We started out with this finger/forearm wrecking route called Elixer (10a/b). I think we were hurting from having climbed 5 of the last 6 days.

Dave in the upper dihedral of Amanda (10a), a nice line with lots of variation in it. We followed this up with the route to the right (We Never Get The Girls, 10b) and called it a day.

Dave and Callie first met in Joshua Tree (somewhere near Intersection Rock, I think) four years ago, so they wanted a photo to commemorate the occasion. Thanks for visiting guys!

Bill and Tom's Excellent J-Tree Adventure - Day 3

Sunday morning was sunny, but cool. The boyz were rearin' to go and we had some stuff to straighten up at the house, so we sent them off to the nice, sunny, east-facing wall of Hemmingway Buttress. Unfortunately, while this wall is in full-on sun in the morning all summer, apparently, it actually faces NORTHeast, and gets pretty full shade in the fall and winter. Being from the great white north, the boyz just got their gear out and started ticking the classics.

We arrived a couple hours later to find Tom leading Poodles Are People Too (10b) - he's the small figure next to the straight up crack in the middle of the picture.

A closer shot of Tom working the thin crack 25 feet up Poodles Are People Too (10b).

A couple routes later, Tom leading Prepackaged (10a) out right of Poodles.

Another shot of Tom on Prepackaged (10a)

Felicia at the top of Feltoneon Physics (8).

We were ticking routes off at Hemmingway when no less than TEN climbers all in a group marched up the bottom of the crag and tossed their stuff down on top of ours, pretty much commandeering the crag. We saw the writing on the wall and bailed for the parking lot and sunnier crags. We drove on up the road to Intersection Rock. Bill and Tom had never done North Overhang (9) or Overhang Bypass (7), so they headed on up.

Here's a shot of Bill on the first pitch of Overhang Bypass (7)

Bill nearing the first belay on Overhang Bypass (7). The climber above him is headed out the upper section of the route. Bill and Tom actually crossed over from here and did the upper pitch of North Overhang (9) to the left.

Bill belaying Tom, who led the second pitch of North Overhang (9). We headed up there and did Overhang Bypass finish, which is always fun and exciting.

Bill headed out into the thin air of the upper pitch of North Overhang (9). Gets kind of exciting out there where you go around the corner.

Bill going around the corner on North Overhang (9). Yeeeee haaaa!!! Very cool climbing there.

Felicia topping out on Overhang Bypass (7).

Bill and Tom went down the rap, then up the first pitch of North Overhang, then up and out the upper pitch of Overhang Bypass (7). This is Bill after coming around the corner on the traverse, about to clip the bolt and head for the summit.

Bill rappelling from the top of Intersection Rock.

While I packed my stuff up, the boyz steamed over to the Old Woman formation and started up Orphan (9), a nice route on the right side of the west face. You can see Tom leading in the lower right corner of the rock.

Tom working the fingers and stemming of the middle part of Orphan (9). I recall this as being some really cool climbing from my one time up the route in 1995.

Bill ensconced in his "belay throne" at the base of Orphan.

Tom into the upper chimney that finishes Orphan (9). It ain't over 'til it's over!

Bill headed up Orphan (9).

The south end of The Old Woman formation with a soloist (no rope) going up to Toe Jam (7). Normally, climbers who solo tend to climb carefully and meticulously. This guy was about as manic as I've ever seen a climber, and it was a little nerve wracking to watch him spaz his way up the route.

Bill and Tom's Excellent J-Tree Adventure - Day 2

Saturday dawned cold and drizzly. Just when we'd think it was going to quit, it would start spitting again and continue soaking things down. Luckily, Tom had looked up the rules to shuffleboard, and we staged the world championships right there on the front porch. As expected, Felicia and I dominated the Colorado boyz, sending them packing in shame in a best two out of three match.

The mutts were pretty happy about having people around to snuggle up to all morning.

After a while, things lightened up a bit to the southeast, so we decided to give Indian Cove a shot and hope for the best. There were people all over the place, but shockingly, Silent Scream (10a) was open, so we jumped on it for the warmup of the day. Here's Tom ticking the onsight.

Another shot of Tom on Silent Scream (10a).

We were hoping to get on Sweat Band (10c) after Silent Scream, but someone already had a rope on it when we got over there. Bill was feeling pretty adventurous, so he started up Tarawassie Wiggle (10a) route, a tradfest, thin-pro, seldom-led route to the right of Sweat Band on King Otto's Castle.

A shot of Bill on Tarawassie Wiggle (10a) from the bottom of the route.

Bill nearing the top of Tarawassie Wiggle (10a). Things got a little exciting at this point when it started raining again, wetting the rock down. Bill kept it together and finished things off in style while Felicia and I retreated to the waterproofness of the car, where Felicia promptly turned the heater on full blast.

Felicia roughing it in the car out of the rain!  :-)