New Year's Eve Mountain BIking!

Got out today for a little last minute 2011 mountain biking with my buddy Tim. I didn't think I was going to make it there for a while, although I wasn't sure if I wasn't going to have a bike, or if I was going to have an aneurism from all the last minute b.s. I had to go through to get off for the ride.

I went out to the garage to load up the bike so I could meet Tim on time, and found a 3" nail making a gigantic hole in the rear tire of my bike. Here's the offending culprit:

I've had nothing but the worst luck in the world with those bike tires (Kenda Tomac's) and I will NEVER use them again. I don't care if the nail was just bad luck. A trip to the bike shop, some Stan's, Slime and profanity, and I was ready to roll. I called Tim and told him I was on my way. We met in Pima Canyon on the east side of South Mountain (aka SoMo). It was a madhouse of people down there today... last day of the year, bluebird sky, warm, sunny... bad combo. We waited and got lucky with parking spots near the end of the road up the canyon. We racked up and headed off up the fire road to the trails.

We turned off onto the National Trail, the most challenging way to go from the west side. In fact, today was the first day I'd ever done National, having opted for the slightly easier Mormon Trail the other few times I'd ridden at SoMo. Needless to say, the rocky terrain had us doing quite a bit of hike-a-bike here and there. It would be fun to go back and "learn" more of the trail to try to ride some more of the techy bits, but some of them are just nuts.

A shot of Tim well up National with an arrow showing our approximate starting point.

Tim and the Phoenix metro area in the backdrop.

A shot of downtown Phoenix from the side of South Mountain.

As I said, this trail features some pretty serious rock. This is a pretty clean section, but on others, you can either attempt to ride over this sort of stuff, or you just have to get off and walk it. It can be a very humbling ride if you have any illusions that your tech ability is top shelf.

 A bit of a break...

We rode up National to the Buena Vista Lookout area. This is probably only about halfway across SoMo from east to west, but it's a good spot to turn it around and head back if you're not up for the seriously challenging coast-to-coast ride. At this point, we "armored up" with the combo elbow/forearm pads since we'd be doing a lot of rocky dropoff type downhill riding on the way back to the start. Us old doods need some protection in case of accidental rock encounters.

We ran into and talked to a guy that was on his way back east and he was pretty psyched to see a couple more Turner Five-Spots on the mountain. Here's the Turner-Fest going on at the Buena Vista.

I didn't take any shots on the way down. Too much fun just cruising and attempting to keep from going over the handlebars. I nearly lost it and went OTB at one spot where my front wheel got into a "keeper" hole between two rocks, but it bounced free and I managed to ride away from it. Close call!

Great ride. Only 10 miles round trip, but 1328 feet of climbing (most done in the first half), and an excellent way to kill a few hours at the end of a year!

G.

Post Christmas Climbing - Part 2

We headed into the main park today and went to Lost Horse Wall. This is one of the biggest formations in Joshua Tree and one of the few that has multi-pitch routes. It's a pretty popular place for climbers, especially in the colder parts of the year (sunny and warm), but today it was pretty much empty except for us and one other party of climbers nearly all day.


The view of Lost Horse Wall from the parking lot.

We started out on Mare's Tail (5.9) over on the right side of the wall. This had been on my hit list for years, but I'd never gotten around to it until today. Here's where the route generally goes.

As with a bunch of routes in the middle-right part of the wall, you go up and then traverse across a sloping shelf to reach the route of choice. Here's Felicia traversing across to the start of the main part of the route.

And coming up slightly to a belay just above the shelf.

The second pitch went over a couple of small roofs on jams and then just some regular climbing. Nothing too stand out, or exciting there. Here's Felicia coming up to the belay, which was kind of cramped and just below the little no-pro slab traverse that starts the crux last (3rd) pitch.

The crux of the route was a bare neked slab traverse to reach a vertical seam. We did 10a routes yesterday that had more to stand on. We were both also a little concerned that if I peeled off the slab, I'd go plummeting right down onto Felicia. As it happened, we didn't have to test that theory. All the friction climbing lately is starting to pay off!  (I made it!)

Here's Felicia coming up the last long stretch of the third pitch. Bummer no better pics.

We scrambled down from the top through all the boulders and made it back to our packs, then decided to head on up the wall again after a break for snacks and drinks. This time we climbed the first two pitches of Dappled Mare (5.8), a route that we've both done a few times, but headed up the direct finish to that route, Roan Way (cute huh?) that carries a 5.8+ rating.

Once again across the sloping shelf...

The second pitch of Dappled Mare is tricky at the start and features some pretty cool climbing up to a pair of bolts at the anchor. 

Couple shots of Felicia coming up the second pitch:

The Roan Way finish goes straight up above the anchor bolts (Dappled Mare traverses left there) with some climbing I'd describe as a 5.8 version of Bird On A Wire (a 10a route over to the left on this wall). A straight-up 5.8 leader might have some visions on this, but it turned out to be fairly straight forward and pretty fun climbing. I ran the rope out a long ways and set up a belay below the top of the wall.

Couple shots of Felicia on the Roan Way pitch.

And Felicia took us to the top of the wall via this short pitch that she'd led back over Thanksgiving.

We were pretty hammered when we got to the top of the wall, Felicia's bum elbow and my feet had been properly broken in by my new shoes. We limped and scrambled back down to the base of the wall just as another party was starting the Roan Way pitch.

Here's a zoomed in shot of the leader on Roan Way.

When we got back to the truck, we found an entire family of six there, sort of confused about how to get back to the Hidden Valley Loop Trail. Apparently, they'd hiked north off the loop trail because "there were too many people" and come down the wash in front of Lost Horse Wall. We offered to give them a lift back to the parking lot so they wouldn't have to hoof back over to the trail.

The climbing aggravated Felicia's elbow in a big way. This is her soaking it in a pot of ice water before bed. Not good.

Post Christmas Climbing - Part I

Back to Joshua Tree. Seems like I was just here... 

Today we headed to Corral Wall. Seems like I was just there too... yeah, it was last Wednesday. So, six days later, I returned. Why go back so soon? Couple of reasons. a) Brian and Patti had never been there before, and it's a nice spot on a winter day with some pretty good routes, and b) I had a little mental meltdown on a face climb last week, where I did this wacky sideways dyno into a flake off route, which I climbed to the top. I needed some paybacks.

We were sort of tailgated up into the canyon from the parking lot by a large group of late-teen, early twenty-somethings. Figuring we were about to get waylaid on a bunch of routes, I took off and hiked up to at least stake our claim to a good warmup or two.

Brian leading Pony Express (5.9)

Long shot of Brian on Pony Express (5.9). The canyon back there is really nice with more rock than most people see in a lifetime.

 

Brian taking a lap on Czech Crack (10a). The start is an awkward spit-you-out affair with little in the way of good holds. This leads to the short overhanging wide crack above that has no finishing holds.

Brian on Exfoliation Confrontation (9). 

Tricky thin start to good edges and polished black rock.

Patti was taking it easy and on exercise restrictions after having some work done on her legs recently.

We moved on down the line and Brian led Hang 'Em High (10a), a friction affair with three bolts. This is a shot of Felicia following the route.

Left from Hang 'Em High, is a crack line that I hadn't done before, so I racked up and led High Plains Drifter (9+). Mostly the attention-getting climbing was in the first 18 feet or so, then some fun easier climbing to the anchor.

Felicia on the upper part of High Plains Drifter (9+)

I spotted this millipede (?) on a boulder after I nearly sat on him. 

Finally I had to tackle my vendetta route of the day, Six Gun By My Side (10a). Last week when I was out with Susan, I had a major brain meltdown on the tiny footholds past the third bolt and did a sideways dyno exit into the flake system to the right. I needed some paybacks. This week, I kept it together, made sure my fingers were chalked at the right time, the shoes were laced tight and I managed to clear the black mark from the books! A few more of these and we might be able to declare our footwork back from the grave!

What the hell?  Ha, ha, ha, ha... nobody said that thing is bolted well.  :-)

 Brian higher on Six Gun By My Side (10a).

Another shot of Brian on Six Gun By My Side (10a).

The left side of Corral Wall. Brian is rappelling somewhere in there...

A little Christmas Side Trip...

I had this week off and Felicia had to work, so I figured I could make a little side trip out to Joshua Tree. I'm only going to be here two or three days, so I'm really hoping the weather will make some climbing possible. Brought my rope soloing gear, so the lack of a partner won't be too big of an issue.

It was pretty cool (49 deg) and a bit breezy when I got to the house about 2pm local time. Yikes!!! Since we were here at Thanksgiving the trees have completely shed their leaves. I think the lows have dropped into the upper 20's, so that's not a huge surprise.

This was this afternoon's project... shelves and desk for the office.

It took a while to put them together. Whenever I was down on the floor working on them, Riley would try to crawl into my shirt with me. Not quite sure what his big problem was (Ginny, maybe), but he was really craving some cuddling. Ginny just kept doing laps in and out to the back yard. I had to shut her down, she was driving me nuts.

We all went for a walk around 5pm or so. That and a little food calmed them down big time. They're kicked back on their pillows now, being good puppies! Well, it's 7:30, I better get cracking on some dinner since it's getting close to 8. More tomorrow.