Starving For Oxygen

Somewhere on the way up Bierstadt.

I  know it's been a hot minute since I posted last. Update: I'm still alive. I've stopped playing Pokemon Go. I believe I've regained my true identity. 

I'm allowed to mountain bike again. While I can't do any gnarly jumps or downhill tracks until next summer, Caleb and I have been out to Oil Well Flats to ride. I actually traded my mountain bike for a rifle. Not because I'm never going to ride again. That's preposterous. But I'd actually been trying to sell my old Gary Fisher for a while and, well, it's old and none of the real enthusiasts out here wanted that old hunk. But one of Caleb's friends rode it and wanted it, so he gave me a rifle. I don't even know what kind it is. 7mm WSM? We have another mountain bike I've been riding. It's a hard tail, but since I'm only allowed to ride easy trails right now, it's perfect for me. Over the winter Caleb is going to build me a new bike from the ground up so I'll have a sick new ride come next summer when I can rip again. I know he'll make sure to build a super capable bike, so my only request is that it looks cool.

In the mean time, we've taken up the cliche' hobby of climbing 14ers.

At the top of Mt. Sherman.

I'm not 100% sure why we got into this. I think it has to do with me not being able to do anything particularly fun. I couldn't ride, run, climb, or swim, so I took up hiking while Caleb was mountain biking. Then my doctor said I should start carrying a light pack around a few times a week to deal with the sensitivity over my collarbone where I had my surgery. So of course the only logical solution is to climb one of the fifty something mountains over 14,000 ft in the state of Colorado. I think those pain meds the doc gave me must have done permanent damage, cause I actually went through with this. Caleb and I loaded up and took the dogs to Mt. Sherman one weekend.

At the top of Bierstadt, starving for oxygen.

We summitted and I was happy to never do one again. But then Caleb did another one on his own. And I volunteered to do another with him the next weekend. I don't know why. I hated ever minute of going up. Except when we stopped and I got to eat watermelon candies we brought.. Then at the top, for some reason, I thought I was having fun. I think it had to do with the lack of oxygen. For someone who is used to having a healthy supply of oxygen in their lungs, it can make you a little loopy.. And sick. And delusional enough to think you're having fun. But the view is nice, so there's that. The best part though is always getting back to the truck. The dogs get in and pass out and we roll down all the windows, and, hoping they'll have enough energy to bite anyone who tries to steal our stuff, we leave them there. And go get margaritas and beer and the biggest cheat meal we can fit in out stomachs. Because we earned it.

We've only done two mountains so far, but weather

Handies Peak, Colorado. AKA, the baby Fitz Roy.

and mechanic issues on our new jeep permitting, we're going to do another this weekend. Probably Handies. Cause it looks beautiful. And it reminds me of a really tiny version of Mt. Fitz Roy in Patagonia. And while I don't necessarily want to climb Mt. Fitz Roy, I'm going to see it first hand one day. If I ever find myself in South America, I'm going to detour to go see it. I don't care if I'm in French Ghana and I have to hitch hike and figure out a way to make money the whole way. It's gonna happen, y'all.

Mt. Fitz Roy, Chile-Argentina border, Patagonia.

 Anyway. That's all I really have for now. I'll post again next time I pick up a new hobby, break a bone, or win the lottery.

Pulling On Rocks

Once again yesterday, Leo and I woke up in the van to a rather nice Arizona sunrise. Our initial plan for the day had been to go to Havasu Falls and swim, no matter the temperature of the water. But after hiking Brighg Angel the day before, I was quite frankly over hiking and there was no way I was hiking 8 miles in to swim for an hour and hike 8 miles back. It just wasn't happening. Since the Bright Angel had been my idea, it was Leo's turn to pick an activity. It took all of two seconds for him to decide that we should go rock climbing and even less time for me to jump on board. He navigated rockclimbing.com (I think?) for a bit trying to find a place near our route to climb, and we backtracked a little ways to find it. By "find it" I mean that we drove around for a couple of hours trying to follow shitty directions which didn't take you anywhere near where we should have been, and the GPS coordinates given for the climb were literally in the middle of fucking nowhere. Once we finally decided we had found the right place we parked (whether or not our parking spot choice was legal is questionable at best) and set out on a hike. A burrow nearly attacked us, but we like to live dangerously. The hike that we took wound up 1) Being on a game trail rather than the actual hiking trail 2) Not taking us anywhere near where the routes were set. We did find some cool caves though. In a last ditch effort to find the fabled prebolted sport route the website spoke of, we made our way back towards the van, bush-whacking it along the cliff face. About half way back we heard voices, and Lo and behold we found climbers on the sport route we had been looking for. They were super chill and immediately invited us to climb with them, to which we obviously obliged. There was a 5.7, a 5.8, and a 5.10 all right in the same spot. Leo hadn't climbed outdoors in a good 5 years and I've only ever even climbed outdoors once back in high school. To be honest, I don't even remember if I made it up the wall I had tried back then, so these climbs were perfect. Once Timmy (one of the climbers we met) set up the top rope on the 5.7 and 5.8 (they could both be done from the same top rope position), Frank (another of the climbers) ascended, then Leo. Oz was the next one up, and it was his first time pulling rocks and swinging on ropes. Despite the fact that he was baked and a little tipsy, he was literally shaking with fear when he was getting tied up. You could tell he wasn't really hearing much of the instructions Timmy was giving him, but he got on the rock anyway. Honestly, I don't know if he would have gotten on it if he had been sober. It took him a while to get up, and he almost gave up, but Timmy and Frank had convinced him that he literally couldn't come down until he reached the top because the equipment just wouldn't work like that. He got to the top and they made him kiss the caribeaner before he could sit back and begin his descent. He was shaking worse than someone in the final stages of Parkinson's. It was fucking hilarious. When he finally made it down, I honestly though he was going to vomit all over the place. Instead, he just kissed the ground repeatedly while we all laughed. He was a good sport about it all though. Next was my turn. While I haven't been on belay in I don't even know how long, I do have a knack for climbing things, and any time I go hiking I climb basically anything and everything I can just for the hell of it. I made it up and back down the 5.7 pretty quickly. Leo then gave me a crash course on how to belay him which consisted of him telling me that my right hand was the break hand and he was tying me to a bolt in the ground so I didn't fly up the wall if he fell. Honestly, I probably wouldn't have trusted me to belay me, seeing as how I had next to no clue what was going on. Once Leo was on the wall, Timmy came over and gave me a little more detailed job description of a belayer. Which is probably a good thing cause I won't say that I was getting it right. At all. I got my ascent on the 5.8 while Timmy and Frank played on the 5.10. Leo took a day and a half to go up the 5.10, but that was fine because it was just at sunset and some of the pictures I got of him kicked a whole lot of ass. 

After we finished climbing and packed up all the gear, we followed our new friends down the actual trail to the van and then to a local brewery in Kingman called Black Bridge Brewery. I'm not a fan of any type of beer, but they had a raspberry wheat beer that I could drink all day every day. That shit was on point. Also, there's a couple different restaurants that deliver to the bar and the bartenders will call in your order for you. We choked down on some of the most kick ass pizza I've had in a while, then made our way across the street to a wine bar. I'm not sure what else they have there, but the moscato was quite delectable. Eventually, they turned out the lights and we had to say goodbye to our new friends. All in all, it was a pretty kick ass day, and I'm definitely going to have to get into climbing now. Leo suggested that I take my harness, shoes, ATC, and figure 8 to Europe with me and meet up with climbers on my trip around the world. A suggestion I fully intend on fulfilling. 

Canyons...

Yesterday, Leo and I woke up to this view just outside of Page, AZ.  Pretty fucking awesome for camping off a random side road. While Leo made breakfast, I entertained my inner child and climbed on some nearby rock formations. Afterwards, we headed for the Lower Antelope Canyon, which one of Leo's friends had suggested. We weren't disappointed. I won't fill up the blog with a ton of unnecessary pictures. If you google antelope canyon you'll get enough pictures to almost make you sick of the place. None of them do it justice though. Go. You have to go with a tour guide, but it's less than $30/person. Our tour guide was super cool too. He knew plenty about the canyon and enough about photography show Leo how to get some really cool pictures utilizing all the neat features on his fancy camera.

Right after our tour we made a B line for the Grand Canyon. We started to use old hwy 89, but it was closed due to a big landslide a couple years ago, and because I'm a horrible navigator, I didn't realize that there's an alternate hwy 89 that would have been super short for us to detour to. Instead we went back up into Utah. But hey, along the way we found a nice boulder to climb around on. So that's a plus. On the flip side, Leo is currently driving to I don't even know where, using his GPS as his only navigation. 

We finally made it to the Grand Canyon national park last night and got a room so we could clean up. Camping is awesome, but I fucking love showers. Hot showers. Long, hot showers. Our plan this morning was to step onto Bright Angel Trail by 8, but sleeping in was just too tempting. We made it to the trail and caught a glimpse of this sign. 

Immediately after seeing it, we both said something along the lines of, "Fuck that sign! We got this shit!" We made it to the Colorado river by 1140 (we started at 0850), and took a 30 minute break to have lunch and chill out. Btw, the water in the Colorado River is fucking cold. We started our trek back up the mountain and made it to the Indian Garden (3 miles from the river) in just over an hour. We picked up the pace a little after that and made the next three miles right at an hour. As we got higher up the light was better for pictures (the shade on the way down in the early morning wasn't the least bit conducive to our efforts at photography) so we slowed down and took in some kick ass views.  The closer we got to the top the colder it got. Apparently, in the 75th Ranger regiment they have a saying that says, "travel light, freeze at night" so Leo basically only carried a light jacket, water, and sandwiches. Well let me tell you something, I'm a fucking civilian and I hate being cold more than terrorism. I wore a Patagonia base layer, a t-shirt, a Nike pullover, and a hoodie. On my torso. I shed all but the t-shirt by the time we got to the bottom, but I put my Nike pullover back on on the way up. And my gloves. I would have donned my beanie and hoodie as well, but my fingers quit working and I couldn't open my bag, and Leo had already gotten out my gloves for me. I suffered through the rest of the way to the top. And there was snow. Fucking snow.  I hate snow. If I'm not snowboarding in it, I don't want anything to do with it. But shortly thereafter, we made it back to the top, coming in at just under seven hours. Of course, this was necessary.  We were both soaked with sweat. Freezing sweat. It's been almost 3 hours since we finished and my fair weather ass is just now beginning to warm up. Ridiculous. I'm really not sure where we're going tomorrow, but I'm sure it'll be a kick ass time! I'll let you know how this mystery venture goes when I get the chance. Until then..

Angel's Landing

What I feel like is the rest of my life started yesterday. I say it's the rest of my life because I've come to the conclusion that I'm going to quit life, sell pretty much everything I own, and travel. Yesterday, that journey began. I flew into Las Vegas where Leo picked me up and we headed straight for Utah's Zion National Park. After we grabbed some firewood and food, we set out for the Watchman campground near the south entrance. Since we're sleeping in Leo's van on this trip (which is outfitted with the worlds most comfortable bed, a stove, and all the comforts of home), we didn't have to suffer the cold in order to put up a tent. Thank God. 

Since we got to Zion after dark last night, I had little idea about what it looked like until this morning when I woke up and saw this. 

The fact that this view was so unexpected just multiplied the awesomeness of it all, and this iPhone picture certainly doesn't do it justice. While Leo cooked breakfast, I employed my thumbs to search for where the trailhead was, since neither of us had bothered to find out beforehand. Thankfully, it wasn't far from our campground. Everything I've seen so far on the Internet says the hike to the top of Angel's landing and back should take about 5 hours. It took Leo and I about 3 hours to ascend the 1,800 ft to the top, chill out for half an hour, eat some granola bars, take some pictures, then get back to the van. The fact that Leo hikes uphill at what most people would consider a brisk walk had nothing to do with it, I'm sure. 

I've never been afraid of heights, and I still won't say that I am, because I'll walk right up to any cliff edge and have a seat with my feet dangling. I will say this though, I was happy to have the chains to hold onto, and if I ever hike that trail again, I'll do it in something with better treads than Nike frees. To say the view from the top was spectacular would be the understatement of the year (thus far). 

Again, iPhone pictures don't do good justice to this view, you'll have to go see it for yourself sometime. Of course, no pier of rocks 1,800 ft above the ground is complete without pistol squats. 

 Or funky looking hand stands.. 

 Life is no fun until you get close to the edge anyway.