Bishop

We left Red Rocks in mid-March to meet up with our friends Deyo (who had joined us in Hueco, see post!) and Cassidy from Seattle, who were heading down for their spring bouldering trip. We were also able to connect with Sydney and Kyle (our awesome New Hampshire hosts, see post), who were in the middle of their own multi-month winter climbing trip. Sydney and Kyle were doing the reverse of our trip – heading from Bishop to Red Rocks right around the time we were leaving for Bishop – but we planned to hang out in Bishop before they left town.

Beautiful Sunset on our first day in the Buttermilks.

 

After putting camp together with Deyo and Cassidy at the Pit on our first day, we headed up to the Buttermilks, the higher-elevation field of glacially deposited granite boulders that Bishop is so famous for. Syd and Kyle were camped up there in the Blueberry, Kyle’s blue short-bus home-on-the-road. After catching up and getting some warm-ups in, we ran into Jeremy and Aleks, another couple on a long-term road trip. We’d met them briefly in the Red, and Jeremy and Kyle knew each other from routesetting gigs. We joined groups, and we wound up camping and climbing with Jeremy and Aleks for the rest of our time in Bishop, even as other friends came and left. That first day, we were all inspired by Sydney’s many successful sends!

In addition to climbing in the Buttermilks with Sydney/Kyle/Deyo/Cassidy/Aleks/Jeremy, we spent a day exploring Dale’s Camp, a less developed sector in the Buttermilk Country with a few hard, classic problems. The road in was a little precarious, and though a number of the boulders were pretty gritty Kyle in particular kept stoke high. Dale’s highlights include stacking pads on the Element during the drive to the area and playing on Xavier’s Roof, one of the hard classics with some crazy movement.

 

 Safety!

We also took advantage of our huge group during a day at the Sads, which along with the Happy Boulders is a lower-elevation area with volcanic tuff boulders. Deyo casually cleaned up her long-standing projects in the area (as well as everywhere else during her trip - again, nice work!), and we put together an awesome landing at Strength in Numbers, the classic highball V5.

Aleks on Morning Dove White (V7), Happy Boulders.

 

 

Seth topping out Son of Claudius Rufus (V5).



After a few days of climbing together, Syd and Kyle continued onto the next stage of their road trip. It was great to spend time with them, and thanks again you guys for being such great hosts last fall! We spent the rest of the week with Aleks/Jeremy/Deyo/Cassidy, during which Deyo proved again that she is one of the most good-natured and positive people ever. She woke up with pink-eye about halfway through our trip, and instead of getting bummed or even complaining about how much it hurt (it looked like her eye must have been pretty painful), she stayed cheerful and relatively upbeat. After a trip to the Bishop clinic for meds, Deyo even carried pads pretty far up into the Sads to support Cassidy as she finished her project when everyone else stayed in town for a rest day – definitely worthy of the best-friend award! Overall, our week with Deyo and Cassidy was super fun.

Shannon and Matt, more friends from Seattle, joined us for a few days the following week. Both Shannon and Matt are super strong, and this was their first trip to Bishop. We had a great time climbing with them in the Buttermilks and dragging them to the Happys/Sads, which they’d been told to avoid. They pulled some inspiringly quick sends of the classic problems, and we wish you guys could have stayed longer! Aleks and Jeremy also had friends roll through during our time in Bishop – special thanks to Andy for all the Stumptown! Good coffee is critical J.

 

 

Andy on Norwegian (V4).

 

Seth’s friend Cici later drove in from LA for a weekend, just in time for the onset of bad weather aka WINDPOCALYPSE. After getting knocked over by pads, pushed off the rocks, and almost literally blown down from the Buttermilks, we spend a calm half-day in town and a fun evening at the Banff mountain film festival. When we got back to camp later than night, we were blown away (...but actually) by the destruction. The picnic table where we kept our cookwear was completely empty, to the point that we were afraid that we’d been robbed. Then we slowly started recovering our things, which we found strewn all the way across the Pit. Aleks and Jeremy’s French press, our camp stoves (which we found ~30ft from the table), and our chairs (found all the way across the Pit) sustained the worst damage, but everything was pretty torn up and dusty. We put together some MacGyver fixes for the stoves, laid the French Press and other glasswear to rest, and cleaned up in the morning, before getting back to climbing.

 

 

Chelsea and Aleks doing their best to cook as the wind blows the fire flat.

 

As with the other areas we’ve stayed at for a while, we developed a routine for our rest days in Bishop. Our highlights included touring the gear shop and trying on all the shoes a couple times, fighting for plugs and with the internet at Black Sheep coffee, wandering around the Galen Rowell photo gallery for about a million years, stopping by the Great Basin Bakery for cookies, lunch at the “best lunch in Bishop” sandwich place and spending a few hours watching Ridiculousness on MTV there, doing laundry and taking a shower AT THE SAME PLACE, and the hot springs (we liked the natural ones a lot, but Keough was also ok). We tried a lot of the restaurants in town but kept coming back to Amigos, which has fantastic veggie burritos that are big enough for dinner and lunch the next day, Mango Jarritos (mind-blown), and enough chips and salsa that everyone in our sizeable dinner groups could get enough. We DON’T recommend driving up to Mammoth for rest days – we’d hoped for a ski town, but all we found were condos. The Black Velvet coffeeshop on Main St was a decent consolation discovery, though.

We loved the varied and technical climbing in Bishop. We both enjoyed the granite boulders in the Buttermilks the most, but we had a lot of fun in the Happys and Sads, and a couple memorably awesome days at the Druid Stones and Rock Creek. This has also been Chelsea’s most successful bouldering trip yet, with favorite/proudest climbs including Soul Slinger (1^st official V9), Junior’s Achievement (V7/8), another lesser-traveled V8-ish in the Checkerboard area, Rave (V7), flash of Bowling Pin Sit (V6), Seven Spanish Angels (V6), Milk the Milks (V6), Rio’s Crack (V6), Strength in Numbers (V5), and many repeats of China Doll, which she thinks is the best warm-up ever! Seth enjoyed measured success with Bowling Pin (V4), Son of Claudius Rufus (V5), The Fang (V4), Solarium (V4), a flash of Norwegian (V4) and was painfully close at least a dozen times to climbing Go Granny Go (V5) and Bowling Pin Sit (V6, figured out the moves then didn't have enough skin, next year).



 

Aleks on Soul Slinger (V9).

Seth on Bowling Pin Sit (V6).

Crossing the river at Rock Creek.

V4 on Campground Boulder, Rock Creek.

 



We had a great time with everyone as well, and even as the weather gets hotter we’re bummed to leave. Luckily we have plans to climb with Aleks and Jeremy at Joe’s Valley… Coming soon!

Back in the game: Mt. Lemmon, Cochise, and Red Rocks

After our much needed holiday break from traveling and camping we flew back to where the car waited in Albuquerque, and enjoyed the hospitality of Seth's family. We loved the company and the famous NM green chili during our time there, and Seth also got his first introduction to cross country skiing at the local Sandia Crest. He felt a bit awkward on the different skis, but had a great time! Soon after arriving in Albuquerque, Chelsea flew out again to visit Yale, which marked the first of our many grad school visits. (Remember that earlier in the trip we spent a lot of our non-climbing time applying to grad school; now we began the equally hard work of deciding where to go.)

View from the Crest Tram

 

Sherry and Mike - you guys are amazing, thanks for everything!

After Seth finished his skiing and Chelsea got back to Albuquerque, we headed straight to Tucson AZ to visit another one of Chelsea's graduate schools and to sample the local climbing. Overall we liked Tucson, especially the cheap food/drinks. We particularly liked Sky Bar, a local pub run on solar energy, which featured great beer at the standard cheap Tucson prices.

We also scoped out the climbing gym (a critical part of Chelsea's grad school visit). There, we ran into Chelsea's friend Eric and made plans for climbing later in the week.

Once all of our school related business was completed in Tucson, we spent a few days climbing on Mt. Lemmon. The crags were hard for us to find as out-of-towners, but luckily Eric was able to help put us on the right track, and we had a great day of climbing with his AZ crew (thanks again for the directions!). The camping on Lemmon was pretty convenient, and the San Catalinas were a beautiful place to stay.

Cochise Stronghold was next on our AZ destination list, where we met up with some U of Arizona graduate students that Chelsea met during her visit. Our drive from Tucson to Cochise was our first long drive in Arizona, and it proved to be an odd one. Alongside the freeway we were amused by a number of gas stations who advertised the change to shoot various assault rifles and even a fifty-caliber machine gun, in addition the normal gas station services.

The adventure didn't stop once we finally found our way into the Stronghold, where we ran into the Rainbow Gathering - an enormous group of modern day hippies doing all kinds of crazy stuff in the Arizona desert. When we pulled up to a crew of people to check whether our friend was at the camp fire, a tye-dyed man named Leif stuck his head in the car, welcome us home, told us he loved us, and then offered "free food from the woods!" ....which we respectfully declined. These Rainbow Gathering hippies were definitely friendly, but maybe not the kind of folks we'd trust not to "borrow" some of the stuff in our car, so we high-tailed it away and luckily found our friends soon after.

We were a bit nervous about the reputation Cochise has as an "adventurous" (read: terrifying and committing) climbing spot, but we spent our day there climbing single pitch sport with our new U of AZ friends and had an awesome time. Our highlights include Seth's accidental 10a onsight, which we thought was a 5.7 from the less-than-accurate book description of the wall, and of course our friend's adorable puppy Queso. Lower points include the tire blowout/flat spare tire some of our friends had to deal with. After a solid day, we negotiated our way back through the sea of drum circles and rainbows and headed out.

Queso the puppy!

We rolled into Red Rocks the next day, and were blown away by the huge, brightly colored sandstone walls and smaller Calico Hills in the park. The campsite, which we heard lovingly referred to as Campganistan, was expensive but is the only game in town. Eventually we grew to like it despite the dust and lack of a view, and cut costs by sharing the site first with our friend Mike Foley and with Mike's friend Heather and yet another (different) Mike. During our first week or so in Red Rocks, we climbed with our campmates a lot, and were also able to meet up with fellow Seattleite Brian Smith during his Vegas trip.

Red Rocks at it's finest

 

View from the Calico Hills

Mike on Meadowlark Lemon

 

Mike and Heather at Kraft

 

Making dinner at camp

After a week or so of hanging out, we made our last grad school visits. Seth headed east to Columbia, where he was able to sample the sophistication an Ivy League education would allow him: boat cruise on the Hudson and a symphony at Yale. He also flew home to tour the University of Washington. During a complicated exchange of airport dropoffs, car parking, and pickup - during which we may or may not have kinda misplaced the car in the airport parking lot for a bit - Chelsea visited UT Austin between Seth's tours.

Once our graduate school visits were finished the climbing began in earnest. We did a lot of diverse climbing while in Red Rocks, focusing mostly on sport climbing and bouldering. Almost all of our sport climbing was at the Gallery, Red Rocks most popular sport crag. That wall bakes in the sun for most of the day, so we had pretty hot conditions, but overall we enjoyed the climbing. We also spent a day at the Sandstone Quarry, which was a lot more sandy/chossy. Our sport climbing highlights include Chelsea's onsight of Minstrels in the Gallery 5.12b, and sends of The Gift (5.12d), The Glitch (5.12c) and Fear and Loathing (the classic Vegas 12a). Seth onsighted a cruxy 5.10c and also sent his hardest route on a rope, A Day in The Life (5.11c). We also (unsuccessfully) tried to find Mt. Potosi with our friend and now Vegas local Sam Johnson, but made up for getting lost with an afternoon of bouldering followed by the best pizza Vegas has to offer (thanks for the intro, Sam!).



The Gift, photo cred Jo Banner/Instacred Sethman

 



Seth's 10c onsight

 

A Day in the Life, 11c!!!

 

Fear and Loathing 12a

The boulders in Red Rocks are super good overall, but some of the best climbing is pretty spread out. As a result, we spent most of our time in Gateway Canyon and at The Kraft boulders, where the boulder density/development is greater.  Our favorite boulders were The Monkey Bars Boulder (Monkey Bars Right/Traverse etc.), Pork Chop (V4), and the Dead Heart (V4).

Monkey Bars Right V6

 

Pork Chop V4

We had originally planned to do a few longer multi-pitch routes, but our time got away from us and we only managed to do one: the classic and incredible Birdland, a five pitch 5.7 on the Brass Wall. We dealt with some of the lines/waiting/unsticking people's ropes that can be commonplace on the classics in Red Rocks, but the route was outstanding.

Stoked on Birdland!

 

As we got to the end of our time in Vegas, we decided to get a room on the strip with Heather and Mike. We stayed at Excalibur, much to Seth's excitement. We were stoked to go out on the strip that night, but struggled to find a club open on a Tuesday (who'd think there are days when the strip isn't crazy?!). Once we did find our club, though, we got our cover's worth. A lot of our fellow club-goers were pretty concerned with looking cool or whatever, but we were ready to dance like crazy. It got to the point where we were either forcing people to dance with us or to clear out of the way if they didn't want to get trampled! We had a fantastic night, and a great send-off for our time climbing with Heather and Mike, who were leaving the next day. We spent a few more days at the now spring-break packed campground, and then headed off to the incredible boulders and scenery of Bishop California.

 

Strip shenanigans (jean jacket $5000, coyote vest $2500 - don't break it...)

With Great Powder Comes Great Responsibilty: How my brother and I decided to back down on a dream trip.

Last week my brother Jake and I set out on a much anticipated trip to Roger's Pass in British Columbia's Glacier National Park. The plan was to spend four days skiing out of the famous Asulkan Cabin 8km into the backcountry. We started the ski up to the hut with a layer of fog and a light snow falling. By the time we got to the hut it was foggier and snowier and the wind had picked up dramatically. This became a serious worry.

Jake skinning in to the cabin.

When wind rips over a ridge it deposits more snow on the opposite side and forms a wave like feature called a cornice on the leeward side. It also weights the snow pack dramatically on the leeward side as well. This added weight weakens the snow pack and increases the likelihood of a slab avalanche. We watched this wind loading happen at an alarming pace. This was compounded by the position of the cabin. It sits on top of a huge terrain trap called the Mouse Trap, a tight choke in the valley where three large avalanche paths meet and where any slide in the area will funnel into  and bury anyone unlucky enough to be caught in it deeper than it would otherwise.

A view of the cabin and the deteriorating conditions.

A view of the Asulkan Valley. The cabin sits above the stand of trees in the center of the picture.

The increasing avalanche danger was our main objective hazard but this was further complicated by the decreasing visibility and our lack of knowledge of the local terrain. Eventually, everyone in the cabin was concerned with the mounting danger and started talking of going down before things got too dangerous. We all huddled around one small black and white photo of the slopes below us and talked about which slopes might have the least wind loaded snow.

It was clear that no one wanted to bail but everyone knew we needed to. All kinds of ideas flew around about why maybe the snow would stay safe. Everyone in the cabin had a great base of knowledge about snow and terrain so there were all kinds of ideas trying to convince ourselves we could stay when everyone knew we shouldn't.

The next morning one group had left and the rest of us started looking around at our options. Eventually we all decided to head down to the lower Wheeler Cabin and ski trees and powder there away from the dangerous wind loading.

This required us giving up a night in the backcountry and abandoning our goals for skiing high alpine lines. We accepted this and spent the next two days skiing incredible snow with new friends. The decision was a hard one even though the correct decision was so obvious.

Trips are usually planned with an objective of some kind and success or failure in achieving this objective is often the lens through which we look at our trips. The anticipation and excitement made it hard to really accept that we were going to have to abandon our objective we had looked forward to for so long. I think this focus on achievement and specific objectives is what gets people into trouble.

All was not lost.

I am not always free of this mindset. I thought at first that my trip was going to be over but actually, it only changed. While the plan was to ski the alpine lines above the Asulkan Valley it became clear to me that was merely a surface objective. The real goal was to go skiing in a badass place with my brother regardless of which specific slope or line we skied. I think in planning backcountry trips, and not just skiing ones, it is important to be more focused on experiencing of the wild places we go to and not on whether or not the summit or whatever other objective is reached. Its an old cliché but the important part really is the journey. Which do you remember better, the five minutes you sat on top of a summit or the obstacles you and your partners overcame in getting there?

This trip to Roger's Pass drove this message home hard for me because we got shut down so early. It felt like it was over before it started. We weren't even in the hut for twenty four hours. I like to think of myself as focused on the experience over the objective but it was hard for me to let go even when the right choice was so clear. Part of it may have been how far we had come and how long I had anticipated the trip. It is easy to back off when it is a day trip in your backyard but we drove for a day to get there and carried heavy packs (we had a fairly luxurious food stock) 3,000 vertical feet in crumby weather to get there. I had to let go of the previous ideas I had about the trip and just experience the radness that is tree skiing on Roger's Pass.

Jake blasting through the deep.

The real lesson here is to step back and look at what really motivates you to do what you do. Is the summit really the only thing that is driving you to venture out or is it the adventure and the camaraderie that comes with going outside? My guess is if you really think about it you would say the second. One of my good friends and frequent ski partner in back Wyoming, Maciej, used to say that you should never go backcountry skiing expecting to go skiing. I think this no expectations idea translates to all outdoor pursuits. If you remove the objective you see why you really want to go.

This is not to say I will never have a specific objective, I love making goals and chasing after them, I just don't want it to be the only defining factor of a trip. Once we got to the lower hut we had no objectives, we just skied out looking for good snow. We found a ton of it and had a great time. That being said I think it would be really hard to find bad skiing on Roger's Pass. The point is, when the focus is on experiences first and objectives second a trip will be safer, its participants happier, and overall more satisfying. After all for the vast majority of us these trips are recreation and whether or not you complete a specific objective may not change your life but the experiences offered by the wild surely can.

-Seth