Wanderlust: 05/01/2009

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Mule Days!

We arrived in Bishop, California just in times to hit up Mule Days! This is the nation’s longest non-motorized parade – a must do on Meaghan’s parade list! Most of the asses behaved themselves except for the most recent graduate of ‘Jerry Tindell’s Horse and Mule School’ and a few equestrian spectators.

Death of a Climber

A lesson in elevation change: do not attempt to move 9,000 feet in elevation and expect that the weather is pleasant in both places. After leaving Mt. Charleston we headed down to the lowest point in North America: Death Valley. After spending a sweltering night at 190 feet below sea level it was nearly the death of all of us (Braden, me, and the Pig). Braden and I were up at midnight sweating and had to check the temperature at the ranger station: it dropped from 115 to a relaxing 102. Phew! In the morning, the Pig (van) pulled out of the valley at a staggering 35 mph; luckily it neither burned up its breaks on the downhill nor overheated on the uphill (thanks to our turning the heat on high – we all sacrificed).

Mt. Charleston

Ahh, after all the city lights we again headed up to the cool and quiet Mount Charleston Wilderness. Mt. Charleston has amazing limestone climbing and gorgeous well-developed hikes.

Happy Birthday Meag!

For my birthday, I talked Braden into actually doing a hike (no climbing) down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. After waiting for three hours to obtain a permit, we were foiled by those with forethought and were not able to camp at the bottom. After hiking the rim trail and doing a bit of trundling, we were ready for showers, a bed, and some shiny lights. We got an awesome deal for a room at the Stratosphere in Las Vegas. There, we got suckered into doing some fancy time-share talk in order to get free dinner and tickets to a show. We saw the Russian show “Ice” – it is amazing what those guys can do on skates. What a fantastic 29th birthday! Mandated by the unwritten rule, no photos were taken in Vegas, but check out the new bridge over the Colorado River at the Hoover Dam. It is a project out of the Phoenix office of AMEC (Braden’s former office).

Jack's Canyon, New Mexico

Allyson, Roland, and Lewis (the furry one) Gilmore joined us for a great week in Jack's Canyon and Flagstaff, Arizona. We all were very proud to have sent our project routes. From Roland's inspirational “How to Climb” book we learned how to forget the mental head games and ignore body pains to excel and send. Using Jeff and Paula’s portaledge, we enjoyed hanging out on a rest day. Lewis had an exciting week seeking shade, playing with snakes, and tried his hand at hitch-hiking back to cooler climates. It was great to have such good friends meet us on the road, thanks Gilmores!

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Goodbye New Mexico!

Thanks for a wonderful week New Mexico. Photos are of the VLA (very large array) radio tower system in western New Mexico. There are 27 of these gigantean satellites lined up in a peace symbol (we assumed to welcome extraterrestrial guests). We wanted to park the pig for scale, but it would only come up to the top of the bottom base of one of these satellites: the dishes are 82' in diameter.