Eastbound

For the first time in almost a year and a half, and overcircumventing the globe, I have finally done some traveling going east.  I see that I left off my last post just before doing the inspection of the Cooper River Bridge with Vertical Access.  It was fun to be on rope again in a really cool setting.  Check it out:

Lowering myself down to the cable I was about to inspect

Also for those interested, there is a 2 minute clip of one of my inspection drops on youtube here.  This gives a little bit of an idea of what it is like rolling down the cables.

Redwoods (small ones)

From here I met up with Nico in San Francisco.  Unfortunately the weather was crap, so we went for a hike in the rain in Muir Woods just north of the golden gate bridge.  Even in the shitty weather, there were hordes of people there, but at least I have finally gotten to see some of san fran, the bridge and redwoods.  I now feel like a true American.

It was still too early in the year (too much snow) to get to either Yosemite or Sequoia national parks, so we went straight to Death Valley.  Supposedly the hottest driest place in the country, and we had some of the coldest wettest weather so far on this road trip.

At least the following morning we got to see the snow capped mountains that we drove through the night before; while stopping to check in with 4 disabled vehicles due to the falling rocks!  The next day though, we did the daylong grand tour of death valley.  It is an amazingly diverse place with so much to see.  We hiked up mosaic canyon, played on sand dunes, watched unique pupfish in salt creek, drove around to see multicolored rocks at the "artists palette", and checked out badwater basin - the lowest place in the USA at 282 feet below sea level.  Badwater basin was my favorite place, as it is completely filled with salt, and is right next to 11,000 foot mountains.  That is almost as much as an elevation difference as from Everest base camp to the peak.

Woohoo!

climbing some red rocks

From Death Valley we moved on to Red Rock Canyon, just outside of Vegas.  It may only be 10 miles from the casinos on the strip, but it is a world away.  It had rained the night we got there, and supposedly you are not supposed to climb on the sandstone after rain since it is soft.  We went for a hike instead, although the wetness did not stop the tons of other rock climbers there.  Red Rocks is known for the rock climbing on the vividly colored rocks there.  On our hiking day we went up turtle head peak, which was in a great location to see the whole valley one way, and vegas the other. The following day we got to do some sweet climbing.

multicolored rocks seen from atop turtle head peak, with Vegas in the background

After Red Rocks, we headed to the Grand Canyon.  Amazingly, with our lack of prior planning, we managed to score a campsite in the canyon at Indian Garden.  Most of the campsites are booked 4 months in advance, so we were happy to get something.  This place seems to hold with the pattern of most of our national parks, which is that you can just drive up to anything cool and take a picture.  It was definitely cool to hike all the way down to the Colorado River and back, but really, the best views are from the rim, 100 yards from where you can park your car.  It also wasn't until our last of 3 days there that we saw the sun, which definitely makes it all look more impressive.  Although even without the sun, it still looks cool.  It's amazing to think that all that stuff (that isn't there between the north and south rims) has been washed away by the colorado river.  It's about 16 miles across in places, and gets down to 5000 feet deep.  It is also neat to be kinda looking back in time, as you can see the different rock layers, each one is associated with a prehistoric period of time.

From the Grand Canyon, we finally headed to southern Utah, which is something I'd been looking forward to the whole trip.  It's amazing that even though it is still desert, Utah was so much different than the other stuff we'd been experiencing.  It has got such interesting rock formations and canyons that for over a week that we were there, we were constantly seeing new and interesting things.

Bryce Canyon Panorama

Angel's Landing

Zion is where we went first in the southwest corner of Utah.  I actually wish that we spent more than just a day there, but at this point we both knew that we had to be back in Ithaca by April 18th, and so we were bums on a schedule.  At Zion though we went to Angel's Landing, which apparently is a very well known hike.  And for good reason.  It is this giant piece of rock left in the middle of where 2 rivers meet.  The last half mile of the walk is where it gets really interesting because it is thin, slanted, and quite exposed.  There are just some chains attached to hold onto, with 1200 ft sheer drops on either side.

View from the top of Angel's Landing

From Zion we next went to Bryce Canyon.  This place is home of the Hoodoos, which are freestanding pillars of rock that have been eroded by water and wind from the cliffs that they once were.  Each year Bryce sees about 200 freeze thaw cycles, so in the soft sandstone that leads to lots of erosion.  Here is another place that most of the coolest views are right from the rim where you can park your car, although here we did a day walk in and around some of the hoodoos which was actually quite cool to see them up close.

hiking through a tunnel at Bryce

"The Grand Staircase"

 After Bryce, we went to a small corner of the Escalante-Grand Staircase National Monument where we found "Peek-a-boo" and "Spooky" canyons.  These are some true slot canyons, like the one from "that movie with the guy who got his arm stuck" as many people pointed out to us.  Although that canyon was in the San Rafael uplift (which we went to later).  Anyway, this was probably the best day hike of this entire road trip.  Peek-a-boo required us to climb up into it, and then through all sorts of arches and neat formations.

Peek-a-Boo

Then we went into Spooky canyon which was even tighter - 10 inches wide for a while.  I actually had to take off my backpack and drag it behind me.  There are many more cool pictures of these, and actually all the other stuff too at my picasa site.

Spooky Canyon

Moving on, we had a shorter day hike in the needles section of Canyonlands national park.  This stuff is just general Southern Utah landscape.  Would have been great to get in closer and get to spend a couple nights in the backcountry, but this time our lack of planning meant that everything was booked out.

neat formations in Canyonlands

On the fiery furnace walk

Next stop was Moab, which seems to be the Ithaca of Utah, and the home of Arches National Park.  Here, our lack of planning once again worked out to our advantage.  There is this one section called the "fiery furnace" which is an area of tight fin canyons which are very difficult to navigate, and so you need to get on a ranger guided walk (booked generally 4 months in advance).  It was a nasty morning all windy and pooring rain, and luckily we met up with 2 nice canadian couples whose wives were not interested in the walk.  So we got to stand in for them.  Then luckily that afternoon, the skies cleared and so we got to go on a walk around the Devil's garden - an area with lots of neat arches.  The following day was mostly a rest day to figure out how we're gonna spend our last couple weeks of freedom, and then doing the short walk to the "delicate arch".  This is classic Utah; its even on their license plates.

Delicate arch

looking back down the side canyon

After our days in the Moab area, we drove out to the San Rafael Uplift and to Little Horse Canyon.  We loved the slot canyons so much we decided to seek out another.  This one was certainly really cool with some really narrow parts, although it wasn't quite as interesting as the peek-a-boo and spooky canyons.  I did find a side canyon at some point and enjoyed wandering a bit up there to check it out.  That side canyon actually required a bit more skill to get through which to me made it way more interesting.

In little wild horse canyon

From here, we began our long drive back to the eastern time zone.  3 long day of driving later, we made it to the Red River Gorge in Kentucky and some of the best rock climbing in the country.  It actually felt quite good to see some green trees, soil, humidity, and of course rain and thunderstorms and hail as well.  Our tent got flooded out the first night there, but the climbing was so amazing it more than made up for it.  I have finally gotten comfortable enough with leading that we could climb some more difficult and interesting stuff.  It was unquestionably my best day of outdoor climbing ever.

Right now I am back in North Carolina for just a couple days... hence the time to get out these couple blog posts.  Next week, after 16 months of traveling and being a bum, I finally start working again.  Not as an engineer, but as a farmer.

Another update

It looks like last time I wrote anything here was after spending a day at Carlsbad Cavers in New Mexico.  Right now I am in a hotel in Charlston, SC.  Here's how I arrived there....

The day after Carlsbad Caverns, we planned to hike up Guadalupe Mtn, the highest in Texas.  As we were about to get on the trail a ranger stopped us saying that the trail was closed due to a forest fire.  We hung around for a few hours, and luckily enough they determined that the trail up the mountain was the only safe one in the park that day.  We went for it, and was rewarded with wind and great views.

Wind

 

Great Views

Then we headed on to Las Cruces, with first stopping off at the White Sands National Monument.  Its a day trip sort of thing, but really cool!  The sand is white as snow, and was a ton of fun to run up and down the dunes.

Jumping off sand dunes

From there we spent 2 nights with Raimey and Ben, a couple fellow couchsurfers with 3 awesome dogs who kept me entertained constantly.  It was great to spend some time with folks from the area, and interesting ones at that.  They are also rock climbers and told us about a few places nearby that we should check out.  One of them was Franklin Mtns. state park back over in Texas.  There was some nice sport leading there, and it just felt great to get on rope outside and climb some rock.

Then we head into the Gila Wilderness in Western New Mexico.  There are these cliff dwellings there from people who lived in them about 700 years ago.  They have a great story, told by Chuck the volunteer, but most of it is a mystery as to why they built so much and then only stayed 25 years...

Being that it is a national forest / wilderness, we got to camp anywhere and even have fires!  It was also the coldest nights we've had so far (down to 18 deg) so it was really great to hang out by the fire until bedtime.  We did an overnight hike down to the Gila river which is in a canyon with at least 300ft cliffs.  There was also hot springs there that required 15 river crossings to get to each way.

Yay for ice cold water!

Following that mini adventure, we ventured into Arizona - home of the saguaro cactus.  (pronounced sa-wa-ro)  These are the iconic cacti from cartoons, but they actually exist!  and so do roadrunners!  They are also quite interesting, growing up to 50ft tall and hundreds of years old.  They even have woody stems within to keep it upright and can weigh over 15000 lbs.

This one isn't even the largest in the area.

We finally left the Tuscon area after a couple days.  Saguaro national Park is right outside it, and its ugly urban sprawl.  Defo didnt like it there as much as I would have thought.  Only an hour away though is Cochise Stronghold, a climbers dream.  It is a chain of mountains with climbable areas all over.  We went to only one small area that housed 3 crags, and was only a teenie tiny taste of what is there.  The climbing is great too on some nice granite, and this area was well bolted for fun sport leading.

Sweet Rock - our afternoon crag

From Cochise, we head straight to Joshua Tree.  You hear about tons of climbing there, and there is, but  it is all trad leading which we do not have the gear for.  We did manage to find one area with a couple bolts on top that we could toprope off off for half a day.  Then of course there are all the hiking trails too.  And Joshua trees, another crazy plant that looks like it came from a Dr. Suess book. 

Sunset from Key's view

And finally we moved on to something out of the desert!  It is a fascinating landscape and each one is a bit different, but it is really nice to get at something that is not all brown and deserty.  Also, interesting thing we've noticed about the national parks.  They are certainly in our American style of being able to drive up to something, get out of the car for a couple minutes to look at something cool, and then drive on to some other cool thing.  Sure, you can just go wander off up that mountain that is 7 miles from any road or trail, but there seems to be a lack of something inbetween.  Well, there is some, but just not as much as we thought.  Hence, we've kinda been jumping around from park to park spending only a couple days in each cause that is all it takes.  Being that it is desert, we are still limited in how far we can go without a ranger station with a water source.

As we drove towards LA, it was great to get up in the San Bernadino national forest and Big Bear lake, where it is high enough that there was snow on the ground and pine trees and water and colors other than tan!  We did a hike there up to the Pacific Crest Trail and up a mountain close by.  It actually closely reminded me of the adirondacks.  We also happened to be in town to volunteer to help them do a bald eagle count.  So we sat by the lake in our spot and actually spotted one of the 3 Eagles living around this lake for the winter!

So that brings me to LA.  Now Charlston?  Yup, I'm doing a little bit of work with Vertical Access.  Inspecting the Cooper River Bridge.  Its a really sweet one and I get to hang 500ft above the freeway tomorrow!

Nico silhouette - I just like this picture

Island Vacation

In order to travel all the way around the world, we are on a bit of a tight budget.  For the first time though we've decided to spend a little bit of money for some activities, which I think has been well worth it.

First off, a few days ago we went scuba diving!  I got my Open Water Diver certification when I was in Sydney, 6 years ago.  So I took a little refresher course and Nico did a “try dive”.  Turns out the two are quite similar to each other.  It was us two and a Norwegian couple to one instructor, Greg. About an hour before we got on the boat, we all sat down and Greg talked us through the basics and the gear.  Then he got everything set up, made sure our gear was on correctly and we all jumped into the water.  We started off right near the beach so that we could practice a couple skills – like taking out the regulator and clearing some water out of our mask.  Then basically the only difference for me was then Greg and I went back under and ran through a couple more skills.  For most of the skills we talked about them on the surface, and then went under and practiced them.  But for my extra ones, he just said “we'll go through a couple more, I'm sure you'll remember them”.  I had no idea what we were doing, but I just followed his lead to perform the extra skills.  I guess I fudged it well enough that he was convinced I knew what I was doing.  Then we went for a dive from the beach.  There is so much life down there!  It was really neat to just be able to stay under for so long and just look at all the fish and coral without worrying about coming back up in a few seconds like with snorkeling.  Nico really wanted to rent a camera, which I think was a bit of a mixed blessing.  I think I was spending a bit more time taking pictures than actually looking around, but it was still sweet.

Then for the second dive I did at least change my gear over to another tank (and also hand the camera over to Nico this time).  This second dive was in a different site, with more coral and fish and even a stingray!  The refresher was a bit on the simple side, but since scuba diving is really quite simple, it did give me the confidence to once again go diving.  And doing it with guides, I don't have to worry about how deep I go and how long I stay under before I get nitrogen narcosis or anything like that.  Although I did look up how to read the dive tables, which are also really quite simple.

Yesterday I went out for another couple dives.  This time cheaper since I am a certified diver.  We went to a couple different dive sites and saw lots more cool stuff.  This whole diving thing is really neat and well worth the money for the few dives that I did.  I cannot see myself ever living in such a tropical climate that I would ever really get into diving though.  The ocean here is like a hot tub, and even I would not get cold after being underwater for an hour.  And it is amazingly clear with so few “scary” things down there that it really was such a comfortable diving experience.

Rock climbing.  Not only does this beautiful island have some of the best diving in the world, but its got rock climbing too.  It certainly is not some of the best rock climbing in the world, but its outdoor rock climbing which is sweet.  Since it gets “melt your face off” hot here during the day (especially in the sun) we rented the gear and a motorbike and got everything ready the night before.  Then by 7am (after the morning mosquito attack) we were on our way.  Somehow here it is way cheaper to rent a motorbike than it is to get a taxi, so we rented one to get both of us and all the gear there.  Only a couple times did Nico have to get off the bike and walk cause the hills were so steep.

It was all top rope off of installed bolts, and lots of slabby climbs.  Even as an experienced climber I was amazed how well I would stick to the rock standing on wee tiny pebbles.  It is kinda cool that people have only started rock climbing here in the past 5 years or so, so the granite is not at all worn smooth yet.  Most of the day we had the entire place to ourselves, and then later in the afternoon a guided group found their way up there.  I have now gotten to climb twice in the past 8 months – so it was well worth it for the day.

Coming up soon is that meditation retreat that I was talking about.  So don't expect to hear from me or have any way to contact me from now until about Sept 11.

Road trip

Last wednesday to saturday we headed out from the valley for a bit of recreation.  First thing was a day of rock climbing at Whakapapa South.  It felt so good to get back on rock and climb!  There were loads of small climbing areas and since it is winter here, we had the entire place to ourselves.  And winter here is like a cool spring day back in NY, so really not cold at all.  All the routes there are bolted which is awesome for me as I was the only one comfortable enough to lead and I got to set up all the ropes.  Nico, Jon and I all have some experience, but Cat, Mel and Bexie are all new to climbing.  We started out on a couple easy climbs and taught belaying and got everyone on the rock.

Me leading and setting up Ninja, while Cat climbs Teenage Mutant

Then I set up a slightly harder one for Nico and Jon and myself.  After lunch we headed over to a different part of rock and I got to lead a beautiful route called "terror incognita".  It was actually quite difficult as it was about 80 feet and sustained difficult the whole way through.  It was good that I got to do something that really got the adrenaline pumping.  That's me going through the crux of it on the left.

Then another thing that this trip was about was going to Field Days.  This is a huge agricultural expo sort of thing.  It is a huge fairgrounds and there are all sorts of stands set up trying to sell you agricultural stuff, everything from wood mills to tractors to hats and food.  I spent a lot of time finding the free samples of food and whiskey, and just wandering around.  They also have this "Good Keen Bachelor" contest where a bunch of dudes compete in things like making breakfast, chainsawing, and the part that I saw - herding mama and baby llamas into pens. The best part though by far was a show by this dog trainer and seeing all the cool stuff she made the dogs do, like hopping on their hind legs in circles around her and then jumping up and off her back.

Then the last day we spent a bit of time in Rotorua and went to a Kiwi house.  There are so many conservation efforts for the kiwi, cause they are cute and dying off and important to the ecosystem and of course, they are Kiwis!  So this place will get kiwi eggs from all over the place and raise the chicks until they are big enough to fend for themselves.  In the wild only about 1% of kiwi eggs make it to older than 1 year.  There are so many mammalian predators that are not supposed to be here that they all go after baby kiwis.  It is now almost impossible to see a kiwi in the wild unless you are on a special island reserve.  So anyway, this place is trying to help prevent the kiwi disappear to extinction.  Unfortunately I have no live pictures of them cause they dont let cameras in, but here's a stuffed one from the lobby: