Since we’ll be discussing climbing a fair amount here, we thought we should include a note on climbing grades. All climbing routes in North America are graded according to the Yosemite Decimal System (YDS), which is theoretically based on the difficulty of the hardest move on the climb. The leading ‘5’ simply denotes technical climbing where a rope is advised. The following description of the levels within the YDS is from Freedom of the Hills, one of the standard instructional books on climbing/mountaineering, and was reprinted in the J-Tree parks brochure this fall:
5.0 - 5.4: There are two hand- and footholds for every move; the holds become progressively smaller as the number increases.
5.5 - 5.6: The two hand- and footholds are there, obvious to the experienced but not necessarily to the beginner.
5.7: The move is missing one hand- or foothold.
5.8: The move is missing two of the four holds, or missing only one but the move is very strenuous.
5.9: This move has only one reasonable hold which may be for either a foot or a hand
5.10: No hand or footholds. The choices are to pretend a hold is there, pray a lot, or go home.
5.11: After thorough inspection you conclude that this move is obviously impossible; however, occasionally someone actually accomplishes it. Since there is nothing for a handhold, grab it with both hands.
5.12: The surface is smooth as glass and vertical. No one has really ever made this move, although a few claim they have.
5.13: This is identical to 5.12 except it is located on overhanging rock.
Since the publishing of this article in FotH 5.14 and 5.15 have been added to the scale. Don’t expect to hear them referred to in this blog much, tho :)
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Christmas in Joshua Tree
We have spent the last ten days back at our Indian Cove campsite at Joshua Tree. It's been beautifully sunny every day, with only a few days that were a bit windy. We’ve climbed at least a little most days, and done one nice hike from Indian Cove up into the higher areas of the park. Much like Disneyland, this “rest day” was more tiring than any of our climbing days to date.
Climbing here is very low-key, so we have had plenty of time to catch up on sleep (from the last few years I think!!), study Biology (Megan is taking a distance education course), and learn the fiddle (Dave). We’ve also discovered backgammon, and played many games during the long winter evenings.
With the help of our Outback Oven, we did not miss out on a classic Christmas dinner. We successfully cooked a delicious turkey breast, accompanied by cranberry, mashed potatoes and carrots. With pumpkin pie for dessert and a bottle of red wine we were quite festive.
Christmas Day was a bit windy and chilly, so we didn’t climb much, but Boxing Day was windless and warm, so we cancelled a planned rest day and went climbing again. Despite our early worries Megan’s hand/wrist is behaving pretty well, and it held up fine when Dave’s bad memory sent her on a route that was a bit too hard for this stage of her rehab. As mentioned in earlier entries, routes in Joshua Tree tend to be hard for their grade, and can also vary quite a bit from route to route. This is at least partly due to the friable nature of the rock and the fact that the guidebook hasn’t been updated since Dave was last here (1994).
Disneyland
After spending a peaceful week climbing in Joshua Tree, where on a typical day we would see two or three cars and three or four people, we felt able to once again brave the freeways of LA to go to Disneyland.
Disneyland is about as opposite to our campsite as we could have imagined, with hordes of people, parking lots devoted to strollers and filled with every possible shape and colour of plastic… However it was more than a little entertaining. Although there were a few crowds due to the Christmas season, with the Disney system of “fastpass”, essentially the opportunity to reserve a spot on a ride and therefore not stand in line for more than a few moments, we were able to scoot around the whole park and enjoy the rides. Big Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain were some faves for daytime. In the evening they had holiday fireworks (which shortened the ride lines) and so we spent the time riding the Matterhorn over and over until our tummies no longer agreed! We were afforded amazing views of the fireworks as we speed round steep corners on the ride, pretty cool. Although Dave was a little bit apprehensive about the Disney experience before we arrived, however, I took his hysterical laughter on many of the rides as a clear sign he was enjoying himself…We didn’t feel out of place as “grown-ups” without children as there were many other couples our age running through the park for their next shot at Big Thunder Mountain.
We didn’t meet too many Disney characters, even though we even went to Goofy’s house and knocked on the front door. He wasn’t home.
Our most visited ride was the Buzz Lightyear “Space Ranger” ride, where you are provided with a “space pistol” and told to hit as many targets during the ride as possible. You were able to see your running score and then given a space ranger “level” at the end, enticing you to return over and over to try and better your score. Of course we did just that. They also take very silly pictures of you and let you email them to yourself.
If I ever go to Disneyland again I would bring a pedometer and try to measure how far is walked during a long day there. In total, we spent about 13 hours, mostly running from ride to ride. We figure we walked at least 25km in total during those hours!
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Heading to warmer climes
Leaving Vancouver, our plan was to drive slowly down to the LA area. And drive slowly we did, with a record time to LA of 3.5 days! But we're not in a hurry. Also we did have a minor detour of driving the great circle route around Washington due to a closure on the I5... During the drive we managed to not eat any fast food - this also might be a record. The US highway system is
pretty good, with rest areas set up every 50 miles or so that have bathrooms, covered picnic tables, running water and even free coffee sometimes. Not surprisingly, the coffee was not up to Megan's standards :). However, we did appreciate being able to cook our own meals at the picnic areas.
We got to LA on Sunday afternoon and found ourselves travelling on a freeway system that had more cars in motion at the same time than perhaps there are cars in total in Vancouver. Yikes. After two hours of neverending freeways, we opted to head straight to Joshua Tree National Park (about due east of Palm Springs) for some peaceful camping and climbing. We'll brave LA traffic for Disneyland next week...
Although Dave has spent considerable time in Joshua Tree, it was Megan's first sight of the park. Wow! Our campsite is nestled in a shallow canyon of brown and gold granite, there is actually a climb right out of our campsite. It's easy to see how people come here and have trouble leaving!
As an example of how plush our camping setup is, we baked a pizza for dinner yesterday. Tonight we're having Megan's signature thai curry. Roughing it? What? Although we do have to eat a bit quickly, since evenings are slightly chilly. Today's temperature ranged from "Dave climbing with no shirt" to "wearing 2 fleeces, a down vest, and a down jacket while playing board games at camp".
Today was our third climbing day, and by far our fullest - we climbed more routes today than the previous two combined. No sense starting off in a hurry when you have 8 months to play...
J-Tree is peaceful and beautiful, very good for the soul. It can be rather hard on the ego, though. 5.4 (a grade that most 5 year olds can climb in Squamish) can be really hard here. Also, Dave toproped and fell off a route he soloed when he was 19. Youth is wasted on the young!
Our plan is for a few more days of climbing, then a brief return to LA (Disneyland!!!) and then ten more days of climbing in J-Tree before driving north to Red Rocks/Vegas to meet Chis, Brock & co. for New Years.
pretty good, with rest areas set up every 50 miles or so that have bathrooms, covered picnic tables, running water and even free coffee sometimes. Not surprisingly, the coffee was not up to Megan's standards :). However, we did appreciate being able to cook our own meals at the picnic areas.
We got to LA on Sunday afternoon and found ourselves travelling on a freeway system that had more cars in motion at the same time than perhaps there are cars in total in Vancouver. Yikes. After two hours of neverending freeways, we opted to head straight to Joshua Tree National Park (about due east of Palm Springs) for some peaceful camping and climbing. We'll brave LA traffic for Disneyland next week...
Although Dave has spent considerable time in Joshua Tree, it was Megan's first sight of the park. Wow! Our campsite is nestled in a shallow canyon of brown and gold granite, there is actually a climb right out of our campsite. It's easy to see how people come here and have trouble leaving!
As an example of how plush our camping setup is, we baked a pizza for dinner yesterday. Tonight we're having Megan's signature thai curry. Roughing it? What? Although we do have to eat a bit quickly, since evenings are slightly chilly. Today's temperature ranged from "Dave climbing with no shirt" to "wearing 2 fleeces, a down vest, and a down jacket while playing board games at camp".
Today was our third climbing day, and by far our fullest - we climbed more routes today than the previous two combined. No sense starting off in a hurry when you have 8 months to play...
J-Tree is peaceful and beautiful, very good for the soul. It can be rather hard on the ego, though. 5.4 (a grade that most 5 year olds can climb in Squamish) can be really hard here. Also, Dave toproped and fell off a route he soloed when he was 19. Youth is wasted on the young!
Our plan is for a few more days of climbing, then a brief return to LA (Disneyland!!!) and then ten more days of climbing in J-Tree before driving north to Red Rocks/Vegas to meet Chis, Brock & co. for New Years.
Our Token Winter
We flew into Vancouver on a rainy day in November. Surprise!
We visited with Todd & Max, then our parents and Granny on the island, then returned to Vancouver to Dave's Dad's place to do a bit more visiting and start prep for the driving portion of our travels. In ten days in Vancouver in December we saw rain, sleet, snow and freezing rain. We packed the van rather quickly!
We visited with Todd & Max, then our parents and Granny on the island, then returned to Vancouver to Dave's Dad's place to do a bit more visiting and start prep for the driving portion of our travels. In ten days in Vancouver in December we saw rain, sleet, snow and freezing rain. We packed the van rather quickly!
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Sunshine & Futbol
Our last long-distance bus ride was a quick and easy 19 hours from Puerto Madryn to the warmth of Buenos Aires. We've decided that someone needs to start an Argentine-style bus service in Canada. It'd be way simpler for short-to-medium trips than flying (especially with all the hassles and confusion in the airports these days) and not only cheaper and more comfortable but much more environmentally friendly. Who'd want to fly to Calgary cattle-class when you could take a sleeper bus for half the price and wake up to a view of the Rockies?
Like our last trip to Buenos Aires, we had big plans for what we'd spend our days doing, and again we shelved most of those plans in favour of wandering the city and hanging out in the many amazing parks and plazas. We stayed in San Telmo neighborhood this time, which put us in walking distance of the old harbour and a whole different set of shops and parks. And a pretty good tenedor libre vegetarian buffet on Avenida Florida, which is like a much busier pedestrian-only version of Robson St in Vancouver.
The old port was mostly empty when we wandered thru, but we did see one really interesting ship. The Sarmiento was the flagship of the Argentine navy for over 40 years, from the late 1800s thru to 1946. It is a 3-masted frigate with coal-fueled steam engines, a ship style that neither of us had ever seen before.
Puerto Madero also has a very interesting bridge, oddly named Puente de las Mujeres(womens' bridge). It is a one-armed suspension bridge that swings open to allow boats through. We both thought it odd that such a phallic construction was the womens' bridge :)
Throughout our trip we've visited many churches, ruins, and other locations of religious significance. On our last full day in Argentina we visited Estadio Monumental Antonio V. Liberti, aka River Plate Stadium, for a taste of the other major religion: futbol - Argentina vs. Bolivia in the FIFA World Cup eliminations! We went with a tour, since we'd heard that games can get extremely rowdy and it's safer to travel with a large group. Fortunately there were no problems at the game besides the incredible heat, which was dealt with by two pairs of firemen who sprayed the stands with a huge amount of water. Our seats were in the shade, so we stayed cooler and dry, but the cheap seats at the ends (the most crowded sections) got sprayed for around 10 minutes by fire hoses!!!
The relatively peaceful nature of the crowd was probably largely to do with the fact that Argentina dominated for most of the game (final score was 3-0 for Argentina) but the 100 or so cops in riot gear probably helped too. Also, the Bolivia fans were all together in a cage. Really - 10 foot high wire walls topped by two spools of razor wire! The Bolivia fans were outnumbered 10:1 or so, but they did their best to match the 65,000 or so Argentina fans in volume - at least until Argentina's third goal.
Our last morning was spent at the San Telmo market picking up a few last-minute gifts before we headed to the airport. After Argentine bus service the Air Canada economy-class trip home was a bit shocking, but we did get some spectacular views of the mountains as we flew back from Toronto to Vancouver.
Like our last trip to Buenos Aires, we had big plans for what we'd spend our days doing, and again we shelved most of those plans in favour of wandering the city and hanging out in the many amazing parks and plazas. We stayed in San Telmo neighborhood this time, which put us in walking distance of the old harbour and a whole different set of shops and parks. And a pretty good tenedor libre vegetarian buffet on Avenida Florida, which is like a much busier pedestrian-only version of Robson St in Vancouver.
The old port was mostly empty when we wandered thru, but we did see one really interesting ship. The Sarmiento was the flagship of the Argentine navy for over 40 years, from the late 1800s thru to 1946. It is a 3-masted frigate with coal-fueled steam engines, a ship style that neither of us had ever seen before.
Puerto Madero also has a very interesting bridge, oddly named Puente de las Mujeres(womens' bridge). It is a one-armed suspension bridge that swings open to allow boats through. We both thought it odd that such a phallic construction was the womens' bridge :)
Throughout our trip we've visited many churches, ruins, and other locations of religious significance. On our last full day in Argentina we visited Estadio Monumental Antonio V. Liberti, aka River Plate Stadium, for a taste of the other major religion: futbol - Argentina vs. Bolivia in the FIFA World Cup eliminations! We went with a tour, since we'd heard that games can get extremely rowdy and it's safer to travel with a large group. Fortunately there were no problems at the game besides the incredible heat, which was dealt with by two pairs of firemen who sprayed the stands with a huge amount of water. Our seats were in the shade, so we stayed cooler and dry, but the cheap seats at the ends (the most crowded sections) got sprayed for around 10 minutes by fire hoses!!!
The relatively peaceful nature of the crowd was probably largely to do with the fact that Argentina dominated for most of the game (final score was 3-0 for Argentina) but the 100 or so cops in riot gear probably helped too. Also, the Bolivia fans were all together in a cage. Really - 10 foot high wire walls topped by two spools of razor wire! The Bolivia fans were outnumbered 10:1 or so, but they did their best to match the 65,000 or so Argentina fans in volume - at least until Argentina's third goal.
Our last morning was spent at the San Telmo market picking up a few last-minute gifts before we headed to the airport. After Argentine bus service the Air Canada economy-class trip home was a bit shocking, but we did get some spectacular views of the mountains as we flew back from Toronto to Vancouver.
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