Camp Life

It’s a funny thing about climbing trips – the better the playing is, the longer you spend not playing. We’re back in Red Rocks, and the long, hot days in the canyons are leading to lots of days chilling out indoors, primarily at the library. Over the last 4.5 months in the van we’ve played a lot of scrabble and backgammon, and picked up a few hobbies that would probably never have occurred to us in our “normal” lives. Megan is on her second book of crossword puzzles, and Dave (taking advantage of the miles of cord and rope in our van) has been learning the fine art of decorative knotting. A rope we retired early in the trip has become a small rug, a belt, and an assortment of less useful items. Scraps of accessory cord and climbing-rope core decorate many of the small items cluttering Moby the minivan.


string theory

We’ve also accomplished some van ‘farming’ with several small crops of sprouts. Our successful crops were hard-won, our first few attempts were foiled by overnight freezes – sprouts don’t like to grow in freezing temperatures… Generally, we have eaten quite well considering we only have a tiny cooler and a camp stove and don’t always have access to fresh food. The Outback Oven given to us by Dave’s mum has greatly added to our cooking possibilities – baked mahi-mahi was a recent dinner highlight. However, upon our return to Vancouver and ‘normal’ life we don’t foresee PB&J sandwiches or oatmeal being top of our list for food! Cooking is generally not a problem, with the exception of cooking during a high wind. Wind really does blow when you’re cooking on an open flame stove!! We figure if we had to title our trip it might be something along the lines of “Cooking in the Lee of the Van/Outhouse/Any available windbreak”. This has been a source of some frustration and occasionally the inspiration to go out for cheap Mexican!

We have, somewhat predictably, gone through a small mountain of books and magazines, taking advantage of library sales in several states. CBC podcasts and the thousands of songs on our iPod have helped pass the time, but the Harry Potter books have been the listening favourite. We’re halfway through book 6 now, which is well over 100 hours of magical entertainment. Books on tape are great for winding down at the end of the day, but we have a habit of waking up wrapped in headphones, and Megan has had a few dreams where she was attending Hogwarts. Speaking of sleep: as the days get longer we’re sleeping a bit less, but 10 hours a night is still pretty common – especially after 12-hour climbing days in the Red Rocks canyons. Early in the trip, when days were shorter, we’d usually spend at least 12 hours in our two-sleeping-bag cocoon (or even longer when our water bottles froze in the tent).

We’ve been taking lots of pictures, mostly in bursts as we get to new places with new scenery. We promise to cull a few of the 100+ ‘gator pictures Dave took in the swamps before we make anyone sit through a slide show. The latest photo-favourite has been the desert wildflowers near Red Rock. The heavy rains this spring have led to the most amazing colours in the desert - and you can only take so many climbing pictures anyway…



Our latest ‘camp’ activity is a huge novelty: TV. We got a hotel room to chill and recharge before heading into Yosemite. The howling wind in the Red Rocks campground hasn’t been conducive to rest, so we opted for a night in a bed before we enter the ‘nylon ghetto’ of Camp 4. In keeping with that, our poor tent is looking a bit tattered. The 50+ mph winds over the last week tore loose one of the anchor points of our ‘4-season’ tent and flipped it over, which led to tears in the fly. We will definitely be having a chat with the manufacturer when we get back to Vancouver.