January 13, 2007

Dustin Good and i set out to make a winter ascent on crowsnest mountian. it was a little chilly with an average temature of -13 degrees celsius. snow shoes where much appreciated on this trip. we made really good time to the tree line following an old ski trail. we went up a little to far to the left we went through some drifts where i was actually digging our path as we walked because it was to soft and to deep to walk through. we wound up to far to the climbers left on the seven sisters and then traversing up high over to the chimeny. since i had never climbed it and it has been 5.5 years since Dustin had climbed it we were a little hazzey on the route. we eventually got to what we were pretty sure was the chimeny and started up. we dodged around the ice and first and then kicked steps into the hard snow and climbed up and up until we could no longer kick steps and strapped on our crampons. then made light work of the snow and we carried on up till we stumbled across the chain and followed it up as best we could with frozen wet gloves as we could. then an easy hard snow pack to a 5' ice section and the top of the chimeny was ours. the top of the mountain was every windsept and posed no real avalnche danger. from where we were there reamained only a seemingly simple walk to the top. we were unable to complete it due to being short on time which was primarily used up traversing around from the seven sisters. there were some short good looking ice climbs on the even sisters and a few on crow. there were some that looked like in a little better fatter year they might be really good in the 5-6 range or maybe mixed but very cool. the descent we went down to the climbers right of the chomeny which maybe really steep in the summer but was drifted hugely with snow and we desended that and then tried to follow the regualr train off. we only got off track a couple of times and the drifts of snow where very helpful and forgiving. we came down some beautiful snow slopes that would have been a cake walk in the snow shoes. oh well, we will know for next time. Crow is apparently a fairly safe mountain as far as avalanches go so it is a go winter objective and would be fun to get it done now. could be a really good year to get through the chimney provided the snow that was coming down when we were descending and that night never all drifted into the chimney or something, which is unlikely. if you go bring crampons, 2 axes per person and a little rope and pickets sure wouldn't hurt. and ice screw or two or more might be a good idea. as far as rock pro goes, you should be fine with out. i guess if you have the everything else you could throw a rack of pins in, it wouldn't hurt.

jason

December 31

Joshua Tree National Park California. wow what a place. at first it seems to be a really ugly desert, but once you have been there for a while your opinion just might change. by the end of the day i didn't know what to do i thought it was so amazing. the rock climbs are endless. i have never seen so many lines in my life. Russ and Becky came with me and belayed me which was really nice but with a second i had to climb everythign i climbed twice. my fist line wasn't all that straight so i had to climb till my rope had to much drag for me to be able to fight it and build and anchor and ower down and clean the route, then climb up and past the anchor then build another one and lower down and clean the gear and the anchor(which was all gear anchors) and climb up again. repeating this process 4 or 5 times on the first climb. which got really tiring. the walk off the top took a little bit to find but once i found it was really fun. there was a valley created by two mounds of rocks which gave some shade and this resulted in some green. the Joshua trees and other plants all mixed in with these giant light colored boulders was realy amazing. then i climbed a little climb on a boulder i had seen earlier that day and attempted another one but just had the energy to do it.

the rock. oh wow the rock for a guy that has only really ever climbed around here he jsut never knew what to do. it was so solid, although kinda hallow sounding in placed which never made for an amazing feeling but it was just so grippy that it seemed ok too. wow it is kinda like really course sand paper or like a whole bunch of little pebbles glued onto a surface. you can smear some amazing stuff and hand jambs hold like you wouldn't bleieve. even really junky ones.

i also tried taping my hands for the first time and i am sold. it is so genius. it saves them so much. so if you have the old problem of loosing layers of skin from the rock get a little athletic tape and save yourself some pain.

The camping spots are really gorgeous too. there are probably lots of really good ones but the one that i saw that i really really liked was Jumbo rocks campsite. if you are heading down well i should be with you but if i am not that is a good one. i also got some recomends of good climbs to do and what not by a couple from Washington that i met there who i gave my phone number to in hopes of maybe doing some ice climbing wiht them up here one day.

Now we get to the climbing road trip part of the blog. lets go. i wanna do a loop down to j tree, up to yosemite, squamish and maybe skaha. it was be really quite amazing. so if anyone is at all interested in that in the least let me know and maybe we can set somethign up. also there is alot of good mountain biking all down there too so we could do was crazy awsome trip if people were interested that is for sure.

December 26

so this was alittle while ago but i haven't had a chance to update. so at 5:30 am i picked up Melissa and Ruth and we headed back to kings creek for a early morning ice climb, to be back before noon. we hiked in with head lamps and got the crampons on just as the sun was coming out. it was perfect timing. for my first ice lead of the season i felt alright. got a little pumped out with my fisrt screw, but then got things under control and life wasn't so bad at all. the top at least inch was pretty rotten all over and the middle was really really plastic. so i lead off to the side and then just set up the anchor over the plastic stuff. it really fun and the girls liked it. not much better than plastic ice to learn how to climb. we each got in a couple of climbs before i pulled the ropes. it was just a beautful day and we beat the rush so it was perfect.