Sunday 29 August 2010

Crack- tastic Domes!



Sunday 22nd - Friday 27th August - Toulumne, Yosemite National Park
View of Half Dome


On the Sunday morning we drove into the Park and headed to Toulumne Meadows.  Here we managed to get the equipment we needed and 5 nights in the campsite - awesome!  In the afternoon, we headed off to do our 1st route:  West Crack on Duff Dome.  60m pitches of crack on pristine granite - wow!  Felt the altitude kicking in as I puffed my way to the top!
Simon marking the summit of Daff


Next day, Regular Route on Fairview.  A classic American climb.  Team Jones were hot on the heels of the American team above and speeding along above the Taiwanese team below!  Think I've got the hang of hand-jamming now!
That's Fairview Dome.  Our route went right up the middle
The bottom of Regular Route.  The crack goes on and on


The descent off Fairview, you just walk down the Dome.
Back at camp, we cooked ourselves a tasty meal and put all our food in the bear box as instructed.  Unfortunately, we can't have closed it properly:  Si got up for a midnight pee and discovered the bear box doors to be wide open and most of our food scattered across the ground or gone!  Yogi had eaten our bran flakes, biscuits, trail mix, tortillas, muesli bars, bagels and banana flakes. He had mauled the apples, had a scratch and sniff at the jerky and rice before making off with our montgomery jack cheese (but left the crackers).  To make matters worse, he had summed up his opinion of us, by leaving a large, brown present in the middle of our camp!

Lost My Heart in San Francisco

Well - it's a pretty windy day here in Lee Vining.  I'm sat on a wind swept veranda in the Sierra Nevada, having almost lost the will to live after several cups of coffee and multiple failed internet connections.  So here's a brief overview of what we've been up to:

Thursday 19th - Saturday 21st August.  San Franscisco
Epic day of sight seeing.  Hanging of the sides of cable cars (like old fashioned trams, but connected to a cable moving under the road), views of the painted houses, a be-fogged bridge and lone Alcatraz, and sleeping sealions.  I dragged Simon to SF MOMA under protest, but he was reconciled to modern art by the remains of an aid-climbing performance art piece.

Saturday, we went to collect our Minibago - the campervan we've hired for this trip.
The Dark Star!
After a disappointing trip to REI (Sports Shop) we had to scrap our itinerary as our plans were foiled by a lack of guide books, so we decided to head to Yosemite and hope for the best.

Thursday 19 August 2010

Leaving, on a Jet Plane

So this is it, we've finished work, sold the car and van, moved out and had a number of leaving parties to say goodbye to family and good friends.  We've re-packed and re-weighed our bags several times so that they're just under the weight limit and now there's nothing left to do except double-check we've packed our passports and book the taxi for the airport.

12kg of climbing gear inc 23 cams!

We're taking 55kg of gear each to the States and shipping another 100kg to New Zealand, and there was still enough stuff left behind to fill this removal lorry!  What is it all?!

Another rained out leaving party!