A day at Lisa Falls

 My brother Bryce came in town for Labor Day weekend and we were able to spend one day climbing with Mark and Tori at Lisa Falls in Little Cottonwood Canyon. I'd never climbed there before and it was pretty fun. The weather was nice and being next to a little waterfall made it extra nice. Some moderate sport routes that were a lot slabbier than they looked kept us entertained most the day. Then we went around the corner to climb a mixed route that was a lot harder than it looked and even got to top rope a ridiculously hard route up a blocky face. The moves Tori's doing in the last few pictures are way harder than they look.

Leading Steort's Ridge with Andy

I've climbed Steort's Ridge so many times I can't count them all. But I was finally able to go and lead the entire thing. All 3 pitches. That last one had eluded me but I finally did and even ran it out at the top. My brother Andy came with me and made it an interesting day. At least we made it out safe even if we had to leave behind my beloved yellow mastercam I bought just for my Squamish trip last year. The weirdest stuff kept happening. First he dropped the nut tool at the beginning, then the cam got stuck, then he left the whole anchor behind including my ATC so he had to give me a sketchy lowering job so I could try and get the stuff, then the old solo climber came up behind me and gave me some gear of our that the party behind us had. (at first we thought Andy had dropped that too, but it turns out the other people took it out of my pack at the bottom on accident) We never got the cam out, but everything else worked out ok. And I lead it all so I was happy. That's Andy down there working on the stuck cam. I will give him credit for finding and bringing up my headband when it blew off my head. I can't see climbing without one with all my "chicken" hair in my face.

...if I don't invest in a gear sling soon my harness is going to slide right off my hips from all the gear clipped to it. I'm saggin!

"See you on the other side Ray" (...Bobby)

Big Sigh....it's always sad to say goodbye to a really good climbing partner. There's lot of good climbers but once in awhile you find one that is just such a great fit. Style, ability, patience, knowledge, sense of humor... While I'm happy to see Bobby get married and move to Washington with April (who is one of the nicest girls I've ever met) I'm sad to see him leave Salt Lake. He has been a great climbing mentor to me and has helped me improve my climbing by leaps and bounds just by his confidence alone. We had a great road trip to Red Rocks together, some good gym sessions, a day out climbing with Andy, a few days of intensive trad leading lessons to prepare me for Squamish, as well as many other days climbing the local crags after work. And last of all, he managed to find the time for one last day of really great climbing in Little Cottonwood Canyon together just days before he left. We'd tried to go with April the week before but got rained out of the canyon. But not before he convinced me to do my first Little Cottonwood lead climb up Bushwhack Crack! (that was a huge climbing milestone for me in itself. Being the first climb I attempted in the canyon two years ago and having sat down crying at the bottom because I couldn't get my feet off the ground...I've come a long way to say the least) It felt odd to have Bobby clean that route for me instead of the usual way around...For our last day of climbing...it was similar to our first. We met around noon went up to Bushwhack which he lead one last time. We linked over to the base of The Hook which I got to lead...I love that climb.Then we went up the Hook Variation, just like so many times before, it didn't feel like an ending. We both had to get going but just couldn't resist the perfect weather and the solitude up at the top of the rock and convinced ourselves to do two more routes. We went up the second pitch of The Hook which is an odd wide crack, then top roped the slab climb Hook Direct. It didn't hit me till the last rappel down when I said to him his usual line, "See you on the other side Ray..." that it was the end. Such a bittersweet day of perfect climbing. (can you name the movie that quote comes from???)

Maple Canyon Climbing

When you start climbing you slowly start to pick up on the names of climbing destinations. Some are across the world in places like Pakistan and Italy, some are closer but just as classic like Squamish B.C. or Joshua Tree and The Gunks. It's really fun to be a climber from Utah because as these world class destination names come up you start to realize that many of them are in our state! We are really spoiled here in Utah with such amazing stuff practically in our backyards. One of these places is Maple Canyon. Maybe not as widely known as Indian Creek and Zion, it's fairly well known and popular. I'd heard about it a lot and finally got a chance to head down there for the day. Mostly it was Spencer and I doing the climbing so we did as many routes as we could fit in. His wife came and played around with their boys and took some pictures. The rock is cobble stone and hard to explain but trust me it's weird. It wasn't my favorite either. It took me a long time to get used to and when I did, it just reminded me of climbing in the gym. Don't get me wrong, it was really fun and pretty and unusual, but there's lots of other places I'd rather climb. Maybe if I ever get really hardcore and like climbing overhanging stuff I'll come back and see if my opinion changes. These pictures below are a series Spencer's wife took of me going up one route. Climbing, clipping the anchors and coming back down. Sort of fun I thought.

Climbing The Egg

Jake was in town for a few days and we got to spend a whole day climbing!!!! Just like the old days. We went up to a place in Little Cottonwood Canyon called The Egg and climbed all afternoon till dark. The weather was perfect sunny and cool, the climbs were challenging and unique, we had the place almost all to ourselves except for two really nice climbers who we shared a rope with to rappel, the squirrels didn't steal our snacks and I flicked the giant tick on me away before he bored into my skin. All in all, a pretty perfect day of climbing.

Racking up to climb...

Jake's up there somewhere, can you find him? My shadow giving an excellent belay... My turn. Looking up, getting ready to climb and clean the route... Almost to the top! Both of us safely at the top of the rock... Back at the bottom for a snack before going up another one...

This is Annie. We dodn't know her, but we shared her rope to come down. She was cool and while climbing next to us made a pretty cool climbing photo.

Adventures in Babysitting

While Jake was in town he agreed to babysit Alicia's kids for an entire weekend...and then asked me to help him out. It was actually pretty fun and I was glad to help out. Granted I hang out with these kids a lot so I was a little more ok with it than I might have been with someone else's kids. There wasn't any serious drama, just some fun field trips.

The first day we went to the coppermine. My grandfather worked at the mine on the trains (before the big yellow trucks) so I'd gone to the visitor center a few times as a kid. They'd recently redone it and it was really cool. For dinner we stopped at McDonald's. I'm not one to judge parents who take their kids to McDonald's, just as long as they don't go all the time. That place was actually pretty easy and fun when you have three kids with you.

Bedtime was uneventful as well as Saturday morning cartoons. Somehow Jake was able to recycle a bowl of cereal and feed it to both the boys. It was impressive. Then we spent the day hiking in Big Cottonwood Canyon along the river. I'd been sending pictures of the boys climbing up boulders to Jake at school and it was fun to show him in person what natural climbers his nephews are. I think he was impressed.

And Jake got to try out the new baby backpack too...

We found a small waterfall where there was a minor breakdown by Quinn. That was our fault though, I think we didn't keep him supplied with adequate snacks. What do I know, I don't have kids... Dinner, baths, and bedtime went off without a hitch the second night in a row and before we knew it the kids were asleep and Alicia and James were home from their relaxing weekend away. It was fun to tag along with Uncle Jake and give him a hand and do Alicia and James a favor too.