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!

A check off the bucket list

What did you want to be when you grew up?

This is one of my favorite questions ever. I love asking it to people and is one of my standard first date get to know you questions (along with how do you like your steaks cooked.) I love the answers and think it says a lot about someone in what they wanted and how it compares to where they're at now. My answer would have been a science teacher…hey that still is the answer. I never really waivered, I'm fairly reliable when it comes to stuff like that. I know what I want. But that doesn't mean I will say what I want. I had lots of other answers when people asked me that question, just to spice things up. I had some long sprees of Taxi Driver, Heart Surgeon, and Hell's Angel. That's right, I liked to tell people that when I grew up I was going to join a biker gang. I even went so far as to put some Harley Davidson posters up in my room. The funny part of it was that I'd never ridden on a motorcycle. On my 18th birthday Norm took me riding on his scooter (which you have to admit isn't much different when you're riding in the back) but that was as close as I'd come. I think holding out paid off too, because I was finally able to take my first motorcycle ride and it was perfect. We rode David's Harley up Big Cottonwood Canyon on a summery Sunday afternoon. I got to wear a real Harley helmet and leather jacket. If it'd been just a little colder up at the top I could have put on the leather chaps that we'd brought along just in case. That's right chaps, and not the cowboy kind, though they're cool too. Everything looked better without a roof over my head and it reminded me of driving the Fiat with the top down. Plus I was instantly admitted to the coolest club of subtle head nodding and sly two finger waves to all the other Harley riders we passed. That might have been the best part, but it's hard to really choose a best part since it was all so much fun. And what does David want me to do in exchange for this service…take him geocaching. I totally won on that trade. Even better if we take the bike caching.

A snowy spring hike to Donut Falls

Alicia and I hiked up to Donut Falls with her kids…the snow is really sticking around late this year as you can tell and Alicia and I didn't make the best choice in foot gear either. I baked some donut muffins to eat at the falls, Alicia made sandwiches, Zoe got put in the backpack and we headed up the trail with the boys. Navigating the unexpected snowbanks in our sandals and stopping to examine all the worms in the runoff slowed us down a bit, but it's not like we were trying to get anywhere fast. In the end me and the boys could just barely get close enough to see the falls in the distance. The snowmelt runoff was so high that it was going over the donut hole as well as through it. Still a fun hike and a day out in the mountains with friends. (and sorry Jake, but Alicia's better at this kind of (baby)backpacking that you were)

The buttermilk donut muffins!!!!!!

"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.