Wednesday, April 7, 2010

"Tell me some adventure stories!"



Well Ok. Before I came home, I went on an epic roadtrip. What's new? I packed my little Saturn full of climbing gear and, unable to sleep, left the house at 4am. I drove through the Angeles mountains at sunrise. By noon I'd reached Davis, California, home of Lauren Austin, my dear friend and teammate with whom I raced k2 in 2008.



Davis is a lovely little windy farming/ college town, with Yosemite to the East and San Francisco to the West. I instantly felt at home, which is cool because I was actually quite far from both New York and San Diego. Good people= home.



The following week I headed to Joshua Tree with Ian, and 20 other people from UC Davis.


Joshua Tree is a magical place.




Ian and me, grinning after having climbed til nightfall our first night in the park


We set crash pads below the bouldering routes and spotted people on climbs... but I kept cracking up because I thought the spotters looked like worshippers



Fem's a-climbin


Ian climbed Tarantula, a 5.12c. If you're curious what he's holding on to, my theory is sticky finger pads.


This was my proudest accomplishment of the week: Illusion Dweller, a 5.10c crack.


This route is called Sexy Grandma.



On the way home we stopped to sit in fields of wildflowers.


And you can imagine how happy I was!


PS if you're interested, you can check out these awesome videos of Ian (and others) climbing really hard bouldering problems!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You know you're good when you've conquered el capitan!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Capitan

Anonymous said...

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