July 4th, 2005
Everyday we (April, I, Vince, Tammy, Marcus, Morgan, and Senga) rush. We are always in a hurry and have a million things to do. Now, it’s time to put things in slow motion because we are on vacation! On Thursday night we left Tucson, well after loading up on coffee and driving back across town to get our iPod, which we forgot. Eventually we were off, heading through Phoenix, loading up on more coffee and reaching our first nights destination of Priest’s Draw (near Flagstaff). We set up camp around 1:30AM. I was way too wired on coffee so I stayed up trying to take some pictures of the star filled sky. It was incredible. I think I captured some good pictures for just having our little digital with us. We’ll post them all when we return.
Friday was spent driving all day. We stopped at the Sunset Crater National Monument outside of Flagstaff and walked through a pretty unique lava flow. After about an hour we got back on the road. We made stops all along the Arizona, Utah border. The scenery along the entire drive (89) was beautiful. The sky was mostly hazy due to fires in AZ and Utah but made for interesting photos. Our estimate of getting to Maple by about 5PM was way off. Our actual arrival time was like 11PM. All the sites were filled so we set up in a clearing knowing that we’d probably get yelled at in the morning. “Who cares, it’s 4th of July weekend,” we justified.
On Saturday when we woke a couple of park hosts yelled at us and mentioned we couldn’t camp where we were camping. No big deal because we found a free camping site up the road and let them know our plan. ha ha. The whole ordeal only cost us about 6 bucks. Oh well, we didn’t care. After a few hours we were off to the climbs…
We’ll have to compose a huge summary of the climbing but in short Maple Canyon is super fun and very different than any other place in the country. We spent two days so far getting used to the climbing but we are already on fire, sending and ticking off tons of climbs. My finger is feeling good (knock on wood) after ticking 22 routes in two days. Ha ha. I can’t resist. Everyone else has huge numbers of climbs beneath their belts too. Of the 5 of us (humans) we have a nice rotation between who belays and who climbs.
Notable sends to date are Marcus ticking off his second 5.11 at the Pipeline and Paul’s send of this 5.12c also at the Pipeline (sorry, no names on these yet…I guess they’ve been recently bolted). Notable whips to date is Tammy’s air on the Lost Letter (5.11b) at the Maple Corridor….during which she ripped a gaping hole in the ass of her pants….ha!
Today is a rest day. We’re in Salt Lake right now – getting our coffee fix at Starbucks. We’re planning on heading up to see the ski slopes and checking out some of the surrounding canyons. Then tomorrow – back to business. Awwwe yeah.
posted by pjv
June 30th, 2005
This year’s 4th of July adventure takes us to Maple Canyon, Utah. We leave tonight…actually, in about 5 minutes. We’re waiting for our friend Marcus to finish his thesis and hand it in so we can drive by the University of Arizona with our hatchback open and he can jump in. We plan on driving to Flagstaff tonight and finding a place to camp. Then tomorrow is “tourist day” before the climbing madness begins. We’re hoping to swing by Zion without melting like popsicles for a quick peek. I’ve never been to Utah. Neither has Morgie. Wooo!
Myself, Paul, Marcus, Tammy, Vince and the two pups: We’re psyched!
See you at Maple…..
posted by arr
June 26th, 2005
Yep, we finally made it to Jack’s Canyon, finally! Miles, Matt, April and I loaded up the car after work on Friday and headed out.
We made a quick stop in Phoenix to pick up a new (nice and thick) thread. I decided to go with a more expensive than usual 10.5mm, 60m, non-dry rope. We picked it up from REI on our way, with our GIFT CERTIFICATE.
THANK YOU… CHRIS, ERIN, and JASON!!!
After picking up the rope we met up with some of Mile’s friends at a Thai place near Scottsdale, AZ. It was really awesome. April and I have been in search of a place that serves some Pad Thai that gives Spice Island Tea House (our favorite Pittsburgh Thai resturant) some competition. This definately does. It was very good. Of course I forgot the name…someone post it in a comment.
After the Thai place we were back on the road. Wait, after a quick coffee break at Starbucks we were back on the road. The road to Jack’s from Phoenix was very uninteresting at night except for THE ELK! Geeze. Every couple of miles I had to slam on my breaks to avoid scaring huge elk that were right on the side of the road. Around 1:30AM we managed to find the dirt road that leads in to Jack’s Canyon. We set up camp and quickly went to bed.
Saturday and Sunday were spent enjoying the cool temps in the shade and the super fun climbs. We all had a really fun time. I sat out both days due to a tweaked middle finger. No biggie. Talking with Matt, April and Miles was great. Plus, little Morgie and I played all kinds of games. Check out our pictures. Notice how green everything is in the Canyon. This is yet another place that I can’t believe is in Arizona.
posted by pjv
June 12th, 2005
Man…I’m so tired right now. I’m going to be quick and say that we had another awesome weekend. April’s father is in town visiting with us while doing business and we managed to squeeze in some time to head up to Mt. Lemmon today. We got in some awesome sport climbing and a little bouldering. Temperatures were perfect at 6500 feet! Vince and I got on a route called “Air Monsters 5.12a.” YIKES! I realized what many months of bouldering does to you…it makes you WIGGED out! Check out our photos but they don’t do the justice. Get on the route for yourself and see why it gets the name. It was sooooo much fun.
posted by pjv
June 7th, 2005
On Sunday we decided to stay local and hit up Mt. Lemmon. Courtney, Marcus, April and I headed up to Windy Point and spent the day mixing it up. We managed to do some trad, sport and bouldering all in the same day! Overall it was just a super fun day and we’ve decided to mix it up a lot more on future climbing trips. Perhaps we’ll set our sights on something like “ Levitation 29.” ha ha. Stay tuned.
posted by pjv
June 1st, 2005
Sunday Paul and I spent the day hanging out at the house….a rare occurance for us, so it was quite nice. We even treated ourselves and slept in, haha…till 7:30am.
Sunday night we threw a little fiesta at La Casa de April & Paul. Tequila and a hottub – now what makes a better party than that?
Everyone crashed at our place (except Dan who BIKED home at 3am…crazy nut). Next morning, Paul and I turned betty-homemaker-style and fired up some home cookin’ for everyone: Eggs, bacon, biscuits and gravy. Yum. Then Paul, myself, Vince, Dan, Marcus, and the two pups packed into Tammy and Vince’s 4-runner and headed out to The Dry for some route climbing. Poor Tammy had to stay behind….a little too much tequila for that girl. Heh heh.
Check out Vince cruzin’ on Spinal Twist, 5.12b.
Click on the photo to see the footage…
posted by arr
May 16th, 2005
PTA = PAIN, TORTURE, AGONY
During a Pittsburgh coop bouldering session our good friend Jr came up with what he called, “PTA Training.” It is something that I always think about when I’m working out. I just finished a run this evening and as I type this entry I’m soaked in sweat. Yuck. I always find that the last few hundred feet of a run are so hard. My mind wanders and I fight the thoughts about wanting to stop. Today, during the last few steps of my run the words PAIN, TORTURE and AGONY ran through my mind and I cranked up the pace to finish knowing Jr would be proud.
And proud Jr would have been knowing that April, Vince and I hopped in the car early yesterday morning and drove 2 hrs. to Phoenix to…climb in a gym. AHHHHH! A gym? Yeah. It’s not just a gym. AZ on the Rocks is RAD. We specifically went because we only had a day to train and we wanted to take advantage of their awesome bouldering wall. They have some really cool features including a nice overhanging cave and some highball steep, creative problems. We put in a non-stop 4 hour session, bouldering most of the time and then switched over to climb some routes before we left. Check out a couple pictures we took of the place. It’s hard to get a feel for how much fun you can have from looking at the pictures but take my word for it, it’s FUN!
