apAdventures

This Memorial Day we had a long 4 day weekend off from work so we decided to pack the Subie with 4 adults, 1 dog and a crapload of gear and zoomed the 12 hours to Bishop, California. It was myself, Paul, my sister Holly and her boyfriend Joe (who will also be staying with us for the summer), and lil brown dog Morgan of course. Also, please don’t let me forget, our Sherpa Courtney who also joined up for the trip. He drove himself and met us there and was sweet enough to stash 4 of our crashpads in his vehicle. Thanks Courtney!

Thursday evening we hit the road and made it to Barstow, CA around 3am. We were aiming to stay at some KOA we saw on a map but somehow stumbled upon this rundown campground in a ghost town. Really! Calico Ghost Town: It’s an old deserted silver mining town that was re-vamped for tourism back in the 50’s. As we were setting up camp (at 3am) and nice little old ranger drove up to our site. Tainted by the strict rules of Hueco, I automatically assumed he was here to a) yell at us for coming into the park so late, b) yell at us for letting Morgie run around without a leash on, and then c) yell at us cause we didn’t drop our money into some pre-pay drop box or something. However, to my surprise this kind man did none of the above. He actually commented on Morgan being a “fine looking animal” and said to don’t worry about paying him until the morning, after we get a good night’s rest. Ahh, this was going to be a good trip. 🙂

We awoke around 7am, ate breakfast and decided to have a look at the ghost town. Our campground fee included entry into the town, so we said why not. It was actually pretty cool. Then it was off to Bishop.

Got into Bishop late afternoon on Friday and chilled a bit in town. Then we headed up to the Buttermilks and found ourselves a stellar camping spot overlooking the Peabody boulders with the snow-covered mountains in the background. Absolutely beautiful.

The temps were rather mild – much cooler than usual for this time of year – and there was rumer of some high winds that were due to rip through town the next day. Well, the winds started picking up right around the time we were trying to cook dinner Fri night. Pleasant gusts at first….then kinda annoying gusts….then really annoying gusts. We all ate about a pound of dirt that night with dinner.

Exhausted from all the driving, and anxious to get away from the wind, we all hit the sack somewhat early. By this time, however, the wind was already ripping through the mountains like a bat out of hell. Now this wasn’t just the kind of wind that if you try hard enough, you’ll eventually fall asleep and tune it out. Oh no. Not this wind. Ooooohh no sir. As I am laying wide awake in my sleeping bag, trying to ignore the snow-globe of dust that was the inside of our tent and drowning out thoughts of how much dust could one actually breathe in before it made one sick, plugging my ears with my fingers to both a) gain some relief from the loud howls of wind and b) keep the dust out, and did I forget to mention getting wacked in the face every 10 minutes by the ceiling of the tent as it heaved and flopped and hoping, almost praying that the next gust wouldn’t tear a gaping hole through the flimsy nylon walls, …..I am wondering to myself….wow, this must be exactly like how it is on Everest!! Except just replace the snow with dirt!

After 3.5 hours of this nonsense, Paul said “THAT’S IT – we’re moving to the car.” I’m not sure how, but Paul and I and Morgan managed to squish into the back end of the Subie. Cramped? VERY. But boy, once we closed those doors, it was like being in an airtight vault. I never slet so sound.

The next morning we all awoke, brushed off the dirt, and made our way to the Happy Boulders. Our original plan had been to spend the entire trip up at the Buttermilks, but the wind had only temporarily let up and the temps were dropping. The Happies were calm and cozy. This was a first-time bouldering day for Holly and Joe and they did great! Noteworthy sends of the day go to Courtney on the highball classic Heavenly Path v1, Paul on Pappachubby v8, and Joe on Corner v0 (who loved it so much he repeated it!).

Sunday morning the group split up into our own mini-adventures: Myself, Paul and Morgan headed toward the Buttermilk boulders. Joe and Holly went up into the mountains in search of the white stuff (both are crazy addicted snowboarders/skiers). And Courtney also headed up in elevation to solo traverse this ridge he was eyeing.

For Paul and I, no big sends, but wow did we get on some classics boulder problems – including Saigon (v7) for me and The Checkerboard (v8) for Paul.

Joe and Holly found some of their beloved snow, and I’m sure rolled and frolicked in it to their heart’s content.

Courtney, however, got shut down on his adventure. Not by the ridge, but by a nasty headcold that was creeping upon him. Too much dirt in the lungs for that boy. Oh well, nothing a little hard whisky can’t fix (compliments of Courtney’s friend Linda who met up with us later in the day). Thanks to Linda and her whiskey, we all got a little wild as the night rolled on – cooking up massive amounts of fahitas and chillin’ to the good ‘ol Dr. Dre of course.

Monday morning we all rolled out of the tents, packed up and headed into town to have breakfast at the Bishop Grill. A quick stop for some Eric Schaat’s Bakery treats, big cups of coffee, and then we were back on the road headed home. All in all, a great trip indeed.

We made it back from a long weekend in Bishop! It was cool, literally! Details tomorrow…

What do you suppose is going on here?

a) An attempt to bring waterpark fun to the desert: Instead of waterslides, you have sandslides!

or

b) The next American Gladiator event where only those with the biggest kahunas dare to take the plunge.

Finally, we had a woody session at our house this evening. It was really nice getting back in touch with good friends and we all had a lot of fun. My abs hurt more from laughing with friends than from the climbing. We’ll definitely be doing this more. Check out our current setup.

Four months and two weeks ago…the Hueco Tanks boulder problem, Dark Age V11, busted up my left hand ring finger and put me out of climbing. Yesterday…I got revenge against Dark Age. I SENT!!!

I’ve been telling climber friends that if you are going to get injured and you have the choice of what type of injury, choose the ruptured A4 pulley in your ring finger. Initially, when I got hurt last year in December I thought the worst. I imagined 4-6 months of zero climbing (what April ended up doing when she hurt a finger). However, after one month of zero climbing I knew that my comeback would be much sooner. After one month I started climbing in the V0-V2 range. After two months I started climbing up to V5. At three months April and I traveled to Fontainebleau which was perfect for my injured finger because of the type of climbing (slopers). After returning from Fontainebleau it was time to get back into full Hueco mode. At that point I was climbing consistently in the V8-V10 range. Two weeks ago I got back on Dark Age for the first time since December. Surprisingly…I lost nothing…and returned this weekend for the ultimate revenge!

Summary:
Now, for all of you out there currently with ruptured A4 pulleys in your ring finger who are dying to get back on your projects, don’t gain hope in reading my story just yet. The road to my recovery did not involve, in any way, me sitting on the couch drinking beer, eating pizza and watching the Steelers win the superbowl. NO. On superbowl sunday I was at Hueco guiding a backcountry tour and doing 299 push-ups (MY RECORD!) and sit-ups until I almost puked. I painfully watched my wife tick all her projects and climb stronger than ever. This fueled my motivation to do more push-ups, sit-ups, long runs, healthy dinners, lots of sleep…all the stuff for quick healing. I even laid in bed burning this relaxing fragrance stuff (LEGAL) that our friends Vince and Tammy gave to us for Christmas.

Sometimes when you get a climbing injury the easiest thing to do is walk away and go find another part-time hobby to pass the time. I recommend however, staying as close to the sport as possible. Why? Because it’s automatic motivation to stay strong in any way you can. This injury opened my eyes to the endless possibilities for building strength for climbing.

Our friend Courtney has been unable to enjoy the sport of rock climbing for a long time due to some horrible wrist pains. He took a big step today, went in for surgery…what came out is pretty crazy. Check out the piece of bone or cartalidge that they pulled out. Hopefully it won’t be long until he is back in action, climbing, training, and enjoying his passions without nagging wrist pains.

Tuesday March 14th:
We woke up at 4:15AM, loaded our crashpads, two backpacks and misc. carry-on bags into Courtney’s truck and were off to the airport. We checked in and by 6:30AM we were airborne. We arrived in Dallas at about 9:00AM. With eight hours to kill we studied some French, climbing guides and ate. At 5:30PM we were on our flight destined for Paris. We actually got a dinner on the plane and watched the movie “Best in Show.”

Wednesday March 15th:
It was amazing that we were even given breakfast on the plane in addition to our dinner. Well, maybe not that amazing considering how hungry April and I were after each meal. Anyway, at about 10:00AM we finally arrived in Paris. Grit and Marcus were outside customs waiting to greet us. We packed our stuff into Grit’s car (barely) and were off towards Fontainebleau. We had reservations to stay in a “mobile home” in the town of Milly La Foret, really close to the main bouldering areas. Turns out, it was really expensive for such a small place. But, at first we didn’t care. We were overwhelmed by everything and were dying to see the rocks and start climbing. By late afternoon we pulled up to Bas Cuvier (one of the most popular climbing areas) and started climbing. We didn’t even open our guide books (common most days) and just started climbing stuff that looked cool. The boulders seemed endless…

Thursday March 16th:
On Thursday we woke up a little bit recovered from the traveling. We co-ordinated with our friend Justin and his girl Mary Gwen to meet up at Franchard Isatis. We didn’t know what the place was going to be like but I’d have to say that it was one of my favorite places to climb on the whole trip. I really can’t go into detail about how cool it was (it would take forever) but at the least I can say there are tons of easy and hard problems that have some of the most fun sequences and holds I’ve ever experienced. The setting is very beautiful too. All the boulders are surrounded by dense forest. We later realized that this setting doesn’t help when you are anticipating the boulders drying off. 🙂 Justin my Fontainebleau coach, pointed out a super cool problem called “Beurre Marga.” It was really technical, mostly vertical and it was a true test to see if you can climb at Fontainebleau. I failed miserably!!! I tore up my arm, got mud all over myself and numerous attempts I couldn’t even pull back on the start of the problem. I swore, yelled, brushed the holds, tried and tried but I had to give up for the day, deciding that I would be back for a final exam towards the end of the trip.

Friday March 17th:
We…I keep saying we. Let me explain: Our Tucson friends, Vince, Tammy and Patrick (met in Tucson, lives in Connecticut, right?), our German friends Grit, Marcus and Manu, and our SLC friends Mary Gwen and Justin climbed together throughout the trip. So picture a lot of crashpads and a lot of good energy. It was cool being around a lot of psyched people.
Friday afternoon was a tease for April and I. Justin showed us some really cool, hard problems located in the Cuvier Rampart area. April was drooling over a ultra classic called Duroxmanie. I was drooling over “The Big Four.” Four hard, highball problems that were all classic and super different. A true test of a versatile climber’s abilities. Since we were feeling totally wasted from the first days of climbing and the afternoon was nearing an end we decided that we should look into finding another place to stay. The “mobile home” we were in wasn’t really working out so well. ha ha. For example: when you took a shower, you’d get burned and then frozen by ice cold water every 10 seconds, a cat pissed on our front porch every day, it was freezing cold inside, I broke our bed three times, just getting into it, etc….
To make a long story short Grit spoke some French, German and English and made arrangements for us to stay in what’s called a Gite, outside the town of etampes, west of Fountainebleau about 35 minutes. It sucked to give up our location but we wanted to experience a Gite like all of our friends. Plus, it was actually cheaper in the end.

Saturday March 18th:
Woke up Saturday morning nice and early to the smell of fresh cat piss on our front porch. Luckily we were out of there. Unluckily though…we didn’t know where our Gite was (long story). ha ha. We did one of the most amazing things ever that day. We pointed our car in the direction of where we thought the Gite was and we drove. Yeah, we drove for a couple hours looking and sometimes just admiring the French countryside but one of the most amazing things in my life
was when I said to Grit and April, “There it is…that’s our Gite.” I saw a sign, the house looked cool and thank God, it was the place!!! The owners welcomed us and by the pictures you’ll see that…yep…it was perfect. I can’t explain how we found it, pure luck.

Sunday March 19th:
Coach Justin said “L’Elepant it the place to be man. See you there.” So we were off to L’Elephant. Take a look at the pics and it’s pretty obvious where the name came from. This area was our first taste of a different forest floor. It was much more sandy than the other areas. The “black circuit” problems were really amazing there. April and Grit tried this one that was really fun. They didn’t send but made amazing progress on a hard, long move. In fact, they gathered the attention of some French guys who came over and tried the problem too. The French guys didn’t know much English so there wasn’t much to talk about. But, there was a lot of giggling, laughing and some common words were shared like “Fart,” “Hueco,” and “Come on!” “Allez.”
Later that day we moved to the area called Rocher Greau. I realized that the French people (the non-climbers) actually understand what it is that we are doing. They don’t look at us like we are crazy, carrying our crashpads (massage tables, beds, all the stupid names people in the US call them). Rocher Greau is an area situated very close to a town where tons of little kids and people are hanging out and enjoying the forest’s beauty. We tried a couple more cool problems but what I remember from that afternoon was the stop in the nearby bakery. Justin recommended this place that had the best freshly made bread I’ve ever had in my life. I won’t even try to describe it, just go…it was amazing!!!
We nearly ruined our feast (which Justin cooked that night) by eating so much bread but we had a good appetite from the full day of climbing.

Monday March 20th:
By Monday we were pretty cocky when it came to talking about weather. Again, we dodged the rain and managed to get a full day of climbing in. We went to Rocher aux Sabots and Cul de Chien. We attacked the circuit problems. When you do one cool problem you look to your side and see another one. It goes on and on. Each problem was so fun. I remember one that we did that was vertical. It had 1 or 2 holds on the face that were nearly impossible to hold on to. It was all about finding the perfect balance. When you got the perfect balance you had to commit and go for the top. Within a second you had to catch the lip of the problem or else you’d be taking the long plummit to the pad.

Tuesday March 21st:
Got to see Paris a little on Tuesday. Our plan was to chill until Manu came into Orly airport at 10PM so we walked around Paris. Paris is such and easy city to get around when you can understand how to ride the metro. We learned. And we managed to find Manu!

Wednesday March 22nd:
Rain! Ahhh. An excuse not to climb. Too bad for Manu who was psyched and ready to go but we were still tired and sore from the long climbing days at the start of our trip. To our benefit we had the chance to connect with the outside world and visit an Internet cafe. We also managed to see the Chateau in Fontainebleau. It was beautiful. In the pictures you’ll see one pic of the library. It is a long hallway of paintings on the curved ceiling with a globe at the forefront. I’m still impressed when I look back at the picture of that particular room.

Thursday March 23rd:
Weather was pretty good. It never rained hard enough to stop us. We managed to re-visit Bas Cuvier and try a million new problems. We also got to try stuff at the Cuiver Rampart and the super classic Duroxmanie.

Friday March 24th:
Rainy. But, we tried out the area called 95.2 which dries quickly. We spent the morning climbing, tired from the full day of climbing on Thursday. Got fully rained out in the afternoon.

Saturday March 25th:
Rain. No big deal though. We visited Barbizon and went for a stellar run in the French countryside near our Gite. Check out the pic of Manu, April and I. It’s the one where we look like wet rats outside our gite.

Sunday March 26th:
Paris day. We didn’t care what the weather was like. We had plans to go to Paris and see the sights. It rained most of the day but cleared up and got warm towards the end of the afternoon. We took the RER train from etampes to Paris and visited the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Jewish Quarter, and Montemartie. Definately not a real rest day. We were exhausted when we returned late Sunday night.

Monday March 27th:
Okay. After the rain and the day in Paris we were psyched to have one more day. The weather cooperated with us and it was perfect. Thank you! We spent the day at Rocher aux Sabot and Franchard Isatis. Remember I said I had to take my “final exam.” Well…I just barely passed. I sent Beurre Marga!

April, Grit and Manu showed their Fontainebleau technique by trying a bunch of red circuit problems. At the end of the day April showed me a problem she sent that reminded her of Hueco. Of course I had to try it. I think the problem really reminded us of home. We were torn between two paradises. We wanted to stay in Fontainebleau and keep climbing, spending time with good friends and experiencing the culture more. But our trip was nearing an end.

Tuesday March 28th:
Last day. Felt like crap from staying up late, traveled and traveled all day but made it back to Tucson safe and sound. Slept well, dreaming of climbing and planning our next visit.

I hope this summary helped to share some of the experiences we had in Fontainebleau, France. I would recommend that if you have the chance, go! It was such an amazing place. March is the time. Yeah, there’s a lot of rain but temps are really good and the friction is prime. The climbing is different, the ratings are different, the language, food, people and architecture are different. We got a taste of a different culture and we’re craving more. Our list of places to climb just grew and you can count on us taking some wild trips in the future. We just scratched the surface and saw the tip of the iceberg when it comes to World travel.

Of course we’ll be back to Fontainebleau, we’ve got unfinished business…

I promised a Fontainebleau trip summary and it will be up soon. When I said we had to recover from our travels, I lied. We had to go climbing again. It was nice climbing at Hueco the last couple days. The weather is still nice, in our opinion. Kind of warm but perfect in the shade. Hopefully it will stay this way for the next month at the least.

We made it back from Fontainebleau France and are going about our daily routines. When we recover from our travels we will have videos and pictures up sometime Sunday. Stay tuned for the summary of all the stuff we did. It was AWESOME!!!

finally made it to a internet cafe
the keyboards are so different. ill list the highlights

first of all everything is great
the weather was awesome for the entire 1st week.
we are living in french luxury in a beautiful rural gite in the country with grit from Germany and her boyfriend manu.
the large city near us is étampes.

everyone speaks french. thanks to grit we made our way through some crazy situations.
we ran into so many people we know from the US climbing scene. we are learning french at a very fast, forced rate. it is awesome.

climing is amazing. each day we go to a new area that is as big as some areas at hueco.
the climbing is very different though. very technical. the turtle shell slopers are RAD!

the wine and bakeries are a part of our daily routine.

went to paris yesterday by metro.
will go back to go inside the louvre.

today we went in the castle of fontainebleau.
today it is raining and we are taking advantage of rest time

hopefully tomorrow it will clear and we can try another ton of new problems that are some of the best in the world.