We Won't Need Rain Pants

Yosemite is known for it's scenic hiking, and one of the most popular trails is the Mist Trail. Eric, myself, and our friend Jen decided to visit this trail during our most recent visit to the valley. Everyone knows that hiking the mist trail during the spring is the best time to do it. Vernal Falls and Nevada Falls are raging, and the water is blasting at full force. It's a very popular hike during this time, but we decided to do it anyway. Our plan was to get to the trail as soon as we got to the valley, because Jen wanted to run up to half-dome.

Vernal Falls

When we got to the valley the weather was dim. Gray storm clouds rested peacefully on top of the giant granite walls that tower over the valley floor. We had our sun roof open so we could see the top of the walls, and it started to rain a little. We still decided to go on our hike. Fate also gifted us with a parking spot at Curry Village. We had some lunch, threw on our boots, and headed to the trail. We opted to leave our rain pants in the car however, because we didn't think we were going to need them. Good thing we had enough sense to bring our shell jackets.

The gray sky

Jen decided to not do Half Dome because of time so she headed up the mist trail with us. The hike started off pretty dry, but when we reached the bridge everyone realized how much water we were dealing with. I have been to Yosemite many times, but I have never seen Vernal Falls as powerful as it was this time. There was so much water...it was breathtaking. We started with the rest of the hike up the cut stone steps. Doing the stairs always amazes me. Going up stairs for a long time is totally a chore, but when you add a gushing waterfall soaking you wet to the bone, you seem to forget all about being out of breath. The scene was so lush, the bushes and trees so green. It felt like we were in a tropical paradise. A rainy, tropical paradise.

Jen checking out Vernal Falls

We made it to the top of Vernal Falls and we were soaking wet from the waterfall. We decided to keep on hiking to Nevada Falls, but little did we know we were about to get a lot more wet. We started for Nevada Falls. When taking a break, we ran into some hikers that were trying to talk their friend into taking the Mist Trail back to the car. He didn't want to get wet, so he was talking about taking the long way back. Our friend Jen reached into her backpack and pulled out a poncho. She gave it to the hiker, and told him to use it. His friends all made fun of him for being such a baby, but he still accepted Jen's gift. His friends gifted him with a new nickname, "Poncho". Literally, a minute after we gave Poncho his rain gear for the falls, it actually started to rain.

Eric and I soaking wet

We hiked up a little further, but it stated to rain a little harder. We turned back and headed for the car, everyone (except Jen) put on their rain jackets, and headed for the top of the stairs. As soon as we got to the stairs, BOOM! There was a huge crack of thunder, and we saw lighting. Great..... It started to pour. It was raining so hard, there was practically a flash flood following us down the stairs. I thought I was wet before, but now, I was soaked. I was soaked, and it was magical. I have done the mist trail a few times, but this was the most fun I have ever had on it. Hiking in the rain is always exciting, but add thunder and lightning, and you have a completely new type of energy. It was magnificent to see the valley in such conditions. Beautiful views graced us all the way down the trail, and we took a lot of great pictures. When I got back to the car I had about two inches of water in each boot, but it was worth it.

A view from the top of Vernal Falls

Granite Ditch Season Opener

Trip Report – Yosemite Valley
April 3rd – 5th
Guest Blogger: Scotty Ellis

Yosemite Falls in good form!

Hi! My name is Scotty and I am a recent addition to D & D’s group of adventurous friends. I am writing this trip report to add some new blood to the D & D blog postings. Our recent trip to Yosemite was my first trip with the D & D crew. The plan was to leave and arrived early Friday, the 3rd, to do some XC skiing. Then after skiing, to head back and set up camp and prepare for a weekend filled with awesome Yosemite granite climbing.

Eric xc-skiing near Crane Flat

Well… because I am as bad at skiing as this Australian is at differentiating between kangaroos and ninjas, I decided to pass on the XC trip (I was later told by Eric, Amber, and Kenneth that it was awesome and that they are going to miss the snow once the season is over). Thus, I am going to start this report at the point when we (my girlfriend, Katie, and I) began: Friday night.

The trip began Friday night with the perfect introduction, food from Sonic “America’s Drive-In”. After we clogged our arteries with jalapeno poppers and cheesy tots, we were ready to start our weekend full of climbing. We finally arrived at the Lower Pines campsite around 11:00 PM where the whole crew was trying to stay warm from the night’s chill. Our group had campsites 10 and 40 reserved (they are nearly back to back sites) so we had the perfect setup for the weekend.

The approach to the Valley can include several cool tunnels!

When we arrived, we were told by everyone that the bears were being really active and to watch out. Sure enough, a bear approached our campsite that night and almost stomped our tent (probably smelled the deliciousness of Sonic on our breath). Thank God that Dirk was around to scare off the bear.

The next day, we all woke up around 9 am and had a nice Noah’s Bagels breakfast. All carbo loaded up, our group (Eric, Amber, Shenoa, Dan, CJ, Jackie, Katie, and myself) left to top rope and boulder at Swan Slab while Kenneth went to the base of El Cap to do some aid climbing. The short trip to Swan Slab was beautiful. Due to the snow thaw, the waterfalls were gushing which created a picturesque scene.

Picturesque indeed! (Katie and Scotty)


Our little friend!

Our group was very productive once we started climbing: Shenoa led a nice 5.6 climb, Dan led a tall 5.8 route, and there was some awesome bouldering done. We got back to the campsite around 6 PM and Eric prepared his famous Texas-Style Chili for dinner (which was delish!).

Shenoa leading near Swan Slab


Katie, Scotty, and Eric bouldering near Camp 4

Eric also provided some entertainment.. He had “I’m On A Boat” stuck in his head and was rapping while he worked. By the end of the night he had us all rapping, “I’m on a boat and it’s going fast and I’ve got a nautical themed, Pashmina Afghan.” I am pretty sure that we all had dreams of being in our swim trunks with our flippy-floppies that night. Since we knew several other groups of climbers around that weekend, there was a massive campfire Saturday (and no-one got busted!).

CJ climbing near Swan Slab, Sunday

On Sunday, we all awoke to some cheesy grits and juice. After eating, packing up our tents, and loading gear, we were ready to get back on the granite. Shenoa, Dan, CJ, and Jackie decided to head back to Swan Slab while Katie, Eric, Amber, and I decided to go boulder in Curry Village. We chose to go to Curry Village because it was close to the Lower Pines campsite and we also wanted to check out the destruction from the last year's rock fall. The rock fall had some devastation but it also brought some joy to our world: the possibility of new untouched boulders to climb!

Kenneth approaches a belay station with partners looking on

We climbed for a couple of hours before we all headed home. What a fun filled weekend it was!

-Scotty Ellis

Photo Galleries:

Yosemite April 2009

• shenoaHAHAHA@flickr: Yosemite 2009

Andrew's West Coast Video

Recently, my brother came to visit from Texas. He spent a few days here romping around the East Bay, Sugar Bowl, Tahoe City, and San Francisco. We had a great time! He put together a fun video of his trip....

West Coast Idea from Andrew Davila on Vimeo.

Photo Galleries:

Andrew's Visit- March 2009

Andrew Davila's pics MArch 2009

Helmet Head- Put A Lid On It

Many of you probably heard about the incident in the news that, more than likely, made ski and snowboarding helmet sales go up. Though hindsight is 20/20, these sort of incidents will naturally bring up the discussion of helmet use. People argue that a helmet could have made the difference in this accident, so here comes the question... should I wear a helmet? A couple of weeks ago Eric, Keeley, Traves and I took a trip up to sugar bowl. There was a girl in our group lesson who wore a helmet due to a prior accident. When she was young her parents took her to the Alps to go skiing. She fell, hit her head, and lost her memory for a few days. So now on the bunny slope, even in a group lesson, she wears a helmet.

Andrew Davila looking cool in his helmet at Sugar Bowl

I 've never put much thought to helmet wearing before now, but recently Eric and I purchased new helmets. In my younger days I thought helmets were stupid looking and I never wanted to wear one. Now I'm beginning to understand that a helmet could save a life. Even beginners fall on the easiest terrain and can become injured. Although having an accident like that is rare, it could happen to anyone. When planning to back country ski I think a helmet is a necessity, but what about on the bunny slope? I'm starting to see how they make sense all the time. I guess it's just because you don't see a lot of people wearing them on the slopes. Most people rely on their health insurance to save them.

Eric skiing with his new helmet

I went on Wikipedia to see if I could find any interesting facts about ski helmets, but there wasn't much there. I did find, however, that some people criticize helmets for having an "increased likeliness that wearers might injure others in an accident because of the hard material."- HA! It goes on to say that a wearer will also have limited visibility, limited ability to hear others, and people will ski faster when wearing one. There is also a quote by a Dr. Shealy from Rochester Institute of Technology. He says " There is no evidence they reduce fatalities, we are up to 40 percent usage, but there has been no change in fatalities in a 10-year period." I used my helmet the last time we went skiing, and let me tell you, it was great. My visibility was fine, I took off the ear muffs so I could hear everything, and I definitely don't go any faster just because I have one on. I'm still a super-slow-safety-skier, and proud of it.

Amber being a super-slow-safety-skier

Reading some other blogs and feeds about helmets helped me understand how important they really are, and wearing one confirmed it even more. Even though some people criticize their ability, most skiers seem to find them helpful. Helmets might not change the mortality rate of skiers, but they probably help the injury rate. Head injuries are the more common injury that can be obtained while skiing, according to some research I've done. Why not wear them? You wear a helmet when riding a bike, a motorcycle, and out door rock climbing. So why wouldn't you wear one skiing?

The Fitness

One of my challenges in transitioning to an active lifestyle from a period of relative laziness, is balancing the activities I love with the activities I need. I've gone through phases where I cycled for fitness, worked out at a traditional gym, dabbled in jogging. Most of these lacked the fun factor to keep me motivated (with the exception of cycling, another story). Lately, love of climbing, hiking and skiing has made motivation a non-issue. What has become an issue is finding a balance between those activities and other fitness pursuits that can improve my overall fitness and conditioning.

The great thing about climbing, is it so fun that you just ache to go to the gym on a regular basis. Any climber will tell you that time off leads to a mighty itch to go climbing, but regular gym climbers can measure that itch in a matter of hours. As someone who works full-time, with a long commute, gym nights are nearly the only way I can regularly maintain and improve my fitness for weekend activities. Climbing is invaluable for the desire it instills for physical improvement, and the mental improvement necessary to control the head-game.

Crack climbing at Spicer Terraces

Unfortunately, at 5'10" 220 lbs., climbing alone is not working well to trim the fat. Additionally, I feel that I'm coming to a place in my climbing where losing a few pounds could be really helpful on some of the harder climbs, especially roofs and overhangs. Amber and I have been working more and more cardio into our routine, but it's difficult to maintain, especially when, some days, you just want to climb.

So we've beet trying to rotate through 3-4 workout variations to mix it up. One is a relatively long, high-intensity cardio, sometimes with no climbing at all. Another is a medium-intensity cardio, followed by a low-to-medium-intensity climbing session. Sometimes we cardio just long enough to warm up before climbing and some days, when we want to be ambitious on the wall, we do no cardio at all.

Great Western Power Company

I read somewhere that you don't want your cardio exertion to cut into your climbing recovery, and vice versa. Ideally I'd have 3 days for cardio each week, 4 days for climbing... and a 5 day weekend. If only this were the case!! The other downside to the "work out every single day so you can shampoo gain strength and condition" is diet. Spending time at the gym in addition to work and commute often strips away the time needed to cook and eat a healthy dinner. Gym night meals are often a compromise and I need off days to eat healthy and help control my uptake.

So far our plan seems to be gaining some traction. I feel an improvement in my energy levels over previous routines, but am yet to see any weight loss. We do factor in weekend activities as well. I especially love cross-country skiing since I can keep my heart rate up and burn calories all day long while feeling joy, not the boredom of a chore. Hopefully I can translate some of this into new energy for hiking, and do some shorter but higher-intensity days in the hills around here.

Cross Country with Amber and Kenneth in Bear Valley

Sadly, the new cardio focus has cut into the time we used to spend doing strength training on the side, or various core/stability exercises. I guess for every thing there is a time and a season, and eventually we'll work it back in. I'm looking forward to reporting back as to whether or not I am able to produce any results from mixing more heart exercise in with my climbing. I'm also interested to hear how you find balance between your beloved activities, general fitness, and off-time!

swoosh swoosh swoosh WOOSH!

Greetings Blogworld!

Things have been crazy around here. We last wrote about our snowcamping experience on a beautiful but frigid moonlit night on the snowy white flanks of Mount Shasta. The storm that had blown through the week before kicked off a near-non-stop barrage of pacific storms that have more than tempted us to go and enjoy the deepening snowpack.

So we've been running around doing this and that, keeping the laundry and the food runs ahead of the calendar so we can bug out for long day trips and 'vedge' out the next. This month is a little smoother sailing. But there are still more snowdates to come, and despite this high looming over us right now, hopefully a few more storms.

So don't worry, there is a lot of things in the works. Some test footage from a new camera. Tales of triumph and tribulation. Nutritious, delicious snow, and more. We'll slap some cool posts together in the coming days and and over the next few weeks as our winter hopefully produces another good run before it gives way to spring and skiing gives way to more hiking and climbing...

For now, here's a shakycam xc skiing video tidbit:

SHASTA!

Trip Report - Snow camping at Shasta and Transceiver clinic
Mount Shasta
February 13 - 15, 2009

We finally did it. We went snow-camping. It turns out snow camping is a lot colder than you think, but Shasta was beautiful. We took the long drive up to Shasta and stayed in a very nice hotel on the first night, called the Cold Creek Inn. Eric, Kenneth and I decided to take a transceiver workshop up at the mountain. I didn't realize how close we were going to be the mountain but Shasta stood proud above us the entire time we were there.

Shasta in all it's glory!

The Cold Creek Inn was quaint. We stayed in a suite that had two rooms and everyone was comfortable. We got there really late at night, so the hotel having late check-in was very helpful. The hotel provided an interesting breakfast of oatmeal, Nutri-grain bars, fruit cups, boxed juice, and tea. I'm pretty sure we still have a V8 in the fridge from the hotel as well. After our morning "meal" we headed to a mountain gear shop named The Fifth Season, and met our workshop leader, conveniently also named Eric. After meeting at the store, the group there for the workshop drove caravan style up to Bunny Flat.

Walking on Bunny Flat

Bunny Flat sits at the foot of Shasta. Shasta appears intimidating at first, but it's beautiful features are the real dominating factor. The workshop was a lot of fun. We had to use our transceivers to find other buried transceivers in the snow. They were buried a few hundred feet apart, but not to deep. It seemed like a really easy task, but I can only imagine how nerve racking using a transceiver could be if there was an actual life attached to the other end of one. It's an important thing to learn if one wants to travel in back country snow.

Kenneth searching for a transceiver.

After the workshop was over, we enjoyed some tuna sandwiches and Bugles by the car. Over lunch we decided it would be a good idea to get camp set up before the sun started to go down. We piled all of our gear into backpacks and onto the sled, and went to go find a spot to camp. At first, Kenneth was going to snowshoe, and Eric and I were going to ski. Eric had some trouble going up hill on his Telemark skis, so we ended up going back and getting our snowshoes also.

Our wonderful sled.

We found a spot not too far from the car, and started to set up camp. Snow camping is hard. Usually it takes us about 5 minutes to set up a tent, but I'm pretty sure this tent took almost two hours to set up. First you have to pat down the snow with your feet. You have to wear snowshoes though, or you will sink into the snow. Then you have to figure out the snow stakes.

The stakes we had weren't working so great at first, so we had to reassess the situation, and start over from scratch. After figuring out the stakes, we had to prop up our A-frame tent with a pole. That took forever because the pole kept sinking down into the snow. OK, so we have a tent up, now we need to build a trench in the snow floor of our tent. We went to a snow camping talk at REI, and Zoo (the guy giving the lecture) told us that you build a trench so that the cold air drops into it, while you sleep above it. I don't know if that worked or not, I couldn't tell the difference, but I know it took a long time to shovel out the snow.

Time to build a kitchen.

Great, we finally got camp set up just as the sun started to go down. We were looking forward to a beautiful moonlit night, and hoping to eat something soon. Next, we had to dig out a kitchen. Snow camping requires a lot more digging than regular camping does. It just kept getting colder while we were setting up the kitchen, and Eric and I were starting to feel the absence of our puffy jackets. Some how I managed to forget them, but we had enough layers to survive. I will never make that mistake again, though.

The sunset was marvelous.

Making dinner was interesting. You can never leave your mitts off for too long on a cold night near Shasta, so we had to do things quickly. It was uncomfortable, to say the least. It took forever to boil snow for water and most of the time we just sat there, cold, staring at each other, wishing for hot food. The good thing was that our food only took about five minutes to make once we had boiling water. We feasted on a ramen spaghetti recipe invented the night before, and hot chocolate.

After dinner, everyone pretty much just wanted to get into their warm sleeping bags and sleep. Eric managed to take some beautiful night shots of our surroundings, but that was about it for the night's activities. There was no campfire, no singing to a guitar, no drunken conversations, no s'mores. It was cold and boring. I think Kenneth might have had a sip of bourbon but that's about it. The night was beautiful though, it was a full moon and the snow glistened. It looked like a million diamonds were spread all around us in a meadow of white. The night was still too cold to enjoy for long. The temperature dropped to about 18 degrees Fahrenheit, and we were feeling it.

Eric's night shot.

It was a long night. A cold long night. I actually fell asleep, which still amazes me now. I slept with my head in my sleeping bag all night and with my booties on. When morning finally came, I was so relived. It was crazy to see all of the people coming down from the mountain that spent the night up there. We thought we were crazy for snow camping, but some people climbed half way up the mountain just to camp! Everyone that stopped by our camp said it was very windy. I'm glad wind didn't play a factor in our experience.

Morning at Shasta was also beautiful, and cold. We took a second to enjoy the wildlife visiting our site, but then immediately tore down camp and proceeded to find the nearest, warmest, yummiest breakfast place in town. We found a restaurant in town called Lalo's, and their breakfast was the best part of snow camping. Boiling water again for two hours to make oatmeal wasn't going to cut it for this crew. We needed hot tea, coffee, omelets, and bacon. It was crucial to our sanity levels.

Our little snow camping friend.

Shasta is a very magical place, but I would only snow camp there again if I was planning on climbing it. Snow camping just for the hell of it doesn't make sense. It's cold, uneventful, and well, COLD! I can't wait until we go car camping again. I'm going to cook a hot meal on my propane stove, have a nice warm fire, and enjoy some drunken banter with a dripping s'more in my hand. Nothing compares to it really. I would definitely go back to Shasta, hopefully to ski next time, or to snowshoe around. Although we will probably find ourselves at a nice hotel (or motel) that night, were it is nice and cozy.

It sure was a beautiful morning.

Photo Gallery:

Shasta Snowcamp