drewish.com

climbing in the owens river gorge

i went up to the central gorge this morning hoping i'd be able to meet up with someone and get some climbs in. i got a belay first thing in the morning from this team of asain kids who were flying up 5.11s on the great wall of china (it seemed kind of funny at the time). i felt a little peer pressure to get on something a little harder than a 5.9 so i hopped on a 10a, i made it up it but man, that wasn't a good route to warm up on.

after a quick nap a little later in the morning i hooked up with a party of three dotcomers spent the day climbing with them. we flew up some 8s and 9s, it was a great because they were right about the level i wanted to be climbing at.

charles came down to bishop that evening hang out and climb tomorrow. while i was waiting for him at shat's bakery i got to talking with the old guy who calls himself the sierra phantom. he could tell a story, said he'd spend most of 50 years living up in the sierras. said he'd been in national geographic, reader's digest, and a bunch of other news sources. i'm not sure how much i belive but i'd like to do a little research on him.

climbing in the alabama hills

yesterday i didn't do much at all. went out for breakfast, then got some coffee and sat around. i met a newly wed couple riding from bakersfield, ca to their home in bozeman, mt for their honeymoon.

went up to the alabama hills in the afternoon to look around and see if i could meet up with some people to climb with. ended up running into another couple from montana, nate and heidi were heading out but said they'd meet me this morning if i wanted to climb then.

i hooked up with them around 10:00 and we got on a couple of 7s and 8s then one 10b. before nate lead the 10b he asked to borrow a couple of draws. he was grunting pretty good the whole way up and when he got down, i made some kind of remark like "boy i don't know if i'll make to to the top of that". "you better make it up there, your draws are at the top and i'm sure not going back up". i got my draws back and had a blast, it was a good crimpy face climb. i'd love to spend a week climbing in the alabama hills.

they decided they wanted to go for a swim in the afternoon and i since they were leaving the next morning just figured i'd head up to bishop, try to meet up with some people in the gorge.

in lone pine

i went south through mojave. took some pictures of all the mothballed airplanes. it was a real trip, right behind some random strip mall were near 100 planes of all types and airlines.

worked my way up 395 from there. the next morning i stopped at some random campground to look around and the only other guy in the parking lot was wearing climbing shoes and a helmet. curious because he was by himself i asked if he was rapelling. turns out he was solo aid climbing. i walked down into the volcanic gorge a little later and found him almost ready to start. i sat there watching him for almost two hours and i've got to tell you, it's the slowest kind of climbing i've ever seen. i talked to him when he came down to clean the first half of the route. he told me about the climbing in the alabama hills (near lone pine and mt whitney) and a little bit about aid climbing theory. i took a ton of pictures, they'll be up here real soon now.

in lone pine i stopped at one of the sporting goods stores and bought the climbing guide. it had directions to the blm's free "climbers" campground. i got a permit hike to the top of mt whitney and went up to the campground to relax.

this morning i woke up early and the wind was blowing worse than the day before. i didn't really have everything ready and since the permits are free for walkins i decided to try it again tomorrow. untill then.

slo update

went out climbing with roger this morning. we went a few miles north to this place by the ocean (i don't have the guide with me, otherwise i'd put the name). it was good did a few 5.8s an 5.9s. i didn't really want to push it much beyond that, they seem afraid of overbolting here, runouts of 20 ft were pretty common.

the folding bike is shot, i finally got around to looking at it this afternoon. the fork is bent and front axle seems bent. i'm going to call dahon and see how much money they want to send me a new fork. my knee on the other hand is on the mend, it's finally scabbed over and other than when i first wake up in the morning doesn't hurt.

i think tomorrow i'm going to head down the coast a little, find a place to camp for a day kind of enjoy the cool beach air, after that i'm headed north.

san louis obisbo

i camped at a state park on the coast south of salenas (spelling?). it was my kind of place, cheap, only $1.00 per person per night. i got going early, headed south for san luis obispo.

sometime during the morning i noticed a message on my voicemail, my thai friend called saying she wasn't able to get her visa. i was pretty sure she'd be able to get it so this was a bit of a surprise. in san luis obispo i got on the internet at the public library and sent out some emails.

at this point there was no hurry and a little coffee sounded good. at the 2 dogs coffee shop i started talking to a guy with two quick-draws an a sling (that's climbing gear) for a book bag strap about the local climbing. he drew me a map to the the climbing shops and gym and off i went in search of a climbing partner. at the granite stairway one of the employees roger offered me a driveway to park in and pointed me up to the climbing wall at the calpoly campus. i set out on the folding bike, that until then had been stowed in the back of my pickup. on the way back some fluke of fate sent me flying over the handle bar of my bike causing a nice patch of road rash on my knee and hands. i made out a lot better than the bike, it's not rideable, i'm still walking it off.

farther south

left san jose tonight, headed south on the monterey highway then picked up highway 1 along the coast. picked up a hitchhiker, mike, south of monterey and drove him down to his house. i feel like i need to pay back a couple of the rides i got last summer. he was a pretty cool guy he'd gotten stuck here because of september 11th then fell in love with the place, sort of like i did in portland.

i'd been planning on heading north up the coast to oregon until i got an email from my friend in thailand saying that she'd find out on the 4th if she got her visa. if she gets it she'll be arriving in la on the 5th from there we'll probably cruise around ca doing some touring and climbing, if she doesn't get it i'll probably head through the sierras to bishop through reno to portland.

climbing with superglue

dan and i did a short trip down to bishop over the weekend. i took some pictures and they'll be up as soon as i can get the camera drivers re-installed on my laptop.

while we were down there i used some superglue to make a superhard scab over a sore i had on the back of my heel. it worked pretty good so after i gave myself a nice deep cut on the thumb trying to install a cdrom in my computer and i couldn't find any band-aids, i decided to push the edge of superglue first aid research. 8 hours later i'm not so sure if that was a good idea. the glue has kind of cracked in a couple of spots so i've got a traditional scab there. in other places the skin has either shrunk underneath it or bulged out. i'll let keep everyone posted on it's healing with a special news bulletin if i end up on antibiotics.

climbing with superglue

dan and i did a short trip down to bishop over the weekend. i took some pictures and they'll be up as soon as i can get the camera drivers re-installed on my laptop.

while we were down there i used some superglue to make a superhard scab over a sore i had on the back of my heel. it worked pretty good so after i gave myself a nice deep cut on the thumb trying to install a cdrom in my computer and i couldn't find any band-aids, i decided to push the edge of superglue first aid research. 8 hours later i'm not so sure if that was a good idea. the glue has kind of cracked in a couple of spots so i've got a traditional scab there. in other places the skin has either shrunk underneath it or bulged out. i'll let keep everyone posted on it's healing with a special news bulletin if i end up on antibiotics.

climbing at donner

dan, heather, dawn and i went climbing yesterday. i was hoping we could get up to big cheif (a couple of wall next to the truckee river between tahoe city and truckee) but there was still snow on the road. we went up to donner summit to check that out, there was still a ton of snow up there but we were able to get to the peanut gallery (i'm pretty sure that was the name). it was so hard as to be funny. at any rate it was good to get outside.

climbing at donner

dan, heather, dawn and i went climbing yesterday. i was hoping we could get up to big cheif (a couple of wall next to the truckee river between tahoe city and truckee) but there was still snow on the road. we went up to donner summit to check that out, there was still a ton of snow up there but we were able to get to the peanut gallery (i'm pretty sure that was the name). it was so hard as to be funny. at any rate it was good to get outside.

climbing gear

i finally kicked down and bought a rope, an atc and some draws. this weekend after i take my act test dan and i will go out to river rock and do some climbing. maybe once my brother gets back, he's in maryland visiting friends for spring break, he'll be down to do some climbing outside.

down in bishop

dan and i made it down to bishop. we hooked up with joe lane and are going to hopfully get some climbing in tomorrow.

etc.

dan and i went and hit up the keystone boulder today. i forgot my camera so i didn't take any pictures but it was pretty cool.

i bought a new hard drive for my laptop so i've been busy trying to get everything copied over, it's taking a lot longer than i thought.

a couple of cool links:

• the false promise of a national id.
• allegations of a massive israli spying program in the us

reading and climbing

harry potter book three: done.

i finally got around to putting up the pictures of dan and my trip down to bishop to see joe. feel free to check them out.

man this trip down to

man this trip down to bishop has gone pretty well. we did a bit of bouldering at the happys yesterday with joe and some of the people he works with. real rock is so much nicer to climb on than plastic.

that night we had a group falafel feed and the a bunch of us went to mammoth to see spearhead (some kind of reggae funk band with hippy sauce seasoning). dan and i didn't have tickets and were planning to find an alternative means of entry. after examining several doors and getting told that sneaking in was impossible i was ready to give up, but not dan. he ended up talking to the guitar player of saul williams, the band that had just finished up. dan asked him if he could get us in and the guy said he didn't think so but along came the tour manager and told the band that if they wanted to come up and bring their friends he'd lead the way. long walk short: dan and i end up in the hospitality area drinking their free beer and watching the show. dan started talking to all the other people backstage telling them all kinds of crazy stuff about how he was doing video documentary work for geroge lucas. he had some marketing agent from a watch company convinced that he climbed with chris sharma all the time, she started talking about sponsoring him.

i wasn't expecting much from spearhead but they did a pretty decent job and the price was right. i got to dancing with this girl and was going to get ride with her so i could stay for the end of the show. i couldn't find her after the show so i started asking around. the best i could do was rovana about 12 miles north of bishop. i got up at 8 this morning and started walking, i picked up a ride into bishop and then started the 4 mile walk out to the research station where joe is living. i made pretty good time, i was actually back before everyone woke up.

crap it's started raining so this might turn into drinking not climbing day.

climbing

two days ago there was a bat flying around in my room, i guess it's better than finding the meter-long grass snake in my shower like my neighbors did. the monkeys have finally stopped turning over my trash and my tacrow game is still improving even after taking 4 days off to climb.

speaking of which, climbing is finally starting to happen for me. the day after the last post, i went out with the british couple again and lead a 6b and a 6b+. the next day i went out with a scottish guy, named alex, in the morning and did my first multi-pitch climb only three pitches of 6a but i was really into it. In the afternoon i went out to thaiwand wall (yes that's how it's spelled) with this really cute filipino nurse from san diego (bite those knuckels) and did a couple of 6as. today my friend add has the day off so we'll go over and do the tonsai groove tube.

for reference here's a climbing grade conversion table, it's a bit softer than the one in the guide book though, it showed 6b+ as 5.11 something.

i'm a bit scared to be doing the count down to departure again. in less than 10 days i'll be on a plane home ahhhh!

so we were supposed to

so we were supposed to go see the shins tonight but foul weather at the top of donner summit prevented us from seeing them. i do have a picture of dan sitting in the boat that was parked next to us on the interstate.

i hung out with big and little gink, we stopped by the show on 4th street but nothing was going on. we got 40ozs and hit the mexican resturaunt on south virgina street. it was good and then we went to the karioke bar on 2nd street and met dan's friends. some girl got dan's brother in to the bar and then we hung out. i kind of macked on this lesbian girl for the hell of it. then we went to coregons and i got my jacket stollen. it wouldn't bother me too bad except that my brother's gloves were in it and he's going to be pissed.

i ended up walking home in the cold, stopping for a 20oz of fosters, it was okay. yeah for walking home in the cold. god my head will hurt tomorrow.

the lesbian said she lived across the street from the house i lived in in the third grade, my best friend lived there. the first time i ever got drunk (not very) was in that basment.

Happy Boulders 03/31 - 04/01/2001

This trip was my first time on real rock. The happies are a great place to climb in the spring and fall, they're just too hot in the summer.

bishop was a blast

bishop was a blast, i got to go to the buttermilks and back to the happy boulders. we did a little single track and i rode phil, joe's cousin's, bike. it had the most painful seat you can imagine, i nicknamed it the sterilizer.

my most productive time is when i'm away from an internet connection, i don't get distracted by the all that stuff that's out there to read. so on the trip down and back i was planning to learn a little php. i came back a raving php bigot, it's almost painful to go back and do stuff in asp. if they only had better support for accessing databases, i could swear off asp all together. the only reason i see to develop in asp is the ado, it's one of the best technologies microsoft has put together. maybe some day the php crew will have something similar.

all this week erin burns keeps telling me about this girl she works with at the pneumatic who's looking for people to go rock climbing with. today she tells me that not only did she just get back from a climbing trip to utah but she also rides her bike every where and is really into traveling. i'm not sure what erin's trying to do to me, i haven't even met the girl and i've already got a crush on her.

lake tahoe bouldering and reno

lake tahoe bouldering and reno tahoe climbing

climbing trip

went rock climbing with my class today, i've got the fucking sunburn you wouldn't believe. this weekend i'll be going with joe to split rock (in the donner state park) and tuesday and wednesday i'll be going down to bishop with him.

went down to bishop with

went down to bishop with my rock climbing class over the weekend. i had a great time bouldering, it's the first time i've been out on real rock so my fingers got torn up. the people i went down with were all cool i'd be happy to go hang out with any of them again.