Smith Rock, Oregon

The longer this trip goes on the worse I get at blogging regularly!  So, to update what I've been up to in the last three weeks: after three weeks of climbing in Yosemite I had exhausted the camping options there and left for Lake Tahoe (the park gets so many visitors you're limited to 7 nights of camping during peak season, we avoided this by changing campsites and spending a few nights camping outside the park).  To be honest though, I was ready to leave the Valley.  It was getting warmer and warmer, and while I didn't think it was possible, even more packed with tourists.  Tahoe on the other hand was relatively quiet and much cooler.  My friend Matt, whom I originally met in Hueco in February then climbed with for most of March in Utah, was there staying with his friend Dan so I joined the two of them and enjoyed four days of new boulders and good conditions.  

The climbing in Tahoe is so dispersed and spread out that it's easy to find a new area and as a result most of boulderers there end up cleaning boulders and doing first ascents of new climbs (cleaning involves brushing off moss and pulling off loose rock that would fall off when climbed on anyway).  I haven't been involved in the development process before so it was cool to be a part of it and do some first ascents of a couple of easy problems myself.  The picture above is me on an FA of one of those easy problems we cleaned.  Below is a gif of me breaking part of the starthold on a relatively new problem somewhere else in Tahoe.  Rock isn't always solid, and usually the newer a problem is the more likely parts of it are to break.  It's always annoying when you fall off because of something outside of your control, but it's part of climbing, and in the end you just have to accept it.

From Tahoe I drove up to where I am now, Smith Rock, Oregon.  I've been to Smith once before 3 summers ago for a climbing summer camp after sophomore year.  I remembered how good the climbing is, but I totally forgot about the beautiful scenery.  The cliff bands of volcanic rock are ringed by a small river that winds through the valley it has created.  When you're climbing you can't see out of the river valley so your world is limited to the river, the cliffs, and the beautiful trees and wildlife that surround you.  Here's an instagramed shot I took my first day here.

I'm heading back to Houston on Tuesday for a week so I probably won't blog again until I get to Squamish, British Columbia, at the beginning of June.  Till then, bye!

Bishop and Yosemite National Park

Three weeks later and I'm finally getting round to writing a new post!  I'm in Yosemite now where I've been bouldering, hiking, and doing a little roped climbing.  I drove here from Berkeley where I was visiting Cal and sorting out some stuff for university next year, and before that I was bouldering in Bishop where because of a sore tendon I wasn't actually doing much climbing.  However, even without the climbing Bishop is a great town.  Nestled in one of the largest valleys in the US between the Sierra Nevada and White Mountains; Bishop is visitor friendly and has the best coffee I've had since I started this trip.  So good that I stocked up while I was there and am still drinking it.

As great as Bishop was, it can't compete with Yosemite in terms of views.  I took the picture below from Turtleback Dome, a granite bulge at the western end of Yosemite Valley.  You can see the almost 3000ft El Capitan on the left, and Half Dome between El Cap and myself.  The whole valley is surrounded by huge granite walls with waterfalls cascading down them into the forested valley floor.

The camping is great here too.  Most of climbers stay at Camp 4, which for a long time was the center of american climbing.  People were first doing ascents of the big walls in the valley back in the 50s and 60s equipped with hemp ropes, hammers, and pitons.  Into the 70s and 80s Camp 4 remained the place to be, and was the base for hundreds of now famous ascents.  So as well as being a nice, forested, and very social campsite, Camp 4 has a rich climbing history.