Climbing Sub-Categories

Palisades July 2008

9 galleries with 314 photos.

Updated: Jul 13, 2008 6:11pm PST

Tower Peak August 2009

11 galleries with 143 photos.

Updated: Aug 12, 2009 4:43pm PST

Climbing Galleries

Balls June 2007 : With my son

Balls June 2007

With my son

Updated: Jun 09, 2007 10:10am PST

Cochise New Year 2005-06 : Climbing at Cochise Stronghold, AZ

Cochise New Year 2005-06

Climbing at Cochise Stronghold, AZ

Updated: Feb 26, 2006 7:32am PST

Fireplace Bluffs : Hiking up from Yosemite VAlley on the remnants of Old Big Oak Flat Road to investigate and try a route on Fireplace Bluffs. Weekend of 12-1-2007

Fireplace Bluffs

Hiking up from Yosemite VAlley on the remnants of Old Big Oak Flat Roa ...

Updated: Jan 06, 2008 11:47am PST

June 30, 2007 : Climbing at Balls with the kids

June 30, 2007

Climbing at Balls with the kids

Updated: Jul 03, 2007 8:36am PST

Mount Starr KIng :

Mount Starr KIng

Updated: May 10, 2009 10:52pm PST

Tenaya Peak 7-3-2009 : Went with my kids, Emma and Ford, to Tenaya Peak on a day trip. The day went like this: 6:05 leave home 10:40 leave the car at Tenaya Lake ~noon rope up 3:50 summit 6:15 car 11pm home

Tenaya Peak 7-3-2009

Went with my kids, Emma and Ford, to Tenaya Peak on a day trip. The ...

Updated: Jul 05, 2009 6:05pm PST

The April Fools' Expedition : We make an attempt on the Northeast Ridge of Lone Pine Peak over the weekend of April 1, 2006. In honor of the legendary Don Whillans, beer was drunk and cigars were smoked.

The April Fools' Expedition

We make an attempt on the Northeast Ridge of Lone Pine Peak over the w ...

Updated: Apr 27, 2006 6:59am PST

The Reverse Descent of Tenaya Canyon : Update 1-30-2009 - I got some photos from Jay to post. Besides being a great guy, he is a lousy photographer. My friend Jay called me on a Thursday and asked if I wanted to leave the next day for Yosemite and descend Tenaya Canyon. Since Jay is a great companion and I like him a lot, I said sure. We met up around noon on Friday, October 10 in Livermore and drove up to the park. We wanted to go up to Tuolumne Meadows for the night so we could start down the canyon on Saturday morning but the Tioga Highway was closed due to snow and icy conditions. We went to the valley and after calling everybody we knew and searching Curry Village, we found Sarah who had a campsite with the Stanford Alpine Club. We slept in the dirt in their campsite planning to hitch hike up to the meadows around noon when we figured the road should be open. In the morning, after many cups of coffee while still in the sleeping bags followed by a greasy breakfast at Curry Village, we hitched a ride and headed for the meadows. The road was still closed at Crane Flats and by 4 pm or so we were back in the valley. We decided we should do something so headed out to look at the bottom of the canyon near Mirror Lake. One thing led to another and we were on our way ascending rather than descending the canyon. We spent one night on a pile of rocks and made Olmsted Point by about 3pm on Sunday where we hitched a ride with an Israeli family in a motor home back to the valley and drove home. Going up is harder than going down because you can rappel the hard bits going down but must climb them going up. The weather was chilly and we also had to contend with steep ice glazed rock, rock fall from Mount Watkins, Ice fall, wet, slimy rocks and one bear. This route seems to be a bear super highway since there were mounds of bear shit every where along most of the route. Near the end icy, wet rock slabs drove us away from the Pwyiack Cascade and up airplane gully where we found a huge 18 cylinder rotary engine from a Navy A1 Skyraider that crashed in about 1960. We took a rope and rappel devices but no lead protection. Food was Clif bars, trail mix and nuts. We also took a tiny stove, coffee press, coffee and a nice single malt scotch. We had a couple pockets full of donuts and muffins snatched from the Curry Village cafeteria while at breakfast on Saturday.

The Reverse Descent of Tenaya Canyon

Update 1-30-2009 - I got some photos from Jay to post. Besides being a ...

Updated: Jan 30, 2009 1:33pm PST

NE Ridge Lone Pine Peak 2009 : The northeast ridge of Lone Pine Peak (LPP) has been on my have-to-do-list for quite awhile. I have tried it once in April 2006, but weather, snow and lassitude turned us back before any technical climbing on the route. Jay, who is unemployed right now, asked if I could pick him up in Tuolumne Meadows on Wednesday afternoon and go to LPP. I couldn’t get away until some work was done but got to TM by 10pm where I camped with Jay, Max and John who had had a few days of climbing. Next day we drove down to Lone Pine and looked at the ridge from as many angles as possible, acquired supplies and got the last campsite at the Whitney Portal where we spent the evening getting ready. We planned to spend 2 days getting up the ridge and to descend via Meysan Lakes. There was no snow or water on the route so we packed 2 days of water plus food. We ended up with around 33 lbs each, about half of which was water. Jay didn’t want to bring a stove but I insisted on coffee in the morning so we took a tiny stove and a small pot but nothing else. Food for the two of us for two days was about 8 granola bars, 4 Milky Way bars, a small bag of jerky, a couple handfuls of trail mix, Gatorade powder, and some instant coffee with a little sugar. We carried bivy gear and a light selection of climbing gear. I didn’t take a jacket or any other spare clothes. We had a 50m X 8.5mm rope, half a dozen cams, a handful of wired stoppers, one hex, a couple big nuts on cord, 9 biners and some slings. The climbing gear turned out to be completely adequate. I managed to drop and lose one biner along the way – a rookie move on my part. We walked up about one third of the 2.5 mile route and used the rope for about 1.5 miles. We simul-climbed most of this but belayed about 10 of the harder looking parts. The belay pitches varied from a few feet to a full rope length. We didn’t encounter anything harder than about 5.7 but the heavy packs made this challenging. We topped out on the route around 1:30pm on the second day having consumed nearly all of the food and water. We didn’t bother to visit the summit since we were tired, thirsty and hungry. The hike down past Meysan Lakes to the Portal was a long slog but we got to the road, hitched a ride down the hill and hiked across the desert to the car before dark. Pizza in town was followed by a soak at the hot springs and sleeping out in the desert. A really good trip.

NE Ridge Lone Pine Peak 2009

The northeast ridge of Lone Pine Peak (LPP) has been on my have-to-do- ...

Updated: Aug 23, 2009 11:02am PST