driving, singing, learning, climbing, smiling: Updates, updates!

Where have we been??? Climbing! After a brief stint exploring San Francisco, we headed back to Yosemite National Park, this time to the famous "home of the birth of modern rock climbing" Yosemite Valley! Now, ordinarily we would rattle off what we climbed, how amazing and beautiful and incredible it was and post some picture. But- last week I spoke with my good friend Kileen and she said these posts are boring and I need to spice them up. So here goes....

Yosemite Valley is almost synonymous with "climbing". Nearly every climber has either climbed there or wants to climb there. So when we drove into the Valley it was like driving into Disney as a kid, only better. We drove in at 9 pm so it was dark with the exception of the moonlight and headlights. We casually drove the twisty roads in anticipation and then, suddenly, we came to a screeching halt! "IS THAT IT??? OMG OMG OMG OMG! It's SOOOO BIG! I CAN'T BELIEVE WE ARE HERE!!!! OMG OMG OMG!!!! WOOOOOOAH! Are those headlamps?? Yes! Wow, cool!!!!" We were staring at the silhouette of El Capitan a HUGE 3000 foot granite wall and it was looming over us dominating the horizon. So, see the Captain...check. Now- time to find the R&D headquarters for modern rock climbing equipment, the home for more climbing bums than any other place on earth, the most famous climbers campground in the world- Camp 4. As expected it was full and we slept in the car so we could be up at 5 am to stand in line to get a camping space. Yes, we got up at 5am- not to go climbing, not to catch a flight, not to get tickets for some crazy concert, but to secure a small patch of dirt to call our own... and a bear box to hide our food in.

Camp 4 was home base for the next two and half weeks. We climbed as much of the classic stuff as we could. Our tick list ranges from single pitch to 14 pitch routes. Some of the cracks were so little we could barely fit our fingers inside and others were so big we could barely span them with our bodies. Some days we got up at 4 am just so we could finish the days climb before nightfall. Most of the climbing was definitely Type 1 fun (when you realize you are having fun while it is taking place). Some of them were Type 2 fun (when you realize later that you had fun). And then there was The Northeast Buttress of Higher Cathedral Rock. This climb could possibly be categorized as Type 3 fun (when you never quite realize if you had fun or not). Overall we felt we had the true Yosemite experience- tons of amazing climbing and lots of humbling experiences.

We said good-bye to the drastic peaks and valleys of Yosemite and headed down south to Joshua Tree. Here we spent five laid back days climbing single pitches on fantastically frictioned rock. Our favorite part of J-Tree was the high desert environment. We've never seen anything like it- desert sand, the coolest looking trees ever and piles of rock everywhere. And now- we are in Red Rocks, NV soooo excited for some sport climbing! Hope everyone back home is doing well!

Here it is! El Capitan! We climbed the very right side of it (can't quite see it here). Climbing the actual wall can take many days.

On Middle Cathedral. No, I did not photoshop myself in!

Patrick after climbing Snake Dyke on Half Dome. Beautiful!

We climbed the right side of Half Dome. A 6 mile hike to the base, 800+ vertical feet of climbing and a 9 mile hike back to the car! It was a long day!