Our First Year in LA
It's been just over a year now since I quit #vanlife and settled down in a home on the west coast. Here's a review of my first year living in LA.
Canadian mecca
Long have I heard the tales of conquest beyond the American border to the north. Rumors of granite cracks stretching to the sky and beyond. I speak of course of the legendary Squamish. Land of bullet hard granite, soaring cliffs, and soft grades. Many climbers though, are not aware that Squamish is also home to a world class kiteboarding scene. The spit is famous among elite kiters for its flat water, steady wind, and stressful launch. Squamish is the only place I’ve ever kited where you have to pay to kite, so you might consider it the Gunks of kiting in that respect.
A photo tribute to friends
It’s nearly spring climbing season and I still haven’t posted anything about last year’s fall season. Unforgivable. Especially considering how fantastic the fall season has been. So much has happened that it’s difficult to put it into words without writing a novel. So instead, I’m going to make this post mostly about pictures, cuz a picture’s worth a $1000 or something like that…
Yosemite Part 2
Once again I find myself back in the Valley. A place with big walls that tower like giants and free climbs that inspire the imagination of generations. But Yosemite is also the scene of horrific crowds, mind numbing traffic, and substandard camping. As big as the park is, sometimes the Valley can seem downright claustrophobic. And then of course there’s the plague. That’s right, there’s an actual plague in Yosemite. Hantavirus is carried by rodents in the Valley and has killed a number of Yosemite visitors. Beyond that, the bathrooms are often disgusting and the campgrounds overrun. This week it seemed that everyone in Camp 4 had some kind of flu. With lines at 5am to get a site, people sleeping on the ground curled around camp fire embers, and everyone sick, it’s hard not to think of this place as some sort of refugee camp. And in a way, I guess it is. People from all over the world flee the comforts of modern civilization in order to share in the majesty of this place for a short while, regardless of the downers.
Smith Rock, OR
Although I spent two months working on the van, a week driving across the country, and numerous stops along the way, Squamish has always been the goal. But as I finally found myself headed to the Canadian border, the weather in B.C. suddenly turned sour. A week of rain was ahead of me. I pulled over in a truck stop near Eugene, OR for the night and to reassess my priorities. On the one hand I really wanted to get to Squamish, it’s been my driving force for months. On the other hand, hanging out at the base of the cliffs in the rain and not being able to climb would be heartbreaking. Well, if I didn’t go to Squamish, what else could I do? By complete coincidence I happened to be only two hours from Smith Rocks where Grant and Emily were spending the week. I didn’t know much about Smith, but I’d heard it’s pretty old school. Scary sport climbing, right?
