Living in a van makes you acutely aware of the resources you consume. You find yourself keeping track of odd things like how long the overhead fan has been on or whether you really need the interior lights to be on full intensity right now. Power usage is a major concern. My battery holds 125 AHr of charge, but draining the battery to less than 50% will damage it, so it’s effectively only 62.5 AHr. To put this in perspective, my fridge draws about 1A of current, which means that I can run the fridge for 62.5 hours (about 2 and half days) with no additional charge from the solar panels. Of course this is assuming that I’m only running the fridge and that I don’t turn the fan on, or the lights, or charge my laptop, etc. And so I find myself asking questions that I’ve never considered before. That parking spot near the tree may look nice and secluded, but in a few hours it may be shady and that’s no bueno! Maybe I can move later?

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I’m calling this post Part 1 because I’m hoping to hit up the valley several times this year. Although I just left, I already have plans to go back in October. This time around I met up with Chris, Rose Mary, Pete and Keith. The original idea was that I would climb with Rose Mary while the rest of the crew would crushing out The Nose on El Cap. The plan changed a bit when the boys came down early, but I still got one fantastic day with RM on the East Buttress of Middle Cathedral. RM and I climbed this route many years ago and I remember it being one of those routes that pushed my limits at the time. At 5.10a and 11 pitches, it was probably the longest/hardest route I’d done to date. Pretty cool to come back years later and crush it out in a casual 9 hours car-to-car (including a 3 hour descent).

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After climbing the Hulk I found myself in the Bay Area with some time on my hands. I figured this would be a perfect opportunity to settle down at a nice kite beach for a few days and sample the west coast surf. A friend of mine recommended Sherman Island as a fairly accessible area for beginners. However, after two days of near death experiences, I’ve come to the definitive conclusion that this is wholly untrue.

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The adventures have begun and my first destination is the Incredible Hulk in the High Sierra. If you haven’t heard of the Hulk before you can read about it on Mountain Project. Basically it’s a massive piece of granite way up in the California alpine at 11,000 feet.

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After 48 hours of driving over the course of 7 days I finally made it to San Francisco. So. Much. Driving. I don’t know if people know this, but Murica is really big! And most of the scenery from the highway is not that interesting. Trees and grass. The occasional hill. It wasn’t until I got to Texas that the view changed. I ended up taking the Southwest route, which added about 2 hours to the overall journey, but it seemed worth it to see New Mexico and Arizona, two states I’d never been to before. The last night on the road I spent in the middle of the Mojave desert. No lights. Just a big open sky with lots of stars. That was pretty awesome. The first half of the journey my max speed was 65 mph. The van was originally owned by PepBoys and they ordered it with a speed limiter. Pretty awful. I got that removed while passing through Tulsa, OK at a truck service station. Thank god. Cruising at 65 is fine, but passing people was nearly impossible. It reminds me of that scene in Austin Powers where the guy gets run over by a steam roller. A good analogy for so many things in life.

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