Redwood National Park, CA

I know it has been a long time since we last posted, but we have been having trouble finding good Internet connections. Anyways, I hope the next couple of posts get everyone caught up....

Friday afternoon, (Aug 13th) around 5pm, we left for Squamish, BC again, with our friend Scott. We pulled into Squamish that night around 10:30pm, set up camp across the street from Shannon Falls, then hit the sack.

Saturday morning we woke up early and ran into Squamish to grab a quick bite to eat at a local coffee/breakfast place. After breakfast we drove across the street to the "Smoke Bluffs" where we had our eye on some easy, classic Trad lines. We parked the car and headed up to the "Burgers and Fries" area where we toproped the classic 5 star route called "Burgers and Fries". I decided not to lead it because it looked a little to runout for me at the top. Even the guidebook suggested that you better have your head right before going to the chains, and it took NO gear at the end. It also wasn't the style of climbing I was used to. It was very slabby with only smears for feet, did I mention it was only 5.7.... After we each got a toprope burn on the that, the sun started coming over the wall and we started to bake. We looked around for some cliffs that were in the shade, but really couldn't find any. We decided to pack it up from there and find a place with some more shade. We hiked back down to the car and flipped through the guidebook. We decided to head over to Murrin Park, which was by the lake and offered some climbs in the shade. We hopped in the car and drove down a couple of miles to Murrin Park. The parking lot was packed. We soon found out that most people there were there for the swimming, not the climbing. We found a crag called the "Bog Wall" which was right at the end of the parking lot, and in the shade. It was so close we could have belayed out of the back set of our car, but didn't. There were a couple of trad climbs there that were in our ability range so we decided to fire them off. First we jumped on a finger crack called "Up From The Bog" (5.8). This was my first true 5.8 trad crack pitch. I was super excited after I finished it. As a little side note, about 20 feet off the deck, I went to take a #2 cam off my harness and place it in the crack. As I removed it from my harness, i fumbled it with my right hand, and dropped it. My buddy Scott, who was belaying me, caught it. (Thanks Scott) Now I'm left in a situation were I needed to place a piece of gear that I didn't have. I decided to run it out to the next place I could get a piece in. What an embarrassing moment for me. I guess we all go though things like that....right? Anyways, we all got our turn climbing that route, then moved on to the left were there was a 10a trad line called "Holy Grail". I scouted it from the ground for a while and was nervous about the gear placement. Our rope for the 5.8 we just did was overhanging the 10a route. I decided to play it safe and run it on TR first to "suss" out the gear before I lead it. I "mock" lead the pitch placing all the gear as I went and then topped out. I was convinced I could lead this pitch on gear. I cleaned the route on the way back down then pulled the rope. I tied back in and fired it, placing 4 pieces in 50'. For me, that was the highlight for the day. My first 5.10a trad lead. Again, we all ran a couple of laps on that which took us to mid afternoon. At this point, my confidence level was above anything I have ever experienced with trad before. All I wanted to do was keep leading trad, we did exactly that. We moved slightly to the right and put up a 5.9 called "Black Butterfly" which was a little different then the 5.8 previously done. You had to rely solely on the crack at the upper section to make it through. There were no face holds to use to bail you out if you got stuck. This was pure crack at its finest. After we all got some climb time on that we moved on to the next route to the left. It was also a 5.9, and it was called "Veils Of Illusion" It was very similar to the one we just came off of, were you had a section near the top where it was just crack. After leading that, we all very getting pretty beat. The final order for the day was to toprope a 5.11a called "Fathers and Sons" (sandbagged) which shared the same anchors as the 5.9. We all got our fill on that and was nice to end the day with a little burn. We packed it in from there, hiked the 30 seconds to our car and headed into Sqamish for some groceries. After picking up some need groceries we headed back to camp to cook some tacos. Once at camp we hung out eating our tacos and chatted about the place we wanted to climb on Sunday. After getting or trad on for the day, we were looking forward to clipping bolts on Sunday. Before we headed off to bed we decided to head back up the Cheackamus area where we were the week before and check some more crags out. Most of Cheackamus is sport, so we knew we could get our fix on up there. We all hit the hay to get some needed rest.

Sunday morning we slept in till 8:30ish, fixed some breakfast at the campsite and broke down camp. We then headed 15 miles or so up the road to an area just outside of Cheackamus known as "Rogues' Gallery". We parked the car in a gravel pullout right off the highway and hiked into a cliff known as "Hoods In The Woods" We were actually looking for another crag, but kind of ran into this one. The climbs looked really cool and long which was appealing to us. We first decided to put up a 10a called "Bout Du Monde" which was about 8 bolts. Fun climb, with the crux at the very end. We pulled rope from that and put up another 10a just to the right called "Chasin' The Train". Again, another long fun 10a, this time the crux was a little lower, about mid height. After getting a pretty good warm up we moved along the cliff base and put up "Gravity Can"t Dance" (5.10b). This was another long route with really good flow. All the holds were there when you needed them, with the hardest bit coming right near the end. As I lowered back down, Jodi asked me if it looked like something she could lead. Without a doubt, I knew she could lead this climb. After I untied, she stepped up, pulled the rope, and was going for the send. It takes a lot of guts to walk up to a climb, put on your head, and go for it. She tied in and took off. With each bolt she clipped, she was looking more and more solid. Once she clipped the last bolt she shook out, and punched it to the chains. She had the chains in her sight and then ripped. She had a good clean fall and was jazzed to get the "butterflies" out of her head. She finished the climb with no problem, and lowered off. She was so excited that she made it that far. I think that was a great milestone for her. Pushing herself to absolute failure, then falling. We were all so proud of her. Scott ran it after Jodi and cleaned the route. We still had time for one more climb before we had to leave to head back to Seattle. I had my eye on the face climb to the right called "Pockets Full Of Kryptonight" (5.11b) The face proved to be harder that I thought but managed to pull it all together. The crux involved tough 2 finger lock offs, on a slightly overhanging bulge, which you then fire for a flat jug. I was nervous about the finger, but it held up well. I cleaned the route, pulled rope and packed up. We got in the car and drove 5 hours back to Seattle, where we got in and crashed. Below is a picture of all of us after climbing in Squamish.

Below is a picture of "The Chief" in Squamish, very cool.


Monday morning we woke up when Scott left for work, packed up our things and headed for Smith Rock, Oregon. We knew the stop at Smith Rock was going to be brief, since we have visited there before. It was merely a stop off on our way to Northern California. We drove down I-5 till we hit Portland, then started heading inland toward Smith. On our way there we passed by Mt. Hood. We drove up to the Timberline Lodge, which is at the base of the mountain. We took some pictures and walked around the lodge. As we looked up at the mountain we noticed people skiing and snowboarding. Most of them were in T-shirts and snow pants. Pretty cool that even in August you can still enjoy the snow. Below is a picture of Mt. Hood from Timberline Lodge.

After our brief trip to Mt. Hood, we continued on until we ended up at Smith Rock around 5:30pm. We pulled into the Bivouac area and set up our tent. We still had some day light left so we decided to get a couple of climbs in. We headed right down the road to the parking lot, parked, and took a quick hike to the "Northern Point". We have never climbed that part of Smith before and thought it would be a cool area to try. After a 3rd class scramble down, we were at the base of several quality 11's and 12's. We only had time for a climb or 2 so we jumped on the classic 11a called "A Women In The Meadow". We ran close to 10 laps on that then decided to call it a day, since we were running out of daylight. We hiked back to the car, and headed into the town of Terrebonne for quick bite at "Terrebonne Depot". After dinner we happened to run into one of the local ladies, who also owns "Terrebonne Depot", and she gave us tons of beta. She suggested places to climb that were in the shade, and even some of her favorite routes. It turns out while talking with her, she had blown one of her fingers recently too. We traded war stories, then headed back to camp to get some sleep.

Tuesday morning we woke up early, packed our tent up and hit the cliffs early to try and beat the heat. The forecast for the day was sunny and a high of 100 degrees. We hit the "Morning Glory Wall" first and jumped on the ultra classic "Nine Gallon Buckets" (5.9) for a warm up. It probably wasn't the best warm-up since the first bolt was 15 feet of the ground and was in direct sun. We ran that twice, and had enough of the sun and started looking for anything in the sun. We then headed over to the "Cocaine Gully" where most of the routes were in the shade. We scrambled up to the base of the climbs to check it out. We decided to fire off "Vomit Launch" (11b) which is arguably the best 11 at Smith. Fired that on my first go, which was super cool. It was totally my style with it being full of technical and crimpy climbing. I liked the climb so much, I ran it again and cleaned it. After we pulled rope from that climb, we set up "Powder Up The Nose" (10d) to the left. Fired that first go as well and really liked it. This was a pitch that held true to the Smith style. It was full of knobs and tiny pinches. With the cliff losing shade quickly, we only had time for one more climb before we were blasted by the sun. We set up another area classic called "Chicken McNuggets" (10b) and ran that until we got full sun. Once we couldn't take the sun anymore we decided to pack it up and call it a day around 3:30pm. We headed back to the car and started driving to Northern California. Our plan was to try and drive until we reached Klamath Falls Oregon, where we would spend the night. Below is a picture of Jodi and I in front of Smith Rocks after a day of climbing.

On our way to Klamath Falls we decide to take a quick detour and head up to Crater Lake to check it out. It was only about an hour out of the way for us and proved to be epic. We headed through the parks entrance gates and started climbing the mountain to reach the lake. Our plan was to take the ridge side road, with circles the entire lake. As we reached the summit to start the circular drive, the dark clouds showed up and before we knew it we were right in the middle of a serious hail storm. We pulled off to the side of the road and waited until it passed, which turned out to be close to 30 minutes. I did manage to shoot a couple of pictures before the heavens opened up. I also shot a pretty cool video of us sitting in the car and our rental car getting pounded by hail. Below is a picture of Crater Lake before the storm.

After the hail storm passed, the rain really set in and we lost all views of Crater Lake. We bagged the drive around the lake and headed back down to the main highway, where we continued on to Klameth Falls. We pulled into Klameth Falls around 9pm and checked into a hotel on the out-skirts of town for the night.

Wednesday morning we woke up early to hit the road. We pulled out of Klamath Falls around 8am and headed for the northern California Coast. On our way out of town we drove along Klamath Lake which was really cool. Below is a picture of Klamath Lake

We continued driving west for a couple of hours until we reached the California coast. We got out of the car to stretch our legs in Crescent City, where we shot some pictures of the coast line. See picture below.

We drove down highway 101 until we reached the Redwoods National Park visitor center. We stopped, picked up some literature and continued on through the park. We wanted to camp that night in the park but quickly found out that all of the campgrounds were full. Our closet and best option was to drive through the park and into Eureka, California to set up camp at the KOA. On our way to Eureka we stopped off at a gear shop north of town where we picked up a local guide and some local beta. The guy at the shop told us that most of the climbers on the coast just boulder. There were a couple of sport areas, but most were put up in the 70'-80's and with the sea salt, most bolted lines were in sad shape. With that said, he did point them out to us and told us to check them out. He also showed us a couple of nice bouldering spots on the beach, which we thought was really cool. After hanging out in the gear shop, it was getting pretty late in the day, so we decided to head for the KOA and set up camp. We arrived a the KOA around 7pm and set up camp. We cooked some soup that night for dinner, and hit the sack.

Thursday morning we woke up from the KOA, grabbed a shower and some breakfast and headed north back to Crescent City to check out a sport crag called the "Promontory". It took us about an hour to get up there but was a very enjoyable drive. Once in the parking lot we could see the cliff right off the ocean. What a cool sight. We packed up our bags, and headed toward the cliff. Once there we checked out some of the climbs. The guy at the shop was right, most, if not all of the sport routes there were in some serious trouble. Most of the bolts were completely rusted and looked very "sketchy". As an added bonus, most of the holds had sand in them, because it was so close to the beach. We decided to bag the area all together. It definatly has potential once it is re-bolted and cleaned up. We headed back to the car and back down toward Eureka, were most of the good bouldering was. On our way back down to Eureka, we took a side scenic route through the redwood forest. What a fantastic drive. The drive took us about an hour to complete, then dumped us back onto the 101 were we continued onto Moonstone Beach for an afternoon boulder session. We pulled into the parking lot for Moonstone and the boulders presented themselves right in front of us. We grabbed our chalk bags and shoes and started cranking on the beach. Below is a picture of the boulders on Moonstone Beach.

We cranked out for close to 3 hours then decided to call it quits and head down to see some more redwoods at the "Avenue Of The Giants". Side Note: Jodi and I got lots of pictures and videos of beach bouldering, which was really cool. Not so cool, was about an hour into our boulder session, our camera crapped out on us AGAIN. Yes, the one we exchanged in Seattle. This was the second time this happened. Again, we were stuck without a camera until we could find a Best Buy to return it. We also found out the closet Best Buy was in Sacramento, CA. There was nothing closer. We were close to panic mode, but lucky for us we brought our old camera for back up. We had to use that until we got it replaced. What kind of luck is that? Anyways, we headed down to the "Avenue Of The Giants" where we stopped and took lots of pictures of huge redwood trees. As we were driving, we saw a sign for a drive thru tree. We stopped, payed our $6 and drove our rental car through a tree. Pretty cool. Below is a picture of me driving through the redwood tree.

After driving through the tree we finished driving the rest of the scenic road then headed back to the KOA, where we cooked dinner and hung out by the camp fire until turning in for the night. Friday we were off to surprise my sister in "Sin City" for her 30th birthday.