Iron Hand in a Velvet Glove

You cannot make a revolution with silk gloves, and you cannot climb the cables route of Half Dome without visiting the glove repository (lest you fill your palms with tiny metal slivers).

Take Off

Cliff swallows & their nests, under the eaves of an abandoned house in the California ghost town of Bodie.

(Lurking) Fear is the Mind Killer

Almost 5 days later, including one 23 hour climbing day, the boys topped out on their first big wall- El Fucking Capitan via Lurking Fear.  They say they never want to do a big wall again, but I'll give them a few months before all they remember is the joy of the experience and the pride of finishing.  The pain, the exhaustion, the boredom, the fear- it all becomes an abstraction in the service of The Epic.  Type 2 fun for the win.

And yes, I know this is Half Dome not El Cap.  Shut up.

Wizardry in the Enchanted Valley

The Wizard & AM embark today on their El Capitan odyssey.  The line they are taking is called Lurking Fear, and it ascends the far left of the wall (in this photo, just left of the shaded area near the middle of El Cap).  Today is just hauling and fixing the first three pitches- the fun starts tomorrow.  It's the easiest aid climb on the rock, but it remains far from easy.  They expect it to take three days.

High Gravity Day

Taking a weekend off from fighting gravity and making it work for me instead.  Been a long while since I've been on whitewater.

99 (Switchback) Problems

One of the "99 Switchbacks" on the Mt. Whitney trail, en route to trail crest ridge and looking across to the summit.  Would love to go back and get on one of the technical routes up the east face.

Ent-tricate

A Tolkien-esque, Treebeardy sort of pine on the north rim of Yosemite valley.

Metallurgy

More beauty amid decay: texture and color swathing an abandoned house in Bodie, CA.

Burned out

Undergrowth rebounding after a controlled burn in Mariposa Grove, near (in?)Yosemite.

Salt of the Earth

Salt formations (don't tread on them!), Death Valley, CA.

American Dream

Abandoned homes along Highway 395 in California.  The first one is actually in the ghost town tourist attraction of Bodie, CA (a goldmine boomtown of the 1870s-80s), but the second two are modern-day abandoned homesteads at the foot of the Sierras.  Plus ca change...

Uncomplicated

It's just pretty.  Sunset, Half Dome, Yosemite.  About as idiot-proof as photography gets.

Keystone Cowboy

Two views of boyfriend and the only natural arch in Yosemite, Indian Rock, located just above North Dome.

Shortcut to Shrooms

It's a mystery!

 

Blogger was mysteriously down for the count yesterday, but that's okay cause I was out having funs last night anyway.  Here is another mystery- what makes holes (with doors!) in the sandstone of the California desert?  This is about halfway between Death Valley and Las Vegas, and there were similar domicile-looking holes in all of the other rock outcroppings within about a half mile radius.  It is not and never was (at least not on anything but a geologic time scale) a hospitable place to live.  There was no signage, nothing on our detailed "places of cultural and geographic interest"-oriented map, nothing at all for miles around.  When did people live here?  Why did people live here?  It's a mystery!

The Primrose Path

In the Yosemite backcountry.