Meet Finnomeno!

The update would not be complete without this--my household grew by one kitten this week. Turns out one of the guys I climbed with the last two weekends fosters kittens for the Denver Dumb Friends League. Turns out he and his wife were assigned a mama cat and her 7 kittens, which were then about 6 weeks old. He told me what they looked like, and I couldn't stop thinking about one in particular--a little black boy with a white-tipped tail. I've always wanted a black kitty, and... well, after the climb I asked if I could come and see them.

I went to play with 7 kittens last Thursday, knowing I would probably come home with one. Of course, I fell in love with my little black one immediately. And oh, it was so hard to not take two!!!

I met David at the shelter on Thursday as he was returning them to be adopted out, and took my little one home (David and his wife kept two of them also). They did such a wonderful job raising him he wasn't nervous or afraid at all. He and Zooey sniffed each other and he started playing immediately. She, of course was not at all sure she like this new arrangement. I laughed a little as I remembered bringing her home to Gibson and how she used to torment him so. Turnabout, I suppose. So far his favorite toy is her twitching tail, for which she's walloped him pretty good. I think he's learning.

After scrapping quite a bit this morning, they curled up on the couch together and slept the rest of the day away. She then gave him the mother of all baths. Hopefully, this is a turning point and all will be well.

I've decided to call him Finn, after the Irish legend. I think the name will turn out to fit.

You can see all the cute kitten pics here, and enjoy the bath vid below. Listen to the little man purr!

BMS Graduate!

Well, it seems trivial, and on most levels it is. But man, it was more of a commitment than it looks like on paper. Nearly 2.5 solid months of outings, lectures, tests, etc. I'm glad it's over, so I have my weekends back, but so glad I took it. I learned so much, and learned it well--it is an exceptionally run school let alone for only paying $200 and buying some gear. I invested in a mountaineering specific pack, the Osprey Variant 52 (which I totally LOVE), an ice ax (BD Raven Pro), helmet (Petzl Ecrin Rock--thought about a BD or Camp model but how can you resist a brand that means little boy penis in Yiddish? Exactly, you can't), plus sundries like a few lockers, a new belay device that could accomodate the fatty fat-fat 11 mil ropes we tend to use, a couple of new sewn slings, and a snow picket (I learned on soft snow day that if your pack wasn't anchored to a picket or an axe Frank WOULD kick it down the hill to teach you a valuable lesson!). James was kind enough to gift me an extra pair of brand new deluxe semi-rigid crampons he had lying around in his Garage Mahal, I already had a pair of new mountaineering boots, and I've been stockpiling different jackets, hats, and gloves since I got here and realized winter is a whole different shade of crazy out here than in SoCal (duh!).

Since I was on the river when my group climbed Citadel for Routefinding, I got to crash Steve Hughs' party up Bancroft. We met at the park 'n' ride at 4AM, and I immediately knew something was different from my group when I checked my watch which read 4:05 and we were still standing in the lot waiting for people to arrive. Frank would have blown the taco stand at 4:01, and if you were late tough titties. Given how unpredictable the weather is here and how important 15 minutes or so can be, I totally get it now. I think we left at 4:15. Someone asked me if Frank was a total hardass with my group. I smiled in the dark to myself and replied, "Yeah, but in a good way--I like that he won't let you get away with shit."

We jolted a few miles up a jeep road (had no idea how much crazier the ride down would be--a few times my head hit the ceiling and I contemplated putting on my helmet) past the first open gate (yay!) to the 2nd closed one. We gathered, organized, decided to shit can the snowshoes, and set off. Once at Loch Lomond we veered west and started climbing up benches to get onto the East Ridge Route. Once on it, it was fun class 3/4 scrambling for an hour or so that got progressively more knifey until we got to a feature called the Notch--a huge chunk that is lopped out of the ridgeline. Iain and David went on ahead to set up the rap and protect the climb out. By the time we reached them the wind was up (cold!) and clouds were beginning to come in. It seemed like it took forever to get everyone down and up the other side. I can't believe some guy actually free soloed it in his ski boots--it's not super hard, but it's plenty exposed and there aren't the greatest holds when you have bulky feet--if you fall you're going for a long and possibly deadly ride.

Once out of the Notch we still had to get up the 2nd crux of some very spicy class 4 scrambling, and then more scrambling just less exposed for another hour+ until we got to the saddle before the final scramble section before the false summit and easy ridge run to the top. By the time we got there it was after 11AM, and the clouds were socking in and the graupel was definitely falling. It was disappointing, especially as this pair of climbers behind us pushed on (they caught us at the bottom and said they'd summited in the knick of time but had an awesome glissade down), but we knew it was better to be safe. We traversed out onto the snow field in the cirque to our left, sat down, and had a fun ride all the way down to Lake Caroline. By the time we got to the cars we couldn't even see the mountain--it was a good call.

I also crashed Steve's High Peak climb, since my group did theirs up Lamb's Slide on Longs the day we climbed Bancroft. We climbed Citadel from the couloir, then traversed the ridge onto Pettingel, and would have climbed that too if not for the stupid weather.

We met lazy on Saturday afternoon in shorts and tank tops to backpack in the token 1.5 miles to make it an overnight. Weather began coming in and we set up camp at the last sheltered flat spot, and watched as lightning lit up the sky and clouds engulfed Pettingel. It alternatively rained and graupeled for a couple of hours. Lee built a fire, at dinner time I enjoyed my Mary Jane's Farm Bare Burrito while others ate their smooshed Subway sammiches. FINALLY it was late enough to justify going to bed, so into my bivvy I crawled. It wasn't so bad. Jen's bivvy has a hoop, which helps, and it's not the people who had schlepped tents got much sleep anyway. I got up at 4, put on boots, made sure my bento box was full and pack was arranged, and was ready for the 4:30AM leave time. Except that at 4:25 people were still boiling water for oatmeal. Yeah, we left about 4:45.

Fortunately we made good time to and up the couloir, despite 2 people veering way, WAY off route on the approach (routefinding, people!). It was a fun snow climb, and even though it was only 8AM or so it was an east-facing couloir and plenty soft and squishy--another reason to leave early.
We had some spicy scrambling along the ridge to get to the true summit, then a little bit further to reach the rappel. Once everyone was off the rap, more scrambling along the ridge until we were onto the flanks of Pettingel. The weather was rolling in fast, a few ghost turd pieces of graupel were beginning to float and swirl in the air around us, and we knew it was time to go. No more summits that day.

Lee volunteered to glissade down into the middle of the bowl and see how bad the post-holing would be. Fortunately, he took off walking easily once he reached to bottom of the glissade so we took off after him, me starting too far to the right and having to stop and adjust my course to avoid the tib/fib fracture of the rock band in the middle. We got SOOOOO lucky that our trek out was mostly easy walking--we were expecting to post-hole up to our waists, and were rueing our decision to leave the snowshoes in the car.


The rain hit by the time we got to camp, but it was a mostly quick and dirty (one tent group was trying to do a careful, artful pack job for some reason and one guy who insisted on camping on a snow slab took a bit to dig out his deadman, not that it was windy enough to need them oh well.) Again, happy to have only packed the bivvy, and happy we only had an easy 1.5 mile cruise down to the cars. Man those beers at Tommyknockers tasted good!

River Rat!

Jeez, I'm behind on this thing. It's been a busy 30 days, for sure. I finished hard snow day with no crampon mishaps, and even got to do some bona fide ice climbing up a short frozen waterfall up on Mt. Lincoln. Next season, Ouray for sure! I finished my exam, am STILL waiting on results (how long can it take to score exams for 7 people? Seriously.) I finished my high peak and routefinding trips and graduated from BMS. I got a new job up in Loveland 3 days/week. I got a new kitten who is so cute it makes my teeth hurt. I made some new climbing and riding friends. This post, however, will focus on the week I spent on the San Juan River around Memorial Day.

Jen and her brother Aubrey put their heads together last Christmas and decided to put their names in for permits to celebrate his graduation in the spring. Yampa was denied, which is a bummer 'cuz I hear it's a pretty awesome river. San Juan, however, was granted, for 20 people. We started with 17: Jen, Aubrey, my brother Craig, Jen's cousin Jess and her boyfriend Chris, Jen's friend Abbey, Jen's mum Mary and her friend Marguerite, plus various Outward Bound connections (Sara, Diana, Bayley and her partner Jeff) and family friends (Bakers and his friend Dave and his 7-year-old son Andy) and Craig's friend Nate from VLS who is doing an internship in Telluride this summer. Craig, Abbey, Chris, Jess, Sara, Jeff, and Nate took out on the 3rd day in Mexican Hat, the rest of us continued the adventure to the takeout at Clay Hills.

The trip began in the rain. I left Denver in the rain, drove all the way to Bluff, UT in the pouring rain trying not to be killed by insane truckers and stupid people trying to make good time to Moab. I arrived in rain, set up my tent in the rain, etc. The morning was overcast but dry until we shoved off, and then it rained/poured the rest of the day until we set up camp in the evening. Blessedly, it stayed dry until the middle of the night when it rained again. It made the first day kind of a bummer, cold and shivery, not conducive to hanging out. At least I was on Diana's boat with the Gay Pride Umbrella! We set up the shelter tarp to eat lunch, and continued to huddle under it or the umbrella for at least an hour after we were ready to go, waiting for the rain to abate. 'Cuz that's how it's supposed to rain in the desert, right? Short, fierce, and sweet.

We gave up and moved on. We stopped to see these cool petroglyphs.

Later on we stopped to see these house ruins. What a view they had!

Once we got to camp I began to get the full sense of what a river trip is like. Since the boats were largely loaded and rigged by the time I got there, I had no idea how much we actually had until it came time to unload in camp. Everyone's dry bags, kitchen dry box, giant stove, propane bomb, several jugs of water, the groover, the food and beer coolers, etc. Plus, I got the full idea of just how well we were going to eat on this trip--fresh food just about every meal, lots of stuff, even wine and Diana's gin and tonics. Yes it was kind of a shit show, but it was an awesomely enjoyable shit show.

And the beer--I don't think I've ever seen so much beer in one place outside a liquor store. Coolers full, and mesh bags full dragged behind the boats in the water. I think we started drinking at about 10AM every day and didn't really stop until bedtime. After the first day the weather behaved and we felt more like drinking them in the intense, hot sun. We got a couple of afternoon thundershowers with spectacular lighting shows. The day we stayed at Lime Creek a couple of hours afterward we heard a strange kind of roar, and then suddenly a current of dark brown water filled with what looked like small bits of log came rushing down the practically stagnant Lime Creek--a flash flood, started miles away.

As the sun was coming up on our 4th day, Jen got us up early to hike the Honecker Trail to the rim. We got up there just as the sun was rising and the light golden-orange. You could see all the way to Monument Valley, AZ (read: hundreds of miles). Someone had built a tiny Stonehenge. The trail blends into the canyon wall perfectly--unless you knew about it you'd never know about it. We got down and Dave (who used to be a chef before he retired) and Bakers and Mary got to work making an awesome breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast, coffee, fruit, etc. I think we finally got on the water close to noon.

I had been in the ducky with the kayakers and Bakers in his canoe the day before, but I chose to ride with Diana this day so she could start teaching me how to oar. I started getting how to move the boat, but still have no clue how to go through rougher water or water with lots of obstacles--this trip the water was so high all the rocks were covered and it was easy. Of course, so were the sandbars, which make it a little treacherous toward the end where the river is so silted up and backing up from Lake Powell. It gave me a new appreciation for Edward Abbey, that part.

When we got to a big class 2 rapid called Government, we eddied out to scout. Dave ran it in his kayak while we watched. Bakers showed me how to find the tongue and just follow it around to ride the wave train through the rest. He and I hiked down to run it while the others watched. I got into the ducky and followed his line into the tongue, and sure enough I really didn't have to brace or steer much of anything--the current took me, swung me through the curve and then spat me into a really killer wave train with big haystacks that were a super fun up and down ride all the way to the end. I found Dave and Bakers and we eddied out to watch the rafts come through. Then we continued on to my favorite camp of the whole trip at the side canyon Slickhorn.

As we were pulling up to our beach, I noticed a guy on the other side of the river, in jeans and a green shirt and cowboy hat, and what appeared to be a bandana over his face and gold mirrored sunglasses (later when we got on shore Bakers pulled out his binocs and that's exactly what he was wearing). He seemed to be acting strangely--downclimbing and then scrambling up this ledge, pushing large babyhead boulders off down the bank, dancing around like he was on something that looked like it could have been fun or could have been terrifying. We noticed a kid around the corner from him messing about near the bank of the river. Tried to ignore them while we set up a shower made from a water jug baked all day in the hot sun and tried to scrub all the river sludge off of ourselves (the water was the color and consistency of cafe au lait--my day in the ducky yielded a dappled sunburn from where water splash washed away my protective coating of silt). As we were drying off we saw a man come from upriver and collect them, and realized it must have been some kind of solo experience, and those poor kids had probably been out all day.

Chef Dave helped us make the perfect garlic shrimp to go with fresh corn and black bean salsa in tacos. We sat around the beach in chairs drinking wine and watching the fire in the pan, while Andy experimented with the flammability of various materials found around camp. Jen warned us to enjoy our gorgeous camp, because the next night would be none to nice. Oh, she had no idea!

We hiked up Slickhorn Canyon a bit in the morning, with Diana pointing out various fossils and layers (she's a geologist!) and Andy challenging anyone who would humor him to race twigs and leaves down the trickle of water still running down the canyon.
We stopped again at another called Grand Gulch for a hike as well--super cool arch in this one, lots of desert varnish, humongous boulders that had obviously been rolled down quite a ways in the last big flood.

Back in the water, we were clearly hitting the slackwater portion. Lots of rowing to reach camp at the not so reasonable hour of 7:30PM. We got to the official site (saw that the last one upriver had been completely destroyed by a flood that produced a huge alluvial fan feature over the former site). Marguerite and Bakers had gone ashore ahead of us and came running out of the trees thrashing their arms like mad--mossies were EVERYWHERE. As soon as we got to shore they were all over us, too.
We debated whether or not to try and make it to the takeout, at least 2 hours away and hard to spot in the dark (and a big scary dangerous huge waterfall blocks the way into Powell) and decided to stay on the rock bench above the eddy we grabbed next to the Mosquito Swamp.

We covered ourselves in clothes and bug spray as best we could--Bayley and I had nets for our heads, the rest of the grrlz made hijabs of their sarongs. We unpacked hurriedly and tried to set a fire in the pan while Bayley and Jen made dinner. By the time we ate it was just about dark and they were nearly gone, but the air still hung heavy, muggy, and hot. No breeze at all, for the first time on the trip. We cleaned up and basically got ready to go as soon as we got up, early, hopefully before the mosquitos knew we were about.

We shoved off right as they were getting bad again. Bayley started cooking breakfast on the boat named Patches while Aubrey rowed. Breakfast sammies of veggie patties, leftover tater tots from last night's dinner, cheese, grilled onion I believe. Oh, and fresh brewed coffee too. Unbelievable. We got to eat soon before we hit the takeout, which fortunately because it was early was empty.

After that it was just work--unloading everything, breaking down the boats, sorting which gear needed to be returned to which rental facility and therefore would go in which car, etc. Aubrey, Bakers, Dave, Mary and I ran the shuttle to retrieve the rest of the cars, we finished loading while Andy played in the mud (that kid is unbelievably cool, not to mention a great boater of all craft) and hit the road. It was a long trip back to Denver with all the stops: return gear in Moab and Fruita, drop off Bayley in Grand Junction (Jeff made us some killer coffee--thanks guys!) and finally Diana's place in Silt. Totally worth missing my routefinding trip (and by extension high peak). I can't wait to do another one!