There was a lot of adventure in our household the week of 9/9/09. We moved our stuff out of the crawlspace so that our new contractors would have some room to work on finishing out the downstairs unit in our house Saturday and Sunday. Tom climbed the Nose in a Day with Hans on Monday, and then we drove across to the East Side and hiked Mt. Whitney in a day on Wednesday, returning tired but happy to our little place in the Valley Thursday night.
Read the rest of this entry »

I promised myself that this is the very week that I would (finally) put something on this blog about the vacation that Tom and I took the week of Aug. 10th for our 11th wedding anniversary. We’d tossed around some other ideas, and we may have even gone to Hawaii if we’d planned ahead a little further (for people that know us, the beach vacation is a radical departure from our typical vacation mindset). It turned out that a shorter vacation to the East Side of the Sierra was absolutely perfect. Our trip had three parts. We had time to finish up some projects ahead of time so that they weren’t hanging over hour heads for the vacation, and then hiked to the top of Mt. Tyndall, wandered slowly through the Bristlecone Pine Forrest, and climbed in Clark Canyon.
Read the rest of this entry »

NPS just came out with an estimate of how large the March 28 Ahwiyah Point rockfall was, and I was surprised to learn that it was nearly 50% larger than the major rockfall in 1996 that fell near Happy Isles. Turns out, there has been a really interesting conversation going on over at Supertopo about the rockfall, and I picked up some more interesting information as well, and would recommend that as a good source for pictures and analysis about where the rockfall came from.
Read the rest of this entry »

I stopped on my way to work yesterday morning and took a picture of Le Conte Gully. Like 2 years ago, it is filled with beautiful yellow bushes, that, if you were to go up there, would provide a splendid foreground to Half Dome from a unique perspective in the Valley. The light is a little wrong to see the dog leg in the gully where the boulder came loose, but I was late for work, and this is what I got.

All this makes October 22 a good time each year to contemplate being alive, be grateful for what I have, and to think about how far I’ve come in the intervening time. It’s my Boulder Day. My back is doing great. It aches sometimes, but for the most part it is the lack of strength and flexibility that holds me back these days. Although I’m not really doing much climbing, that has more to do with lack of motivation than inability, and I’ve started doing some running. At one point this summer I did a half-marathon distance. I’m still god-awful slow, but today, on my typical out and back from Curry Village, the distance that usually takes me 20+ minutes, took only 18. So, I’m getting a little faster and feeling a little stronger. I’ve started (just barely) trying to get back into the weight room more regularly too in preparation for the upcoming ski season. I figure if I’m also a little careful about what I eat, I’ll lose some of the extra fat that I’ve put on these last 2 years too.

This year Tom and I celebrated quietly. Tom returned from a few days’ visit to WI to visit Dr. Kingdon in the hospital the night of the 22nd, so we went out for a nice romantic dinner tonight and he even got me a couple of small presents on his way back through Fresno. I’m such a lucky girl!

Hans and Yuji did it again! Another fantastic record, this time cutting off 6.5 minutes off their previous record. The final time was 2 hours, 37 minutes and 5 seconds.

Tom and I sadly missed the record-setting effort, and the cheering and hoopla in the meadow, but I couldn’t resist mentioning it here. An amazing effort, just got amazing-er.

There’s been a great deal of excitement and story-telling about the new speedclimbing record on the Nose, recently obtained by Hans Florine and Yuji Hirayama. 2 hours, 43 minutes, 33 seconds. In addition to the details from Hans, ElcapPics turned in an entertaining and suspenseful narrative on Supertopo. It was very exciting, the media was there, even The Big Hats, like Superintendent Mike Tollefson, were out in the meadow. There were multiple champagne celebrations, and I cheered until I was a hoarse.

A couple of highlights for me:

On the Sunday attempt, someone reviewing video of the King Swing made a comment about how the guys made the monster swing look something like Bandaloop’s vertical dancing, and Hans joked about throwing in a move. Who would have thought that in the middle of a down-to-the-minute record breaking attempt, Hans would actually go through with it? Could it be that he was actually having fun up there?

Sean Jones brought a posse of local El Portal kids out to the meadow to watch, and cheer. I loved the energy that they brought to the meadow. Afterwards, they gathered around Yuji to congratulate him and one said that they hoped the Hubers wouldn’t break their record. When Yuji replied, “I don’t care. The Hubers are my friends,” I hoped it would be an attitude toward competition and sport that the kids could carry with them for a while.

There was inspiration everywhere I turned that day. I met a guy who works for Architechtural Digest who came up from the Bay Area for some climbing, and to film the event. He’d been in a car accident that left his left arm hanging by the skin. Although he thought he’d never climb again, a short session at Swan Slab convinced him otherwise.

Tom Frost, at the age of 72, did the 4th class scramble to the base of the route to see the guys off… after sleeping on the floor at our place because it was too much trouble to pull out a futon. (I wasn’t there, and take no responsibility for that decision.)

And lastly, although I could go on and on, I was impressed with the number and diversity of people that came out to support these guys. From Hans’ posse of friends drove up from the Bay Area for the morning, to the crazy-fit guys who filmed them on the route, to the locals who took time out of their day to swing by, to the guy who rode up for specifically to see Sunday’s attempt and stayed through the record-breaking effort on Wednesday.

Any great astrologers out there have a reading on why there seem to be so many comings and goings in my life right now?

Tom and I went the Bay Area last weekend to welcome an old Berkeley friend who has just come back from the East Coast. After 3 long years in Maryland, we’re absolutely delighted to have Stan back on the West Coast. Maybe not as happy as his family is to see him, but pretty darned happy.

Our other friend, Pascal, was also in the Bay Area this weekend, all the way from Basil, Switzerland so it made the trip extra special. We had hoped that he and his family would be able to visit us in Yosemite, but he had to leave again too early.

Yuji and crew came to Yosemite over the weekend, and are staying in our place up in Yosemite West. It’s been 5 years since we’ve seen them. And Hans came up from the Bay Area to climb with him. These guys have big climbing plans, but we’re just happy to get to see them again after all this time.

On the going end, my good friends John and Marina are getting ready to leave Yosemite on Wednesday. It’s sad to see them leave, but they are starting on a big life adventure and it is hard not to feel the excitement and anticipation in that.

I’ve promised myself that no matter how late it’s gotten, or how many other adventures I’ve had since then, that I would put something up about the amazing day that I had climbing with my friends, Bruce and Em, on Fresno Dome, the day after the Pano hike .

Fresno Dome is one of those places that is close enough that I should have gone there many times, but far enough away that I haven’t. Unlike Yosemite climbing, it’s a quiet little crag, with plenty of routes at my new not-very-hardcore climbing level (as well as harder stuff). Bruce and Em did the hard work – planning where to climb, scouring guidebooks and the internet for information. I just tagged along, and was treated to a perfectly wonderful day of climbing.