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If you would like to get on the mailing list to get this report next year, then please e-mail me and I will put you on the list. (my e-mail is grundyman and then the at sign and then gmail and so on)
I started the new year with my parents in Cleveland, but soon I flew across the country back to Flagstaff. There I resumed rock climbing and shoveling snow (often on the same day thanks to the sunny south facing cliffs). I also made a trip to Las Vegas to climb at Red Rocks. One new activity for me this year was skiing. I learned to skin up and ski down with a set of short skis and Dynafit alpine touring bindings. In March I made another trip to Las Vegas to climb some longer routes with Anthony. One of the climbs we did was “levitation 29” which had been on my “to do” list for a while. Back in Flagstaff I managed to redpoint my long standing project “No Joke” at the pit (supposedly a 5.13b sport climb). This was just in time, because Julie began a leave of absence from work at the end of the month.
With the constraints of work out of the way, Julie and I headed first to the Gold Wall near Sonora, Ca and then up to Smith Rocks in Oregon. We were there for quite a while, with a side trip for the annual Yogaslacker sufferfest. This year it was in Washington on Mount Rainier. We started May 14 in drizzly conditions near 2000 ft. Soon we were skiing up in whiteout snow. The first night we camped at around 8200 ft on Success cleaver. We planned on summiting and skiing down the next day, but instead we didn't even make it up and were forced to camp at around 13,500 feet. Finally we summited and skied down the Emmons Glacier the 3rd day. I probably doubled my ski experience on this trip, and would have been quite happy to be much better at it than I was, especially near the top of the mountain. On the 4th day, we inflated our rafts and crunched across the snow to the White River which we followed all day (much slower than we hoped because we had to get out to go around all of the log strainers across the river). On the 5th day we continued down the river but finally pulled out when we lost a paddle after a boat got stuck in a strainer. From there 3 people hitched back to the bicycles for the 60 mile ride back to the cars while Sam and I hitched with all the rest of our gear back to the staging area. (we had planned to boat all the way back to the bicycles, but the slower time on the mountain combined with the myriad log strainers prevented that).
To give you a better idea of the sufferfest there were 5 of us with one 3 man tent, 2 sleeping bag “blankets” (one a double, one a single), our packs weighed under 40 lbs with boats, paddles, mountain gear, and not enough food... The entire trip was planned to take 4 days. It was a great adventure that challenged us all.
After the Rainier beating it was back to Smith Rock for a bit more vertical sport climbing before heading to Maple Canyon, Utah for some steep cobble sport climbing. Then to Flagstaff where Julie went on a private trip down the Grand Canyon. There were no last minute cancellations, so I ended up joining the Yogaslackers in Colorado for the second half of the YES tour (Yoga Extreme Sustainability). We bicycled around with all our gear doing donation based yoga, acro-yoga, and slackline yoga classes and demonstrations as well as our usual climbing, packrafting, slacking, etc. While I was with them we bicycled from Denver to Colorado Springs to Pueblo to Salida to Gunnison to Telluride for the Telluride Yoga Festival. I rode my first “century” on a bicycle from Pueblo to Salida pulling a trailer mostly uphill. After that hiatus, I drove back to meet Julie at Maple for some more climbing with a brief stop at the Outdoor Retailer show, then on to Wyoming. Just before I pulled onto the highway, my truck crunched down to a halt (broken ball joint). Luckily I was barely moving at the time and the repair was fairly quick and less expensive than I feared it would be.
In Wyoming we spent some time around Lander climbing at Sinks and Wild Iris and hiked into the Wind River Range to scramble up Wind River Peak. I took a quick detour back to Flagstaff while my parents were there and then headed up to Jackson Hole to meet Julie. She had some truck trouble of her own driving down from Yellowstone. We hiked and climbed in the Tetons including climbing Teewinot and The Grand Teton (via the Upper Exum route). Then we headed towards South Dakota where we climbed in Spearfish Canyon.
In the middle of September we drove down to Julie's brother's in Euless (D/FW) Texas. There we completed a number of tasks. We waterproofed the mini-trailer roof, Julie bought a 2005 Tacoma, I bought Julie's truck, and I tried to sell my truck (but the TX title I thought I had was only for registration purposes, so I wasn't able to complete the sale). We had to drive to Arizona to register the vehicles, so we stopped at Sitting Bull Falls on the way for more climbing.
We left my old truck in Texas and drove to the Red River Gorge in Kentucky. There we spent nearly 2 months working on sport climbing the steep Corbin sandstone (a member of the Grundy Formation). My replacement OR truck title came in and Julie's brother was able to sell my truck to a buyer who had looked at it before we left. I didn't manage to climb a whole lot of new climbs, but I got pretty strong and came close on a few. Instead of successfully climbing, I managed to take about a 40 foot fall (luckily 80 feet up an overhanging climb). It was pretty exciting and frustrating.
We left the Red before the weather really turned bad and I headed NE to Boston and my sister's while Julie went back to Texas. I was in Boston through the holidays getting used to my new laptop and playing with Peter and Trintje, my niece and nephew. After Christmas I will be driving back across the country in preparation for heading to LA and then Thailand in January.
Throughout the year I have continued to take and sell photos online as well as posting some photos and trip reports here. (take the link at the end of the page back to the index)
I hope everyone has had a fun and productive year wherever you may be and whatever you are doing.
--=Tom Grundy
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