Photo credit: Andrew Burr http://andrewburr.blogspot.com/

And already, the week off is becoming evident.  I even forgot to use my savings card at the supermarket this morning – the dirtbag in me can’t stop freaking out about the two dollars I would have saved had I not botched the sequence.  Joshua Tree was a revelation, as always. The place is super-special to me on many levels, but this time, it was the desert flora that shall remain indelibly etched in my mind.  When Coby and I visited in February, a week or two after I was in Seattle, we were met by some rather unexpected weather – it had rained and snowed for the first two days of our trip and the campground developed deep runnels from all of the drainage.  By the end of our week, we had managed to cram in some great climbing in perfect, SoCal-desert winter conditions, but the unseasonably high levels of precip sparked an interest in the back of my mind…

And so a bit over a week ago–when it was becoming evident that Yosemite would be a bust – I suggested to my partner, Sam, that we head further south instead, as the forecasts for Josh read like a misprint:  low seventies with sun.  And this in the end of May!  I remembered just how much moisture had fallen in the south this winter, not only from our last visit, but from the rather lack-luster powder season we enjoyed here in SLC. It seemed the trend that all of the moisture had been diverted south by La Nina.  Record water in the desert, however, meant one thing:  in an ecosystem adapted to thrive in some of the driest environments on our planet, those in the center of continents, the plant life – which forms the basis of nearly all other inhabitants – responds to these anomalous climate events with what might very well be the greatest bloom of many human generations. A once-in-a-lifetime spectacle of nature.  And it was.  It was beyond words.

On our rest day, I failed – initially – to coerce Sam into going for a day hike in the park.  He seemed like he could use the rest, so I acquiesced.  I left the campground and went exploring.  It’s a funny thing about these really big landscapes: at home in Little Cottonwood, for instance, I notice the peculiar way time and space are compressed when I drive down-canyon toward town after a day of climbing.  In less than a minute, I cover the same ground it takes twenty minutes to hike, and therein lies the deception.  The topography of J-Tree creates a similar illusion:  instead of time, the horizon hides the depth of the place, and, if on foot, one quickly discovers that the weathered domes often conceal sheltered valleys, some as large as a football pitch, others, about the area of my apartment.  In one of these smallish rooms, I found an oasis of plant life. I saw both conifers and their cousins, the flowering plants, representing both major branches of the their side of the tree of life.  Imagine a large yucca or a barrel cactus:  they’ve been waiting – perhaps, for years – saving up enough resources through to maturity to trigger the next step in their life-cycle.  All of a sudden, it happens – enough water to create a surplus, and enough surplus to bloom, some then relying on our branch of the tree, the animals, to fulfill their ultimate goal: pollination.  A super-cool thing to see – I was there alone in a room that might not have seen a human being in quite some time, a privileged witness to a scene that has played out since long before our species.  It was like stepping back in time to an earlier earth.

This trip to J-Tree was a catharsis of sorts.  It’s hard not to feel melancholy in light of the current state affairs on our planet. Just weeks ago, I spied a line that will, undoubtedly, be the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to free-climb.  It’s probably a day or two of work-for some of the world’s strongest – some of them, my good friends – but for me, it’ll demand all of my physical and emotional focus.  After aiding it, I started calling it “Desperate Reality,” both in homage to the famed Yosemite roof crack, “Separate Reality” – a climb made possible only by the invention of the world’s first SLCD – and to this pervasive and deeply embedded feeling that I’ve had for some time now.  This morning, I thought about my last trip to Japan, a few summers ago.  It took me twelve hours to fly to Tokyo.  What a small world!  What if, then, we’re unable to stop the flow of oil into the gulf?  How long will it take before its effects, in turn, affect the food chains on a global scale?

A “Desperate Reality”, a name inspired by the present.  But as I opened the file “my pictures” on our laptop, I looked upon a pic of the line for the first time since I left town.  It’s steep.  It’s thin.  It’s too hard.  But in my absence, I’ve been dreaming.  I’ve been rehearsing the moves in my mind, and with every imaginary burn, it’s starting to seem possible.  And that’s when I realize there’s hope…

Courage in a rucksack

Today’s Sunday, one of the two days I’m on the schedule this week.  The other day, Coby finally went nuts and started about the task of organizing our living room closet that, in the span of a year, has slowly amassed the lion’s share of my gear, representing all of the seasons–from rock climbing to ice and ski gear.  Beneath the layers of climbing packs and haulbags beside the filing cabinet–where once we intended to separate and to store our stockpile of hats, gloves, climbing shoes and other, miscellaneous outdoor accoutrement–I discovered my Wild Things RockSac and the smaller, LS QuickPac.  And all of sudden, despite my relatively recent, and absolute conversion to all things Cilo, I stood there, stunned at the realization of what lay ahead of me–my promise to Cobes that I would toss them both into the consignment room here at IME.

And so as I pulled out the manilla tags and pondered how I’d label them and how much I’d want for them, I remembered an editorial I found once in one of the earlier Alpinists, I don’t remember which; I had stumbled upon it only after I had read the pulp of the magazine some days earlier, and having re-read these articles, I had then moved on to the “finer print” of the title page, the letters, and of course, Christian’s “Letter from the Editor.”  This one was all about the day he saw a battered old pack for sale in the used gear section of the local climbing shop.  He purchased the seasoned warrior and after a few minor repairs, the pack went on to share countless adventures; in the many memories of his time spent in the hills, this pack was omnipresent–almost a symbol, it could even be the title of a chapter if he chose to write an autobiography.

So as I lean over the counter with a new Sharpie, I reflect for a moment all of the different versions of me that have traveled with this pack, of all the days I felt the weight of its straps on my shoulders, of the places its been, and of all of the posessions it once held but that I do not own anymore.  I scribbled a brief description, followed by a steal of a price–$15–in the hopes that one day, the would-be owner of this faded and patched–yet, trusted–relic of my past will see many more alpine starts, the rhythm of steel over perfect, cold neve in the silver-blue light of pre-dawn in the mountains…

Front:
“Wild Things RockSac, $15 *Needs hipbelt, the zipper on the lid could use some love!”

Back:
“*This pack has been all over; if only it could speak–the stories it would tell!  It’s still has a lot of life left in it, many more adventures.  Get after it!”

The P-38

…for the past three weeks i’ve been a hermit in the wasatch alpine; my hope was to spend as much time in the high country before the snow started falling, to finish a few new routes–one, in particular, as a memorial-of-sorts to my friend mike brown.

well, it’s done–i finished it–oddly, in front of the camera–on saturday afternoon, just in time to get back to camp that evening, host a huge bacchanal-bbq, then race back down the mountain to make it on time for work–i open the shop each sunday!  i called the line the P-38; if you’re not already familiar, the P-38 is, of course, a WWII plane, but it is also the US military’s name for the standard-issue can opener, a marvel of modern design:  if you’ve ever used one, the P-38 is light, compact, easy-to-use, and reliable as hell.  whoever designed it must have been a genius–it is elegant in its simplicity, the process involved in stamping them out was probably as streamlined as manufacturing can be, fast and cheap.  all of these qualities–lightweight, compact, easy-going, reliable, cheap, fast and elegant–describe the sort of character mike brown was.  i would have never had the courage to visit some of the places i’ve been, or to take some of the chances–against all better judgment–in life that i did if it were not for his influence.  and like the P-38, mikey was classic, timeless.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-38_can_opener

Shingo, Lone Peak in the Wasatch Mountains