Jim-

Now I know what to render up for your B-day next year........THE FIN!!!! (and some "foo-foo" beer....teehee!) See you on your next birthday.....

Happy Birthday,

Dave

BTW, anyone up for managing the "Chele Trip Tracker"?

The Leap,
The Valley,
Courtright,
?????

Hi Michele. So you've really finally left Joshua Tree? That must have felt kind of strange, seeing as how it was your home for such a long time. Oh well, no matter. There are plenty of other places with 14-day camping limits to breach! Lover's Leap, for example. It doesn't have the ambience of J-Tree, but the climbing is wonderful. Plenty of steep but moderate terrain to play on. I hope you have a great time there. If you're in need of a midweek partner for a day or two, let me know. It's a short drive (relative to visiting Joshua Tree) and I might be able to pop by without too much trouble.

Dave (aka the Yeti from Lemoore) - I hope to confirm your existence (or lack thereof) sooner than next May. Then again, how does one prove a negative? Didn't Messner embarrass himself that way? Maybe what we really need is a Daly Tracker. Those fuzzy pictures that snwburd copied from that recent National Enquirer story aren't too convincing. Maybe you could meet me in The Ditch some weekend? Interested in the NE Butt of Higher Cathedral?

Better still: Fantasia at Lover's Leap. 5.9 R.

Spent Memorial Day weekend at Dome Rock, near the Needles (The Needles road is still closed. Why?). Anyway, Dome has some of the most hard core slabbin' anywhere, but you best wait for the afternoon shade. Among other things we did Winjammer (the only pro is tied off knobs), Welcome to Dome Rock, Tobins' Dihedral, Red Mushrooms and a route I put up with Herb Laeger a few years ago called Save The Wails (to the right of Carsonoma). Long lazy mornings, action packed afternoons and perfect camping.

Speaking of Windjammers, Alice and I spent 4 days sailing on our favorite schooner, the Lewis R. French, where the mountains meet the sea - Camden, Maine, over Memorial Day weekend. Had a great time, lots of lobster too. It's frigg'n hot here in Calif. compared to Maine, let me tell you mister!

Awesome, Craig! Glad to hear that you and Alice had fun!

I went backpacking this weekend up McGee Creek in the Eastern Sierra, and it was absolutely gorgeous.

JD - Yes, it has been hard leaving Joshua Tree. I have been going through major withdrawals! I miss waking up to the warm desert sun, those days filled with climbing clean granite, and spending time with the good people I came to know there. The climbing at Lover's Leap these past couple of days, sure was a change from J Tree. Even the harder routes seemed loaded with features. And I unknowingly had the Mill Pond Ale at Strawberry Lodge. Yum!

Hey, how about a short trip out to Courtright?

What did you climb at the Leap, Michele?

I'm headed to the Ditch this weekend and have a tentative plan for more of the same midweek. Courtright? Hmmm. It's a nice place, but I think Tuolumne is about to open. I'd much rather go there than "the little Tuolumne of the south".

JD - I don't know the names of what I climbed, as I was without a guide book. I do know that all were on the East Wall and one of the routes was The Line...kind of easy to figure that one out based on how it looks! Oh, and I did do a warm up on Bears Reach. Everything there felt pretty easy...always some dike to step or pull up on.

I've been wanting to check out Courtright, but I would be just as happy with Tuolumne. That is my favorite climbing area thus far! It looks like I will be staying in Camp 4 starting the second week of June. I'll post a note on the board, as to where I can be found. Feel free to drop me a line if you are up for climbing before then! And have fun!

Michele - It seems that Tuolumne is opening up this Saturday afternoon! I have some vague plans for next week but if they fall through I'll give you a buzz. Otherwise, I'll drop by Camp 4.

Hey... do you know how to jumar and clean?

Jack - Michele and I are planning to climb Lost Arrow Spire Tip next weekend. The plan is to do some nailing / jumar / cleaning / tyrolean practice on Saturday and go do the climb and tyrolean on Sunday. It would be great if you could join us!

I have a pretty good starter aid rack for nailing on Saturday (10+ LAs, 9 KBs, several angles, 1 Z, etc.). My package of extra pins just came in today from MEC across the border. Camp Lost Arrows in $Can are much cheaper than BD ones in the US! Though I am wondering why the Camp LAs also have a C inside a diamond. Perhaps they're also using the old Chouinard casts? Michele and I need to get some nailing and cleaning practice down for a mini-wall with Craig later in June.

I'm also thinking of free soloing Church Bowl Lieback (5.8, half pitch) on Saturday sometime. This shouldn't take long. It would be fun to have some company for that as well.

Let us know. Time to head out to Castle Crags now ... Cosmic Wall awaits!

Wow. The moderate 6 pitch, 5.6 Cosmic Wall turned out to be one of my favorite climbs in a while. Some great things about the climb:<ol><li>Only my friends were on it. Dirk, Don, Larry, and I climbed the route in 2 teams of 2. No others were on Mt. Hubris. Some people were on Castle Dome a little ways away.</li><li>I overshot the 2nd belay station on lead and had to downclimb 30 feet of 5.5/5.6 with my last piece of pro being 35 feet beneath me. The other option was to set up a belay there but the placements looked marginal to non-existent to me so I chose to downclimb. Larry also overshot the belay station so it wasn't that obvious </li><li>Most people seem to climb a ridge variation to the summit on P6 even though the Laird Davis guidebook only shows a "low-angle chimney" to the summit. The ridge variation is obvious from Cosmic Wall and Solar Wind. Dirk convinced me to check out the chimney which turned out to be a 5.7R or 5.8R water chute. I led that with my last piece being about 15 feet beneath and to the side of me. This led up to an incredible summit. Dirk was a bit concerned about the pitch and told me that if I fell I would have been "squish, like grape."</li></ol>Great day. The only minor disappointment was that neither Dirk nor I could open the summit register (made of PVC plumbing pipe). I suggested we simply take the entire register down to sign it later but we left it up there and rapped off without signing.

John-

I was under the impression your best lead was at 5.8, based on Craig's climber reference list he made. Free soloing already?? Pretty ballsy. Have you done it before? I guess my take on the matter is, if you haven't been in that element before then maybe you might wanna try soloing something well below your current lead ability. Take Josh for example, granted he leads hard 11's but solos nothing harder than 5.9. Same for me, I won't solo anything harder than 5.7/5.8. I'm not trying to be "Dad" here but I would like to meet you at the Minarets first ; ). Just food for thought.....

Dave

John -

Thanks for inviting me to join you on LA Spire. I've been up there a couple times in the past and am planning on climbing it again this summer with my girlfriend, so I'll have to pass. I am hunting around for someone to do a wall with in June. What sort of experience do you have?

As for joining you to free solo Church Bowl Lieback, ummm, I don't think so. I always get gripped leading that thing. Aunt Fanny's Pantry is more my speed.

I went to climb East Butt of El Cap yesterday but (drat!) it's still raining up there in the afternoon. So we bailed after p.7.

Improved my lap time by a whole 2 seconds on the Tollhouse Traverse (21 minutes 11 sec.). See a description of "The Lap" in the 'Summit Log' of the Tollhouse Rock page. Not bad seeing how the temp was 95 degrees.

John, don't solo 5.8's. In fact, don't solo. If it's easy enough to solo, it isn't worth bothering with. Go to the bar instead!