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I had a great weekend. On Saturday I led my 1st aid pitch in about 17 years ( an A1 - A2 in Yosemite ). It felt good! John Wang cleaned it on ascenders. Then it rained. Timing is everything in life. Maybe John will post a photo since he had his digital camera. I also used a 00 TCU for the first time. Worked like a charm!

<i>I led my 1st aid pitch in about 17 years ( an A1 - A2 in Yosemite )</i>

Where was it?

<i>Then it rained.</i>

Does this mean you stopped??

Staircase Falls. Yes,once the rain started, we went on a rainy day recon mission to check out the 1st 4 pitches of " Love Without Anger " on the BOLT wall ( Brother of Leaning Tower ). Luckily John was just starting to rappel from the bolt station when the rain started!!

Old A2, maybe?? I've never been back there. Is it any good?

My weekend: calc II and CS. The I had a view of the hills from my window.

Spent 12 hours Saturday and 8 hours Sunday at Minehaha Rocks in Spokane. Did lot of moderate routes, a couple hard ones, got some pointers on gear placements, then cleaned my first trad route. No leading, since there are no bolted routes there. Had great weather both days.

Very early Saturday, tried to race the storm to head up Red Lake and Stevens Peaks. It wasn't snowing too hard but visibility due to the fog was very poor. Took a look, turned around and headed home. Corrected tests on Sunday. I'll head back this Saturday.

"Old A2, maybe?? I've never been back there. Is it any good?" - I liked it. Fun and easy to get to. It was perfect re - introduction to aid after so long away!

It sucked. In the office Saturday and Easter Sunday putting together contracts just like last weekend.

Went out with the family to Tollhouse to climb some fun moderates, wrote a suggestion letter to 5.10 to rip those damn traction knobbies off the soles of their Mountain Masters (they work better without 'em!) and pissed off a few tree druids.

Worked in the yard, ran 4 miles, went skydiving. Sorry...no pics this time.

Yosemite. Followed a friend up p.3 on Reed's Direct. He protected the 5.5 chimney start with a 12" Valley Giant cam which was really amusing to see placed (and not so amusing to carry on my harness). It's funny though, after spending two weeks in Joshua Tree recently, I was feeling my confidence grow. But after just three days in Yosemite, I'm humble and sore.

Thought I was going to get some climbing done on Guam but heck no! After hiking up some jungle limestone trail in 95 degrees and humidity to check out the anchor of 4 aged rusty bolts with brand new webbing (???) to decide if the 40' 5.7ish route was worth it, flinging through spider webs and the fuzzy black and yellow spotted inhabitants, what I thought was a shrunken skull but turned out to be a hung coconut.......pant, pant.....our guide left us at the top and said "call me later and tell me whatcha think" and proceeded to run down the trail back to his truck. We were like "WTFO?!" and spent the next hour trying to find our way down without breaking, slicing or otherwise destroying body parts.
Once back on the beach we thought it best to just do some bouldering on .....what?.... limestone! OUCH!
Think I'll just stay on the beach bikini clad next time and forget about climbing in Guam!

After having past a nice Easter with my family on the Mediterranean beaches with temperatures of 43 ºC / 109 F under the sun, and having had some baths; I needed to go back to the mountains. Today I've really had a Winter weather in Sierra de Guadarrama. I drove to the now closed Valdesquí ski resort (1.950 m) and started solo-hiking to Valdemartín (2.278 m). Before treading the snow, near the N ridge I broke for having lunch. It was late, around 4 PM, and I had heard that during the afternoon there would be some rains. I could see the sky getting grey and noticed the first drops so I put my Gore-Tex and gaiters on and restarted the hike passing the PD- ridge. It was there when it started to snow, wich together with the strong wind did that my pace slowed a little. After the ridge I had to put my balaclava and big gloves on because the temperature had fell a lot. The snow was soft and wet so it was slippery and the fog became thick, sometimes I couldn't see further than 10 meters. Soon I was on the summit of Valdemartín, where I had to change my idea of going to Cabezas de Hierro. This mountain is placed to the east of Valdemartín, just where the wind blowed from (SE) so I decided to descend to Collado de las Guarramillas (2.159 m) and ascend Bola del Mundo (2.268 m). I had to look at my compass sometimes and almost mistook the trail when descending to the col. I also took shelter behind an electricity little building wich had a "death risk" placard (it was a joke?) The wind was very strong (maybe of 80 Km/h) and shattered the snow against my face. After having had some preparations I restarted the descent. On the col the fog had open a little so I could check the compass, I had decided to descent along Loma del Noruego once I'd reach Bola del Mundo. On the summit I rested a little and ate something, the snow remainders almost reached the roof of the building (TV station). The first storm had passed but I could see the very dark clouds to the south, they were almost black. So I started the descent and almost mistook the trail again, the ski protection barriers helped me not to get lost. The snow had became heavy again so I descended quickly over Loma passing Peña del Aguila (2.004 m), where the snow turned into rain that lost strength when I arrived to the car. 4 h 20 min, Tmin = -1 ºC / 30 F (lasting), see no people during the hike but some birds and a fox when driving to the spot.

Diego, 43 degrees C [109 F] on the beaches already???? Yeah, I can totally understand why you'd want to get back to the mountains!