O’Keefe’s Oddness

Several months ago Adam O’Keefe skied a very contrived line in the Cardiff pass area (aptly named O'Keefe's Oddness by me); essentially rappelling some of the cliffs under the summit simply to access the snow beneath them which was in no way was any different than the any other snow in the area but as George W. would have “No Child Left Behind” so would Adam have “No Snow Left Unskied.” And as the snow would have it, this was our theme of the day. Trudging up Cardiff with 70 meters of coiled goodness in my backpack was some way to ski snow that could easily be avoided but with the lackluster performance of winter thus far (yeah I said it; don’t forget the dry spell we’re supposed to have these next 10 days) rappelling seemed like a very fun idea and as it turned out it was. The turns were quite good too on both North and South faces.

Solid Anchor

 Setting Up

The Universal Sign For Rock And Or Roll (Notice the lack of gloves)

Jack Making His Way Down

The Line We Took (Dotted = Rappel)

Nice Turns To End The Day

The Rock Saving Weekend

In case you've been living under a rock or maybe you just fell asleep for 20 years (I hope you know the literary reference)...it snowed, not just a few inches like last time but this storm left the Wasatch with some serious precipitation. Both Alta and Snowbird are reporting between 3 and 4 feet. Trudging through 4 feet of unsettled powder however, proved to be a bit difficult both uphill and downhill. So we took some baby steps for our first "real" turns of this season.

While Chesy slaved at work on Saturday morning (I couldn't muster the enthusiasm to go in myself) Nak and I went to investigate the recent deposit up Neff's Canyon...it was deep up there. We then used the afternoon to head up to Alta to ski some S. facing slopes and then again on Sunday and in my dreams Sunday night.

It's how deep out there? 

"Where is that Pesky Wabbit"

 Pow

Chesy skinning. 

Attempting to descend 

Attempt......

Successful

Making something out of nothing

Alta received a measly 12-15 inches but just as the waitress tells you the plate's hot you still have to touch it to find out...so I went up to investigate. Recent beta suggests main really wasn't ready to go so I skied off Baldy shoulder. Coverage is reasonable given you're going to hit rocks and shrubs. I'd do it again but just barely maybe that's just the lack of skiing talking.

Out of focus pictures below:

Yosemite Trip and Climbing El Cap...base routes

With a few scheduled days off and a well placed Chemistry building power outage on Saturday, Chesy and I decided on a short trip to Yosemite or as my Chinese lab mate calls it "Yost_mite". So I jetted home from work on Thursday evening to get our "anodized nik naks" in order and head out.

Don't forget the knife for killin bears

Flash forward 5 hours: As awoke from a dreamless sleep at a random Nevada rest stop (more like dirt pullout with a 40 gallon drum for a trash can) the rain was pouring effortlessly on my car. I wrestled off my sleeping bag and we were off again; a few hours from the park. Soon enough the sun revealed itself along with the snowy Sierra Nevada mountains. Now on any other day this phenomena would leave me excited and breathless, but after 7 hours of driving, poor sleep, and a few too many Red Bulls all I came to realize was that the pass to Yosemite would be closed. Of course as Chesy and Travis luck would have it this was indeed true. Abridged Version: we drove the long way (6 extra hours) around. 

It's ok though, gas was real cheap.

As we arrived into a socked in park 6 hours later than we expected we were greeted with beautiful vista views of dense fog, moisture, and dim headlights that you couldn't really see until it was too late (at least we still had our senses of humor). Things did clear up quite a bit later that night.

Avatar!

Look at that enormously active waterfall! Well pretend.

Blue cloudless skies and mild temperatures greeted us the next day. I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Chesy on El Cap (actually a True Statement) but not as cool as it sounds. 

 Quintessential Half Dome pictures

A full day ending it with an easy out up Munginella

View from our tent

Running to add icing to the cake. 

As William Nelson once said "I just can't wait to get on the road again"

No Real Stories Just Pictures

To break up your daily routine here are some pictures. Enjoy!

 Running up Bell's Canyon

Colors 

 Climbers up Ellworth-McQuarrie

An overly protected Bushwhack Crack 

There's Nak too...she's a goofball

Lone Peak Fail Part Deux

Since last Monday Chesy and I have talked adventure (more like illusions of grandeur). Her record of adventures with me though is something like 1 and 20; that's wins  vs losses (not very good and I'm not reliving them here). So her reluctance to be convinced was simply unavoidable. However, as her attitude would have it she was more than interested in my newest idea. We were convinced that it would be awesome to summit Lone Peak via The Open Book (4 pitches, 5.7) within 9 months of climbing (as in 9 months ago we had never set foot on anything more than 5 feet high).

She was in and so was I and so on Friday night we were putting the pieces together. With the distractions of life (Ph.D., dogs, moving, and work) we figured we would have to do this in one long day. So we started moving at 5 a.m. Saturday morning but...we fell for the oldest trick in the book and were convinced we had plenty of time if we just rested our eyes for a few more seconds. [Eye's resting] Now it's 7 a.m. and we're just eating breakfast. So as the time ticks by we weren't on the trail until around 8:50.

Chesy looking good with Lone in the far background

"No worries" I told Chesy we were making good time to the steep part of the trail and good time to the first meadow. Unfortunately, we started to slow and by the time we reached the granite field a large backpack was taking its toll and I was unable to keep high spirits and Chesy's feet were beginning to hurt.

Fast Forward 2 hours: We had just finished Lunch and were staring up at the summit wall and back down at our watches then back up at the summit wall and so forth (a viscous cycle). It was now 2:30 and we had 3-4 hours of climbing ahead of us. That put us at the summit at 6:30 and not back to the base until 7 and we'd probably be crossing the granite fields by moonlight something neither of us were interested in doing.

We conceded, making poor usage of our time we were left to think what the route would have offered and how much better it would have been if we didn't carry all that gear with us in vein. Now here are some pictures:

 Approximation of the route (Source: Mountain Project)

Kicking it through the first meadow 

Lone in the distance

 Admitting defeat with a smile on her face

 TOO MANY!!

In the end it was still an adventure and better yet I got to do it with the love of my life. We may not have made it to the top (insert sappy love cliche here) but you can't beat pictures like this. I really cannot express enough how nice it is to have Chesy as my go to partner for climbing, hiking, skiing and running. Enough sap we'll tag it another day.

It's SNOWING

Yes that's right, as of right now the cams atop both Alta and Snowbird show the white stuff (not like it matters it's supposed to be 60 up there this weekend). But here are some photo's from recent adventures.

 Chesy up in Crescent Crack (5.7)

 DB's

Someone who can't break records