to the east

since our last update, jud and i adventured home. it took days, but we finally made it! here's some very random photos from the journey:



then we stopped and visited dotti, steve, kara, and rachel in illinois, which was totally awesome. sadly, i didn't take any photos because i was too preoccupied with hanging out and having fun. we enjoyed some excellent mexican food, had a great fire, and toured the frank lloyd wright house (dana-thomas) in springfield.

then we stopped at our homes and visited the families for a day or so. one highlight for me was hanging out with nancy. here she is enjoying her first martini and being her normal awesome self (click on images to see funny videos):





and now we're having a blast at the new! it's really nice to be camping in one place and to be with our friends and to just be out here enjoying the beautiful scenery of west virginia. of course climbing rocks is totally amazing. the weather has been mostly good and the thunderstorms we get are pretty exciting. here's a couple of shots from here: (there are definitely more on the way - i've been neglecting the photography a bit but am hoping to work on that over the next couple of weeks here)



here's a crazy wasp building its nest on roger's porch (click for video):



love,
genevieve

the oregon trail and the bavarians

guten tag mein freunde! (i'll explain later) - after leaving beautiful sea side north cal we headed into hot, sunny eastern oregon (is it or-a-gon, or organ?) to check out the climbing at smith rocks. I do, after all, own the place. After a day of ice cream eating and pint swilling in the awesome, outdoorsy town of bend we set out for smith, got lost on creepy country roads in the dark, and decided to try again after a night's sleep at a nearby rest area (where we woke up to satan's personal swarm of demon mosquitos. I must be less pure than Gen, as they didn't suck so much as a gram from me). Eventually we found it and had a fun evening and early (really early, baker early) morning of climbing on smith's welded tuff - totally unlike any rock either of us had climbed on, a sort of sandy medium with many fist-size and smaller angular blocks protruding from it - very interesting and cool. but hot. so hot. hot enough to flash fry both of us like little leaves of spinach. Have you ever seen flash fried spinach? exactly.



so we fled Oregon (remember that game Oregon Trail? I propose a grim and realistic plug-in whereas if your party runs out of food you may cannibalize the weakest member, we'll call the new version "Oregon Trail: The Donner Option") - after more ice cream and a fantastic waterfall hike outside bend - to Central Washington and the town of Leavenworth, where yodelers abound and strangers hand you free ricola. Despite the overwhelming faux bavarian theme here, there is an abundance of good bakeries and german beer and very, very good fruit. The climbing and hiking here are also first rate. The climbing (for me) is memorable for three reasons: a). the rock here is like nothing we've climbed on (maybe we say that a lot), a metamorphosed granite that felt a lot like fantastic sandstone. 2.)- i lived one of my greatest climbing fears and fell from an overhang with my bomber heel toe cam being the last thing to leave. The rock here is merciful as well as a pleasure to climb on though, and I am still thankfully the proud owner of two functioning ankles. and lastly.) I had the most fun on a single boulder problem as I've had the entire trip (thus far) on the enormous, twenty foot long roof crack "royal flush." The emotional cocktail I felt when I finally sent was a spicy brew indeed, initial excitement and calm quickly became a strength sapping lack of confidence, finally leading to fear and abject horror! I now realize that crack climbing- to me- is analogous to good science fiction; its bizarre, mind bending, and a general lack of understanding and confusion are highly probable (again, for me), but when the end does arrive, you feel a sense of relief and understanding that make the world a little bit brighter. I guess the point is that crack climbing is strange and exciting to me, something clearly evident in my face if you look closely at some of Gen's pictures.



After our day of bouldering Gen and I decided we'd felt best when we were hiking in California, and we'd be fools to pass up that opportunity here. We quickly scored a permit and headed out into the enchantment lakes. If I try to describe how amazing this place is I'm confident I will fail. Along with the sierra nevada of California this is the most beautiful alpine setting I've seen. Genevieve's amazing pictures do a far better job of conveying the feel of this place than I ever could. In short, we had a blast. Mountain paradise. Harrison, get out here now! There are more frigid alpine lakes than even you can shake your fist at.





Now we are back in town, chilling in das starbucks and hiding from the 100 degree oppressiveness and humidity that calls to mind a poor potato in a sous vide bag. We're on our way back east soon, and when I know more, dear reader, so will you... off the record, on the qt, and very hush hush.

Love,
Jud

the golden state

sorry for the suspenseful pause in blogging! we've been very busy exploring california...

our big backpacking adventure on the high sierra trail up to the summit of mt. whitney was a blast! words and pictures cannot fully describe the feeling of the trip, but some pictures are presented here for your enjoyment.

note: this slideshow has nearly 200 pictures in it, so be patient, or go to my picasa site to look through them at your own pace. (also, i did not upload them at any good resolution, so i will still send a cd to whoever wants one or show you pictures in person - i took about 500 pics!!)


after we finished our hiking and parted with the guys, we drove up to yosemite and bouldered for a day. it was beautiful, but overcrowded. this began our poor luck for finding camp sites - every one of them in california has been full for about a week now, but we manage wonderfully (thanks to rest areas).



then, we headed to castle rock (just south of san francisco) for some of our favorite bouldering yet. the whole place just gave us a great feeling. the rock was perfect, like (at least in as far as I can tell from pictures) a miniature fontainbleau. the routes were fun, and the forest around it was really magical, too!



by this point (well, much sooner) we had some serious bread cravings, so we finally made our way into san francisco in search of some good sourdough bread. however, we found more than bread in san fran: amazing breakfast, hippies, hipsters, amazing bikers, delicious fresh fruit, beautiful city sights...



after the city, we were psyched for some more climbing, so we drove northward on highway 1 to salt point for some beaches and bouldering



we continued driving along highway 1 (which was so winding and beautiful that jud almost tossed up his pancake breakfast out of sheer awe)



and arrived at moonstone beach (which is near arcata, ca), where we are now. there is beautiful beach climbing, redwood forests, and an awesome college town here (where by some cosmological anomaly - wormhole, tear in the space-time continuum, etc - ninety percent of the worlds hippies have somehow been teleported, explaining the perceived decline in that movement elsewhere) !




hope all is well back at home!

we send lots of love!
jud and gen

moab, monticello, and JOE'S VALLEY

after colorado, we drove to utah and made our first stop to visit dan and phil. sadly, phil was in the field and dan was only around the night we got there because he got called in the next morning to chase down a kid... however, it was AWESOME seeing dan for a bit, even though it was too short. we lived our rock and roll fantasies and fragged lots of locust thanks to the wonder that is xbox. here's some pics of our adventures in the monticello and moab areas:





then we headed to JOE'S VALLEY, which was definitely our favorite bouldering crag. there are beautiful sandstone boulders on every hillside and lining a neighboring river. it's overwhelming, you stare out the car window and gasp and point at all the hundreds of boulders that are as or more stunning than any you've seen, until you get exhausted of that and just have to sit back and admire it. it was secluded, quiet; peaceful. you should go there.




love,
gen and jud

illinois, pancakes, and that grizzly bear song

week 1 on the road is already fading into week 2!

a quick recap goes as follows:
-we drove a lot, which followed an arc of excitement increasing and then decreasing and then increasing again.


(we stopped to visit where gen used to work... richmond, indiana - YES!)

-we stopped in so ill to climb, but got rained on



-we drove a lot more, same arc...
-we endured an epic thunderstorm in kansas, where our sweet, innocent minivan (rose) was nearly lost to a twister (ok, high wind, but the closest thing to a twister we think we've experienced)


(click on the picture for a video of the beginning of the thunderstorm)

-we drove a lot more, nearly losing our minds when we realized eastern colorado looks a lot like kansas.
-eventually, we ended up in the rockies!
-we hiked in rocky mountain national park (beautiful!)



-we climbed in estes park which made meatloaf of our fingertips...



-we tried to climb in rifle, which made meatloaf of our egos...




in summary, we ate amazing pancakes, drove across boring ones, and realized the best part of colorado is still the grizzly bear song ;)

love,
jud and gen

p.s.

From 2009 videos

(click for funny video)

laurel highlands backpacking

jud and i just finished hiking the 70 mile laurel highlands trail! we saw many beautiful sights and animals. here's some pictures of our hike:



jud and i both think that it was a beautiful and peaceful way to start our summer after the insanity of moving. we began the hike with mark, harrison, bob, dave, jim, and brad, who we hiked with the first day and shared the shelter with on the first night. then we continued onward to hike the remaining 63.something miles. our daily hiking schedule was:

june 6: 6.something miles
june 7: 12.something miles
june 8: 14 miles
june 9: 14 miles
june 10: 10.something miles
june 11: 8.something miles
june 12: 5.something miles

my favorite animal surprise, besides the huge and scary snake, was when a turkey was hiding ten feet away from us and decided to freak out and fly off... it looked really awkward, as turkeys do when they fly.

...

anyway, the plan is to leave for colorado tomorrow (today, actually), stopping in southern illinois for a day of bouldering. we have the van all packed up and hopefully we'll get some pictures of that posted soon.

i hope everyone is enjoying their summer so far.

lots of love,
gen