In Denver

Well, after a caffeine and sugar powered trip to Sedalia, Monday, running on 3 hours sleep, I had a nice visit with my Grandma and Grandpa Smith and my aunt Janet. Grandpa is recovering well from his knee surgery and should be home now. Tuesday morning, I hung out chatting with Grandma and watching an Amish man cut down a tree in their back yard, hoping he wasn't going to drop it on the house. All went well and it came down just as he planned. Phew!

Tuesday afternoon, I drove to Dad's and had him help me drop my car off at the shop again. The temperature gauge had been getting pretty high, and I had to put some coolant in it once on the way to Sedalia. We visited my Grandma Mitchell (Dad's mom) in the nursing home and visited my aunt and uncle, Marilyn and Dean. I took my dad to work and went to dinner with my cousin, Mike, and had a really nice time chatting with him.

Thursday morning, I got my car back. They replaced the radiator *again*. Apparently, when it overheated a couple of times after the radiator was replaced, it damaged the neck of the radiator and the cap wouldn't seal properly any more. They also replaced the fan clutch. So far, so good. It seems to be holding up, and the temp is staying down, so maybe it's fixed for good now. *knock on wood*

I had lunch with my dad and an old high school friend, also named Geoff. It was good to catch up a little. After lunch, I headed out to visit my sister near Omaha. We had a nice visit. Her daughter, Liliana, is quite the cutie. It's crazy how much she looks like Sara when she was young.

Friday, I wasn't sure if I wanted to stick around or head out for Denver. Eventually, around 5:00, I decided to hit the road. By about 12:30, mountain time, I rolled in to my friend Aarrun's place in Denver. Today, I went to the Denver Pride Festival with Aarun for a while. Tomorrow, I think I'm going to drive up to Lumpy Ridge to climb. I can't wait to get back on the rock!

Leaving Again...

Well, after an eventful week in St. Louis, I'm on my way again. I'm headed to Sedalia to visit my grandpa in the hospital (he had knee surgery a couple weeks ago, and is going home tomorrow), and spend some time with my Aunt Jan and my grandma. From there, I will head to Lee's Summit to spend some time with my dad, and visit other family. Then, I'll be headed to Omaha to visit my sister. After the visiting is completed, I'll be on my way to Colorado to resume your regularly scheduled climbing trip. Can you believe I haven't climbed in 3 weeks? What's wrong with me?

Hockey Hall of Fame, Niagara Falls, and Homeward Bound...

Tuesday morning, I went for coffee with Danielle, then we walked toward the Hockey Hall of Fame, stopping to get some tasty Thai sandwiches for lunch. Danielle left me near the Hall and headed toward work. I spent the afternoon wandering the Hall, taking in the decades of hockey history.

Stanley And Me

After closing down the Hall, I walked back to Danielle's, stopping at a Poutinerie for dinner. In retrospect, I should have photographed my food. Poutine is a quebecois dish consisting of french fries, with cheese curds, covered in brown gravy. How can you go wrong?

Arriving back at Danielle's, I elected to move my car in order to avoid getting a second parking ticket for being parked on her street after 7:00PM. In the process, I noticed a HUGE puddle of coolant under the car, and that, despite re-filling the coolant, the engine just didn't sound or feel right. I decided then and there that I couldn't risk trying to drive home with the car in it's current state. I was going to have to get it looked at in Toronto. After some rigmarole I won't go into, I found, to my surprise, a mechanic open at 7:00 PM in the evening. They looked at the car right away, and traced the leak to the water pump. I left the car there and they kindly gave me a ride back to Danielle's neighborhood. I had been planning to watch Game 6 of the Stanley Cup playoffs. By this time, I had missed the first period, but found a nearby bar where I was able to take in the last two.

Wednesday, I pretty much just sat around waiting for my car to be ready, which it finally was around 9:00PM. Thursday morning, I said my goodbyes and hit the road.

I figured I couldn't be an hour and a half away from Niagara Falls and not go check it out, even though it meant adding a couple hours drive time to my trip home. I'm glad I did, because now I never have to go back.


Seriously, the falls are pretty, but the area around it is a nightmarish tourist hell. If you're in the area, stop by to be able to say you've seen it, but don't plan on spending more than a couple hours. Whatever you do, don't pay the $18 to park in the lot for the day. On the, Canadian side, at least on a weekday, it's no problem to get a metered spot for $1.50 an hour, and you're not going to be there more than 2 hours anyway, remember?

With Niagara Falls behind me, all that lay between me and home was a 12 hour power drive. By 12:30 or 1:00 AM, Central Time, I was pulling into my driveway.

Wow, the last couple months are really kind of a blur. It actually feels weird to be home, to see places that are familiar. Just driving and knowing where I was going felt strange. It's a feeling I've gotten unaccustomed to. It's good to be home and see my awesome friends, but, already, I've got the itch to be on the road again....

Backpacking Bruce Peninsula

On the Friday after I arrived in Toronto, Danielle and I drove up to Bruce Peninsula National Park, on the Georgian Bay, about 4 hours north of Toronto.

View Larger Map

Well, in theory, it's about 4 hours from Toronto. A few wrong turns and an overheated engine compounded to make it closer to 6 for us. Frankly, though, our "wrong turns" took us on a rather enjoyable and scenic detour, and, while I was pouring water into the radiator, a guy stopped to see if we needed help who was such a perfect Canadian stereotype I really regretted that it would have been such a faux pas to ask to take his picture. Really, my trip would have been less complete without either experience.

As the day progressed, we scaled back our plans a couple times. The initial plan was to hike about 8km to a campsite for the evening. Plan B was to drive to a different trailhead and hike about 3km to a campsite. When we arrived at the park, at 7:00PM or so, we drove to a car camping campground, and decided that would be a fine place to spend the night. :-) Fortunately, during the trip, we also discovered that, due to a mis-communication we had a day longer than I thought we did for the trip, so losing a day of hiking didn't impact our plans. I also had plenty of food in the car, so adding an extra dinner to the trip was no problem. Sometimes living in your car is awfully convienient.

Saturday morning, we decided on Plan B for our route and set out on the trail for a 3km or so hike to a campsite. There is no dispersed camping allowed in the park. All camping is at designated campsites with tent platforms and composting toilets. I'm not a big fan of the approach, but it is, at least, pretty well done. The campsites are pretty well spread out, so you're not camping right on top of anyone or anything, and the locations are beautiful.

There were lots of sea gulls

Some of them flew around

Danielle on the beach near our first night's camp

Geoff on the beach somewhere along the trail

The Massassauga Rattlesnake I almost set my pack down on (double-click to zoom in)

The tent platform

After setting up camp (and laying around in the sun on the beach for a while), we day-hiked up to Indian Head Cove and The Grotto. The unfortunate part of this is that these areas are also easily day-hiked from the car-camping area, so there were about a zillion other people there. The Grotto is a huge sea cave, that is supposed to be really cool, but we didn't really check it out much because it was absolutely swarming with people. Indian Head Cove, by contrast, was not so busy when we were there, and it was gorgeous.

Pac-Man Heart

Indian Head Cove

There was lots of rock that begged to be climbed, though nothing was terribly tall. Much of it looked like it would fall apart in your hands, but was actually more solid than it appeared.

Climbing around near Indian Head Cove.
I found out later that "bouldering" is prohibited in the park. Oops.

The sun sets on our first day out....

The next day, we packed up and headed about 8km down the trail to another campsite. It was a pretty short hike, but, although the terrain was reasonably flat, it was pretty rugged.

This tree fascinated me. It was it's own little eco-system.
It was obviously full of insects, which the woodpeckers had feasted on.
There were numerous fungi growing on it, slugs crawling around.... It was great.

In many places, there were enourmous rock shelters in the sea cliffs. Also, there were frequently these chasms in the ground where the rock had split apart, usually bridged in places by tree roots, and dirt. In one place, there were a couple of these these chasms that opened out into the huge rockshelter below! It was kind of creepy to be like 50 feet from the edge of the cliff, look down, and see daylight through a hole below you!

Loons (I think) hanging out on a boulder in the bay.

The coastline.

Kind of a crappy picture, but the only one I took of Dani and I together.

Sunset the second night kind of kicked the first night's butt

It was pretty seriously awesome.

On the third day, we hiked out in the rain (which, conveniently, didn't start until we had made breakfast and packed up the tent, which had dried out nicely after the first night's rain. The drive back to Toronto was pleasantly uneventful.

Eastern Canada Lightning Tour

Wow! It's been a while since I've posted. Sorry about that. I am writing this from the comfort of my home in St. Louis, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

I left Maine June 1st, and drove to Quebec City. Customs had fun tearing my car apart for half an hour. I have my whole life in my car. Searching it had to be a daunting task. By the time they opened the top box, they pretty much gave up. I made arrangements through couchsurfing.org for a place to stay in Quebec. If you aren't familiar with couchsurfing, check it out. It's a cool community. So, I got to Quebec in the early afternoon and called Francis, who I had arrangements to stay with. We met and he showed me his apartment and then we met up with some of his friends and went to walk around old town Quebec City. Quebec was originally a fortified city and the stone wall is still there around the old city. It's pretty cool. Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera with me, so do a google image search and pretend I took the pics. :-)

I had a very nice evening hanging out with Francis and company, then got up in the morning and drove to Ottawa, with a brief stop, on the way, in Montreal. I didn't really know where to go in Montreal, and ended up just wandering around the Olympic Park area, because I was lured there by this building:


I only had a couple hours, so not much time to explore. Oh well, I guess I'll have to go back another time.

I arrived in Ottawa around 5:00, and met up with Mike, who, once again, I hooked up with through couchsurfing. Mike had to go teach (he teaches English as a foreign language classes), so his roommate, Scott, showed me around the City. We walked down to Parliament Hill, then met with a friend of his and went to a pub for dinner and to watch Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals, which was great. I hadn't gotten to see any of the playoffs yet, and it was a great game.

Home of the Cats of Parliament Hill

The Library of the Parliament

The front of the Parliament building

Wednesday, I drove from Ottawa to Toronto, arriving at Danielle's in the early afternoon. I spent the next couple days hanging out with Danielle and exploring Toronto (well, more just wandering randomly trying to find my way back to Danielle's, but we'll call it "exploring"). Friday, we would leave for a brief backpacking trip in the Bruce Peninsula National Park, but I will get to that in the next installment....

Mainely Rain

Last Tuesday, I drove to Maine. I was having a lot of trouble finding an inexpensive place to camp in the area where I wanted to be, so I spent the night in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Bangor. It's not the most scenic, but at least it's free.

Wednesday morning, I got a phone call from a woman named Danielle, who I had been in touch with about climbing in the area. After some discussion, we decided to meet at Acadia National Park and try to get some climbs in. The forecast was indicating afternoon showers, but it looked like they might hold off until late afternoon.

We met up around 10:30 and headed to The Precipice area at Acadia. We started at the right end of the cliff at some short climbs. Danielle led a climb called Wafer Step and then we top-roped Recollections of Pacifica. As we were finishing up the second climb, it started sprinkling. So much for the rain holding off until late afternoon. We stuck around for a while in hopes that it would stop, but it didn't. It was an unfortunately short day, but some climbing is better than none!

Wafer Step, with the rope on it. Recollections of Pacifica follows the crack on the left.

View from the top of the climbs

Before Danielle left, she invited me to "camp" in her warehouse in Morrill, Maine, about 2 hours from Acadia. I was thinking I would just camp in the park, though it is kind of expensive. I spent a little time hanging out in the town of Bar Harbor, and some time driving around the park, then decided that, given that it was supposed to rain for the next couple of days, and, if I climbed, it would probably be with Danielle anyway, there was no point in me staying in the park, so I called Danielle and drove to Morrill.

My home for the last several days

I spent Thursday and Friday hanging out at the warehouse. Thursday, the weather cleared for a little while in the afternoon, and Danielle and I went to Camden Hills, a climbing area about a half hour from Morrill to see if anything looked climbable. Everything was soaking wet. We did get a little hike in, though.

Saturday atarted out rainy, but the forecast was promising more favorable weather in the afternoon, so we were optimistic. We decided we would head to Acadia, because our best chances for quick drying routes seemed to be there. We took our time and got there around noon. We then headed to the local gear shop to inquire about the area with the best chance of dry rock, and kill some time. Around 1:00 or so, we headed to Otter Cliffs, which is an approximately 4o foot cliff right on the sea shore. The routes weren't exactly dry, but the easier stuff at least was climbable, particularly since everything there can be easily top-roped (you have to rappel in to get to the climbs).

Looking up Easy Corner (5.6) at Danielle

View from Otter Cliffs

A sea gull looking for dropped trail mix

We got in 5 top-ropes, then decided to head to the Precipice and see if anything was dry there. It was pretty wet, but we found a couple of routes in the same area we had climbed the other day that were dry-ish. I led Madamoiselle Lebois Troubled Lunge, with a variation finish. I'm not sure what the rating is exactly. I'm calling it 5.7. Everything was a little clammy, and therefore felt a little extra hard. By this time it was about 7:00, but we decided to get one more climb in. I decided to lead a climb called Crack of Senility. It's a 5.7 crack that starts as wide hands, and widens to off-width. It looked like where the crack widened, the climb slabbed out and would get easy. I spent some time comtemplating the wet crack at the bottom, but eventually, with a solid jam and good feet, pulled the move. A couple layback moves above that put me at the start of the wider part of the crack...which I didn't really have gear to protect...and which didn't really get easier like I thought it was going to. I walked up the largest cam I had...which I think probably would have held, though it was really too small for the crack, as high as I could, then started climbing the off-width. I think if the rock was dry, I could have gotten some holds on the face, but it was too wet to trust, so I shoved my calf into the wide crack, stood up on it, and then thrutched up until I could get a heel-toe jam. A bit more thrutching got me to where I could finally get a good hand hold. Phew. That was the hardest 5.7 I've done in a while.

Danielle climbing Mme. Labois

View from the top

We got back to the car about 8:30. On the way home, the engine overheated again. It seems that I have a coolant leak. I'm going to have to keep a close watch on that and get it fixed as soon as I can. Hopefully, I can hold off until I get back to St. Louis. Worse yet, the pizza place where we were going to eat dinner was closed. Oh well, it was a great day of climbing!

Sunday, we awoke to beautiful blue skies, but forecasts threatening of afternoon showers and thunderstorms, so we headed out early to Camden Hills. I led Charlotte's Crack, a cool, 2 pitch 5.7. Then, we top-roped a couple climbs, and finally I led Pandora Freeway, a new 5.7 that's not yet in the guidebook (the guidebook author, however, was at the crag to tell us all about it). After that, it started to sprinkle on us, and we headed out.

On Broadway Ledge

View of Megunticook Lake

Danielle at the top

Danielle coming up Pandora Freeway

Tomorrow, I head out for Quebec City. I'm going to spend the next 2 days doing a warp speed tour of Quebec City, Montreal, and Ottawa, continuing to Toronto on Wednesday to meet up with another Danielle, my very good friend and former roommate for a short backpacking trip before I head home to St. Louis.

Route List for May 27-31:

• Wafer Step (5.5 Trad) (TR clean)
• Recollections of Pacifica (5.9- Trad) (TR clean)
• Easy Corner (5.6) (TR clean)
• Wonderwall Left (5.7) (TR clean)
• In The Groove (5.5) (TR clean)
• Cakewalk (5.7) (TR clean) (I think I did a harder variation on this climb, but whatever)
• Crucifix (5.9) (TR clean)
• Mme. Labois Troubled Lunge Alternate Finish (5.7? Trad) (Onsight)
• Crack of Senility (5.7 Trad) (Onsight)
• Charlotte's Crack (2 pitch, 5.7 Trad) (Onsight)
• Unknown 5.7 (TR clean)
• Charlotte's Arete (5.6) (TR clean)
• Pandora Freeway (5.7 Trad) (Onsight)
  

North Conway - Cathedral And Whitehorse

Thursday afternoon, I arrived in North Conway, New Hampshire. I stopped by International Mountain Equipment, one of the gear shops in town, to ask about free camping, then, after messing around in town a bit, and locating the EMS store where i was to meet Jan on Saturday morning, headed up to the White Mountains National Forest to find a campsite. It ended up being one of the prettier places I've stayed on my trip. It is also the first time I setup a tent. I didn't sleep in it, though. I just wanted to save the spot.

My campsite on the creek.

Friday, I sat in the park and read, hung out at the library mooching internet, did some shopping, and generally bummed around town. Saturday morning, I met up with Jan. If you rappel from routes at Cathedral or Whitehorse, you need two ropes, so Jan, impulsively, ran into EMS and bought a set of double (a.k.a. half) ropes. Half ropes are smaller in diameter, and, hence, lighter than single ropes, and you lead on a pair of them (tied into both), clipping gear alternately with one then the other (more or less). We then headed out to Cathedral Ledge, and climbed Thin Air, an area classic 5.6. I forgot to bring my camera up on this climb, but don't worry, I got plenty of pictures on everything else we did! I was actually a little underwhelmed with Thin Air. It was fun, but didn't really feel like a "classic" to me. After this, and a 5.8 pitch we did from the ledge above (Pine Tree Eliminate), we decided to try a 5.9 called Recompense. The final pitch of this climb is a phenomenal looking dihedral. Unfortunately, we didn't make it to the final pitch. I led the first two pitches (5.6 and 5.7) and Jan was going to lead the last 2 (5.8+ and 5.9). When Jan started up the third pitch however, it looked dirty and vegetated and we weren't really sure of the route, and Jan, feeling a little intimidated, decided to back off. I didn't feel up to trying to fight my way up the crux pitches, so we rappelled from the bolted anchors at the top of the second pitch. Honestly, I never really felt 100% sure I was on route on the first two pitches. The climbing didn't seem to have much to do with what was described in the book. Sometimes, though, that's the way it goes. We did end up at a ledge with bolted anchors, as described, and we could see the perfect corner of the last pitch above us, so we assumed we were in the right place. I will have to go back another day to finish this one.

Jan following pitch 1 of Recompense.

Sunday morning, we headed to Whitehorse Ledge, the southern-most of the two large granite knobs above North Conway (the other being Cathedral).

Whitehorse Ledge from the road. I couldn't get a good shot of Cathedral.

Despite being right next to each other, Whitehorse and Cathedral feature climbs of very different character. Whitehorse is primarily long, featureless, friction slab climbing. Protection is...let us say...sparse, and, sometimes, questionable. No matter how bad the pro looks, though, when you get it you place it, because who knows how long it will be until you get another piece?

For our first climb at Whitehorse, we set out to do Sea of Holes (5.7). After 3 of 4 pitches, it started raining, and we had to rappel off. The rain only lasted an hour or so, though, and good sun had the slaps dry in no time, except for the bottom 30 feet or so, where the tree cover blocked the sun, and, in places, that was dry-ish too. We wanted to do 3 pitches of the Stadtmuller-Griffin Route (to the left of Sea of Holes), then finish the pitch we didn't get to do in the morning. The first pitch of S-G was very wet, however, but the SoH start was mostly dry, so Jan climbed the first pitch of SoH, then linked it over to the first belay on S-G, and from there we proceeded as planned.

Looking down the first pitch of Sea Of Holes. Note the lack of protection. The first pitch is a 45 meter, or so, 5.2 solo. There is no opportunity for gear, that I could see.

Looking out from the first or second belay on Sea Of Holes. Cathedral Ledge can be seen on the left.

Me at the first pitch belay.

Looking up at the final pitch of Sea of Holes. The 5.7 crux is pulling over the bulge to the left of the dihedral in the middle of the picture. It really looks impossible until you get up there, but is actually very doable and well-protected with a bolt (one of the few, outside of anchors, that I saw here).

Looking down on Sea of Holes (center) and Stadtmuller-Griffin (right). I just liked the patterns in the rock.

Monday, we got up early (ugh) to get some climbing in, while leaving Jan plenty of time to drive back to New Jersey. We went back to Cathedral Ledge, to climb Funhouse (5.7), and then topped out on Black Lung (5.8) and the second pitch of Upper Refuse (5.5). It was a fun morning and we were done by 1:00PM or so.

Me and Jan at a belay (on Funhouse, I think). You told me to smile. I aim to please. :-)

Me at the top of Upper Refuse. Jan takes nice pictures!

Jan at the top of Cathedral Ledge. In retrospect, I should have had him pose like he was throwing a rock. Alas, for lost opportunities. I wonder how many thousands of climbers have pictures of themselves posed like they are throwing a rock, next to this sign?

Tuesday, I had hoped to climb at Cannon Cliff, but it didn't work out, so, instead, I drove to Bangor, Maine. More on those adventures in the next installment....

Route List for May 23-25

• Thin Air (4 pitches, but we did it in 2, 5.6 Trad, but I may have made it 5.7 :->) (Onsight pitch 1-2, TR clean pitch 3-4)
• Pine Tree Eliminate (5.8 Trad) (TR clean)
• Recompense Pitch 1-2 (5.7 Trad) (Onsight)
• Sea of Holes (4 pitches, 5.7 Trad) (Onsight pitches 1,3, and 4, TR clean pitch 2)
• Stadtmuller-Griffin Route Part of Pitch 1, pitches 2 and 3 (5.5-6 Trad) (Onsight pitch 2, TR clean pitch 1 and 3)
• Funhouse (2 pitches, 5.7 Trad) (Onsight Pitch 1, TR clean pitch 2)
• Black Lung (5.8 Trad) (TR clean)
• Upper Refuse Pitch 2 (5.5 Trad) (Onsight)