Back on the Road

Well I’m still bouncing around, so I suppose I should still be blogging about it. I apologize to my loyal readers (yeah right) for allowing so much time to pass since my last update.

After the Wisconsin trip I wrote about in my last post, I returned to the Red River Gorge of Kentucky, which is one of my favorite climbing spots. Unfortunately I didn’t have the camera out much, but I took a few pictures here and there.

This is my friend Ben on Synchronicity (11a).  

And here's Ben again, this time mid-crux on the Ro Shampo (12a).

The next trip was up to Pennsylvania for a reunion with my mom’s side of the family. My mom is one of ten children, so I have tons of aunts, uncles and cousins on that side. My generation spans from age 6 to 44. and we already have several of the next generation, ranging in age from just over a month to 17 years old.

Kirsten and John, the extremes of my generation.

All ten kids of my mom’s generation were able to make it, and quite a few of my generation and the next were there too.

Here are the ten children of Bob and Erlamond Lehman, holding up fingers to indicate the order in which they were born. My mom is front and center in the red shirt.

After the Pennsylvania trip, I kicked around Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky for a bit more, then headed to Smith Mountain Lake for my friend Aaron’s wedding. Aaron’s been a friend since middle school. We went through high school and undergrad together. He’s done a better job than most of us with keeping in touch with folks from high school, so the wedding was an opportunity to catch up with a bunch of old friends, some of whom I haven’t seen in many years.

Once the wedding festivities were finished, I hit the road! I made a quick stop in southern Indiana, just across the river from Louisville to visit Mickey, a good friend from law school. Then I pushed west. I drove straight trough from the Louisville area to the Colorado border. I stopped at the first rest area in Colorado to catch a few hours’ sleep, then pushed on to Denver. In the Denver area I got to catch up with a few friends. Anna, whom I met at the Red last year, lives out there now and put me up for a few nights. I saw Joe and Kacie, friends from Virginia Tech. Kacie works at the Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory. I happened to be passing through when RMBO was hosting a picnic to give the public an opportunity to see what they do.

The banding station, where a yellow warbler is about to be released. Note his new piece of jewelry around his leg.

A group of falconers was there with some of their birds. 

 

A red-tailed hawk

A peregrine falcon

I spent a couple days in Boulder with Laura, a friend from high school. She just recently got married and I got to meet her husband John. Laura and I got in a day of climbing in Rocky Mountain National Park, near Lily Lake. We were at an elevation of about 9000 feet, which provided welcome relief from the heat in Denver and Boulder.

One of the cliffs we climbed

View of Longs Peak from Lily Lake

Before I left the front range, I hiked Longs Peak (14,259). It’s one of the most climbed fourteeners because of its proximity to Denver. There’s no technical climbing on the route I took, but it’s a long hike with a lot of elevation gain and some exposure. The weather had been quite hot in Denver, but was below freezing and very windy on the mountain. Most people I saw turned around before the summit because they weren’t quite prepared for the weather.

To be off the mountain before afternoon storms hit, a pre-dawn start is recommended. This is early morning light hitting the mountain.

The route I took is called the keyhole route. That's the keyhole ahead. Once I pass through the keyhole, I'll be in the shade and it will be a lot colder and windier.

Looking back at some of the terrain I've covered.

View from the peak!

Looking back at the mountain on my way down.

After the Longs Peak hike, I headed to Carbondale to visit Mike and Tina and their one-year-old Henry. We spent a lot of time in Glenwood canyon. First I drove through it to get to Carbondale. Then Mike and I biked through it. Then the next day we paddled kayaks through it. I haven’t been kayaking much lately, so it was great to get out on the water. We did a pretty short stretch of river, but it was a lot of fun.

Next stop was Rifle, Colorado. Rifle is a world-class climbing destination, loaded with ridiculously hard routes on steep limestone cliffs. The routes I was struggling on were warm-up routes for the “real” Rifle climbers, but I still had a blast.

I made a quick stop in Grand Junction to grab a bite to eat with Laura, a friend from IU who is now a public defender in Grand Junction. Then I was back on the road heading to Utah.

Next stop was Salt Lake City, where I caught up with Fishhead. (His name is Jeff, but he’s always been Fishhead to me. I hadn’t seen him in about 10 years, and I think he’d like to move on from the nickname. But as far as I’m concerned, his name is Fishhead.)

After leaving Salt Lake, I headed to Maple Canyon, Utah. Maple is the most unusual rock I’ve ever climbed on. It’s a conglomerate rock, which is basically a bunch of cobbles of all sizes smashed together to form cliffs. The cobbles mean there are tons of holds, but it sometimes takes a lot of hunting around to find the good holds. The scary thing is that you never know how well the cobbles are held together, so rock fall is always a possibility.

Looking up at one of the formations in Maple Canyon

From Maple, I drove straight through to Yosemite. I got a quick nap in the car, then rolled into the valley so I could get in line for a campsite. Camp 4 is the climbers’ campground. Every morning in the spring and the fall, there is a long line of climbers hoping to get a space in the dusty campground. I was in line by 5:30am and was far from the first in line. Fortunately there was some turnover in camp, so I was able to get in.

This is a shot of El Capitan the day I got to the valley.

From the same location, zoomed in on some climbers starting up The Nose. The highlighted area in the next picture shows what the zoomed image covers.

That’s enough talking for now. Thanks to anyone who actually read this far! Perhaps I’ll get my next update up soon, so check back to see what I’m up to in Yosemite!

One last thing. In my last post, I linked to a video of the canoe race in Wisconsin. The link no longer shows the video. The text is still up, but the video is gone. So, here's the video.

Spring 2010: A Little Closer to Home

It’s been a little while since I last updated this blog. I guess the pace my adventures has slowed down a bit. Since I got back from South America, I’ve mostly been in the southeast. I’ve been bouncing back and forth between the Red River Gorge in Kentucky and my parents’ house in Blacksburg, VA. I’ve been climbing a lot at the Red and I’ve done two short backpacking trips on the Appalachian Trail in Virginia. I’ve also made quick trips to DC and to Chicago.

When I’m in new areas, I tend to have a camera out all the time. Unfortunately I haven’t taken all that many pictures since I got back from South America, but I’ve taken a few, and you’ll find some of my favorites below.

My first trip after I got back from South America was up to DC. I caught up with a bunch of friends up there. I spent most of the time with my friends John and Stephanie and their huge puppy Niki. Here we are on the last snow mound in Arlington. Photo by Stephanie Hynes. (Note that the “No Dogs Allowed” sign is on the other side of the fence from where we are. Niki and I are law abiding folks.)

On my way back to Blacksburg I stopped and hiked Old Rag Mountain. This is one of the classic hikes of Virginia and I had never been up there before. The summit is all exposed rock and involves lots of scrambling. That’s not something you find too often in this part of the country.

As you can see, the weather was a little on the lousy side, but that didn’t keep if from being a great hike.

My next trip was a 4-day backpacking trip on the Appalachian Trail in southwest Virginia. My friend Emily and I hiked the southernmost 40 miles of the AT in Virginia. The trail crosses into Virginia in Damascus, which claims to be the friendliest town on the trail. For northbound thru-hikers, Damascus is about 460 miles in. We were there in late April, just as the first thru-hikers were starting to pass through town.

Here are a few pictures from the hike.

Emily, early in the hike, near Damascus, VA

View from Buzzard's Rock

View near Mt. Rogers, which is the highest point in Virginia.

Grayson Highlands State Park

After the hike I headed back to the Red for a while. While there I took a quick weekend trip up the New River Rendezvous. The Rendezvous is a climbing festival that the local climbers’ group puts on every year. There’s a lot of food and beer and a bunch of the pro climbers are in town offering clinics. The cliffs are quite crowded, and I hear it rains almost every year, but despite the crowds and rain, I managed to get a fair amount of climbing in.

At the end of May, I came back to Blacksburg. On Memorial Day weekend, I rode the “Mountains of Misery” century. The ride is 102.7 miles long. I hadn’t trained quite as much as I planned to, but I was pretty well prepared for it. The ride starts in Newport, VA and ends at Mountain Lake. The first 90-some miles aren't too bad--lots of ups and downs with a couple big hills. Toward the end, there's a nice downhill to the New River, and the last 5 or so miles are a brutal climb that gains over 2000 feet.

When my odometer clicked over 100 miles, I felt like I was on top of the world. By 102 I thought I was going to collapse. The heat was finally getting to me, and that last climb is a killer. The whole ride took me 6 hours and 56 minutes; the last 2.7 miles alone took 34 minutes. So, yeah, I was running out of steam. But I made it! And, except for the last couple miles, I was having fun the whole time.

The following weekend my friends Jaime and Spencer got married in Blacksburg. Congrats to Mr. and Mrs. Joslin!

After the wedding, Emily and I decided to hit the Appalachian Trail again. This time we just went out for one night. We covered a gorgeous section of the trail right near Blacksburg. We started near Catawba, VA and hiked north past McAfee’s Knob and Tinker Cliffs. Tinker Cliffs is a band of cliffs along the ridge of Tinker Mountain. The cliff line is about a mile long. The Appalachian Trail runs right along the top of the cliffs. The side-trail that runs under the cliffs provides another interesting perspective on the cliffs. If you live in southwest Virginia and haven’t been to Tinker Cliffs, I highly recommend it!

Below are a few pictures from this hike.

Emily at McAfee's Knob.

Looking into the valley from McAfee's Knob.

Looking south along Tinker Cliffs.

View north along Tinker Cliffs.

The next stop was Wisconsin, which is where I am now. I came up here with my family to visit some friends and relatives. My cousin Jeff Rohr and his Wife Marcia run a canoeing outfitter in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. We came up for the Callie Rohr Memorial Canoe and Kayak Race. The race is held in honor of Jeff and Marcia's daughter Callie who died from a brain tumor about 10 years ago just shy of her 10th birthday. The race is a fundraiser benefitting the American Brain Tumor Association.

The race was the top story on the local news. Check out this link for a story and video. http://www.wsaw.com/home/headlines/96261469.html

I'm not in the video, but my mom and brother make an appearance at 0:48.

Below is me and a few other kayakers at the start. I'm in the yellow boat.

As you can see, the river is pretty small at the start of the race. This is on Jeff and Marcia's land, which is on the headwaters of the Wisconsin River. The two-day race covered about 28 miles, during which the river went from the narrow, shallow and twisty river pictured above to a large lake.

And here are a bunch of Rohrs. The folks standing, from left to right, are Kathleen, my mom, Emily, Julia, Iola, my brother, Marcia, me, Bruce and Linda. My dad is sitting in the middle, and Jeff Rohr is seated on the right. All the people in the picture who aren't my immediate family are cousins.

The trip to Rohrs was a great weekend. The paddling was a blast, I got to spend time with family (including a few cousins I had never met), and we helped raise money for a great cause!

That gets me caught up! Thanks so much for reading! Hopefully my next update won't take quite as long...

Valparaiso, Chile

After the ferry, I caught a bus to Valparaiso, Chile. I only had a few days left before I flew out of Santiago. I thought about kicking around Santiago for a couple of days, but a few different people recommended a trip to Valparaiso over Santiago, so that's where I headed.

To get there I took a 15-hour bus ride. I was a bit nervous about that because bus rides in the US are a bit scary. I think the longest one I've taken was between Chicago and Indianapolis, and that was a miserable couple of hours. But the bus in Chile, to my very pleasant surprise, was quite nice. The bus was right on time, there was plenty of leg room, the seats reclined pretty far, the bus was clean and odor-free, and they served snacks in morning. It was an overnight ride and I slept through most of it. (I have inherited an impressive ability to sleep from my father.)

I got to Valparaiso mid-morning and checked into a hostel there. As my trip was winding down, I wasn't too motivated to do a whole lot. I spent a good bit of time just wandering around the city, taking it all in. Valparaiso is on the coast of central Chile, about two hours north west of Santiago. It's a crowded and chaotic city with houses, many painted wild colors, precariously stacked up its steep hills. (It's also in an earthquake zone and it looks like about the last place I'd want to be in an earthquake.) The city was a very prosperous port in the second half of the 19th century. Its golden age ended after much of the city was physically wrecked by a major earthquake in 1906 and its economy was ruined by the opening of the Panama Canal eight years later. It has been bouncing back in recent years, and is still a major cultural center of Chile.

One of the most striking things one notices while strolling about the city is the graffiti. It's everywhere, and much of it is quite elaborate. There is, of course, a lot of unsightly tagging, but that mostly just disappears into the overall chaos of the city. In a few more lines, I'll shut up and let the pictures take over, and you'll notice I took more pictures of graffiti than anything else. There is an open-air museum of murals, but I found the real graffiti much more interesting.

Ok, as promised, pictures!

This is the hostel’s emergency plan. As I mentioned, I would not want to be here for an earthquake.

The next several pictures are from an "urban mountain biking" race that took place on one of the days I was there. The racers started at the top of the hill, and raced one at a time in a time trial down over rough cobblestone streets and over various obstacles to the finish line. The streets that lead up the hills of Valparaiso are a tangled mess which makes it hard to get around, but provides plenty of hairpin turns for the racers. The most striking thing about the race was how close the spectators were to the racers. A few minutes would pass between each biker, during which time the spectators would wander around the course, which was roped off with caution tape. Then a course marshall would blow his whistle, the people would scatter, and a few short seconds a biker would fly (sometimes literally--there were some big jumps) through the narrow course, dangerously close to spectators. I wasn't worried about the bikers--they wore full-face helmets and all sorts of protective gear--but an out-of-control racer could have caused some serious damage. Fortunately these guys seemed to know what they were doing.

And, finally, a parting shot of the city.

After my couple of days in Valparaiso, I caught a ride to Santiago, grabbed dinner with a few folks I had met at the hostel, then headed toward the airport. Early the next morning I started the long journey home. The cheapest ticket was Santiago to Lima to Miami to Charlotte, where my car awaited me for the two-and-a-half-hour drive home. So that was a long day. I'm now back home in Blacksburg, VA.

I'm not sure what's next. I'll be around VA for a while, and I'll do a little more traveling around the US. But stay tuned to see where I go! (The smart money is on climbing destinations.)