After my last post, I returned to Yosemite. I got in several great days of climbing. On my last day I climbed Royal Arches. It's a pretty easy route, but it's the longest route I've done so far. It was a gorgeous day and the climb went very smoothly. It was a great way to end the Yosemite part of my trip. I'm already thinking about my next trip to Yosemite. After leaving Yosemite I hit to road to start heading east. I plan to be back in Virginia by the end of the month. I moved pretty quickly through California and Nevada, so I didn't take many pictures. But I had to stop and get a shot of this billboard.

Only in Nevada...

My next stop was Buckskin Gulch, a slot canyon in southern Utah. The hike follows a narrow canyon for about 15 miles before meeting up with the Paria River. Once I hit the Paria, I headed upstream to get back to the road I started from.

Below are a bunch of pictures from the hike.
Just starting to descend into the canyon.

Still early on in the hike, so the canyon isn't too deep. The canyon gets deeper as the hike continues and the canyon walls are nearly 500 feet tall by the time you get to the confluence with the Paria River.

Most of the time there is no water flow through the canyon; but when it rains, the canyon quickly floods.

After the flooding subsides many pools remain. There's no way around the pools, so I had wet, muddy feet for almost the whole hike.

Mucky shoes after one of the pools.

I'm smiling here because I have no idea just how much of the day I'll spend in these pools of stagnant water. Fortunately most are less than knee deep, but there are several deeper ones.

Petroglyphs near the Middle Way, which is the only way out of the canyon for about a 15-mile stretch.

Note the boulder wedged between the canyon walls. When the canyon floods, it's pretty powerful. There were several spots where you could see driftwood 30 or more feet above the ground. Fortunately there was no chance of rain anywhere nearby when I was hiking.

Most of the canyon was narrow, but occasionally it would open into spacious areas with enough sunshine for trees. The above picture was taken downstream of the confluence with the Paria, where the canyon opens up quite a bit.

Once I got to the confluence with the Paria River, I thought the wading was done. I was wrong. The deepest pools were on the Paria. Fortunately there was some water flowing, so the water wasn't stagnant like the earlier pools. The above picture is of me in the last pool, which was the second deepest. The deepest was almost up to my neck. (In case you're wondering, I knew this was the last deep pool, so I waded through, set up the camera and went back in for the picture.)

Cliff wall near where the Paria meets the road. So the hike's almost over! This was probably the most unique hike I've ever done. Overall it was a blast. The hiking was mostly pleasant and easy. There were a few tricky sections involving crawling over boulders, and of course there were the pools. But after a couple of them they didn't faze me too much.

After the hike, I continued to drive through Utah toward Colorado.

Somewhere along the road in Utah.

This rock formation is known as the Mexican Hat, and is the namesake of the nearby town of Mexican Hat, UT. The top rock is about 60 feet across.

It's an easy scramble up to just under the top of the hat. This is the view of the San Juan River from under the hat.

Fall colors in Utah, south of Moab.

I'm currently in Carbondale, CO visiting Mike and Tina and their son Henry who turned four weeks old today. So expect baby pictures in the next update!

As always, thanks for reading.

Yosemite and San Francisco

As I mentioned in my last post, I had a little trouble leaving Bend, Oregon. But after several days of telling the friends I was staying with that I'd leave "tomorrow," I finally hit the road. Thanks for the hospitality Jonathan and Sarah (and Mary and Carl and Will--they have a full house). A note to future hosts--if I stay with you for a few days, I just might start baking pies. :)

Once I left Bend, I headed south to Yosemite. I don't remember whether this was in Oregon or California (I'm guessing Oregon), but I just had to stop and take a picture of this store. Too bad it was closed! My other stop on the way to Yosemite was in Sacramento where I grabbed a quick lunch with Amanda, a friend from law school.

Apparently Jonathan missed me because a day after I got to Yosemite, he showed up, along with a few other folks, including Ben, an old friend I hadn't seen since shortly after high school.

It was hot in Yosemite Valley, so we headed up to Tuolumne Meadows to climb.

Corey leading (and Jonathan belaying) on the first pitch of Lucky Streaks.

The view across the meadow from part way up the route.

Jonathan rappelling.

Although I love climbing and it's the main thing that brought me to Yosemite, there's so much else to see in the area. On one of our non-climbing days we went to Mono Lake. It's a beautiful drive over Tioga pass to get there. The lake, which is extremely salty and alkaline, is known for its tufas, which are calcium deposits formed from springs that feed into the lake. The water level has fallen in recent decades, so many of the tufas are now above water.

And on another rest day, we went up to Hetch Hetchy reservoir. It's within Yosemite National Park but is much less visited than Yosemite Valley. This smaller valley was flooded in 1923 when the O'Shaughnessy Dam was completed. This reservoir is one of the main water sources for the San Francisco area.

View from the dam.

After the Hetch Hetchy trip, we climbed Higher Cathedral Spire. The top of the spire is about 2000 feet above the valley floor. (1400 feet of steep hiking followed by about 600 feet of technical climbing). The above picture is El Capitan from near the top of Higher Cathedral Spire.

After close to a week in Yosemite, I headed to San Francisco for the weekend. The main draw of San Francisco was the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival. As soon as I saw the lineup, I was tempted to go. And when I found out the whole thing is free, I decided I couldn't miss it.

The highlight of the first night was Lyle Lovett, one of my all-time favorite musicians.

Above is Lyle and his Large Band.

And here's Lyle with John Prine.

I missed the festival on Saturday because my friend Eric invited me to use his extra ticket to the football game between UC Bekeley (Eric's alma mater) and USC. Unfortunately UC played horribly, but we still had a lot of fun.

On Sunday it was back to the music festival. The closing act was Old Crow Medicine Show, another of my favorite bands.

Here's the moon rising behind the stage as Old Crow Medicine Show plays.

The San Francisco trip continued the high school reunion trip. Margo, an friend from high school and her husband Josh were kind enough to let me stay at their house. I grabbed a few drinks with Nathan, another high school friend. I also caught up with a couple friends I know from climbing at the Red River Gorge and one friend I met on the ferry from Alaska. Thanks Facebook for helping me catch up with these folks!

After San Francisco, it was back to Yosemite! Here's a picture I took earlier this evening from Sentinel Bridge. I've been told that this is the most commonly photographed spots in Yosemite. If that's true, it's with good reason.

I'll be kicking around Yosemite for a little while, hopefully getting in a lot of climbing.

Thanks for reading!

Ferry to Washington; Washington and Oregon

I made my last post shortly after I got off the ferry in Washington. As I mentioned in that post, I boarded the ferry in Haines, AK on September 7th. The trip from Haines to Bellingham, WA takes about four days. I got on the ferry on a Monday evening and got off on a Friday morning.

The boat that makes the trip to Washington is the M/V Columbia, which is run by the Alaska Marine Highway System. Most people on the ferry get cabins, but they sell out before the boat is full. There are a few choices for those who don’t get cabins. A few folks sleep in the TV lounge. Most people sleep on lounge chairs in the solarium, which is a covered area on the top deck of the boat. And some pitch tents on the deck. Once again I chose the latter.

This was home for four nights! Note the large quantity of duct tape used in place of stakes.

Here's a glimpse of what the solarium looks like. This is one of the guys I was hanging out with a good bit on the trip. He was one of the other Marks. There were three of us who were hanging out on the boat, which made it easy to remember names.

Days were spent enjoying the views, and looking for whales and other wildlife. Once the sun went down we often found ourselves in the bar.

This is Mike buying what we would later learn was one of the last pitchers of beer on the boat. Can you believe they ran out of beer?

We saw quite a few whales, but they were usually pretty far away. A few times we mistook driftwood for whales. I didn’t get any great whale pics, but I got a few decent fluke shots.

There were four guys on the ferry who were taking their classic Thunderbirds on a long road trip. Last year was the lower 48; this year was Alaska. They’re debating whether Hawaii is worth it. (I bet they go for it. They've made it to 49 states, and it doesn't seem that time or money is much of a concern for these guys.)

And here are a few other pictures from the ferry.

Once I got to Bellingham, I grabbed a delicious breakfast with some of my ferry friends. Then we bid one another farewell and I headed down to Seattle where I stayed with my friends Colleen and Eric. They were out of town when I first arrived but they were kind enough to let me stay at their apartment anyway. I had a pretty lazy weekend, doing some touristy stuff like checking out the Pike Place Market and the Space Needle. Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was in town to give a few speeches. Colleen and I attended one in which she focused on the sad state of education on civics and government in our nation’s schools. If you're bored and want to see one of the initiatives she's involved with to help improve the situation, check out www.ourcourts.org. They've even got civics video games!

Fuzzy pic of Sandra Day O'Connor.

Sunset from Colleen and Eric's apartment.

After leaving Seattle I headed to Portland for a quick visit, including lunch with my friend Kate who recently moved there. Then it was on to Corvalis, Oregon to see Sylvan, an old friend from high school, and his girlfriend Sarah. Then it was on to Bend, Oregon. My friend Jonathan lives there with his wife Sarah. We went climbing at Smith Rock a couple of times. Jonathan and Sarah were so hospitable that I ended up staying in Bend a little longer than I planned. I kept planning to leave “tomorrow”, but, as we know, tomorrow is always a day away. In fact, I’m still in Bend. Perhaps I’ll leave tomorrow. We shall see. My plan is still to head down to Yosemite before too much longer.

Here are a few pictures from our climbing trips to Smith Rock.

Jonathan insisted in being in every picture. And I think he's flexing his bicep in every picture ever taken of him.
The spire in the background is Monkey's Face, which is what we climbed on our first day at Smith.

Me looking out the monkey's mouth. (If you look at the picture of the spire above you can see the mouth. It's the large opening on the right side.)

Me! I wonder if Jonathan can use Photoshop to fix my facial expression and give me a haircut.

View from the top of the first pitch of a new climb at Smith.

Jonathan and Sarah at one of the belays.

Gorgeous self-portrait of the happy climbers at the top of the route.

And now we gotta get back down! Jonathan starting the rappel.

Silhouette of Smith Rock.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading!