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.