Cali 2011 part 1- A week in the Valley

Back in January, long before Maryland was experiencing its current heat wave, my friend Luke Anderson asked me if I wanted to fly out to California this summer and climb this...

Photo borrowed from Wikipedia

Five months of training later, the snow on Mount Whitney was showing little sign of breaking, and we began to reevaluate our plan.  While the routes themselves would have been clear, the approaches and descents were far snowier than we felt like dealing with, and we regretfully decided to go with our backup plan instead.  Ok, not so regretfully, since that meant we were now going here...

In fact, it's hard to be sad about missing any climb when Yosemite is the backup.  So after finishing school on June 22nd, catching a flight to LAX the morning of the 23rd, and spending the evening at Luke's place in Santa Barbara, we piled into the car with our friends Scott and Dan and headed inland.  Several hours of driving later, interrupted by much needed stops at In-N-Out Burger and Walmart, we finally drove through a tunnel to be met with the view above.  Not to sound cliche, but there's no way to adequately capture the sight.  Granite walls everywhere we looked, and countless waterfalls fed to frenzy by the same snow that had brought us there in the first place.

Our home for the week was the legendary Camp 4...

Day and time lost their relevance as we quickly fell into the rhythm of camp life.  Waking up when it's light, and eating something nutritious...

Photo: Luke Anderson

Packing for the day...

Hitting the trail...

Or finding our own...

Sometimes stopping to rest...

Playing on some little rocks...

Photo: Luke Anderson

Photo: Luke Anderson

Photo: Luke Anderson

Photo: Luke Anderson

Photo: Technically me, but with Luke's camera and editing

And some big ones...

Photo: Luke Anderson

Photo: Luke Anderson

Cooling off...

Warming up...

Enjoying the views...

Heading back for a tasty dinner...

And heading to bed as darkness falls.  Or not...

In the end, it wasn't the climbs we did that mattered, but the people we were with and those we met along the way.  It was the connection we shared as pilgrims to the Valley, and the knowledge that we were writing our own small part in its continuing story.  A chance to stand where legends have stood before us.  And, I hope, only our first taste of what we found there.