as a report on the climbing expedition, I offer the following while I
eagerly await jason's contribution:

friday was gorgeous. I packed perfectly for that day until about 7pm, at
which point the sunlight was entirely gone from the sky, and a bitter wind
blew in from the northwest. from that point, all the way through to sunday
morning, I packed very poorly. friday's highlights (for me) were 1.
realizing how sticky the josh rock is and being excessively happy about my
increased foot confidence (I couldn't shut up about it the whole time we
were there, and probably annoyed more than a couple with my carrying on) and
then getting my worst injury of the trip by slipping and banging my right
shin while **walking up to** a nice crack/corner route, 2. a couple really
nice 5.10a climbs, 3. almost - but not quite - being eaten alive by a thorny
tree that didn't want me to return from a wild route-chase through some very
interesting terrain, 4. standing in a supermarket parking lot and watching
some sort of launch vehicle test fire rising high into the darkening western
sky, leaving a brilliant white contrail standing in stark contrast to the
brooding clouds low on the horizon, and 5. watching brandoch's tent blow
away in the high winds, gloating because I had staked my tent down, then
discovering later that my tent had blown away as well, despite the initial
staking attempts. other carrying on by the pretty overwhelmed patman
included such notable quotes as, "dude, these rocks are out of control!"
"dude, that rocket thing was out of control!" "dude, this wind is out of
control!" "dude, my tent is out of control!"

on saturday the wind howled across the high desert plains and thwarted any
attempt by the brilliant sun to warm our hearts. the belay ropes were
singing, and if you weren't hoisting your fat ass up the rock, you were
cold. jason's dad and his friend steve prepis showed up and made valiant
fatherly attempts to climb the - rather difficult - routes that we set up
for them. highlights that day included 1. watching jason lead-climb up over
a hundred feet of quartz-monzonite madness, 2. following him up and enjoying
the view from the top, 3. being cold despite wearing basically all the
clothes I brought with me, 4. this really fun move where you pull with left
hand, push with left foot, and rotate against the rock face until you can
reach the ledge with your right hand, on a route called rml or kmf or hfl or
rfh or something, 5. having jason take us to a set of 5 boulder problems,
all of which were "very do-able" and being able to finish one of them, 6.
returning to the camp site and finding my tent in pretty much the same place
it was when I left it, 6. making a very hot fire in the howling wind that,
if nothing else, kept my shins warm and toasty.

on sunday, the fun started early when jason's bladder forced him out of the
tent at about 4:30am. I woke up to the crackle of the breaking frost that
had formed on the outside of his sleeping bag. at that point I think all the
water at the campsite was frozen completely solid. miraculously enough,
jason made it back to the tent, and just as miraculously, when we woke up
again at about 7:30, the sun was up, the air was still, and stewart was
walking around the campsite in bare feet. of course, then the wind picked up
again, we all realised that was about as warm as it was going to get all day
and stewart put on some footwear. micah, eric and I took off on a run
through the wilderness to warm up, soaking in the beauty from ridge after
ridge. highlights of the day included 1. washing my hands at a gas station,
2. finishing the "mantel problem" boulder route, 3. sitting in some very
comfortable butt pockets on a big rock and wondering how long the timer is
set for on jason's camera, 3. looking at the pads of all my fingers and the
heels of both hands and coming to the conclusion that if I removed just one
more layer of epidermis, blood would start to ooze out all over the place,
4. seeing the look of pure joy on jason's face when he finally changed his
underwear. notable thermolator quote, "I'm not leaving until you finish this
route. I don't care if both of you leave, I'm camping out here until you get
back and finish this." notable patman quote, "hey tony, could you hold my
peanuts?"

bottom line:

incredible joyous event of a climbing trip. could have been a little warmer.