Joshua Tree

OK, you are in for a long one. Here is the TL;DR in case you are just in it for the photos. We spent 4 amazing days climbing in Joshua Tree. Some of the highlights were the climbs (Overhang Bypass, Right On, Minotaur, Robo Ranger, Fothog, Toe Jam and The Eye), the sunsets and the amazing scenery. If you are heading out there, be warned that there is no water available in the park, so bring lots. Also, the climber campgrounds fill up fast, but we stayed at Jumbo Rocks and it was pretty quiet and still really beautiful. Climber coffee is at 8 am at Hidden Valley on weekends and is a good way to get some beta and meet other climbers. Apparently it gets really windy in J-Tree (our tent almost blew away when we tried to take it down), and it gets cold at night! Finally, the ratings are all over the place so be prepared to get spanked by a 5.5 right after you run up a 5.7. Alright, if you are ready to find out about the trip in more detail, read on and enjoy.

Instead of dreaming of a white Christmas this year, I have been looking forward to heading south for a climbing trip to Joshua Tree. We flew to Phoenix first then drove 450 km to the National Park, arriving in the dark on Friday night. The two campgrounds near the climbing areas (Hidden Valley and Ryan Campground) were both full when we got there so we backtracked to Jumbo Rocks Campground and were able to find a site. We awoke early Saturday morning to an amazing view. Since we had arrived in the dark, we hadn't realized what the landscape was like. The park was full of granite formations and unusual looking plants called Joshua Trees that apparently aren't found many other places. 

Sunrise at Jumbo Rocks Campground

Bozeman Ice Climbing Festival

December has been a crazy month filled with exams and rad road trips. It started off with a trip to Bozeman Montana for the Ice Climbing Festival after Kyle won a facebook contest for a 3 night stay in Bozeman and 2 days of ice climbing clinics for two. I guess people actually do win those things! Despite being up to my ears in school work, I wasn't going to let Kyle take anyone but me. A few emails later, I had switched my schedule around and we were able to leave Friday morning to drive down for the weekend. I wasn't a fun road trip partner as I had to study most of the way, but it meant that we were able to enjoy the festivities together once we arrived. We pulled into the Lewis and Clark Motel (a bit of a crazy place full of strange antique furniture) around 7 and were able to get over to Emerson Lawn to watch the women's and men's World Cup speed climbing finals. It had been really warm that week and into the double digits that day so the event was held on a plywood wall which was interesting, but it didn't seem to phase the athletes who were able to scale it in mere seconds.

We got up early Saturday morning to drive out to Hyalite Canyon, the local ice climbing epicentre. Here we met our guide for the day and the rest of the people in our clinic. There was a big turn-out and groups dispersed all over the valley for the day. We had a bit of a hike to get to the Mummy-Scepter area where we spent the whole day.

Our first look at the Mummy/Scepter climbing area