SHOWERS!

By Emily

Today was the shortest day of the year.  Everything is wet.  Last night we spent in Olema at an RV park with showers… SHOWERS! 

Until now I’ve backpacked mostly in dry climates.  There was a week that I backpacked in Washington for my NOLS course, but it was usually only storming in the afternoon and then was mostly sunny the rest of the time, so things had a chance to get dry.  At Point Reyes, everything stays pretty wet.  It sort of gets dry during the day, but the way we planned our trip due to my conjunctivitis incident, we had 6-8 mile days every day.  Which, if you wake up at 8:30am, have breakfast while thing are drying out in the scant sunshine and then pack up and get going by 11:00am you end up hiking until sunset.  Which when you’re approaching the shortest day of the year, comes pretty quickly.  Then when you get into your bag at night after sweating all day with no hot dry desert wind to suck away the stinky sweat before it has a chance to fully permeate your clothing, you get pretty stinky.  I don’t think I’ve ever been smellier than at the end of this four day trip.  And most of the trips I’ve been on have been 8 day trips!  I guess I’ve been spoiled with dry desert backpacking.

So now, back to the story.  We spent last night in Olema at an RV campsite with “free” showers.  When I say “free” I mean showers are included in the campsite fee of $30 to sleep in a truck and make dinner under a tarp set up between a tree, your truck and trekking poles.  I’m not sure I’d exactly call the shower’s “free”.  Let’s just say they were included.  So we showered, and had all the hot water one could ask for.  Blissfull hot water to wash away the stink built up over 4 days of trekking around the coast by the ocean.  We made burrito’s and climbed into our leaky truck.  That’s right, I said leaky.  Apparently the shell we put on the back of our truck is not so waterproof.  And as we learned last night, even if it was waterproof, we’d have to keep most of the windows shut due to the slant of the sides of the shell which means that all the windows get fogged up and we’re wet anyway.  Lame.  So now we’re in Stillwater Cove Regional Park campground with a wet mad pad, wet platform, probably wet climbing gear (which isn’t so bad really), and wet backpacks.  Basically everything is wet.  And we’re heading to Portland, OR which ironically is supposed to be dry this coming weekend to spend Christmas with Kevin’s brother Chris.  Pray for DRY!

Tuition to the School of Hard Knocks

By Emily

Conjunctivitis, an annoying infection of the eye.  The Wilderness Medicine Institute (WMI) Guide to Wilderness Medicine does not address this particular malady.  Thankfully, I know what it is.  Basically anyway.  It is a bacterial infection where they eye secretes a puss that crusts up while you sleep making it difficult to open one’s eye(s) in the morning.  In serious cases it is impossible to open the eye(s) without first softening the crust with a wet cloth.  Yuck.

Last night we hiked about 2.5 miles in the dark to get to our campsite here in Point Reyes National Seashore.  Today we hiked back out because of  a crusty eye and the need for antibiotics.  I don’t know what would happen if we left it alone, would the infection spread to the other eye?  Would it get worse in both eyes so that I couldn’t open them at all?  Would it infect more parts of my eye, slowly taking my vision?  Maybe.  And maybe not.  Maybe it would’ve been just fine and we didn’t really need to hike to Point Reyes Station to go to a clinic to see a doctor who diagnoses what I already know and writes a prescription for what I need to cure it.  But in this case, better safe than sorry, right?

It seems like since we left Bishop, CA it’s been one catastrophe after another.  Ok, maybe catastrophe is an overstatement, but it’s definitely not been easy so far.  First overheating, then a new/used engine, then another new/used engine, then 5 full days of sickness, weird engine stuff while driving the truck with its new/used engine, conjunctivitis, thermostat replacement… what’s next?  And what’s all this supposed to be teaching us?  I believe that things happen for a reason.  We don’t always know what that reason is, but often I think hardships, things not going the way you think they will or how you want them to, these moments are meant to teach us something.

When I was younger and I made mistakes that cost me money my mother would say it was “tuition to the school of hard knocks”.  I still believe this.  I always learned something then, to read the fine print, to walk carefully, to get enough sleep, to watch out for really big trucks when driving my little Miata.  Sometimes the “payment” to the school of hard knocks isn’t money, it’s time, or a sense of security, or a bad grade, or even a lost friendship.  It’s hard when things are going poorly to keep a positive outlook on life, to see the silver lining, or to think about what lesson you can learn from this latest “catastrophe”.  And even that may be a lesson in itself.  To give in to that despair costs happiness, and that too can perhaps teach us something.  That too, I believe happens for a reason.

Act 2 of Thanksgiving Fiasco

Friday afternoon, the afternoon we figured we’d get a call saying the truck was almost finished, we headed to REI to get a tarp and plan a backpacking trip for the weekend until our truck was ready. The phone rang, it was Kelly, our mechanic in Tahoe.  Bad news…the engine was not good.  “If it were anyone else, I’d just put it in, y’know. I didn’t make any money on it, you guys brought it to me.  But you’re a friend of a friend, and I just don’t feel right about doing that.” 

The head gasket leak's externally which isn't so bad, but isn't so great either, and there's a heli-coil in the engine head for one of the spark plugs, which essentially means not good.  (stupid confusing car lingo)  So, we called the junk yard we got the engine at and they said that they had gotten a Toyota truck in but they hadn't yet looked at the engine of it, and it was hit in the front end, so they would call us back when they got a chance to check it out.  Well, we called again near closing on Saturday because they hadn't called us yet, and they said they hadn't gotten a chance to look at it yet, and to call them Monday afternoon.  Saturday afternoon I went wine tasting with Dee (free booze and snacks, sweet!) and had a great time getting to know her better and just talking about all sorts of things. Sunday morning my throat was feeling itchy and coated, and Kevin wasn't feeling so good either, so we both took it easy all day.  In the morning we tried to go to the UU church but we were waylaid by a road closure for a marathon, and then got sort of lost, and ended up in a park.  The rest of the day we watched “Funny People” (good movie) and went to bed early-ish.

Monday we called the junkyard and they said they had two engines for us to look at, so we went to take a look.  One engine was already out of the vehicle it had been in, apparently a guy had put a deposit on it, but hadn’t come to pick it up in over 30 day’s.  This first engine came out of a 94 Toyota truck that had 300,000 miles on it, but they were telling us that they didn’t think the engine had that much on it.  It just didn’t look right to us.  The second engine, the one still in the truck that they had gotten in on Friday looked better.  That truck is a 93 Toyota, manual transmission with 198,000 miles on it.  The front right end of the truck is mashed, and the fuse box is destroyed, so they couldn’t start it using the truck, but they’re taking it out today and will do a compression check on it to know if it’s good or not.  Kev and I both feel better about that engine than the one already out of the truck.  And, since it’s more miles than the one we originally got, we might be able to talk them into a discount or something.  Cross your fingers.

The plan is to go check out the two engines again today and pick one.  Then we’ll take the engine up to Tahoe this afternoon, pick up some stuff from the truck to go backpacking, and tomorrow head out to Point Reyes National Seashore to do some backpacking around for a few day’s.

Wish us luck!

The Boulder Problem.

Day 4

I know exactly what I need to do.  I have every detail of every movement mapped out, rehearsed, sequenced, and memorized.  Except… where does my left foot go before I pull for the final handholds? 

Today is day four of working a boulder problem.

Day 1

Emily and I were exploring a bouldering area in Bishop, CA called the Happy Boulders.  As one would expect, it is aptly named.  There must be hundreds of excellent climbs there on pocketed, twisted, and cracked black volcanic rock.  We spent most of our session exploring the area, picking easy routes and sending them.

Near the end of our session, I discovered this problem and I was intrigued.  It was overhung, with mostly positive holds.  It looked like a lot of the others we had been climbing that day. I decided to try it out.  Though the route looked obvious at first, it required quite a bit of balance and tension from the feet. It made me think through all the moves, exactly which finger and toe where, when and why.  I worked the moves until I thought I had them, at least for the bottom half.  I climbed around on it until the wind picked up and started whipping us with sand.  I put it on the list for the next day. 

Day 2

We came back, I found the problem again, I hopped on and it kicked me off.  I worked to fine tune the moves of the previous day.  I was able to consistently climb the route up until the last holds before the top.  The last left foot placement had me stumped.  I would get up to make the final moves, and my left foot dangled below me, pulling me down as I looked for a place to put it, any place.  From down on the ground I could see at least two spots that looked great, but while pulling on the last set of crimps at the top, out of balance and out of strength, those options were far less useful than they looked from below.

I took a break and ate some food.  I stared at/studied it for a while.  I started the problem from the middle saving my strength by bypassing the bottom.  I got to the crux and made a sloppy throw for it, not paying too much attention to my left foot.  I got it!  I topped out. But to be truly successful I was not interested in anything less than the full correct sequence.  I went back to the bottom to try and put it together. 

I was instantly awful.  Now I was falling off the bottom holds and the middle ones too.  I made it to the crux again and it put me promptly on the mat.  I was tired, my fingertips stung from the fourth day of bouldering in a row, my blood sugar was low and I was getting shaky and irritable.  The more I was rejected the more I wanted it.  But I was done, at least for now.

Day 3

This was a rest day.  Emily and I didn’t climb, though I thought about this particular route most of the day.  What if I got my left foot up first before my right…It’s too in cut…There’s a little lip on the other side of the block I’m heel hooking with my right…That might work… I played over the different scenarios in my head constantly plagued by the desperate feeling of my fingers slipping off the holds as I searched the rock for the last subtle left foot hold I needed to be stable.  “This is what makes bouldering so great!”  I remembered another climber saying a few days ago.  “The fact that the smallest feature on the rock can make or break a route.”  I rolled over and over in my mind, where can I put my left foot?  Where is there even a ¼ inch of something to push off of?

I began to think of writing this text.  I thought of bouldering as a metaphor for life.  I cling to the rock with all of my might, climbing through, moving toward the most ideal ending I know of, the top.  I am taken down early by my lack of strength, or technique, or momentary inattention to the smallest, subtle, most crucial detail…

Does one ever succeed at life as in bouldering?  Does one ever reach the top with the thrill of conquering an almost impossible challenge, then turn and smugly and happily swing back around the other side and dismount?  Is that a model for a truly satisfying existence?  Is this why I do what I do?  To practice living an ideal existence over and over again on a sharp, gritty rock representing life and all of its challenges?  Is this why I push my self further and further?  Obsess about little ¼ inch divots of rock? Why I have hands and feet scraped and swollen, body aching from fighting ceaselessly and happily to go up?  Is this why I climb?

I hesitate to assign meaning to the possible outcomes of the next days challenge, unsure of the result it may bring.

Day 4

I know exactly what I need to do.  Almost.

Sitting on the bouldering pad, I am at the bottom of the climb.  I’m a little jittery from the morning’s coffee.  My breathing is not quite as fulfilling as I would like it to be.  I did not perform as well as I could have on the warm up routes I climbed earlier.  I am resolute to give this my all.  Looking back at the previous days performances of giving it my all, I estimate my chances for success at 30-40%.

I take a few deep breaths and lift my weight off the ground.  I glide through the bottom with surprising ease, placing each hand and foot exactly where I had rehearsed in my mind the day before.  I find my self on the high desperate hand holds I remembered and find them feeling much less desperate this time.  I hook my right heel.  I take another deep breath as I look around for the left foothold of yesterday’s preoccupation.  Nothing.  I smear my left foot on a spot where I would like to have a hold and pull with my arms.  The rock on the top is big and smooth and really easy to pull on.  As I top out I smile and quietly celebrate the journey of the last few days.  I smugly climb down the other side and send it again, a big silly smile on my face.

Life is good.