Rattles, sore feet and birthday's above 8000ft...

...are how we've spent our last four days.

A spare of the minute decision to go hiking led to some running around in Yosemite National park and Hetch Hetchy getting Wilderness permites and Bear box's, food and sorting through our gear to see what we needed. we arrived at hetch Hetchy to find that the trip we planned we weren't going to be allowed to do as the conditions were too unfavourable, lots of snow and raging rivers, a xxx large adventure was the way it was described to us. instead we opted for a 32mile (50km) walk over 4 days, an easy pace or so it looked. We packed our bear box's (round plastic cylinders that contain anything that smell you place 100ft from camp so you don't get munched by bears.)
Day 1. 8m, elevation gain 2300ft. From Hetch Hetchy reservoir, walk over that Dam, go straight up 2300ft, camp at rocky hill top (Beehive) with fire, see a small snake in path, cool! Trail very easy to follow, lots of people.

Day 2. 7m Elev. gain 1500ft From Beehive walk up long steady ridge line then descend steep gully and walk up high valley with some snow and a 'raging' river we had to cross the next day! Highlights; getting 'rattled' at by a very large rattlesnake whilst walking past a boulder just off the trail. sleeping above 8000ft. Trail very easy to follow only one party of 6 passed going the other way.

Day 3. 7m, Elev. gain 1500ft. Had to cross a huge river, thought we would have to swim across a 30ft+ wide river or snowmelt water (freezing). Luckily we had intel stating there was a log bridge 100yrds up stream. 1/2 hr bush bashing later we found fallen tree over very deep cold water. Made it across with no incidents. Hike up to high pass, see a real wild bear who was looking at us looking at him! Lots of navigating as there was no trail to follow due to 10ft of snow. Hard navigating above pass but made camp above 8000ft. Very cold night, dew froze on tent! Trail hardly seen all day no people at all!

Day 4. 12m, Elev. Gain -4000ft Slog out as quick as poss 6m before lunch traight down. 1hr rest at Rancheria falls, beautiful waterfalls over large rock slabs. Post lunch 6m down and then countour round Hetch Hethy reservoir, pass two stunning waterfalls. See lots of people and trail easy to follow. Last two miles were agony for both of us, feet so sore not funny, we've not washed for 2 weeks needless to say we stink and are disgusted with our selves.

Were in a proper RV park today/tonight so will be making the most of the facilities!

Happy Birthday Patrick

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PATRICK!

Not much more to say except HAPPY BIRTHDAY PATRICK!

Prime Real Estate...

..can be found at 13311 Beach Blvd, Huntington Beach. But before you go and call your bank manager you should know that Wal-Mart are miles ahead of you. This is the site of one of a million Wal-Mart's through-out America where RV's are 'unofficially' allowed to park for free overnight as they pass through. This particular Wal-Mart has been our 'official' home for the last 2+weeks as both H and I seek medical support for our various ailments. These range from real injuries, bruised sesamoids and broken ankles, to the kind of mental instability that can only be induced by spending too much time in a 24ft wooden/metal box in an LA Wal-Mart. That's LA for La La Land you know. La La La La la La la la la la la al. Enough. Needless to say we are looking forward to heading off on our slow trip North. Its coming to that time in the trip where we start our migration North to Vancouver and then points slightly north of there. The rough plan is Yosemite until July then a long drive to Vancouver, attempt to sell Cynthia and then visit Squamish and other natural wonders British Columbia, Canada has to offer. Long Live Canada!

To view more pictures...

we posted about ten pictures on the blog a few days ago, to view, go to the side bar and select May. This will allow you to view everything we've done in May on one long page. Have fun!

Joshua Tree National Monument...

is a beautiful high desert environment east of LA. Needless to say its hot, very hot and it's at about 5000ft so getting there was something of a chore for Cynthia who got very hot dragging us up the hills. We arrived at about 4:00pm on Friday before the long Memorial wkend and got a good spot at a nice first come first served campground in the park. Minimal facilities but a beautiful location. There are granite domes all around and in the campground. Some campsites you could belay from your tent/car! The climbing is a good mix with a lot of cracks which for H and are are something of a punishing environment. We got our first climbing in of the trip whilst in J-tree and it was a rollercoaster ride.

Our first climb was 5.3 which relates to <4a or a mod. A sensible starting point we thought. We both puffed and panted our way up the thing. Rusty would be an understatement. The altitude got to us along with our less then svelt physiques which is a little embarasing but there we go. That's where we're at! We tried a 5.1 the next day and I started up it thinking this would be super easy. What a mistake! The crux of the route was a flared pea-shaped pod about 10ft high with no holds. Trying to climb this was a mystery to me and as there was little or no gear on the 30ft slab below it was made all the more spicy. We both managed to overcome this obstacle and the rest of the route was quite good. We did manage to push the epic envelope a little more by taking about an hour to get off the 60m dome we'd got to the top of. There was no clear way down so we slid, down climbed and bum shuffled our way to the bottom. 3hrs to complete a 5.1! Oh boy we're we made up!

The following day I chose a 5.6** to go at (Surely this is the wrong way up the scale for two unfit climbers, possibly!) which was a long single pitch with some nice cracks in it and another of these flared pods! I should have walked away then and there. The climbing to the pod was good but once again I was presented with a holdless pod/squeeze which required body tension and opposing pressure to keep yourself in/on the route. With my current level of fitness it was a struggle of epic proportions that should have tales written about it. I would suggest the title, "How a fat bloke who's out of shape should not pick his first route of the season." Might I also suggest pictures of a suitable porky person (I am available as a model) stuck in peapod type squeeze sweating and cursing. Hannah very cleverly demured on the second and I stripped the route from the top on abseil.

The next day we nursed our bruised ego's (or I did and Hannah once again cleverly stuck to the real world) and had a rest day. J-tree is incredibly rough granite, our fingers and hands were rubbed raw and feet were sore. Tuesday saw us back on the rock with a little more success we ticked and, more importantly, enjoyed a classic 5.4**, a 5.1*** and two 5.7's *** around the campsite. We finshed the day with a fire and some beers feeling like we'd improved a lot over the few days we'd been there! It was a really great few days of beautiful weather and the kind of mini adventures you can't pay money for.

We saddled up and headed to LA with a certain sadness in our step. We had an appointment with a doctor!

Io, Ganymede, Europa and Callisto...

...these are the four moons of Jupiter that H and I saw through an excellent telescope in a parking lot in Joshua Tree National Park. H and I were getting ready to take photos of the sunset one evening, in the same car park there were two guys, Charles and Frank, setting up the most amazing array of telescopes I've ever seen. There were 5 scopes ranging in size and sophistication, two were computer controlled and tracked the objects automatically. We chatted briefly with Charles and Frank before the sun wondering what they were upto. It turns out they are amateur astronomers who came out once a month when the moon is below the horizon to see what they could see. They kindly invited us back to check out the night sky when it was dark. We returned at about 9:30pm and Charles, the more senior of the two launched into an introduction of the night sky with a cool laser pen pointing out any number of constellations and planets, it was excellent. They lined up some of the bigger scopes on Jupiter and we could see three storm bands on the planet and all four large moons. We also got a quick glimpse of the rings of Saturn which was a little wobbly as it was low in the sky and suffered from atmospheric distortion. We also saw a number of nebular clusters, large groups of stars, far out on the edge of the galaxy. We also saw the ring nebular and any number of other cool things. The guys were really nice and talked us through what we were looking at. What a great evening. They were staying up all night to see everything that was to be seen but we bailed at about 11:30pm tired to get some sleep.