Sequoia-Kings Oddysey

Yosemite has the big granite walls of El Cap and Half Dome. The coast of Northern California hosts the towering redwood giants. The Eastside has easy access to some of the highest peaks in the lower 48. Sequioa-Kings Canyon National Park has all of these things, as well as the deepest canyon in the the country (Kings, at 9,000ft), the largest living organism in the world (Giant Sequoia), and everything in between. California is truely a land of superlatives, and an extended visit to SEKI will make that very apparent.


Mt. Silliman reflected in Ranger Lake.




With 7 college-aged students from Boston to San Diego, I set out on a 22 day oddysey which would place us at the foot of hidden Sequioa groves, atop breathtaking mountain passes, swimming and sunbathing next to crystal clear (and mostly frozen) alpine lakes, and on craggy summits which reward the mountaineer with seldom viewed panoramas.


Evening in Big Arroyo.


The storm arrives!

An emphasis was put on curriculum based in natural history, ecology and geology of the Sierra Nevada, but many of my lessons taught themselves as we traveled through the many bio-regions of the Western Slope of the Sierra. Our program was also grounded in a leadership development curriculum, and our students took on more and more responsibility as they grew more confident after living and traveling in the alpine environment for so many days.


Dylan Pritel builds another rock garden below Blackrock Pass

Finished rock garden framing the Black Kaweah

A big thanks to Leia Berg with whom I had the fortune of instructing this program with and whose hard work helped make this trip a success.

West Ridge of Mount Conness

With a dwindling number of days before having to work a 22 day backpacking course in the Southern Sierra, and a dark and ominous forecast of mega thunderclouds and deadly lightening bolts threatening to unleash certain doom, Jonathan Cooper and I decided that the best course of action would be to climb to one of the highest points in Northern Yosemite, Mount Conness. Coop is a young gun who I have had the pleasure of working with recently, and who was coming directly off of an all-you-cn-eat cruise in the Caribbean, where he was not exactly getting into mountain-shape...
The West Ridge is super dooper classic. You cannot help but have a smile on your face the entire time as you hand traverse the wild granite wave which sweeps over the massive Southwest Face of Conness.
We climbed it in a mellow day from the trailhead at Lembert Dome and decended down to Saddlebag Lake and hitchhiked back into the park to get my truck.
The day was capped off by Coop's mom coming to town and treating us to a feast of fish tacos at the Mobil Station in Lee Vining.


The Youth, Coop.





Kinda cool position...

White Mountains Traverse

I have gotten pretty good at burning the candle at both ends, and this summer has been no exception. Hours after returning to the front-country from Blackcap Mountain, I packed up again and drove over to Bishop to head out on a traverse of the White Mountain Range, with the Sierra Mountain Center.

This is an incredible 5 day off-trail trip that goes from the ancient bristlecone forests (which date back over 4,600 years!), up the lush and tranquil Cottonwood Creek, over the 14,246ft. White Mountain, and continues on over miles of rolling alpine tundra though Chiatovich and Pellesier Flats towards Boundary Peak at the far end of the range.


Can you count the rings? This tree is thousands of years old.


The White Mountains are often overlooked despite their proximity to Bishop, perhaps due to the lack of exposed white granite which the Sierra Nevada is renown for, but the Whites have a wild and unique feel to them as you coast along wind swept high alpine meadows, pick up old pieces of obsidian and chert arrowheads, imagine the Indian hunting grounds of long ago and look across your shoulder at the entirety of the Sierra Range laid out beside you.






Looking up at the summit of White Mountain


Luke contemplates the Pellesier Flats. Or is wondering how long til dinner...

A pair of bighorn sheep make the traverse look easy.

After 4 days at altitude which slowed our pace, we made the decision to head down on the east side into Nevada and opt out of Bounday and Montgomery peaks to the north. Dropping close to 4,000ft of elevation in several hours was laborious, but it gave us the opportunity to really see the changes in ecosystems as we dropped down into the desert.

After another hot day in Bishop, I drove up to Mammoth Lakes to visit with my friend Mike, and we were able to climb the super classic North Arete on Crystal Crag. I head out to Mount Conness tomorrow for a quick last minute alpine fix before beginning another 22 day course for the Outward Bound School in Sequioa-Kings National Parks.

Hasta la vista Alpinistas!

Blackcap Mountain, Northwest Couloir

I am recently back from a 14 day mountaineering course run for the Outward Bound School. For those of you not familiar with this year's snowpack, it was massive. And remains massive. This is normally a pretty fun course that goes out of the Courtright Resevoir area on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, and receives a mid-point horse-packed resupply, but with 4 to 5 feet of snow on the ground even at our 7,500ft trailhead, we ended up having to do a 12 day unsupported carry, and depart from a lower and farther trailhead. Pretty burly for 10 students who had not done much if any backpacking before, 3 of whom had never walked on snow! It was a steep learning curve to say the least. The objective of the trip was to climb the Northwest Couloir (1,200ft. 45-50 degree snow) on Blackcap Mountain, which is waaaay out there. With a crew any less strong, this would have been a bit of an overly ambitious goal, but our students rallied, and put down some serious off-trail, suncupped snow, sun-battered miles to get up to the McGuire Lakes basecamp.





My instructors, Rafi and Coop, did a great job of moving the students quickly over technical snow and rock, putting up six full fixed pitches as they gunned for the summit. With a camp to camp time of just over 9 hours, our group was worked, but very satisfied.

A lightening fast glissade back through the West Bowl got us back to camp and we hiked out in record time to the 4th of July crazyness at the Wishon resevoir. Special thanks to Dan and Stefan for the unbelievable pistachio encrusted rainbow trout at Woodchuck Lake!

Alpine Skills in the Clark Range

I just returned from instructing an alpine training program for the Outward Bound School, and it was a blast! There were six of us in total, and after leaving Yosemite Valley via the John Muir Trail, we made our way out Little Yosemite Valley and up into the Clark Range. The curriculum included snow travel and camping, and technical skills such as fixed lines and rock anchor-building. We made an attempt on the SE ridge of Mt. Clark but Patagonia-strength winds made us reconsider getting out onto the ridge proper. Big travel days and lots of information to cover made our days quite long, but it was a good chance to push it a bit and have some fun with other instructors.
For now I am figuring out what to do with some big chunks of time off, before the big work season starts in a little less than 2 weeks.


Mike Phillips leads us out of LYV.

South Face of Half Dome as seen in a pond of snow melt.

"Are we there yet?"

Chris Rogers gives a lesson on snow anchors, with Cathedral Peak and Mathes Crest in the distance.

Itamar Cohn builds an anchor during a fixed line drill.



Alisa Koyama takes backcountry cooking to the next level...

Moonset over Moraine Dome

Gnarled Juniper.

Hiking high above the valley floor.

Chris contemplates the immense South Face.

Evolution Traverse Video

My climbing partner Josh Garrison made this video/slideshow last year, which chronicaled his long and tumultuous love affair with the Evolution Traverse. Cycling through 3 partners over 3 attempts before finally completing it with me (it was my second go at the thing as well...), he ended his Sierra season last year by putting that thing behind him.

Now we are looking forward to the summer, towards a bigger and burlier traverse...

Disfruta! http://vimeo.com/15555114

Smith Rock and AMGA Rock Course

Lyle Haugsven on belay duty.

After more than 20 days of pulling down and shedding my fingertips on the sharp welded tuff of Smith Rock, Oregon, I can finally take a couple well-deserved rest days. The last 10 days I have been attending an AMGA (American Mountain Guides Association) Rock Instructor course, and have been spent absorbing lots of new industry standard guiding techniques and applying those in multi-pitch terrain. This will lead me down the path of certification in the Rock discipline, over the next year and a half.


Snowstorm!

Coils got a little too short during the Kiwi Coil Races! i was lucky to fit this over my head!


Super classic Cinnamon Crack

Blurry shot of our team on Lost in Space on the Smith Rock Group.

We were able to climb every day of the course, and climbed some of the most classic traditional pitches in the park, including the mega-cool Zebra to Zion on the Morning Glory Wall. After "school", we continued climbing, often until dusk, which was touch since class went from 8am to 4:30pm daily!
The weather has been fair to extremely hot, and on some of the days we had to resort to some Advanced Crowd Avoidance Techniques (ACATs)...

Super Slabbin'!

The MoonDog Himself.

But now I have to say goodbye to Smith and make the annual pilgrimage in the morning back to Yosemite where I will begin work in late May, starting with instructing an Alpine Skills Training for the Outward Bound School.