Yosemite : Part III

Continuing from Yosemite : Part II

Day 5 --> Candyland Boulders

Day 5 we ventured to a new area called Candyland Boulders. One of the more remote bouldering areas in Yosemite. Kids were excited to go to Candyland...well.. until we got there and there was no candy. Haha!

(photo by Roger)

Kids stopping to have a lesson about cairns, aka trail markers. Also teaching them why they should not knock these rock stacks down.. which Liam wanted to do, of course.

Candyland was hard to find. We followed the directions from the guidebook, as well as GPS indications through Mountain Project (which turned out wrong). It took over an hour to location these set of boulders, hiking off trail. But we found it, and along with it, a highly-rated 4-star, V4 climb called "Once Upon A Time".

I didn't take too many photos here cause this problem worked me. See how Roger is all contorted? It's a stemmy, delicate footwork kind of problem that is a bit of a highball. At 15', it is not that high, but the slope of the mountain and the surroundings make it feel more.

Next we moved on to find a problem that Ryan wanted to check out, The Diamond, V8. Still located somewhere in Candyland, but we needed to find it. So off hunting again...

Gorgeous view of El Cap along the way.

And we find it!

This is an amazing problem that requires strength, technique, body positioning, and solid core strength. So.. of course we all flail. =) Hopefully this is a start for a progression video for Ryan.. but the fact that Yosemite is not easy for us to have access to (hard to get camping reservations, far away, etc)... it will be a TBD for the future.


In the meantime, the kids had a try at their hang time on the crimpy edge of a start.

Emilia's Hang Time


Liam's Hang Time


At this location, the kids also decided to start a moss-carpet installation service. The rocks here have patches of green mossy, shrubbery growing which the kids would peel off and put together and "sell" carpet plus installation services. They created this area where we were hanging out climbing.

Neat looking natural balance rock in the background.

Day 6 --> Curry Boulders

Our last full day at Yosemite, we stuck close by and searched for climbs right by Half Dome (aka formerly Curry) Village, called the Curry Boulders.

We thought it would be easy to find, but the guidebook is outdated and the description to find the boulders are now inaccurate. Mountain Project and GPS failed us once again, so we spent a bit of time looking for climbs and climbing unknown, unnamed things.

In the meantime, the kids found things of their own to climb and play on.

Emilia climbing up a kid-friendly slab.



Good thing I kept the kids rain pants on, even though it was not raining anymore, but nice and warm, and sunny. Both kiddos have put holes in many of their pants by doing exactly this. I'll find the kids rolling and butt sliding on all sorts of things.



Seriously, if anyone knows of pants that are re-enforced with kevlar butt protection.. please let me know.

We finally found the boulders and played on several of the ones around.

Ryan trying the start to The Angler, V3

We also worked on the Unnamed, V3 that connects to Kevin's Traverse, V0. No photos or videos, but the Unnamed V3 had a fun, hard start that took a bit to figure out. Ryan's beta of using a toe cam was the key!

And lastly, to end our Yosemite highlights.. this small waterfall was amazing to look at. It flowed down the mountain like a staircase. Ryan didn't know the name to it, but said it was like a staircase waterfall. That turned out to be the exact name and it doesn't always flow like this at Yosemite. This year the water level is high with all the rains and so we get to see the Staircase Falls.

(photo by Roger)

(View of Staircase Falls from Kevin's Traverse)

Yosemite : Part II

Continuing from Yosemite : Part I

Day 3 --> Tourist Time

Day 3 was our family tourist day. That is, Andy and Violet had to leave that morning, and Roger wasn't coming in til later that evening. (Yes, Roger, the 5th member of our family, was able to rearrange his schedule to also come out and join us!)

It had been raining through the previous night, the grounds were wet, and it was still continuing to rain on and off. So tourist time. We took the kids to Yosemite Village to buy souvenirs at the store, browse the Ansel Adams gallery, learn about Yosemite at the Visitors Center, and did an easy, kid-friendly hike to see lower Yosemite Falls.

Tree just outside of the Village store.

The previous day's rains lead us to discover that the kids rain jackets were not so waterproof anymore. They were okay for water-resistance, but not for being out in pouring rains. After all, they have worn those jackets on all our adventures the past 1-2 years, as well as on rainy days to and from school. Luckily the store had kid-sized, bright yellow rain ponchos.

Gotta say... I think the kids look so cute with their bubbly cheeks sticking out of this bright yellow fluff...

Photo of lower Yosemite falls.

It was a meandering kind of day, and fun to do touristy things. Though we were looking forward for the rains to clear, Roger to arrive, and scoping around for some climbing.

Day 4 --> Camp 4

The rains finally cleared and the sun came out on Day 4. Roger arrived in time for dinner the previous day and set up his new pop-up tent, in the rain, in a jiffy. See tent below. It held up pretty well too.

This morning it was still quite chilly, but starting to warm up from the past few days. I was scrambling the week before our trip to make sure we had to right gear to keep the kids warm. Temperatures dropped down to the upper 30s with the winds and rains. A breathable layer system is the way to go to ensure they can still be active and sweat, but retain body heat and keep out winds and rains. REI had sale on winter gear, so I was able to dress up the kids in Patagonia Thermal-weight Capilenes, Patagonia down jackets, and waterproof pant shells. The rain jackets were the only unexpected malfunction.

Today we went to scope out some of the problems around Camp 4. Yosemite has a long and rich history for rock climbing, esp well-known for the multi-pitch wall climbs such as the Dawn Wall on El Capitan or Half Dome. Bouldering became popular too, esp around Camp 4 where many climbers would situation themselves, warm-up, or wait for weather conditions to clear prior to their big wall climbs. So Camp 4 has a lot of established bouldering routes.

As the afternoon progressed, the sun came out and it even started getting hot. With the heat also came the infamous Yosemite mosquitoes!! Anyhow, here's Ryan on some crimpy, slabby V3.

Ryan working some crimpy, slabby ?? V3 problem @ Camp 4


The kids found these cool looking leaves with artsy details etched onto them. They decided to name whatever bug that ate and created these cool looking leaves as "artist bugs".

Like I said before, Yosemite has a long history in climbing. This time of year there were lots of famous, well-established pro climbers in the area. In Bishop we met Bobbi Bensman. At Camp 4, we encountered Nina Williams. Not much interaction, but we did see her partner working on this V4 which caught our attention as well. Ryan bumped into someone he knew from his climbing gym and our two groups hung out to work on Tendon's Give, which has a V4 route and a V7 variation.

Ryan on Tendons Give, not-the-real-V4 @ Camp 4


Roger on Tendons Give, not-the-real-V4 @ Camp 4


So the guide book is not descriptive enough and the interpretation of how the route actually goes was not quite known. What we thought was the V4 route was what we did in the video above. But it really did feel a tad on the easier side to be V4, and Yosemite is known to have hard ratings, not easy ones.

Roger on 2nd upper, half of what we thought was the V7 of Tendons Give.


We think that the lower portion of the 2nd half of the climb, up to the peak completes the V4. (Roger climbed the upper portion) So all in all, we can only say that we did 1/2 of this climb.

To be continued... Yosemite : Part III

Yosemite : Part l

Day 1 --> Arrival

Campsites at Yosemite are, so I've heard, hard to come by if one does not plan early in advance and register at the exact time that registration opens, which is on the 15th of every month, 5 months in advance to desired camping dates. Needless to say, we are not that organized to plan so far in advance.

So when one of Ryan's climbing friends had a week long reservation that he could only use a part of, we shuffled our schedules so that we could join him and use the rest of the reservation days.. cause, after all, it's YOSEMITE!

I have lots of fond memories of Yosemite.. from my first multi-day, back-packing trip hiking a portion of the John Muir trail from Toulumne Meadows to the Valley... or the time I join my college pals, Christina and Sam, to hike Half Dome. Ryan has many memories there too, climbing routes at the base of El Capitan with Bill, and describing aspects of the climb on Lost Arrow Spire.

The kids' teachers gave us homework assignments for the kids to work on for the week, which I had Emilia work on every morning prior to getting out of the tent. The kids also learned about aspects of Yosemite - how the valley was created through glaciers. How waterfalls are formed; And of course, lessons on bears. Ask them how to differentiate between a black and brown bear, aka grizzly bears. Re-occurring theme was to respect nature and its beauty and force by being responsible humans.

This is the kids first time at seeing waterfalls. (Liam is wearing his secret agent spy glasses.)

This is the Yosemite Valley view as you drive through the Wawona Tunnel, heading into the valley.



It wasn't quite peak season yet, but the huge crowds of cars and people was crazy. Took us 2 hours to get from the tunnel to the valley!

Here at last! A deer hanging in the meadows by Camp Curry (aka most recently re-named as Half Dome Village).

Emilia and Violet became fast friends.

Emilia liked this tree-trunk chair...

And she wanted a photo of this heart-shaped rock...

Our campsite was at Upper Pines Campgrounds, which is a skip and a walk away from Half Dome (aka former Curry) Village. We hung out at the Pavilion quite a lot on this trip. Dinner every night at the Pavilion and the first couple days we hung out there instead of the campsite since it was raining on-off.

The Pavilion bear. It's okay to pet this one.. NOT a real one.

Hanging out with our friends at the campsite... kids having a kiddie glowstick dance party.



Day 2 --> Kids Top-Roping at Camp 4

Weather forecast called for rains the next two days. Luckily it hadn't started yet, so we were able to make our way over to Camp 4 and set up top rope for the kids to climb. Camp 4 is a walk-in only campsite which is situated near a bunch of bouldering problems.

Liam was pretty eager to climb; He went up first and also climbed it twice.

Every one coming down from the down climb.

Around the corner were a bunch of other climbers on different routes. We were going to set up a 2nd top rope for the kids, but the on-off rain showers had begun.

We were able to hang out with Andy and Violet for 2 days before they had to leave. Kids had lots of fun despite the weather. They collected pine cones and branches to create a nature shop. Then they asked us if we wanted to visit their nature shop and charged us 10 cents. This time, they got smart and asked for a real dime.. none of this pretend money anymore. =)

The on-off rain was nice to us. It stopped enough to have a campfire and give the kids some Smores time.

To be continued... Yosemite : Part II

Yosemite!

We are back from a week-long trip to Yosemite.. a last-minute, impromptu decision where opportunity and time requirements fell into place.

Stay tuned...

Pre-Hueco Tanks : El Paso Zoo

Backtracking back to March - Spring Break time frame, when we went on a climbing trip to Hueco Tanks in El Paso, TX. The first day we arrived, it was early enough that we had extra time to check out the El Paso Zoo.

BFFs at this moment...

Ryan liked this zoo much more than the SD Zoo. Less crowded, less commercialized... and less crowded. =D We had the freedom to roam around, play tourists, act silly, climb on tiger statues without the worry of other tourists.

Liam walking on the bridge of a kids treehouse playground.

Oh look, monkeys!

These kiddos have a blast sharing adventures together.

Elephants!

Wonder if the zoos are now going to upgrade their "fencing" to keep curious kids from breaking into an animal enclosure?

Climbing on tigers.

Meerkats.

White Barn Owl.