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!
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We thought it would be easy to find, but the guidebook is outdated and the description to find the boulders are now inaccurate.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.
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