We decided to take a relaxed approach to the weekend, since we could also take Friday off. Our preparation on Thursday involved baking. SK made blackberry turnovers and I made caramel turtle brownies. We knew it could be disastrous to set off on a climbing weekend without enough desserts.

We left Stanford at 5:45 on Friday morning and drove to the Ranger Station in Mammoth to get a wilderness permit (the Minarets are in the Ansel Adams Wilderness). We arrived just in time: there were only 4 permits remaining for entry on Saturday. After some power shopping at Mammoth Mountaineering, we headed to the Duck Pass Trail to do a little altitude training hike (about 5 miles round trip in ~2 hours). We cooked dinner (beer sausages with carmelized onions) in the ranger station parking lot and headed out to bivy in some Forest Service land.

Enjoying an alpine lake along the Duck Pass Trail on Friday.

Saturday morning, after some final packing and some giant biscuits from the Breakfast Club in Mammoth, we drove up to the Main Lodge and got our tickets for the Red Meadows Shuttle (you can’t drive into the area between 7am and 7pm). We were on the trail by around 11am – not particularly early, but we were planning to climb on Sunday and we expected the ~7 mile, 2200ft elevation gain hike wouldn’t take us all day. We started on the John Muir Trail before turning off onto the Minaret Lake Trail. We made good time, reaching the western shore of Minaret Lake in about 3.5 hours of hiking. We were surprised to stumble upon Chris and Warren (fellow Stanford Alpine Club climbers) and spent the afternoon chilling, chatting, and planning above Minaret Lake. We shared our blackberry turnovers with the boys and turned in for an early night of somewhat fitful sleep (not that surprising at ~10,000ft).

The alarm clock went off at 6am on Sunday morning. We choked down some oatmeal, put on our harnesses, and headed out of camp. The approach took us to Cecile Lake, then up a talus slope to the base of the Southeast Face. The guys, who had started hiking a little earlier, had chosen the original start, but we had decided on the Direct Start (5.10a) because it had a nice line and was supposed to make the route-finding a little easier.

Fueled by baked goods: blackberry turnovers and caramel turtle brownies

SK racked up and led us up the direct start in 3 pitches (Peter Croft suggests 2, but we had a small-ish rack and wanted to belay on edges). I took over the lead and traversed over and down to intersect with the standard Southeast Face route. We began swinging leads, making pretty good time to a traverse that matched the Pitch 6 traverse in the Croft topo we had brought. We were surprised to reach that pitch so early, but optimistically figured this must mean we were making great time.

As it turned out, the upper dihedral took several more pitches than we expected (5 instead of 3), but we had caught up to the guys, so our morale was boosted by some shared-belay-socializing. Rather than the standard Sierra granite, the Minarets are metamorphic rock. Although there was definitely some loose stuff, the rock quality was generally surprisingly good and the rock was very featured – tons of cracks, corners, jugs, and crimps. The climb lived up to its reputation on Mountain Project, delivering pitch after pitch of fairly sustained 5.8 climbing. We both found that following a pitch was actually more tiring than leading, since we tended to climb faster and hence get more winded while following.

Evening light coming over Clyde Minaret (on the right) on Saturday night.

After what seemed like forever, we finally reached the notch, after which 4 easier pitches lead us to the summit. The Croft topo had 12 pitches indicated, but it took us 15 (that’s a lot!). I guess we could have climbed longer pitches if we’d had a slightly bigger rack, but as it was we got to belay on ledges and our belay change-overs were all quite efficient.

The view from the summit was awesome, but we only took a few minutes to enjoy it, since it was already 6:20pm and we knew we needed to get as far as possible down the descent before the inevitable darkness. We simuled down some 4th class ledges to a rap station the guys had found. They’d very kindly waited a couple minutes so the 4 of us could do the descent together, which I think ended up being a smart decision for all of us. Some more down-scrambling over often loose rock lead us to another rap station (it was great to have 2 70m ropes so we could skip the sketchy midway rap station). After a 3rd rap, we finally reached the main gully between Clyde and Ken Minarets. It was dark, but we were happy to put on our approach shoes and snack on some food.

We headed down the side of the gully, but somehow ended up above the main gully. Luckily, we found another rap station, which took us down to a small-house-sized chockstone. A final double 70m rope rappel from another somewhat manky rap station thankfully allowed us to skip a long section of loose, steep choss and we were thrilled to have the ropes pull perfectly (not even knocking any rocks down the gully, amazingly).

Mist and mountains from the summit of Clyde Minaret.

Then there was just a long slog down talus to the bench above Cecile Lake. It was amazing to walk on solid ground after hours of walking down loose talus and scree. We were a little disoriented, but finally directed ourselves down to our campsite, which we reached around 12:45am, 18 hours after leaving. Luckily, we had plenty of food to share, including some instant miso soup that really hit the spot. We crawled into our sleeping bags at around 2am, exhausted, but happy to have made it back safely.

Monday morning we packed up, hiked out, caught the shuttle back to the parking lot at Mammoth, and hightailed it to the Whoa Nellie Deli for some fish tacos (both with mango salsa, please). We arrived home tired, dirty, sore (especially the quads, ouch!), and but happy about our weekend. This was my highest climb and summit yet, my longest climbing day (I think), my most serious descent, my 5th of the 50 Classics, and it was great. At times it felt like Type 2 Fun (especially during the descent), but I managed to keep it together. Although I think we underestimated the length of the route, in terms of distance and time, but it was within our ability and it’s good to challenge ourselves and know what we can do (although I think our next adventure might involve sunny cragging ). We were also really happy to have run into the guys, because sharing belays on the upper part of the route and the descent really helped keep our morale up and helped the whole experience stay a lot more fun.

Summit photo! We're psyched to be up here, but still pretty concerned about the descent.

Climbing with SK is great because we have a very equal climbing partnership, so we’re both challenged to step up more than we would with a stronger partner, but we climb well together and make a good team. Sometimes girl power in the alpine is the only way to go, because we don’t need a guy to “put the rope up there” for us ;D

Have you climbed Clyde Minaret? What did you think?

Lizzy

So without further ado, check out the video:

Lizzy

Happy turtles!

Among the many awesome multipitch routes in the Meadows, I think three stand out as the most classic moderate, yet easily accessible alpine climbs in Tuolumne: the Northwest Buttress of Tenaya Peak, the Southeast Buttress of Cathedral Peak, and the Matthes Crest. We’ve both already done the first two (I climbed Tenaya with my friend Lauren, Luke soloed it; we simuled Cathedral together), but hadn’t gotten around to doing the Matthes Crest yet. After not climbing for 4 weeks straight, I thought that a long, fun, moderate day would be perfect for my first weekend of climbing after my South Africa trip.

Although we had originally planned on doing the Crest on Saturday, we got into Crane Flat late on Friday night, so we decided to push the Crest til Sunday (hoping it might be less crowded then, too). This allowed us to sleep in a little on Saturday morning before driving out to the Meadows, where we climbed Zee Tree on Pywiak Dome, South Crack on Stately Pleasure Dome, and a few single pitch routes to finish out the day at Low Profile Dome. I was pretty tired by the end of all of this, since I had made the questionable (but necessary) decision to run on Thursday and Friday to whip my butt back into triathlon shape (this also after not running for ~4 weeks straight).

On top of Pywiak Dome after climbing Zee Tree.

We headed to the always excellent Whoa Nellie Deli at the Mobil Station for delicious dinner, where we met up with a bunch of other climbers. We bivied for the night and got up at 6am the next morning to head back into the Meadows to start our Matthes Crest day.

We started hiking from the Cathedral Lakes trailhead at about 7:30am and made good time along the climbers’ trail to the Matthes/Cathedral split. This had us in good spirits, since we had forgotten to print the topo for the approach (we only had the written directions), we mistakenly thought this meant we were halfway (we were not). We reached Budd Lake and, after some brief discussions about interpretation of the written directions, set off again. Luke started to head uphill towards a saddle between some peaks, but I convinced him that we should stay lower and hike around the peaks (turns out, both ways work, but my way was the one intended by the SuperTopo directions).

Luke thinks about diving into Budd Lake on the approach in to Matthes Crest.

We had begun to be worried that we weren’t in the right place when we rounded a corner and saw the Crest! Then we saw that we still had a ways to walk before the start of the route (at the south end of the Crest). We kept chugging, and eventually made it to the base of the route at 10:15am or so, having taken a little less than 3 hours to do the approach. Not bad for thinking we might be lost for a good half of the hike.

We had tentatively planned on soloing much of the route, but looking up at the crazy features of the first “5.3″ pitch, I decided that I would be much more comfortable simuling. Just being tied in to the rope and having the option to place protection makes all the difference in the world for me. I lead us up the first vertical section, then stopped to retrieve the gear from Luke and shorten the rope. If you only have 20-30m of rope out (vs. 60-70m), you have way less rope drag and much easier communication with your partner, although you do have to be more careful about placing protection often enough that you don’t end up simul-soloing with a rope.

Lizzy about to do a cruxy 5.2 stem section.

Still having fun!

With our 7 cam rack, we had to stop fairly often to exchange gear, but we were also able to move quite fast, passing both roped parties in front of us well before the South Summit. In the interest of time, we decided not to tag the South Summit. I also made Luke lead the 5.7 pitch up to the North Summit (it looked a little intimidating for simuling). At this point, the 2 parties behind us had apparently decided they’d had enough and had both rapped off before the South Summit, so we basically had the whole ridge to ourselves.

After the North Summit, the climbing became more technical, with a number of 5.8 or 5.9 downclimbing sections and some tricky route-finding to get around vertical drops along the ridgecrest. There was also a crazy section of traversing along a wild knobby slab that was overhanging on the other side. This has just barely enough protection to simul – some pro at the beginning, a new-looking piton somewhere in the middle, and a green Camalot (I think) at the end.

North Summit of the Matthes Crest!

Crazy knobby slab section.

All the downclimbing meant we were moving slower than on the first half of the ridge, and as we neared the final 2 gendarmes on the ridge, we both had the same thought: traverse below the two small towers rather than going to the trouble to climb up and down each one. As the difficulty eased, the silliness increased, such as this incident of me forgetting to grab the red Camalot from Luke at our previous gear transfer:

Express Gear Exchange on the Matthes Crest from Lizzy Trower on Vimeo.

When we finally made our way down to the ledge system we’d sighted, we found several sets of footprints, indicating that we weren’t the only ones to do this. We unroped and thankfully switched our climbing shoes for our approach shoes (this day involved a lot of time on our feet) and traversed our ledge system, which led us back up to the final bit of ridge crest, after the last 2 gendarmes. We decided to head for the saddle next to the Echo Peaks, which we were pretty sure would be a nice shortcut to get back over to Budd Lake. This was actually the saddle Luke had started heading for earlier in the morning, but as we went down the other side, we were glad we’d approached the other way – probably more distance, but a lot less elevation to gain on the way in, which was nice.

This is approximately how our feet felt at this point.

Back down at Budd Lake, we were psyched to be back on relatively flat, well-traveled trail again and set about marching our aching feet and sore legs back down to the car, which we reached at around 6:40pm, giving us an overall car-to-car time of just over 11 hours. While not super fast, I was still pretty proud of this, considering my legs were already tired from running at the end of the week, we were at elevation, and we probably covered ~10 miles (including the technical ridge traversing part) over the day.

Done with the technical part of the day!

After refueling with some nuun and snacks, we got in the car and started the drive back home, making it to our well-deserved burritos and chips and guac at the Chipotle in Manteca just 15 minutes before closing.

It was a long (especially with the 5-hour drive back home) but really good day. I’m really glad we finally did the Matthes Crest, and there’s something pretty cool about being in constant motion for so long (which is what happens when you simul the whole thing…). Although we had planned on soloing more of the easier first half of the ridge, I was happy about my decision to simul it. I think I would probably have been slower if I had been soloing, and the fact that we were simuling made the experience a lot more enjoyable and less stressful for me. There were definitely a couple of downclimbing sections on the 2nd half that I would have been extremely uncomfortable soloing, and I’m not sure I’ll ever want to solo the Crest. I’m also not sure I’d do the 2nd half of the ridge again, especially with a less-experienced partner, although I’m glad we got to experience it anyways.

Compare this with the next photo...

We didn't even notice we were matching this day: blue shirts, orange backpacks, tan pants...

Have you done the Crest? What did you think?

Lizzy

The year before, after a finger injury, I had spent a few months running. I enjoyed exploring the roads around my house and competed in a handful of trail races.  I like the simplicity of running and the measurable progress. You run a mile, you have a time, you have a feeling of how hard you tried. You run eight miles and that’s going to take you longer than running six miles on the same type of terrain. Best of all, for a novice like me, the more I ran the faster I got.

Running!

Since this was the second time dislocating my shoulder, I  knew it would take four to six months before I would be climbing well again. I needed a non-climbing goal for 2010. Running would allow me to stay fit and even tick something off my life list. Two of my friends from college, Rebecca and Adam, had both run two marathons and we had talked about doing a marathon together. Perhaps I could even convince some other Bucknellians, like Julie and Becki to come. For some reason the obvious choice is to run the Boston Marathon together.  Thus I set about training to run a marathon to qualify for the Boston Marathon in 2011.

The trail runs and races I ran in 2008 and 2009 had maxed out around 17 miles. I previously considered running a marathon but never put in the enough time to build up the necessary mileage. I  started slow and eventually built up to longer and longer runs. My first runs over 12 miles took me a week to really recover. Eventually these became common fare and I stuck with a training schedule and upped the mileage.

The second week of June came around and the plan was for my first 40+ mile week. I had been running between 22 and 38 miles a week (averaging about 28) for the prior six weeks. I had been alternating my long runs between pavement and trails to give my body a break. However come Friday I had already run 22 miles on roads. I ran the first 18 miles were at marathon pace (7 minute miles) before my right knee started hurting. I had to change my stride and I was in a decent amount of pain the final two miles home. Pain had not been a factor in my running so far and I was worried that I had injured something.

Were the last two plus months of training totally useless? I had finally committed to running the San Francisco Marathon and was now unsure that I would finish with a Boston-qualifying time. The pain went away but I was certain that the weekly pounding had been too much for my knees. I took a week off, focused more on climbing and started putting in the majority of my training on trails. The trails that I ran, in Rancho San Antonio, Foothills, Skyline and other parks, really kicked my ass. I enjoy trying to push the pace and couldn’t run quickly up the big hills. I stuck with it and I’m sure this training helped on the hills of San Francisco.

July quickly ticked by and I was able to return to a regular running schedule without much knee pain. I got in a solid final three weeks plus  taper before the marathon and picked up a pair of the lightweight Saucony Kinvara shoes. I wanted every advantage I could get and a 15 mile road run had me sold on the lightweight kicks.

Checking the pace.

In order to qualify for the Boston Marathon, I would have to finish under three hours and ten minutes. This translates to 7 minute 15 second splits for each mile. I wanted to be comfortable finishing under 3:10 so my goal pace became 7:00 which would be around a 3:03 marathon. A few extra minutes would allow me to take a bathroom break if necessary. I had been using handheld water bottle on my training runs and knew it would also take additional time to get water from the aid stations. During my training I had run most of my mileage between 6:20 and 6:50 pace and was confident that I could run 7 minute miles. The number in my mind on race day was 3:05.

On race day morning it was dark and cold at the start line and there were a crazy number of people. I hope it would warm up from the chilly 50 degrees since I was only wearing a T-shirt and shorts. A hand warmer in each hand really helped me for the first ten miles. For nutrition I had 3 GU’s, two packs of Shot Blocks and 5- hour energy bottle.  I drank an FRS energy when I got up, in addition to 10 oz or so of Gatorade. I barely made it out of the bathrooms at 5:28 which gave me enough time to jog over to the start line for Wave Two, which started ahead of schedule (5:30 instead of 5:32). My warm-up was the mile or so down hill from our hotel to the start line. Despite the crazy atmosphere of my first race with thousands of people, I felt totally ready when the gun went off.

The start was pretty surreal and I worked my way through the throngs of people running down the closed street along the San Francisco Bay. My plan was to make sure to warm-up slowly and run about 7:05 pace for the first many miles. This worked out well and the toughest part of the day was the long climb up to the Golden Gate bridge. I charged and was pretty tired by the time I had finished the hill and was running across the bridge. Once I hit the aid station at the end of the bridge I started feeling pretty good and kicked up the pace. I happily enjoyed the down hill and was at the aid station at mile 11 in no time.

I had a guy running on my heels for the most of the last 11 miles and he had followed my every stride, pass and so on. It was cool to be running with someone for that distance and it was reassuring to see him when I would glance back. I had been using the same technique and was chasing a runner ahead of me trying to match his pace. We chatted a little before the guy behind me broke off for the half marathon finish. I was on my own for a while going downhill through Golden Gate Park before running with a guy from Illinois (I think). He told me he had run 3:06 in Chicago and I said I was hoping to be on pace for 3:05. It was good to have some company, but I felt strong and lost him on the big hill section from mile 12 through 17. At this point there were not that many people ahead of me so I was pretty much on my own.

Chatting with a half marathon runner.

I was still feeling good and took my 5-hour energy at mile 18 below the deYoung museum. It was really fun to be running on familiar road from my Mom’s visit earlier in the year.  It was a big relief to be done with all of the hills and I just had to keep it together for the last 8+ miles. My legs were getting tired but I was right on pace having run 1:31:44 at the halfway mark and 2:20:09 at Mile 20. My core was also starting to tire and the steep hill at mile 20 was pretty rough. I think I started hitting the wall around mile 22, which had a short hill, and was running as hard as I could until mile 24.

The city seemed pretty empty on the Sunday morning with all of the streets blocked off and I felt lonely. The guy I had been trying to follow/catch had disappeared and I couldn’t match pace with the three or four guys that passed me. The occasional band or cheering group made me smile as I suffered through the last few miles. My pace for the last 10k had dropped by over 17 seconds per mile compared to the rest of the race. As I passed by AT&T Stadium, a guy passed me and gave some encouraging words which helped my final “kick”. I could see the Bay Bridge getting closer and I knew I would be done soon enough!

I was overcome with happiness and relief as I came across the finish line in 3:05:29. I had made it under 3:10 and had only been 29 seconds slower than my goal time. The continuous exertion had really taken it out of me and I happily accepted food and a space blanket to combat the chilly morning. I was in a daze and don’t even remember getting my photo taken after the finish line. I sat down, drank some water, and tried to eat some food. I was so sweaty that I instantly got a chill and my teeth were chattering.

Luke is so dazed from finishing that he doesn't even remember this photo being taken.

I waited around for the two friends who I had shared a hotel with and we all went out for lunch at the very trendy Brenda’s in San Francisco. We waited over two hours to eat with our group of 8, but the beignets were amazing and just being inside and warm was a big plus, making the wait well worthwhile.

Back in the South Bay, I iced and drank fluids for the rest of the day. I tried to climb about a week later, but my system was not ready for any kind of exertion.  All of my clothing worked well during the race and the only chafing I got was on the back side of my armpits. I had laughed when my friend had applied body glide like deodorant… oops.

I think the best thing about running this Marathon was the amount of planning, training, and hard work that went into a single performance. I’ve worked hard for climbs before but I’ve never spent four months pursuing a single goal. It was stressful and sometimes I didn’t want to go out and run. My body was sore, I was climbing poorly, and I wasn’t always getting faster. Having a routine really helped me get out and run. I usually ran two or three days a week and never ran more than 20 miles. I think in the future I can prepare better and plan on sticking to the trails for any runs over 18 miles.

I’m committed to running Boston Marathon next spring and hopefully a few friends will be joining me there. I’ll be doing another cycle of training in the winter since I think I can run under three hours on a faster course. For right now I am happy to be climbing and my next running project is to gain some speed.

Thanks for reading along!

- Luke

My trip to South Africa was just over 3 weeks long. We left on a Wednesday morning and returned around noon on a Friday 3 weeks later. The travel to get there is looooooong. We first had a ~5 hour flight to Atlanta, followed by a 3 hour layover in Atlanta, then a ~15 hour nonstop flight to Johannesburg. In case you hadn’t been keeping track, this is 23 hours of travel from initial takeoff to final landing, which in reality ended up being >24 hours since we were delayed leaving Atlanta. Then we get our baggage, exchange some money (South African currency is the Rand, and $1~=R7.50), pick up the rental car, and set off on a 4 hour drive to our guest house in Barberton, South Africa. I left my apartment at 6am on Wednesday morning and arrived at the guest house around 11pm on Thursday night, for a grand total of 32 hours of travel door-to-door (Johannesburg is 9 hours ahead of Pacific Time).

Barberton Mountains scenery: rolling grassy hills

It didn’t take long for us to settle into a daily routine, which went something like this:

6:30am: wake up, get dressed, head to common room to call Luke on pay phone (I got about 10-15 minutes of talking per day with my phone card); 6:45am in SA = 9:45pm the night before in SF

7:00am: breakfast – granola and papaya; scrambled or fried egg; tea

7:45am: finish getting ready for the day – double check backpack, make lunch (PB&J and juice box), get in car

8:00am: set off to do geology

5:00pm: usually back at car by this time or earlier to drive back to guest house

6:00pm: back at guest house – shower, read books (I read 5 books on this trip), chillax

7:00pm: dinner (they cook for us, what a luxury!)

8:30pm: brush teeth, write Luke a letter, read more

9:30pm: bedtime. 9 hours of sleep!

Repeat for several weeks and you have my whole trip!

My room at the guest house. Home away from home.

But I suppose you may be interested in some more exciting details about my trip. In particular, I’ll share a few more things about what it was like to be in South Africa. Because I like to be organized, this will be organized into a couple categories: landscape, wildlife, and people.

Landscape

Before this trip, my main mental image of southern parts of Africa was savanna – fairly flat, grassy land with lots of wild life. This is probably influenced by the fact that this is what I saw on my only other visit to Africa, on Safari with my family. If you’re a climber, your vision of South Africa might be Rocklands. Well, as far as the Barberton Mountains are concerned, we’re both wrong. The “mountains” are a large area of big, fairly rounded hills, largely covered with long grass. There aren’t really any climbing opportunities here (really old rocks don’t really make for good climbing usually, but I promised not to talk about too much geology in this post).

Cool corkscrew-ended grass thingy.

The weird thing is that a lot of the mountain land (except for Songimvelo Nature Reserve) is owned by commercial forestry companies, which use it to grow trees. This is pretty weird for me, as someone who’s also grown up in a place where forestry is a pretty big industry (Washington), because the trees are only there because they were planted there by the foresters. The land is almost all grassland, naturally, so even though a tree-covered slope looks pretty to a Pacific Northwesterner like myself, it really doesn’t belong there. It’s also pretty strange to drive alongside the forest because if you look closely, you can actually tell that the trees are planted at regular intervals in rows.  All this aside, however, the forestry companies are actually very friendly with us geologists and often their roads are what make access to a lot of our outcrops possible.

The last thing that is unusual about this area, landscape-wise, is the attitude towards fires. In the US, any fire is a big deal, and people are always rushing to put it out. Here, if some grassy hill is on fire, they just let it burn (unless it gets big and is threatening some commercial forest – it takes 20-25 years for the trees to grow to “harvestable” size). This is both a good and bad thing. Good: the grass is often quite tall and dense, so a burned slope is much easier to walk on and better to work on because often short outcrops are hard to find in tall grass. Bad: the smoke tends to get caught in valleys, so the air often had a “smoggy” appearance (like living in LA.)

Wildlife

Although we didn’t see a lot of big wildlife on the trip, we did see some. Mostly I saw baboons and vervet monkeys. The monkeys especially liked to hang out by the train tracks because trains carrying sugar cane tend to drop a fair amount of sugar cane on the ground as the go by.

Baboons. image from Wikipedia

Vervet monkeys. Image from Wikipedia.

We also saw a number of deer-like animals called Mountain Red Bucks. When we were working inside Songimvelo Nature Reserve, we saw a little family of 4 zebras. There were also a number of domesticated animals (we probably saw more of these than wild animals, if you don’t count monkeys) like cows, goats, chickens, and dogs.

Thankfully, we only encountered one snake (and it was only a garter snake). I also saw a number of lizards, including a couple gorgeous blue-tailed skinks. There were A LOT of grasshoppers in the grass, including one really gigantic kind (probably 2-3 inches long) that had red “wings” and only flew away when you were about to step on them (meaning they launch very loudly, right in your face, which is totally startling and terrifying when you’re already on edge about all the poisonous snakes that could be out there).

And finally, there were ticks. LOTS OF TICKS. We put on bug spray every day, but somehow the ticks still decided to hop onto my pants. Luckily, ticks move slow and my pants were light-colored, so I was able to remove them all. I also encountered several sizes of tick, including lots of Really Small Ticks, a good number of Just Plain Small Ticks, and at least one Fairly Large Tick-Like Bug That I Removed From My Pants Quickly Instead Of Waiting To See If It Was A Tick.

People

South Africa has a pretty complicated history. You could check out this Wikipedia article to learn a little more, but suffice it to say that it’s a country with a history of racial tension. While a lot of this tension still exists, I was lucky enough to spend my whole trip in the small town of Barberton and the surrounding mountains, where things seemed to be a lot less tense than in cities (like Johannesburg).

More scenery!

Everyone I met was friendly and helpful, and I never felt like I was in any sort of danger, although I also didn’t go out running along the road by myself (well, I didn’t run at all, but I think I would have if there had been a group).

At the same time, there was often a pretty stark divide between the “haves” and the “have-nots”. We visited the home of an Afrikaner family and, apart from the accent and the right-hand-drive cars, it was pretty similar to an American home. On the other hand, there were several local villages we would drive by where the people lived in falling-apart shacks (think tin roofs with rocks along the edges to keep them on the house), with no access to power, even though big powerlines are right next to the village.

But this is just my very brief and extremely limited outsider’s perspective. On a whole, the people were actually a very positive part of my experience on my trip. It was a little startling when I got on the plane to Atlanta with several large mission groups whose accents indicated they were from somewhere in the southern US. Although many of them were nice enough, one particular woman was extremely rude and pushy towards a flight attendant and an older South African gentleman while they were trying to put some luggage in the overhead bins (always a point of stress). I know travel gets on people’s nerves, but I think a lot of Americans could learn a lot about interacting with other human beings… Even as the southern “lady” was hurling insult after insult at him, the South African man just shrugged it off and was calm and polite with the flight attendant.

This was my grandmother's ring. I think she'd be happy that it came back to Africa with me, even though we didn't see any giraffes (her favorite).

So there you have it. Three weeks of new experiences, geology, some wildlife, lots of ticks, and even more grassy hillsides. Apart from the fact that geology is basically the best branch of science out there, it has this additional perk of needing to spend plenty of time outside on the outcrop, often in cool, exotic locations, just to do your job. It’s pretty fantastic. If you have any other burning questions about my trip, ask away in the comments!

Stay tuned for the part 3 of my South Africa posts, where I’ll talk about what gear really made my trip (when you use something for 3 weeks straight, you really find out what the good stuff really is).

Lizzy

Trusty geology notebook in South Africa

We traveled to the mountains above the town of Barberton, South Africa to study some of the oldest, relatively well-preserved rocks exposed on the Earth’s surface. To give you an idea of the scale of how old these rocks are, here is a brief history of Earth, with all times in units of millions of years ago (Ma):

4540Ma The Earth is formed.

3800Ma Thought to be the end of “Late Heavy Bombardment”, a period when the planet was constantly being bombarded by fairly large meteors

3400Ma Approximate age of the oldest sedimentary rocks in the Barberton Mountains, South Africa

2500Ma Approximate time when most of the Earth’s continental crust (thick crust, as opposed to thin “oceanic crust”) had formed, and when many think the world became oxygenated (previously there was practically no oxygen in the atmosphere or ocean)

635Ma Age of the oldest Ediacaran fossils, the first preserved examples of macroscopic life forms

542Ma Beginning of the Cambrian explosion, when macroscopic life forms go crazy

65.5Ma Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction, when the dinosaurs went extinct

0.000001Ma Last year (2009)

Ok, now that you’ve comprehended how incredibly long timescales we’re dealing with, I’ll move on.

I think sedimentology (the study of sedimentary rocks) is fascinating because sedimentary rocks provide a record of what the Earth’s surface was like. Clastic sediments (like sandstone) tell you about the energy of the particular environment – stronger currents can move larger grains and result in coarser sediment; “current structures” like ripples and dunes are often preserved in rock form and can tell you a lot about the environment they came from. Chemical sediments, like limestone, often preserve a signal of atmospheric and seawater chemistry from when they were formed, which in turn can be used to determine the “paleotemperature” and other interesting variables of the ancient Earth’s surface. Furthermore, if one is interesting in the geologic history of biology (e.g. fossils), their record is only preserved in sedimentary rocks.

The rocks I looked at are part of the Mendon Formation, a set of komatiites and black cherts that are about 3.3 billion years old. Komatiites are a type of volcanic rock with an unusual chemical composition, generally only found in rocks of Archean age (3.8 – 2.5 billion years ago). Chert is a type of sedimentary rock composed mostly of microcrystalline silica (it has the same chemical formula as the more familiar quartz, but is much finer grained). In younger (i.e. not Archean) rocks, chert occurs as small “nodules”. Archean cherts are unusual in that they occur in very thick sections (often >50m of just chert), which may partially reflect that the Archean ocean had much more silica than the modern ocean.

Part of what makes these cherts appear black is dark, carbon-rich material that many have suggested is associated with microbial life. One of the principle goals of my research will be to address whether all this carbon is indeed biological in origin. There are a number of chemical techniques that I can use: making sure the dark material is actually carbon and not just some iron-rich stuff; seeing if it has a “biological” isotopic signature, along with physical analysis (what environment is the material deposited in).

Still life with lichen.

It is becoming more accepted that life probably did exist by 3.3 billion years ago (although there still isn’t a whole lot of incontrovertible “proof”), but a subject of major debate concerns what kinds of microbes existed. The early ocean was probably a fairly extreme environment by modern standards – hot (~40 degrees C); enriched in silica and a variety of other elements; and notably lacking in oxygen. Hence the biological community might have looked pretty different from what we know today.

I think a lot of these questions are extremely interesting because in many ways they are very key to understanding the early evolution of life as well as the evolution of the environment of Earth’s surface (some people think that oxygen produced by cyanobacteria is associated with the oxygenation of the Earth at ~2.5 billion years ago).

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, because there’s still so much opportunity to do meaningful and important science), these questions are particularly challenging to study, simply because the rocks that preserve evidence of what was going on 3.3 billion years ago are just SO old. Even though these rocks are remarkably unmetamorphosed for their age (heated to less than 300 degrees C), much of the original evidence has still been destroyed. Chemical signals in the rock have been altered, the original carbon-rich material has been degraded, and original textures (like “microfossils”, the fossils of original microbes) are not always particularly well-preserved either. Therefore, one has to be very patient and innovative to glean all the relevant preserved information from the rocks and interpolate everything that has been destroyed.

A lot of this kind of work takes place of a very small scale – looking at “thin sections” (thin slices of a rock glued to a glass slide) in a microscope to examine microscopic textures and choose candidates for chemical analysis. Mostly what I do in the field is “measure section” and collect samples, which means I make a record of the macroscopic variation of layers in the chert (there is some variation), along with how thick the whole unit is in that particular location, which will help me make large-scale interpretations, like depositional environment (e.g. deep vs. shallow water, high vs. low energy, proximity to nearest volcano, etc.). So this is what I did for my 3 weeks in Africa.

The hardest part is not, in fact, carrying a backpack full of rocks back to the car. No, it is getting your samples off the outcrop. If you took an intro geology class, you might remember the concept of hardness of minerals (you scratched things against one another to see which one is harder). As it turns out, pure silica (like quartz or chert) is quite hard, so it takes a lot of effort to break it. If you were a boy or girl scout (or you watch Survivor), you might also know that one primitive way of making fire is with flint and steel. Flint is actually another layman’s term for chert. And a geologist’s mini-sledge hammer is often made out of steel. Therefore, hitting the rocks actually makes some sparks. And smells like burning. And can literally burn you if you touch the rock too soon after hitting it (oops). So it’s pretty hard work. Next summer I’m hoping I can bring a field slave (i.e. undergrad) to do the hammering for me…

Ok, now that I’ve bored you enough with geology, stay tuned for the next post, which will have more photos as well as some description of the actually trip (minus the geology).

Cairns are useful for geologists, too. This one was so I could find my starting point again - all the outcrops in the long grass start looking the same after a while.

Lizzy

Luke and Lizzy test out the Boulder X on Mt. Rainier

I was excited when I heard La Sportiva was making a new approach shoe, the Boulder X. I had previously used the B5 but it had been too stiff for my liking. The Boulder X, which is meant as a replacement for the Cirque Pro,  features super sticky rubber and a slightly redesigned body. Lizzy and I have been playing with the Boulder X and I have been impressed with the new Idro-Grip sole. Expect a full gear review in a the next months.

Lizzy has been really enjoying the Patagonia Rock Guide Pants and will be reviewing them shortly.

The new Sanuk Base Camp (photo from Sanuk.com)

I’ve been interested in the new Sanuk Base Camp and I just got a pair in for review. I just took them on their first multipitch (as “approach” shoes) and I was psyched at their weight and performance on a steep slab descent. Expect a review coming out once I take them up a few more climbs! Lizzy will also be reviewing the Sanuk Laurel which she took for three weeks of geology in South Africa!

The all new Katana Lace (Photo by LaSportiva.com)

Also in the footwear department, Lizzy and I will be reviewing the new La Sportiva Katana Lace. We both currently use the (original) velcro Katanas and are looking forward to comparing the performance of the new shoe.

Lizzy is all smiles on the hike up to Sugarloaf

Finally, Lizzy has been using the Black Diamond Women’s Innova 50 backpack over the last couple months and will be writing a review considering the pack’s pros and cons for cragging and for more alpine-y adventures.

Let us know if you have any gear questions!

- Luke

For past Sweet Gear reviews from Luke and Lizzy check out our Gear Reviews page.

Snow crunches under my feet as I suck in the ever thinning air. The Sierra season is NOW and I’ve decided to go after it feet first. Fourth of July weekend often signals my first alpine climbing trip of the summer. I feel confident as I hike up the familiar trails to the Incredible Hulk. There are few places in the world that have captured my imagination as much as this piece of amazing alpine granite.

Time to escape the trailer park, aka campground, at the Mono Village

What is a wilderness? What makes something WILD? On the hike up Little Slide Canyon, the remote nature of the Hoover Wilderness is quite evident. I wonder how many people have been up here and how many of the crazy spires that line the canyon have been climbed. As the Hulk shows itself in the distance I get excited. It’s worth the crazy winds, the hours of hiking, the harassment of mosquitoes and the biting cold. We make no fire, store our food in a bear canister and try to make peace with this place. As I look up from our campsite, the angled face lures me in. I want to touch it, know it, be familiar with all of its routes and features.

We can see the Hulk. Wahoo!

Morning breaks, the day starts to heat up and we must go climbing. Remembering the mantra of the Sierra, I climb slowly, keeping my breathing in check. The anticipation of the crux instills fear into my movement. I make sure to climb relaxed, head calm, trying to shake the nerves. I reach a stance, like an island, well above my last gear. The crack has pinched out; my fingers will not fit in the corner. Out come the thin nuts, and I pepper the crack with them:  my only solace from the thirty foot fall that awaits me. I crimp on a credit card edge, feet on golden granite dots. I pinch my way up the arete, marveling at the outrageous sequence.

Jamie ponders life, adventure and ass kicking elevation.

At a small stance I fumble in a nut. Shaking I make the clip. Pods appear back in the corner and I start laybacking. My fingers slide deep into the crack. I start to relax and clip a 1/4 bolt; I hope it is strong enough to catch me. Somehow I’ve transitioned from fear to excitement in a mere five feet. The opening of the crack grows and so does my confidence. I find a good stance below a roof and then jugs, glorious jugs! I’m grinning, convinced I’ve pulled the crux and shake out, getting the blood back into my arms.

I see some chalk, another crux it seems, leading up and right to easier terrain. I try to lock off and can’t reach the next hold. I don’t see the small sidepull that Jamie uses later while following. I put in a 00 C3 to help with my confidence and then I jump. My fingers wrap around the next hold, but it looked better in my head. Feet swinging in the air I frantically match, using opposing pressure to stay on. Stable, I put my foot a previous hand hold and in a swift motion have gained the easy terrain.

Luke enjoys live climber "TV" on the Hulk.

I let out a shout! My heart is beating fast, too fast for this altitude, but the climbing to the belay relaxes me and it is ok. On the ledge I marvel at the last 100 feet of rock. What a unique challenge, what a nice ledge, what a wonderful day on the Hulk.

It’s now mid-afternoon and we are only barely half way up Tradewinds. The first pitch, at super sustained 11a, was a tough warm-up and saw me almost give up. Now I’ve completed the second 5.11 pitch. It is Jamie turn on the sharp end as he embarks on the route finding crux. By using a different belay than suggested in the topo we have the advantage of sight for the next tricky pitch. A pinched out corner leads to a wild traverse and perhaps a 5.11 move to get established on the face. I lead this pitch in a T-Shirt, soaking in the afternoon sun. The typical winds that I have encountered on previous trips to the Hulk are somehow absent.

Looking over at the namesake pitch of Red Dihedral

Looking up at the first of the 5.11+ pitches I am anxious again. I didn’t plan on leading this pitch. The thin corner seems to extend forever. I force myself to believe it is doable.  We brought four thin finger sized pieces for this pitch but one, a green alien, refused to cooperate and came apart earlier in the climb. (The trigger mesh came loose and you couldn’t retract the cam lobes).  I start breathing heavy as I try to cram my fingers into the thin crack. I think of Lizzy and wish she was here leading this pitch.  Climbing stupidly I jam straight in and quickly pump out, my fingers sliding out of a lock as my weight comes to rest on the cam below me.

With some stemming, french free, and numerous points of aid I make it up the pitch. The climbing has eased, with the crack offering a few full sized finger locks, but all of a sudden pinched out at a roof. The next sequence seems impossible and Jamie and I have no clue what to do. A sideways dyno to loose flake? Did I miss a series of face holds? How are you supposed to climb this blank section?

Luke finishes up a tricky 5.11 pitch.

My meltdown and aiding of pitch seven doesn’t give us much hope of climbing the harder 5.11+ pitch eight. Jamie points out the waning light and I figure out the fastest way to bail.  We had planned on rapping The Venturi Effect with our two 70m ropes. Lizzy and I had done this the prior year with a single 70m rope so I knew the location of all the stations.  I end up lowering Jamie 60+ meters off a bolt before tying the ropes together and rapping to him. With our two lines it only takes three more raps and we’re back on the ground in no time.

Back to Terra Firma at sunset and eating dinner by 9pm or so: a full day of climbing despite the late start and our final shenanigans. The difficulty of the day puts a question mark in my mind for Sunday. Can I lead more 5.11 pitches? Will the weather stay clear and warm? I seem to be plagued by these thoughts, my psych is draining. Back in the tent the fly flaps in the wind. Finally my eyes close and I am at peace, doubt and indecision left behind for the moment.

Jamie is all smiles with the warm weather!

The morning comes and we are up late (8am), in no rush to enter the crisp mountain air. As we shake off the soreness of the previous day I am committed to trying. Even if we fail, even if we don’t make it to the top we must try. I must put in a good effort; I must not give up even before taking the first step. As we rack up another party walks over. I had seen them the night before and had secretly hoped they were climbing Sunspot so we wouldn’t have to. I didn’t want the pressure, I wanted to relax.

Conversation shows that we do in fact share the same objective. Even more astounding is that  Jamie and Ryan, of the other party, were friends from college, at Lehigh. We chat and they wander off. I have no problem letting them get on the route first since Jamie and I are still tired. Time passes by as we watch them approach the climb and start up the first pitch. Looking at the watch I get antsy and insist we leave. The leader has just finished linking the first two pitches when we arrive at the base. It’s now past 10 am but Jamie is courteous and waits for Ryan to finish following before starting up.

Climbers on the first pitches of Positive Vibes/Sunspot Dihedral

I’ve climbed these two pitches before as a leader with Konstantin, and a follower with Lizzy. I want Jamie to get some mileage today and insist he leads. Being on the sharp end, dealing with route finding and doubt is important. It is good to know how one fairs at altitude and how to find and follow your psyche. It seems much warmer than the day before as we sit on the nice ledge, often referred to as the terrace, after climbing the 70m first pitch. The team is 50 feet above, having climbed a mini pitch, and are now working on the 3rd pitch, a supposedly pumpy traverse to a thin corner with minimal protection, “spooky” says the topo . The ensuing lead takes over two hours and we are not interested in getting caught on the wall in the dark. Jamie is not so psyche on the protection-less corner on Sunspot and opts to lead the first crux pitch of Positive Vibrations.

Jamie styles this pitch, dispatching the face climbing crux with ease, despite the pro being well below his feet.  The next pitch, while technically easier is much more strenuous. After an exciting moment with a broken hold, Jamie grunts his up the steep cracks for another onsight! With a single #2 and #3 we can’t really go any further. Back on the terrace we decided it would be better to climb these two pitches and rap instead of waiting around to climb Sunspot. Going down would allow us to take advantage of the soft snow and hike out a day early. Two raps and a very speedy 2 hours put us back at the car.

In the Tuolumne Meadows the climbing is less intimidating. We managed to rally the next morning and get to the base of Fairview Dome by 8am. As I expected there is a slowish party on the 2nd pitch of Lucky Streaks. We follow them up the climb, with Jamie leading the somewhat awkward and techy crux pitch. I found all the pitches after the crux to be much more fun than the first few and I am happy that we swap leads all the way to the top. After a celebratory dip in Tenaya Lake I must return home leaving Jamie to recover and enjoy the rest of the week climbing in the Meadows.

Looking back I had overestimated my fitness and the 5.11 pitches on Tradewinds were the hardest I had tried in many months. I am psyched with my two 5.11 onsights and it was good to be able to really push my body. My mind still believes I am stronger so I’ll be putting in some more time in the gym to return to my past fitness. My right shoulder was pain free all trip which is a huge step in the right direction! As always I can’t wait to spend some more time up on the Incredible Hulk.

If you have any questions or comments about the Hulk I’d love to hear it. I’m still trying to find topos for Blow Hard, Solar Flare, Sun Burn (aka Solar Burn), Eye of the Storm and Escape from Poland. Let me know if you have any information!

Some photos and the trip from Jamie’s perspective can be found here.

All the information that I have found on about the Incredible Hulk is here.

- Luke

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Luke and Lizzy are finally done laybacking up the Grand Wall

Lizzy covered most of the details of our recent trip to Squamish in an earlier post. I wanted to add some photos since Lizzy was awesome and took a lot of good shots!

During our trip to Squamish I was still a bit tired from my trip up Half Dome, the weekend before, but was psyched to climb my first four 5.11′s since dislocating my right shoulder. The Grand Wall was a ton of fun and it was really nice to have no parties above us for the whole day, a vast contrast to my last multi-pitch adventure. It was also nice to have waited so I could onsight all the pitches, minus a hang to clean a nut on Apron Strings.  The Sword had one hard move,  and the finish was not as pumpy as I expected.  My foot slipped  (due to skipping a foothold) but I managed to catch my self, jarring my left shoulder in the process.  Perry’s layback was brutally sustained and I almost pumped out near the top.  I had to grunt my way up and it seemed much harder than the Sword. As I noted on the Mountain Project page there is no need for aiders or ascenders and it is easy to link the traverse from Merci Me to the short bolt ladder and the Sword to the long bolt ladder.

Jackie works out beta on Super Fly

I also really enjoyed relaxing and hanging out and going bouldering on this trip.  I had only bouldered once at Planet Granite since March and it was cool to try hard on the excellent Squamish granite. Jackie, Maddy and Arther were quite psyched and it was awesome to follow them around and not have to choose where we were climbing.  I can see why Squamish is considered a world class bouldering destination and on our next trip I might set aside some time to hang out in the forest and do some pebble wrestling.

Luke focus hard on this super thin problem.

Arthur crimps hard on some micro holds.

With much encouragement Luke eeks out a flash of Easy in an Easy Chair

Maddy enjoys a killer heel hook on Easy in an Easy Chair

Maddy fights for friction on some classic Squamish slopers

Luke gets a full helping of Monkey's Lunch

Jackie works the heel hook on Monkey's Lunch

Lizzy remembered that we had stopped by the Animal Magnetism area once before so I could play on Jack’s Baby. This is a classic Squamish sloper traverse which goes right to the finish of Monkey Lunch (seen above). It was cool to send a problem that I had tried many years ago but had no recollection of!

Maddy sends an excellent V0 near Titanic

Jackie warms up up on our last day bouldering

Arthur works on the big reach on Titanic

Luke has the jug of Titanic in his sight.

It was really great to be able to squeeze in some problems on our last day despite a morning of rain. The temperature in the forest below the Grand Wall was often nice and cool in contrast to sunny hotness elsewhere. Finishing the trip on a mellow note hanging out with friends was a big plus. Lizzy and I had climbed the Grand Wall, which was our only big objective, and had a successful trip. Sometimes it is important not to stress out too much about doing something big and crazy every day. I often forget that it can be just as fun to have a relaxing climbing trip as a one full of sending and exhaustion.

Also be sure to check out some more photos from Arthur:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/arthurhsu/sets/72157624399448586/

Enjoy,

Luke

Lizzy tries to get rid of some nerves

This triathlon was held at Rancho Seco Park, which is out east near Sacramento. It’s not that far away, but it is far enough that we had to leave at 4:30am to get there in time to stake out a good spot in transition, check in, warm up, and deal with pre-race nerves.

Where's Lizzy?

I was a little nervous for the swim course because it was significantly longer than my previous tri (800m vs. 500m) and the air was a little chillier. However, the water was surprisingly warm and much less murky than at Lake Almaden. As a result, I was able to follow a couple swimmers in front of me (letting them break their stroke to check our direction instead of having to do it so many times myself). I think I ended up averaging a little over 2:00 per 100m, which is generally what I’ve been doing in the pool.

Women's heat one is off!

I think my T1 was a little faster than before – the short run from the swim exit to transition was grassy and allowed me to get most of the sand off my feet before I got to my towel. I’m still not super fast at jumping on my bike, but I don’t think I’m really competitive enough yet for those couple of seconds to make a significant difference for me. The bike course, an out-and-back course on a relatively flat road with gentle rolling hills, was also significantly longer than that on my first tri (16mi vs. 8.8mi), but I had raced on the course before (the Luna Bar Tri/Du does the same out-and-back, except with the turnaround another 2 miles out), so I knew what to expect. Not surprisingly, I was much faster on my tri bike than on my normal road bike that I used on the duathlon. The course is flat enough that I was able to stay in aero position almost the entire time, in addition to staying on my big front gear for maximum efficiency. My top speed was about 25mph, and my average speed was around 19mph. I think I averaged about 14mph on my road bike on the same course (well, the same course +4 more miles and maybe in a little worse shape).

Lizzy works to minimize her T1 by running out of the water!

My T2 also went better than my first triathlon. My feet were drier (I’d been on the bike for about 50 minutes this time) and I did a much better job of putting my socks on. My legs definitely felt much more tired starting out the run, but I tried to stay in a positive mental state, focusing on how light I felt and how warm my muscles were, rather than how tired my legs were feeling. I got a little psyched out on the run, since I expected the aid station to be at the turnaround (1.5mi) and it was actually at ~1mi, so I got all excited to be halfway done, only to realize that I still had a ways to go before halfway. With some effort, though, I was able to stay positive and keep pushing. It didn’t hurt that I was passing tons of people and could tell that there weren’t that many women ahead of me (i.e. I was doing well in my age group).

On the bike leaving the transition.

Since my legs were quite warm (read: tired) by the final stretch, I was able to do an even better sprint to the finish than my first triathlon. (I know this is counter-intuitive, but I have a major tendency to pull my quads when I really sprint hard, so I only really go full-throttle when I know my quads are happy.)

Lizzy staying in aero position as she finishes the bike.

Although I was definitely more physically tired than my first tri, I still felt good after finishing and relaxed in the shade with Luke to wait for the awards ceremony. They were giving awards 5 deep in 5-year age groups (mine is women 20-24) and I was almost certain I’d done well enough to get an award. It actually turned out that I won my age group, which I think is my best race result ever (I won my age group at the Luna Bar Duathlon, but I was the only one in my age group, so there wasn’t much competition).

Lizzy in first for women 20-24 with the other top finishers.

So my second triathlon was just as awesome as my first! I’m pretty excited for the Luna Bar Tri at the end of August (I’ll have some work to regain some fitness after my 3 weeks doing geology in South Africa, but that’s ok). It continues to impress me that, although I used to consider myself a pretty unathletic person, I’m now a successful triathlete! I’m even entertaining wild and crazy thoughts of doing a Half Ironman at some point…

Lizzy