A non-climbing post!!

Well, finally I thought I should post on here aswell. So, for everyone who has kindly been reading this blog and to who the technicalities of climbing mean nothing I thought I'd make this one a non-climbing post!! Although in answer to those of you who have asked if we have done anything other than climbing on this trip so far I'm afraid the answer is very little!! And I'm surpirsed you asked :)

We're having another rest day. My finger tips are sore, I have a small hole in the skin of one of them and my body is feeling battered. Brillliant!! So, I thought I'd write a few, perhaps random things about this trip so far. Starting from the beginning one of my favourite quotes was the hostess on the plane saying to the passenger in front, "It's nothing to worry about sir the captain is aware" as torrents of fuel are cascading from the tip of the wing with several fire engines approaching. Needless to say we are asked to disembark. This does nothing for my irrational fear that the plane could fall from the skies but fortunately the rest of the flight passes without incident and although I try to watch the same film three times I fail to watch it in its entirety due to lack of sleep the night before. We were up until 4am cleaning the house and packing.

After a brief stay in San Francisco, a place we all enjoyed (we managed to find the best truffle shop in northern america according to all the press cuttings in the window - $1 for a coffee and a truffle, saw golden gate bridge, ate clam chowder from a bread bowl) we moved on to Yosemite. I was completely awestruck by the place. No photos or words could do this justice. The towering cliffs of granite were just massive. Every morning I looked out of my tent at a cliff face that must have been at least 1000 feet high. It caught the first sun in the morning and was lit by the moonlight at night. The enourmity of the place was just staggering. I hear that "Jack Osbourne Adrenalin Junkie" is on back home and apparently he climbs El Cap so you can see some of the scenery we have experienced. Even though it's so warm over here they still seem to be going through the same seasonal changes. The autumnal colours of the leaves added to the beauty of the place. I have to mention the wildlife. I was disappointed not to see a bear however perhaps that is better than to be retelling some close encounter!! Instead we had a visit from a warden with a bear skull passing on the not so subtle message about what happens to these creatures if they are encouraged and become too aggresive. They have stopped giving them names and refer to them by number as they get to know their characters and find it too heart-breaking when they must be shot. They are very clever and although the warderns are constantly thinking of new ways to deter them they are only just managing to stay one step ahead. One bear has even worked out how to open the 'bear proof' lockers. The culprit was apprehended after lots of slobber was found on the handle!! We also saw a red-tailed hawk in an aerial pursuit with two ravens whilst we were climbing Commitment. The coyotes we saw were looking beautiful, apparently they were just starting to get their winter coats and looking fat from eating the over-fed squirrels. Incidently, the only person to be killed by an animal in the park was killed by a deer. A young boy was feeding a male deer when he dropped the bag of food. They both bent down at the same time causing an unfortunate collision between the boy's chest and the deer's antlers. Arriving in Bishop we even saw a juvenile golden eagle. Anyhow, enough twitching....

Bishop is more what I expected of a hick town out west. It is one long street with at least 16 churches and even more fast food outlets. Two tacos for 99 cents anyone? Now we've been here a while the town is surprisingly useful and I'm starting to really like the place. A pillow cost $2 from the thrift shop and has made the world of difference to sleeping at night. Once again the scenery is amazing. Beyond the town we are surrounded by snow capped mountains. Stef has put some photos on so you can see what I mean! In postcard fashion I have to mention the weather. It's been predomanently clear and sunny. People say you miss the rain after a while but I'm finding that hard to believe. Over the first few days the snow on the mountains noticeably diminished. Bishop has on average 5 inches of rain per year. I think we had most of that in one night as we experienced the mother of all thunder storms. I have never heard thunder like it as it seemed to echo amongst the mountains. In the morning the mountains were once again covered in snow and the Sonora and Tioga pass have been closed. Thank goodness we made it here before the storm otherwise our journey here would have been much longer.

I could easily become a cafe junky. On our rest days we sit in cafes, drinking coffee, reading books, chatting....pondering why you would ever by a large coffee when you can buy a small one and take advantage of the endless free refills. It's disturbing how quickly the scavenger mentality kicks in!! If we time it right we buy a bag of sweet goodies from Schatt's Bakery (the best bakery in northern america :) at the end of the day on offer for $3. 'Sweet' is one word I'll take from America. Everything edible is sweet. Usually corn syrup is one of the top three ingredients and it's proving quite hard to eat 'healthily'! Even the bread and cereal are sweet. Mind you, they know how to grow sweet corn and avacadoes! You can easily see how the nature of their diet leads to the second word I'll remember about America. 'Large'!! They manage to do everything on a bigger scale. It must be the only place where you can buy 4.48 lbs of steak for $7.48 and it's cheaper than the bread! It fed 5 of us for 2 dinners and lunch :) Most noticeably their cars and RVs are massive - some are the size of buses. The owners of some of these RVs on our campsite seem to have taken pity on these crazy foreigners who are actually camping in tents and keep bringing donations of firewood checking we 'survived' the storm :) Although we have a good source of free firewood from the local timber yard.

I'm currently getting more tanned on my back than my front and I have developed serious sandal marks. A consequence of facing the rock for most of the day!! A small price to pay for doing what we enjoy day in day out. I feel like we are busy every day. I wonder how we managed to fit a full time job in around our climbing at home (perhaps I didn't manage very successfully ;). Is that the right way round to think about it? I think so now!! I'm enjoying the evenings around the campfires. We are becoming connoisseurs of cooking on a fire and I enjoy the moments of just relaxing, drinking a beer, reading my book. Never has a beer tasted so good after a full day bouldering! This will be my only mention of climbing...the boulder fields are amazing and no surprise, we have nothing (that I know of) of this scale at home. Not all the boulders are high but some are! We arrived at the Buttermilks yesterday to see a group being taught how to climb using topropes on a boulder. Seemed wrong that they should be doing this on some classic 3 star problem. Perhaps they haven't got the pressures of numbers to make them think about this and preserve these boulders the best they can. But hey, here is not the place to debate the ethics of climbing!

On our rest days we are honing our techniques of the totally pointless pursuits of slacklining and hacky sacking. Slacklining is hard. It requires complete concentration and total relaxation at the same time, proving to be more Stef's forte than mine. Well, it's time to go for a coffee. Many of the cafes have free wireless internet access. We have already pondered the possibility of a job where it doesn't matter where your office is. I'm enjoying myself here!!