Getting ready for the summer backpacking season I was excited to reach higher than 11,000 ft on this trip up Piute Pass near Bishop. The plan was to pack a heavy bag to get the feel of a multi-day trip on this 16.5 mile, 3000 ft gain out-and-back trip.
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Another early season backpacking trip was met with unexpected snow conditions out of Twin Lakes near Bridgeport, CA. Our trip was planed to go 20 miles, 3600 ft round trip, ending at Snow Lake in the Hoover Wilderness however, early season backpacking never goes as expected.
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The upside of a low winter is that the backcountry is accessible in early May 2021. Looking at the snow in Mammoth Lakes, I decided to give a backpacking trip up to 10,700 ft a try and hope for limited snow on our 13.7 mi, 3,800 ft adventure. At 8:30am, Sadie, pup and I all started up the little traveled Logging Flat Trail outside of Big Pine.
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I had a near accident in the Spring of 2020 while I was out developing my crag. I already had a fixed my static line in the Welcome to Nightvale area. However, I wanted to start working on a 30m crack I had found that looked pretty great in a new Desert Bluffs area next door.
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This story is part of a series on route development. Click this tag to see all
I was excited, it was my first time… hauling a dense and heavy pack containing a 36V hammer drill, two charge packs and hunks of metal. My first day out bolting was not quite a success but at least I accomplished bringing the heaviest pack yet up the loose dusty hill to the cliff. Luckily, I learned the hard way so you don’t have to.
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This story is part of a series on route development. Click this tag to see all.
One of the things I realized from my first development project is how much repetitive work you have to do if you go back to the top and re-clean. I have to go all the way down the moderate routes again and brush all the holds. I’m sure y’all can remember topping out using sandy holds or trying to pull on even the best jug with dirt on it.
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This story is part of a series on route development. Click this tag to see all.
I started with the basic tools and after blowing out a couple pairs of gloves, banging my knuckles, struggling to clean all different sizes and depths of cracks…. After 30-40 hrs of route development, I learned a few things and revamped my cleaning tools. I hope you can learn from my mistakes and give you an idea of what tools work well.
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This story is the first a part of a series on Route Development. Click on this tag to see all.
Route/Rock/Crag/Cliff development, is the unsexy cousin of the super fly First Ascent everyone wants a part of. The first reaction people have with route development is whether it is top down (you clean first, spec out the route) or bottom up (true plunge into mungy reality). If you’ve ever climbed anything that was bolted on lead, you know which approach does better routes… I really liked this quote, “There are two kinds of route developers… One that bolts a couple routes and does it bottom up. Another who bolts a ton of routes and does it top down”. (queue the Mountain Project Flame Wars)
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Bear Creek Spire is found in the Eastern Sierra past several alpine lakes and a mile of talus where the North Arete (5.8, 10 pitch) starts above 12,000 ft. It was also my first date with Sadie Skiles on a failed attempt back in 2016 and we’ve been thinking about it ever since. Now with Little Lakes trailhead 45 minutes away from our new home in Mammoth Lakes we were excited to take another crack at it in non-wind advisory conditions.
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