12_25_2013 Christmas Day

Christmas morning so we took our standard Christmas morning photos. The nosy cat is in the photos of course. The assortment of boxes has been almost more than she could take!

Dave and Pente pre-opening.

First opened was a cat toy sent from my mom.  It proved to be another winner of a toy!  Pente approached it cautiously at first wondering what the spinning mouse inside was doing. I didn't get it with the camera, but this caused a 'straight-in-the-air' jump!

After it made her jump (and us laugh) she continued to investigate this thing.

Typical cat...circling it seemed important.

And soon it started getting smacked. The paws were inside trying to stop the mouse from running in circles.

Paw attack!

The rolling then commenced....

She was beside herself with this toy. Lots of fun to watch her!

First opened for humans was my 2013 stamps. Thanks mom and dad!

Dave opened his balaclava.  Great gift mom and dad. It has wind-stopper yet allows the wearer to breath (which many fail to do).

Ah, a spider from October makes an appearance!  It didn't look like shipping it moved the thing at all!

A hat  from mom and dad which morphed in a bit into an amazing cat toy.

Some keurig inserts from mom and dad.

The spider must be stopped!

Dave is investigating a gift from my mom and dad...

That gift turned out to be a t-shirt from my mom and dad which he'll enjoy.

The hat meanwhile took a brutal and long-lived attack by the cat. Evidently, it appeared to have blue mice on it.

Modern Family episodes from mom and dad. We'll watch those. Excellent series!

Mom and Dad gave Dave a bird call.

This item also serves as a cat call. Pente was very interested in the bird call.

Dave with the bird call...

A t-shirt for me from mom and dad....

Rachel, my sister sent some slippers - thanks!

Dave gave me some jeans (to be purchased). It's time. The two I have are both in bad shape. Sad.

Mom and dad sent Dave a nice gift card from REI. That'll get used no doubt!

I bought Dave a new sweater with the neck line he likes.

I think Christmas is made for cats. SO many boxes to investigate. Here Pente is scratching inside of this box. Weirdo!

Then Dave opened a hand warmer from my parents...

I snatched it away and IT'S MINE!

I bought it, but it's really something we both can use...a Nutribullet. He'd been ogling some very expensive similar machine. This should do the trick. We attempted a kale drink this morning. The verdict is that kale in a drink is nasty! Bleck!  :)  Better as chips!

Dave got me a set of interval training bike videos. I think he'd grown tired of the two free ones I'd been using on youtube. These are great!

I got Dave a solar charger. He can use it while out in the back country. It is a neat gadget that can charge a variety of things - phone, IPOD, etc.

Dave in the aftermath pile!  Pente is in the somewhere too. Merry Christmas!

10_17 to 21_2013 Quinn and Dave in the Desert; Part III Towers

In later October the Cottonwoods are usually quite colorful in Indian Creek. So we'll start off with some scenic shots. Here is North Six Shooter behind a nice show of fall color.

Here are the Bridger Jack Spires with a small lone cottonwood in the foreground, and the moon setting right over the mesa.

Here is another moon-set picture, right over the summit of Easter Island Spire.

Getting ready to head out from our camp spot to climb Easter Island and Sunflower Tower.

Here is Quinn leading the first fun pitch of Easter Island. 

Here we are on the cool summit of Easter Island which is pretty small and is dwarfed by the summits of the surrounding towers.

Here is Quinn leading the third pitch of Sunflower Tower with the Six Shooters in the far background. It was a fine day for tower climbing!

Here we are on the summit of Sunflower Tower with Hummingbird Spire behind us. 

In the morning we started the drive home and decided to stop in at Arches National Park to bag a quick spire. We chose the Barney Rubble Tower for it's quick approach and moderate single pitch difficulty (plus no crowd!). I can't say that it was a great route, but the summit was very cool.  Here I am on top.

Here is Quinn enjoying the fine climbing on the Barney Rubble Tower.

Quinn on the summit of Barney Rubble pointing to a climber on the summit of nearby Owl Rock (where there was a crowd). Pretty cool!

Oh no! Trip is over. Back to the cube farm. 

10_17 to 21_2013 Quinn and Dave in the Desert; Part II Indian Creek

Our next stop on the trip was Indian Creek Canyon - home of the fabulous sandstone splitters. Sight of the Stout Silverbacks!

We decided to go to a wall we had not yet visited and it was creatively called "The Wall". The fun part about The Wall is that almost all of the routes are named after Pink Floyd songs from the album of the same name.

This wall a couple of miles of relatively rough 4-wheel drive roads so we figured it would not be very crowded - and we were right! :)

There are about 30 high-quality routes at this crag so it was easy to find a good route in the sun to start. 

On our first day at The Wall, there was just one other party - here they are a ways away on a very cool crack climb that we ended up doing the next day. 

A late afternoon shot hiking back down to the camper.

Our camp spot near The Wall for two nights. Nobody else was within at least a mile.  Pretty nice!

On the second day we had plenty of choices for quality challenging routes and got plenty of exercise. 

This climb was excellent, but a little over my head lead-wise. So, I had to employ a few devious tactics to get to the anchors but was then able to climb it cleanly. Quinn did a good job and enjoyed it as well.

The next day, we planned to head over to the Bridger Jack Spires to climb a couple of towers.

10_17 to 21_2013 Quinn and Dave in the Desert; Part I Sister Superior

Back in October, Quinn and Dave took a five day trip to the desert to climb some towers and some cracks and get out of cube-land... The first stop was Sister Superior in Castle Valley Utah. This is a very cool four-pitch tower climb with a fantastic summit that is both small and independent affording great views of the surrounding desert.

Here we are at the trail head for Sister Superior. It's about an hour and a half fairly stout hike to the base of the tower. This is one of my favorite desert tower climbs. Quinn and I first did this climb together in 1988 and he had not repeated it since then. For this trip, they took Quinn's pop-up. They are really excellent and versatile rigs.

You can see Sister Superior and other towers in the background...the hike begins.

Here is Dave preparing at the base.

Here Quinn heads up the first pitch which traverses over to the squeeze chimney behind the pillar to the right of the photo.

A bit later, Dave grabs a photo of Quinn heading up pitch 3 which is the crux of the climb. The hard part is out of sight below Quinn.

Here is Dave leading up the next pitch.This is a very cool crack pitch with excellent exposure and position.

This is a photo of me leading the same section of the climb 25 years ago. Somethings change...somethings don't. Note the stylish leggings and greater hair coverage in the older photo!

At the top - a nice view with the LaSalle Mountains and Castleton Tower in the background.

The standard victory photo!

Quinn finishing the coil job on the rope at the bottom of the rappels. Quite the scenic spot.

Quinn looking back up at Sister Superior on the hike out to the truck. What an amazing place.

We found a really nice camp spot on some slick rock south of Moab, Utah on the way to Indian Creek.  Really nice view!

10_26_2013 Dave hikes Bear Peak

Dave headed out for a hike to the top of Bear Peak. It's been a while given his knee was messed up and the fire of last year. He took a few photos showing what it looks like now. As you can see, the burn scar is, well, a burn scar. Boo.

Here's a nice photo (selfie!) of Dave on top. He called from there. Fun to look up there and know he's standing up there when I'm talking to him.

And finally, a photo looking over Boulder.  If you look really really hard, you can see our house. ;)

I owe many other blog posts - so behind. We've been getting out having fun and working way too much as well. Hopefully we'll get caught up...some day!

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9_21_2013 Dave and Mark C climb at South Platte

Dave and Mark Cartwright took advantage of some nice weather (way  back in Sept...I'm slow on the posting...again) and headed to the South Platte for some climbing. Climbing in Boulder at the time was still closed from the floods. 

While there, they did Center Route to the top portion of Wunsch's Dihedral. Then they went over to the Sunshine Wall and did the first couple pitches of Standard Route and fun 10b crack and face to the left.

Here's a nice view watching Mark come up the second pitch of Center Route while Dave belays in some bird poopy rock!

Dave french-freeing the bolt ladder on the last pitch of Wunsch's Dihedral.  Look at the hero pulling on those bolts!

Here comes Mark practicing his bat-manning skills on the bolt-ladder pitch.

On the fine summit of Cynical Pinncle.

Ditto!  Roar!

Some perspective - another party starting at the bottom.

Dave on the 10d/11a crux pitch of Standard Route. 

Mark on the 10b crack face thing left of standard route.  Because climbing was off limits in Boulder, they expected crowds at the South Platte. As you can see from the photos, that was not the case. Beautiful day, beautiful weather!  The hike must be a crowd-limiting factor.

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