First Trip- Shuteye Ridge

The van is mine!

Beginning stages of van

Despite the fact that I had done almost no work on the van, by early October I was itching to take Silas on his first trip.  I was just coming back from a minor tendon injury and I was ready to get out and do some climbing.  Coincidentally, a new guidebook had just landed on our shelves at the climbing gym and the bright pictures inside depicted a pretty accurate version of my paradise.  Granite as far as the eye could see; varied terrain- cracks, face, boulders, runnels, unique features; grades from easy cruisers to hard test pieces.  California mountain air.  No crowds.  I was sold.  Chelsea met me in the Bay Area, we tossed everything into the van, made a quick stop at Trader Joe's, and we were off.  We immediately found out that Star (my tan dog) was terrified of riding in the van.  She has several other strange phobias (garages, gunshots, puppies), so this was just another one to add to the list.  She refused to sit anywhere except the very front of the van where we were, and she sat there panting and trembling (fortunately she has since become much more comfortable and relaxed, yay!).

Titan enjoying life

We drove and drove and finally reached our destination.  The van seemed to handle well, and it wasn't hard to adjust to driving it.  We picked out a climbing spot for the next day and parked on a dirt road near the approach trail.  We had no trouble driving on the smooth dirt road.  I was so psyched to be sleeping in the van under the stars for the first time.  I had slept in it a few times in the driveway previously, but that didn't really count.  The dogs were happy to finally be out of the city again, and they explored the woods.  Chelsea and I breathed deeply and savored the fresh, piney air.  We fell asleep anticipating the excitement of the following day.

Awesome views.

The next day was exciting indeed.  After breakfast we spent a hilariously long time trying to find the approach trail.  Shuteye is still relatively untraveled as far as climbing areas go and it took us a lot of turning around and searching before we found a cairn that directed us to the place in the woods where we were supposed to turn right.  The approach ended up taking us several hours, but we were stoked to be rewarded with a wonderful view and stellar climbing.  It was great for the dogs to get some good exercise as well.  The climbing was ridiculous!  Water runnels had carved some of the coolest and unique features I have seen into the rock.  There were lots of chicken heads to sling and plenty of jugs to make the climbing enjoyable without taxing my tendon.  I will say that the climbing was a bit run out in places, but thankfully we were climbing well below our limit so we were comfortable the whole time.  After cruising around on the warm, golden granite, we decided to hike down in plenty of daylight in case we got lost again.  And we got lost again.  Fortunately we found our way and made it back to the van with enough daylight to cook dinner in.

Happy climbers

Water runnels

Lichen hikin'

Where are we?!

In the morning it was time to move the van and try out another climbing spot.  We wanted something with a relatively straight forward approach to avoid a repeat of our approach fail from the previous day.  Unfortunately we had an even greater fail this time around.  First, I got the van stuck on a dirt road.  My entire driving career up to this point has consisted of 4WD cars, which I have taken over some pretty gnarly terrain.  Not only does the Sprinter not have 4WD, it also has a super long wheel base, which seems to make it a lot easier to get of kilter and get trapped with your tires spinning.  After a decent amount of cursing and mud slinging, I got the van out.  We decided to walk the road instead of driving it and parked the van back on the security of the pavement.  After walking down the dirt road for awhile, we emerged back onto a paved road instead of the lake and rock we were supposed to be at.   We were baffled.  We couldn't figure out if we were having a major reading comprehension fail or navigational issues, but we were ready to give up.  We chalked up the day to a nice hike and headed for home.

Psyche provided by Flux

Despite only getting in one day of climbing, it was still an awesome trip and a great way to break in the van and see some of its limitations as well as its assests.  It also got me really excited to get to work on the van and provided me with motivation to get going on the project list.  Van life commence!

Adventure On. LP