Desert to desert

We left the high desert of the Colorado Plateau to head to the Mohave Desert where my mom lives in Ridgecrest, CA.

There's Ridgecrest down in the valley. The town is here because the Navy operates a base that develops all kinds of secret weapons and equipment. Every once in a while you'll be in your house, or in a grocery store, or driving down the street or whatever and there will be a gigantic BOOM, the ground will shake, then you'll look out towards the base's missile range to see a cloud of smoke billowing into the air.


We worked on mom's new house; ripping out a bunch of junk the old owners had in their yard: an ugly shade awning, a ghetto shed, hundreds of red cement blocks used for landscaping, and a tortoise cage. We also fixed up some things inside: plumbing, storage space, etc...


We went for a hike up in the mountains above town.


Mom braving the desert bleakness.


Angela sporting a vintage 80's red capilene mom gave her.


Hiking.

At the top! It was great to see mom for a week. We saw her classroom, went to church in her ward where all the men are engineers on the base, ate out at a Mexican restaurant, and watched a documentary about climbing in Yosemite. It was good to be home.

We also went to LA for a day to visit Angela's brother Ryan and his family. We went out to lunch with Ryan at "Simply Pho You". Then Ang and I toured her mission area. Once Byron, Juliet, and Olivia finished school, we saw them and Kie and Ryan at their new house and went out to dinner. We had a great trip!

Winter Mecca

Ouray Colorado has the biggest concentration of easily accessible ice climbs in the world. That's because they farm the ice (pipe water in and spray it down the cliffs of this box canyon). Luckily, Ouray is only 3 hours from Moab, so when its too cold to climb sandstone here, we pick up the ice tools and head east. There are literally hundreds of ice climbers here from all over the US and Canada. You'd think our northern neighbors would have enough ice of their own, but there really isn't a more accessible place to ice climb than Ouray. Clay and Leslie came with us, we stayed with Pete and Jacqueline on the way, and met two of my coworkers there.


Brian leading an easy climb in the Schoolroom. When you lead climb on ice you place 5" screws every so often for protection, then clip the rope to them.

Angela climbing a column. In rock climbing, your hands and feet grab the rock, but that doesn't work with slick ice. We use ice tools and crampons instead.

This is a shot of the group belaying. We climbed around 10 different routes total, but there are probably one hundred+ routes in Ouray.

Angela in black. Obviously it is cold outside, but the nice thing about Ouray are the natural hot springs in the middle of town. After a day of climbing we soaked in the 102 degree water.

This is another steep route that Clay and Brian (in yellow a ways down from the central pine tree) climbed.

Angela and Leslie at the base of a few routes. When you belay your partner you have to stand back from the wall a ways so that you aren't struck by ice the climber knocks down.

Clay climbing a column. One great thing about Ouray is that you can top-rope most of the routes. This is safer than leading, allows you to climb hard routes you might not otherwise lead, and is also faster so you can climb a lot of routes in one day.

Leslie swinging her tool into the ice.

This shot is of a random climber and provides a good view of the box canyon all of the climbs are in. You can't walk to the bottom of many of these routes because of water flowing down the canyon, so you are lowered in from the top, then you have to climb out.

Brian climbing.

The end of a great trip!