Castleton Tower, Moab

OK here was our day yesterday. Wake up at 4:50 A.M., drive to Moab, hike 1.5 hours to the base of Castleton Tower (see photo) climb the 4 pitches on Kor Ingalls to the top, summit with near-freezing temperatures and aproaching snow, rapell hundreds of feet back to the base, hike back to our bags, and then 2 hours in the dark back to the car, grab Wendy's drive through and then drive home to Sandy, arriving at 1 A.M. What a long sentance that was :)



Look closely to see tiny climbers at the top. This was the group ahead of us:



Me peeking up from the chimney on Pitch 1:


Todd and I in our "happy place" :)


Todd looking down from pitch 3:


The summit!


My dirty hands:


Someone rapelling from the top- they're hard to see so look closely:


The view with the setting sun:


Here's my take on the climb!
The hike was as sketchy as the climb! Tiny sand particles and pebbles rolling under our feet as we switchbacked up the steep slope, and then some bouldering moves to get to the base of the tower. Other than that it was a relatively easy and beautiful hike.

We had to wait in line to climb, and relaxed for a couple hours with a great view.

Pitch 1: An "easy" squeeze chimney which took Todd a half hour, and me 94% of my strength to grovel up, and some crack and face climbing. It was really cool climbing, but that chimney was pretty darn hard for a 5.4!

Pitch 2: Awkward crack climbing and face climbing with terrible to none foot holds, poor sloping hand holds, and smooth calcified surfaces leading to slipps and falls. This one looked easy when Todd did it but took 105% of my strength, leaving me hanging on the rope quite a bit.

Pitch 3: Crux pitch involving an exhausting scramble up an off-width crack ending with a boulder problem, and then to the crux: a poorly protected offwidth 5.9 chimney with not much to hold or step on. This is pretty much a useless sized chimney that is too small to fit your body in, and too big to use for anything else (unless you wear a women's size 12 shoe and place your toe on one side and heel oh the other.)
The first half of this pitch took about 146% strength for me- I simply couldn't do it. With nothing to stand on, my arms were so tired they wouldn't hold my weight and I kept slipping off the cracks and meager holds I was clinging to. Needless to say the rock won this battle. Lucky for me, Todd led it like a champ and with no problems (he really enjoyed it!) and he helped me up the climb by practically pulling me up the darn thing.

Pitch 4: More chimneys and easier climbing (there were in-cut holds on this one!) Which was still quite difficult for me, having little strength and even less morale. I made it up on my own though, and was amazed at how cool the top was! Amazing views of the surrounding towers (The Rectory, Priest and nuns, Sister Superior, etc.) And a "fort" of rocks to hang out in while reading notebooks full of previous climbers experiences. Unfortunately time was short due to a looming snowstorm and little remaining daylight, so our summit celebration was quick. I was freezing and did squats on the summit, and then on the rapell station to stay warm while Todd rapelled down. I hope someone saw me from the bottom doing squats on top, LOL, I probablly looked crazy! We did 2 double-rope rapells down the other end of the tower to the base, grabbed our bags, and hiked out with just enough light to get past the worst parts of the hike. It got dark quickly and we lost the trail several times, but made it back to the car and enjoyed hot Wendy's chicken sandwiches. Yum!

Overall it was SO cool and totally worth it! But next time I've got to train and climb regularly for several weeks to prepare. The funny thing is that last Fall I was training pretty hard for this climb, but the weather was too cold to visit Moab and we never did it. And now that I haven't been training or climbing much at all we decide, "let's go to Moab in the morning and do that Kor Ingalls climb! :)

Portland

I road tripped with my friend Becca to Sun Valley, Idaho, and then to Portland, Oregon. What a fun trip! We snow-shoed and looked (unsuccessfully) for hot springs, accidentally backed into a very hard snow bank, listened to radiolab, laughed a ton, and ate a lot of junk food. When we made it to Portland we stayed with my old college friend Eike and her hubby Reid. They are so accomodating and the best people to visit ever!! We had so much fun in Portland, it was really hard to leave and return to work on Wednesday. Here are some photos from the trip:

Sun Valley snow:




Portland Japanese Gardens:






Portland Art Museum showing Andy Warhol art:


And the girls:

Wedding pictures

Here are a few of our wedding pictures, in honor of it being our anniversary and all :)

Happy Anniversary!

It's our FIVE year anniversary! 

I kidnapped Todd and took him to Zions National Park, where our love story began :)  Here is the short version:
Once upon a time my good friend Todd invited me to go canyoneering in Zions with him.  So we rented wet suits and hiked/rappelled/swam through a slot canyon in Zions.  It was FREEZING but so cool!  And we were cold and so tired... but stayed up all night talking anyway.  We slept on his bouldering pad under the stars.  And the rest is history. :)



We hiked to the top of Angel's Landing- a gorgeous cliff that Todd had climbed up (and spent the night on a porta-ledge on!!) back when we were in high school.


Here's a climb Todd was scoping out last Fall that he'll probably do before too long.  Can you see the climbers?


And a star photo: