FALL 95 - 16 DAYS OF CLIMBING IN CALIFORNIA / FALL 1995

Better known as 'The beer blast of a tour around Southern California', this brief interlude in time was as fun as it was serious. We did alot of climbing the three of us. Rob and I flew out. Eric was already on tour so we caught up with him on the 3rd day.

Started on an ominous note while returning in the dark from Lots of Balls area at Red Rocks, Rob plowed into the barbed wire fence at full speed and was forced by instinct to react by pushing off with his hands regardless of where they grabbed the wire. I was 50yds behind and only heard the screams in the dark. Wild scene. We drove up to the visitor center and rinsed his hands in cold water for awhile.

All was not lost because we ended up doing Crimson Crysalis the next day. And we had the climb to ourselves. Sweet.

After that the three of us set off for the Needles, an exotic locale none of us had been to before. We spent a extra day or two there to climb as much as possible. Restocking the cooler was not a problem as there is was a general store on the main drag.

From there we took it easy and travelled up thru Kings Canyon to Yosemite and up to Toulumne which was about to close for the season. Someone got their signals crossed and the online reservations was telling folks the tioga road campgrounds were still open while the park service was saying the exact opposite. We found an open gate at one spot and a whole bunch of folks poured in for the night. Of course rules are rules so we all got booted. But, we were very low on gas, though the ranger needed to confirm that by having us light up engine. Anyway, he let us camp in the pull out across the road, which by morning was full of other folks who had arrived late.

We set off the next morning for Cathedral Peak and stayed up by Budd Lake. Rookies that we are, the bears made short work of our food bag and we woke to an empty larder. Not to be denied, we did the SE ridge and hoofed it back down to the snack shack at Tuolumne in time for burgers on the last day of the season. Most excellent.

We then toured around to the Buttermilks for some bouldering and free camping. Then it was down into Owen's River Gorge for the day. Some of the folks from the Needles seemed to be on the same tour!. That night we drove way up into the Bristlecone forest in the Whites and got some sunrise shots of the fantastic trees up there. We breakfasted we a fine view of the Palisades before retreating to Vegas for the evening flight home. No burning daylight on this trip.