Yesterday was an adventure. It was our last climbing day in Skaha before heading back across the border to Oregon. We had gotten up early, hiked up to the Great White wall, and enjoyed a crap shoot of climbing with an early morning start (early at least by our standards). Our first two sport routes had turned out to be duds. Rebs has this tendency to find easier-looking routes that turn out to be extremely difficult, which is exactly what our “warm up” route turned out to be. We definitely got warm, and moved on to find another one that was better. My choice turned out to be a diagonally bolted one that remained awkward most of the way, then finished with some nice, slopey ledges (please read with sarcasm). Not exactly a great route either. I think Rebs actually called it the worst route she’d ever been on.
So since our sport routes were turning out bad, we decided to try our hands at some traditional-style crack climbing. This is a relatively newer style of climbing for me, and especially for Rebs. I thought the route was phenomenal. A perfect seam that you could at least get finger tips into the whole way up with a couple pumpy spots to keep it exciting. But Rebs had a different experience. On any crack climbs I’ve put her on previously (quite a few here at Skaha over the past week or so), she’s managed to avoid using the crack and scramble her way up in some ridiculous fashion. But this time, she had to use it. Not to mention the exposure on the route. (It is at the top of a massive valley.) She worked her way up eventually, refusing to quit like the stubborn girl I love and adore. But the route was so long, she had to rappel twice, the first time to some anchors she couldn’t see from above. She did really well not to hyperventilate or pass out, but the anxiety left her exhausted. Yet, she still managed to have enough energy to belay me on a really cool route called “Test of the Ironman”, a very long and reachy route, hence the name. The sun was starting to hit the rock, so it was about time to move on.
We had some lunch and then hiked down to another area to rest in the shade. After a bit of rest and some bee swatting, we looked at the guidebook and I pointed out two different options that looked good to me. We decided to go up and look at the first and then make a decision.
The first route turned out to be two pitches, a runout, 4 bolt, 30 meter climb to a ledge, then an easy 5.9 trad route. Rebs said it looked good, so we decided to do it. Only when I was racking up did she point out that this was her first (voluntary) multi-pitch trad route.
The top pitch turned out to be the gem of it all, with a little bit of perfect hand jamming that even Rebs enjoyed. She was about halfway up the route when she heard a distant rumbling and turned around to see a massive thunderhead moving in on our cloudless blue sky. She began climbing more quickly while I did my best to stay quiet and let her enjoy the route, although my mind kept flashing back to the WFR couse (Wilderness First Responder) I’d taken in college and all the information and statistics they’d given us, essentially saying that on a rock face, attached to a bolt and a rope is the last place you want to be when a thunderstorm hits. I also thought about how a few days earlier, we had decided to take our rain fly off the tent since we were in such a dry climate and wanted to cool things down faster.
Fortunately, Rebs had no hiccups and made it back to the belay station shortly, from which we rappelled again to the ground. A beautiful route, just a little rushed. We scurried to pack up our gear then, speed hiked/jogged our way back to the parking lot. The huge blue-grey cloud loomed just East of us as we drove the 15 minutes back to our campsite. Like angry bees, we zipped around and got the tarp back on the tent and all our junk off the picnic table in a matter of minutes. The cloud was rising over the rock nearest to us when we decided not to stick around for the showers, but to head into town for a few errands to prep for the long drive to Oregon the next day.
In town, the streets were already wet, as if we had just missed the downpour. We could see the rain and lightning just North of us a few miles. I pumped gas as it sprinkled rain, my first shower of any kind in a few days. Meanwhile, Rebs went next-door and found a restaurant attached to a hotel that has free wifi, so we split a sampler appetizer for dinner and checked email. Upon our return to the campsite, our wonderful host Dale said he’d sat at his picnic table working a crossword while the storm rolled through. He said he counted ten drops. All that work for nothing! But we saw it as a sign that we were meant to be done because we got all our errands done, the camp mostly packed up in 5 minutes, and still had time for a beer and good conversation with Dale and “Gloria”. It was a great end to this part of our journey. We will never forget you Skaha.

Home-Bodied Travelers

Is there such a thing? That is exactly what we are. We like to travel around and see different places, but we don’t particularly like the constant packing, unpacking, and reorganizing of it all. That’s why we decided to stay in Skaha. Last night we kept debating on whether to go to Squamish in the morning. We even played “Rock, Paper, Scissors” (the way Koreans solve all their problems) and ended up with Squamish as the winner. But after some more discussion later, we decided to stay right where we are until heading down to meet up with Bob and Connie, giving us about 4 more days including today.
Here are a few reasons why:
1) We want more time to climb. Skaha has over 1000 routes, enough to go months without ever getting on the same route twice. We’ve found all different styles from slabby, positive climbs to juggy overhangs, sport, trad, runout, and over-bolted. You definitely can’t say Skaha’s “not my style” of climbing because it’s all-encompassing. And now that we’ve been up there a few days, we’re getting a good feel for the area, which makes it easy to get where we want and not get lost anymore.
2) You can’t beat this campsite. Seriously! I know I’ve already raved about it in previous posts, but it’s perfect. Not crowded, clean toilets, great hosts who are friendly and like to chat, but are great for giving you your privacy too. The view is spectacular. We’re right on the water, which is the perfect temperature for the now hot summer days. And at nights, it cools down to the mid 60s—perfect for snuggling into your sleeping bag.
3) We don’t like being rushed. If there was one statement to summarize our goals and motivations, that would be it. If we were to go to Squamish, we felt like we’d get there, have time to look around, and then have to leave before ever getting a good feel for the place. I hate feeling like a tourist. I know that going on vacation required some degree of tourism, but I feel I can minimize those feelings if I spend enough time somewhere. You get to know some of the locals and the secret hot spots, etc. and it really helps. I feel like there is so much more to gain from such an experience versus driving through, staying for a day, and taking a few photos along the way. Sure, it might make for some nice photography, but it’s just a photo. To me, the photo becomes so much richer when there are memories attached.
4) It saves us money. This trip hasn’t exactly been on a shoestring, so: driving ($1.32/liter) + 2 ferry rides = lots’o’cash. I’m sure we could afford it, but I guess the bottom line is that we’ll get more out of our experience.
There are also plenty of things to do on our rest days here. Today, we shopped and did laundry in the morning, then took the afternoon to find me a new pair of flip flops. We walked downtown some. Rebs got coffee; I got ice cream. The peach festival was going on, so we walked through it. It felt like a fair without the animals or rides. Basically a lot of tasty, very greasy food and a stage. Nothing was going on at that time, so we headed on to the movies, a great way to avoid the afternoon heat. After the movie, we headed back here and opted for a very light dinner of watermelon and veggies with hummus after having gorged ourselves on popcorn and pop only an hour before. Now here we lay in the tent, waiting for the air to cool, watching the moon set low beyond the mountain pass across the lake. In tomorrow lies the hope of some more good climbing or bathing in the lake, soaking up the sun, reading books, or visit one of the many wineries in the area. We have no real plan. But sometimes, the best plan is not having one.

Lost & Found - Part 2

We're still at the campsite with no electricity and haven't made the time to trek into town until now. I'm writing from the public library here in Penticton. Our original plan to continue on to Squamish got delayed by a day of sickness and the sheer awesomeness of this place. We're heading back to the rock tomorrow for one more day before heading to Squamish.

So... back to the story. We found a campsite and made ourselves at home. Lakeside, in the shade, fire pit, tent spot ON the lake--literally it's about 3 steps from our door. We haven't had rain since we set up the tent, but a few splatters of bird poop. Yeah, so it's pretty much the best campsite you could imagine. And the campground hosts are funny. Dale and Hannah (though Rebs finds 'Gloria' a more suitable name for her) are wonderful, keeping unwanted loiterers out, checking up on you every now and then. They're both semi-retired, I would guess in their early to mid 60s, have a camper and everything imaginable to go with it because they're here for 3 months. They get pretty upset when people try to use our site to get access to the water. We don't really mind that much, but they sure do.

Some fun facts: I've swam across the lake twice now, though the reeds are getting a bit tall now that the water level has gone down a few inches. There is a wonderful ice cream parlor we frequent often named "Tickleberry's". Rebs likes to say the name over and over. Our bodies are very tan. We lay on our spare air mattress in the water, using a piece of rope as a sort of lasso for the mattress and making an anchor to a rock. I successfully finished Born to Run in about a week. Very good book. We got lost... sort of... hiking out of the park one day.

It all started as a regular morning hiking in to climb. Rebs found what appeared to be a good area in the guidebook, but was about as far away as you can get from the parking lot. So we said we'd hike in and then work our way back. But the problem was, we couldn't find the trail that led there, at least not all the way. We'd go one way, then back another, unable to decipher where we were on the map. Eventually, Rebs found the right trail and we made it out there. Had the whole place to ourselves, that's for sure. By the time we got set up for our first climb of the day, it had already been over 2 hours. We got 2 routes in before stopping for lunch. Reassessing the day and our expectations, we decided to follow the trail around (it's a loop) to take a look at some of the areas we hadn't seen already. We made our way around and spent a couple hours hiking and looking at rock and setting up the hammock to rest for a bit.

When we decided to hike out was when it happened. There happen to be all these meandering side trails that go off in different directions all the time, I'm assuming are shortcuts to different cliffs because there is climbing all over the place. So if you don't know where you're going, it can get a little...interesting? So we took a wrong turn. No big deal. At least we were on a trail... which led to another trail... which led into some bramble bushes. And did I mention that it was getting later now, maybe 6:00. Rebs began to panic because we weren't seeing trail signs. We couldn't figure out where we were on the map, so therefore we must be lost, right? In my opinion, we weren't lost, only misplaced for the moment. (This is what I often tell Rebs when I can't find something) Lost is when something is gone for good. We were definitely not lost.

Soon, we began seeing trail signs, and an outhouse. After another 45 minutes, we were safe and sound at the car. No broken sandals this time, though we were both wearing flip flops, having not expected to hike a total of 5+ miles that day. That's what we estimated once we made it to the parking lot. We slept soundly that night, let me assure you.

Lost & Found

Good morning from Penticton, British Columbia. The arid climate is wonderful—cool nights and mornings with warm, mostly sunny days. We left Leavenworth last Monday. That morning, we were awakened by thunder in the distance (is it 2 seconds for every mile?), and the rain followed shortly. Our rain fly worked well, so we stayed dry, then skipped breakfast and scrambled to get the tent down without getting too wet. We ended up at a little breakfast café called O’Grady’s where we ate, got lots of coffee refills, chatted with my dad on Skype, and uploaded pictures before I got jittery and was ready to go. The place itself was really beautiful, with a mostly finished wood interior, a gift shop attached through a hallway, and an organic garden out back, where they grow many of their herbs and produce fresh. They do tours on Saturdays at 4pm, if anyone reading ever makes it out this way. Rebs and I have dreamt about opening our own coffee shop someday. We both agreed that O’Grady’s would be a good place to model it after.
So as the rain continued to pour, we headed North toward Canada. After a brief stop to discard some peaches (you can’t bring produce across the border), we made our way into Canada, found a tourist information center and a map, then headed up to Penticton. First on our agenda was to see the climbing area, so we followed the road signs of a rock climber up a newly paved road to a newly paved parking lot. The climbing was a hike in, so we chose not to do it in the rain. Fortunately, there happened to be youth group of some sort just getting out of their vans. Fortuitous. We asked their leader where we might find a climbing shop and he directed us to a running store because he said there wasn’t any climbing shop in Penticton (hard to believe with over 1000 maintained routes in the park). So we headed down into Penticton to find the store, which happened to close around 4:30. We were an hour too late, but there was a bookstore next door, which happens to sell copies of the local guidebook. Yay!
Guidebook? Check! Place to stay? Hmm… It was still lightly raining and the thought of camping in the rain didn’t sound like fun, so we decided to go across the street and use the local coffee shop’s wireless to find a place to stay. Rebs did a bit of research and found a nice B&B that overlooks the city. Barb and Gary are two lovely people, (and quite resourceful too) having switched from the internet server business about 10 years ago and never looked back. We nestled into the Ruby Room for the night with some Domino’s Pizza, and what do you know, Rebs’ favorite show, “The Bachelorette”, happened to be on TV. I actually had to go wash my feet in the tub before dinner because I partially stained the bedspread with my dirty feet.
The next morning, we woke up late to sunshine and a beautiful breakfast on the back patio, refreshed and ready for climbing. Barb suggested we get out early to find a good camp site because the upcoming weekend was a holiday, meaning there’d be lots of people with the same idea as us: camp and enjoy the beautiful weather. So we headed to Okanaga Falls Provincial Campsite, but were about 3 minutes too late, pulling in right behind the car that took the last site. The Parks and Rec lady was kind enough to send us on to another site of similar quality about 10 minutes down the road. When we pulled into Vaseaux Lake, it looked like we might run into the same problem. As we were driving by, I had my window down and heard the lady in charge holler, “You girls might try site #9 at the end there. I think there is a couple just leaving.” (Apparently, I looked too much like a girl with my long hair). That site happened to be the best one of the whole lot, right on the lakeside with a spot for our tent nestled down by the water and away from the highway. Our prayer had been answered!

To be continued…

Written from in front of a campfire

This has been a long time coming. Rebs and I have been in the U.S. for about a month now and the past two days have been our first alone together. Don’t get me wrong—we love spending time with other people. That’s probably part of the problem. But we also love spending time just the two of us. That is what these three weeks are for us. We’re climbing and camping around Western North America alone… as a family.
I am currently writing this (though it may be posted a few days later) from Site #21 of the 8-Mile Campground in Leavenworth, Washington. I have a citronella candle to my right and a blazing campfire to my left with my hot wife repeating, “You put the lime in the coconut…” as she makes herself a s’more. I sip my Californian “Red Velvet Cupcake” wine from a coffee mug because we have no cups or glasses.
Out here, life is simple. If I listen closely, I can hear the rush of the river in the distance past the other campsites, the pops ofthe fire and sparks. The evergreens surrounding our campsite make it so dark that even with time, your eyes won’t adjust to the dark. Life is beautiful.
Although, it hasn’t been this way entirely. Yesterday seemed to be Rebs’ unlucky day. What happened, you ask? Well, I popped the air mattress with a hot pot while bringing breakfast in bed to Rebs. While I was retrieving duct tape from our neighbors, the screw fell off the lid that Rebs was washing… into the firepit full of ashes (Don’t worry, we found it.). After getting out and hiking up to a climb that seemed good for us to do, I proceeded to climb up, but knocked off a large rock that I didn’t notice. Rebs was kind of on a ledge and couldn’t move. In her words, “I almost died.” She likes to embellish things sometimes. Then, after I finished climbing up, she followed as usual to join me at the top of the pitch. But then she had , let’s say, some URGENT needs to get down, and nearly disposed of them on the rappel down. Later in the day, as we packed up to hike down the mountain from climbing, Rebs set her full pack down briefly on what she thought was stable ground, only to see it roll in slow motion down the mountain. Luckily, after about 10-12 tumbles, it stopped against a rock and we were able to retrieve it. Then on our way down she had forgotten to wear her Chacos and instead was wearing her favorite flip-flops. One of them couldn’t quite hack it and the strap broke, so she hiked a quarter mile downhill in one flip flop.
We got back to camp in one piece and enjoyed a delicious dinner of turkey brats and chili with a beer. This relaxed us so much that we fell asleep in the hammock until I woke up from the cold at 11:00. When we moved to the tent, our dreams of a soft bed and uninterrupted sleep slowly deflated with the air mattress. It turns out that duct tape isn’t completely air proof.

An Adventurous Mindset

Currently, I am writing this from the basement of a friend's communal house in Ballard, a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington. At the moment, we have no phone or computer because 1)our phones only work in Korea, and 2)our computer is being repaired by the Mac Store. That second reason is why I won't be able to post any pictures about our adventures. But I would have you know that we got a new digital camera for this trip and have already tried it out some, so I hope to post some good pictures when we get our computer back after the wedding.

For those of you who don't know, we're on vacation. You can read my previous blog to find out where. I've found a new love for Seattle this time around. The last time I was here was about 5 years ago when Rebs and I came for a visit. This is where she grew up. She had been so excited to show me around her old stomping ground, sharing memories of growing up. But for whatever reason, I was in a funk and didn't really want to be in Seattle, so that put a damper on the whole trip. But this time has been amazing. We have only had two full days in Seattle but it feels like so much longer because we have done so much! I'll have to share more on this once we get out pictures uploaded.

One thing I contribute to this trips awesomeness is the right mindset. I find that lately I have been letting go of expectations. Sure, I have goals. We have a few things we need to get done while we're here, an occasional appointment like the one I had for my computer. But all in all, we're not forcing ourselves into a box. I understand that when you're working on a tight schedule, sometimes you have to be that way. But I feel like vacation is a time when it's best to just let things happen.

How does this work? For me, I have things I know I want to get done during the day, but I don't hold too tightly to any of them. I leave room for opportunity. If someone suggests we go to an art show downtown (such as last night), I just go with it. Being open is the key. Don't let your plans be so rigid that you miss out on some awesome opportunities. I don't know everything that's going to happen in the next month, but that's part of the excitement about it. The adventure of not knowing it all.

Summer Plans

The school semester is winding down here in the suburbs of Daegu as the temperature rises. We have yet to turn on our air conditioning out of respect for the ghastly electric bill we received last July and August. So far, the evenings and mornings have been cool, which is perfect for sleeping with the windows open. But the time is near, I can sense it.

This summer will be one of many firsts for us. It will be the first time we go back to the United States, but don't visit Arkansas or Oklahoma, the place we will likely call home again in a year. It will be the first time either of us have spent much time in Canada. And it will be my first time to travel 5000 miles for a wedding.
When we found out Josh was getting married, we altered our plans for a European trip (which may have broken the bank) and decided to make the most of a trip to Prince Edward Island, off the Eastern coast of Canada. For all you "Anne of Green Gables" fans, that is where the movie was filmed. It is supposed to be beautiful in the summer and should be a gorgeous wedding.

To get from Korea to PEI, we will travel: from Busan to Tokyo, Tokyo to LA, LA to Seattle, Seattle to Chicago, Chicago to Providence, from which we will drive up the East coast. It will be an immense adventure. Then after the wedding, we'll head back to Seattle for a few errands before embarking on a month-long road trip around Washington, British Columbia, and Oregon. We plan to climb at Vantage, which also happens to be very near the Gorge (outdoor concert venue), so if there are any good shows at that time, we may have to go. Then, on to Skaha in BC. It's supposed to have some of the best sport climbing around. And then on to Squamish. Squamish is a bit mystical in my mind. I have seen several climbing films based in Squamish, but have never been there. I have only been to Canada once for a swim meet, where I got a good view of the Simon Fraser campus and swimming pool, but not much else. So there is newness all around. Also, Squamish is notorious for its trad climbing.

Rebs and I have a love/hate relationship with traditional climbing. I love it and she hates it. Maybe hate is too simple of a word. It scares her. If you're not familiar with "trad", it means placing your own protection (usually into a crack), usually in the form of a cam or nut. If you fall, you hope that the piece of gear you placed catches in the rock. I'm sure my mother will have some "concerns" with this brief description, but there is much more science to it. Yes, there is risk, but it is calculated. And what is life without risk?

After we get the climbing bug out of our system, we will head to the coast in Oregon, where Rebecca grew up taking camping vacations at Manzanita. We'll actually be staying with some extended family at their guest cottage, just to relax and soak up the sun for a bit before getting back into the working life of Korea, and the job of getting rid of 4 years' worth of accumulation.

That's our summer plan and it will be here before we know it. We're really excited, and we might even get a nice camera to document everything along the way. Then hopefully I won't have to type so much because my pictures can do all the talking. ;)