Yosemite

How I have gotten so busy, I don’t know, I apologize for my delinquency. Here is an update from the spring in Yosemite.

rocks and tree

I think what happened is that is was dark and rainy for the whole month of May, and while we climbed a bit in the rain, mostly we just moped around and I never had anything worth blogging. July came with a banner full of sun, and perfect climbing temps. Madaleine Sorkin showed up and we started feverishly working on the Freerider route on El Capitan. On the days off I had to make jewelry and swim in the river, my family has been visiting, so really there just hasn’t been much time to spare.

Madaleine and the rack

I have been painting and drawing a little, and now Madaleine and I are headed up for a free attempt on the Freerider. I’m pretty intimidated by how hard I know I will have to try. But I am so excited! It feels like something we can totally do… if we can just try really REALLY hard. Some of the challenges come from the toiling that we have created for ourselves by choosing to spend 5 days on the route. This means that we have to hall 8-10 gallons of water, food, sleeping and cooking gear to sustain ourselves for the climb. We have been trying to reduce that epic effort in a number of ways.

El Cap

Lucky for us Hayden Kenedy, Katey Lambert and Ben Dito bailed off the Golden Golden gate route in a wild storm early in May. And they left a Haul bag full of food and water in anticipation of going back once the weather cleared. Unfortunately they never had the chance to go back. So there is a whole bag of food on Hollow Flake Ledge just waiting for me and Madaleine to go use it! The rest of our gear we will pre haul to Heart ledge with the help of Dave Turner.

In the end we decided to go super light (cause I’m to little to haul big loads) and not bring a porta-ledge. We are hoping we can sleep on natural ledges the whole way. First night on Hollow Flake Ledge, second on the Spire, third on the Bolck, and then probably rap back down and sleep on the block the forth night as well… It all seems so complicated, but hey we need all the help we can get.

So here is some art from the last month, and I will let you all know how it goes up there on the Freerider… wish us luck!