Wednesday, January 28, 2009

vertigo

It's taken me a while to get these pictures up. My apologies about that. Visit here for some explanation. 

Anyway, over Christmas break Ross and I went rock climbing and camping at Joshua Tree National Park. That was my second time going and Ross' first (we've both since gone again, with my ward). I'm kind of a huge fan.
  
This was our tent. It took us forever to find this site: apparently, Joshua Tree is popular in the winter. Late at night (it must have been 11:00) we climbed up onto that rock to look at the stars. Life is hard when Ross is here. 

This is a Joshua Tree. Apparently, according to J-Tree's website, Joshua Trees were named by Mormon pioneers:
"By the mid-19th century, Mormon immigrants had made their way across the Colorado River [editor's note: take THAT, Colorado river!]. Legend has it that these pioneers named the tree after the biblical figure, Joshua, seeing the limbs of the tree as outstretched in supplication, guiding the travelers westward." 

Me, relishing life at the top of the hardest climb in the world. Rock climbing is a great experience: it's very safe if you're very careful, and there's absolutely nothing quite like making it to the top of a difficult climb. 

Ross part of the way up the hardest climb ever. 

Of course, he finished it like a champ. 
We climb in Hidden Valley, my favorite part of Joshua Tree. It's got a ton of fantastic climbing and really beautiful light in the late afternoon. 

I'm pretty grateful to this guy for teaching me how to climb. And some other things, I guess.  

2 comments:

Nicole said...

Lovely pictures. I wish we had made it down to Joshua Tree this past summer. We stopped our road trip at Sequoia/Kings Canyon.

By the way, I am impressed with that rock climbing -- vertigo is a real thing for me.

Anonymous said...

Just a clarification: Haylie did climb the hardest climb ever. Towards the top, it consisted of dime and nickel holds only. I, however, reached the fork in the rock and took the route more travelled. That is, the much easier route just to the left of the one less travelled that Haylie climbed.

I suppose I could be proud of the fact that I climbed a much easier route in less time than it took Haylie to climb the much harder route, but I'm not sure what kind of person that would make me. I'll just finish with congratulations to both of us for making it to the top!