Tar Creek –November 2009 , Part One.
I am still composing a general overview of this area, but I’ve been down there twice in the last month and some really cool stuff happened so here goes.

My ace number one dirt-dog, Mr. Crash Fistfight, proposed an overnight adventure to Tar Creek’s lower falls and Condor Cliffs. I’ve been itching to see a condor this year and a late November bivy on the cliffs of lower Tar Creek appealed to my need (alpismo) to get outside and get dirty. I’ve been to The Swimming Hole and the surrounding environs more times than I can count but not once have I spent the night there. So I put together a striped down alpine ruck, opting for some heavier insulating layers ‘cause I knew it would be cold, threw together a sandwich and snacks, grabbed the camera and off we went.
It was nice and sunny and cool for the walk down to Condor Cliffs and we made great time arriving a couple hours before sunset. We picked a ledge on the cliff for the bivy, set our gear down and started gathering some firewood.
There were no condors about, but we hoped that the family who lives on these cliffs would return soon. Crash had a look around at the scattered perches looking for feathers…none found, while I investigated a possible route down off the cliff to the Sespe…no go. It seems that the only way off the cliff from the creek is a 150ft plus rappel to the bottom of the waterfall.
The sun dropped behind Bear Heaven around 6pm and the temperature dropped with it. (Sure am glad I brought those extra layers). We took a few moments to organize our gear for the night and then sat down and ate while we watched the sun set.
About an hour later we got the fire going and sat around talking sour on current events, the Sespe condors and our failed attempt on the east face of Middle Palisade last spring. Around 9pm a little wind kicked up, bringing down the temperature further, but the fire kept us warm and toasty. I was in my sleeping bag and bivy sack by 10 and faded off to sleep sometime afterward.
I was awoken by the nights chill once or twice, but all in all, the cold wasn’t too bad, like 6 out of 10 on the misery scale. I climbed out of my bag at around 7 am and tried to stomp out the cold from my bones and shake the sleep from my head. Eventually the sun returned to out little cliff and warmed the rock and my core. Crash was re-animated by the sun and slowly creaked in action while I got my breakfast ready and finished organizing my ruck. While Crash got himself together, we talked about our plan to stop at First Falls on the way out, hoping we can get us some photos of the big birds.
We climbed off the cliffs around 9am and started working our way up the gorge to the use-trail near First Falls.
We made a short pit-stop for pictures but saw no birds. Oh well. The rest of the hike out was uneventful as we made good time getting back to the truck. We were home in Ventura by noon, gone less that 24 hours.






Part Two.

Exactly one week after Crash and I visited Tar Creek, my son Carlo, and I had a little one day adventure down there.
Tar Creek is a wild and remote place. It requires more than fitness to get in and out of there and because of this, I am reluctant to take most folks down to this place. Carlo has hiked down to the Swimming Hole a couple of times and we’ve had a lot of fun swimming and climbing there, but he’s never been further down the creek. Carlo has been putting down some miles on the trail with me lately so I figured he was up for something a little tougher. He was enticed by stories of monster waterfalls, abundant fossils and Sespe condors and wanted to see it all for himself.


We burned up the trail from the truck down to the creek and were standing at the Swimming Hole proper within an hour, excellent time. The We didn’t stay long as our goal was the upper falls and we wanted to keep to momentum going. Below the Swimming Hole, the going gets tough I expected Carlo to have a hard time through there…wrong! The kid handled the difficulties of the boulder choke just above the falls without a problem and did pretty good with the route finding. At any rate, we were atop the falls in less than 90 minutes from the trailhead! That’s approaching alpinist speeds! Well done boy.
From the top of the falls, we worked the ledges along its northern wall to a use trail just below the falls and worked our way back over more ledges to the pool that sits at the bottom of the falls. Tar Creeks upper falls pour over the sandstone and drop about 60 feet onto a ledge and then spills down a slide another 20 feet into deep pool. One can walk behind the falls on the ledge and access the southern wall of the gorge. This would be our picnic spot.
It was much too cold for a swim but we played around in the waterfall a little anyway, very pleasant. Carlo took it upon himself to explore the area around the falls and its surrounding pools and I could see him working things out in his head about future excursions to the area, like, “I bet that waterslide still goes in the summertime” or “This would be a good jumping ledge for that pool down there”, and so on. After a while we sat down on the main ledge in the sun and ate some lunch. The weather was perfect and we had the whole place to ourselves. And right then, when things couldn’t possibly get any cooler, it happened.
As we sat there eating, the sun blinked out for a second, Carlo and I looked up at the same time to see a glorious California condor soaring a mere 200 feet above us! The big bird circled around us for a few minutes and then landed on a ledge high up the canyon wall just down stream from us. And there he sat, appearing to just watch us, maybe 1000yards away. We couldn’t really gauge its size or whether or not it had tags from that distance, but it was still cool and we were able to squeeze off some photos.
After about an hour, we decided to roll up our gear and head for home. Just as we had climbed out of the gorge and onto the upper ledges around the falls, the condor took flight again and once more began to circle above us. We got out the camera and began shooting him some more when the bird landed on top of the falls and started stretching out his wings.
Carlo said, “Hey Dad, I think he’s posing for you”. And sure enough, the condor stayed put long enough for me squeeze off to great photos. The bird was a little one, by condor standards, maybe only 6 feet from tip to tip, (proly just a kid) and he was tagged with number 55. But it was still awesome sight. This went on for about 15 minutes and then the condor stretched out his wings one more time and off he went. Classic.

With big condor wings on our feet, we set out up the creek to the trail and began the long climb out of the canyon.
Again, Carlo impressed me with his speed and endurance and we arrived back at the trailhead in under 2 hours (condor sighting included). All in all, I am a very proud dirtbag dad.


I just cant get enough of this place.

CircleX

Circle X Ranch - October 2009
In spite of our busy fall schedule, and a recent death in the family, Carlo and I were able to get outside with some friends and do some climbing this last weekend. The boy and I have been booked with work, school and soccer and my wife’s grandfather passed away late last week. Things have been quite hectic and we know things are only gona get busier with the holidays and flu season coming up. A day at the crag was definitely in order.
Carlo has this pal from school named Mitchell whose been itching to go climbing with us. So we made plans early in the week to go up to Wheelers Gorge on weekend. As it turns out, Mitchell’s dad Randy showed some interest in coming along as well. After we made our initial plans it occurred to me that not only did we have a game on the weekend but, Carlo had and obligation to work at a fund raiser for his school. I almost pulled the plug on the whole trip and then Carlo told me that he would rather go climb than go to the festival.
After waffling for a couple of days on a destination, I settled for one of my favorite places in the Santa Monicas; The Grotto at Circle X Ranch. Circle X used to be a Boy Scout camp back in the day and also had a beautiful campground called The Happy Hollow as well as a nice little group camp. During the 90’s there was a fire in the campground that burned the place out. After the fire, the parkies closed the camp, tore out all the fire pits and picnic tables and bulldozed the road and basically left the place fallow. (A similar deconstruction occurred at Lions Camp after the Arroyo Toad was listed as endangered). The closure of Happy Hallow was coupled with new, region wide restrictions on camping the Santa Monica backcountry. Today, the only camping available in the Santa Monicas (not counting the beaches) is in Malibu Canyon and the group camp at Circle X.
The Grotto is part of a gorge like formation in the southern end of the ranch, just below the old Happy Hallow campground on the Arroyo Sequit Creek. The rock there is the same sandstone conglomerate found elsewhere is the Santa Monica’s. The Grotto itself lies in a narrowing of the canyon where the creek sometimes runs underground below the boulders. In these narrows, the creek boulders form caves and alcoves and the rock walls on either side stretch to the sky a couple hundred feet. The approach is a short and easy hike from the parking area that takes about 20 minutes. In the twenty plus years I’ve been going to this place, I have never seen another climber or evidence of climbing activity (bolts, chalk, ect) and considering the rock quality (which is OK) and the setting (which is excellent) I am blown away by this fact.
We met up with Randy at the trailhead at around 11 o’clock and were down at The Grotto by 1130. After giving Randy and Mitchell a chance to explore the caves and alcoves of The Grotto proper, Carlo and I led them down over some class four terrain to a tall, walk behind waterfall. This would be our lunch spot. To one side of the waterfall is a 30ft free standing boulder shaped like a tear drop called The Tear Drop Boulder. There are four or five boulder problems on the Tear Drop, all in the easy moderate range. Now, I’ve soloed all of these routes, many times before but because the landings on this boulder are kind of sketchy (it sits in a pool of water) I figured it best to build an anchor and put the boys on TR for now. I tied off a big Sycamore above the boulder with an old climbing rope, extended a BD Airlock over the edge with 24 inch sling, set the rope, had the boys bounce on it, and then rapped off for good measure. Simple and bomber.
Mitchell had never been on a rope before, so I gave a simple primer to technical climbing where we talked a little bit about the equipment, climbing technique, climbing forces (physics) and communication. After that I had Carlo tie himself in and have a go at the route so Mitchell could see what top-rope climbing is all about. Carlo sent the route quickly and in fine fashion so after lowering him off we tied Mitchell in and sent him up the rock. Mitchell struggled a little his first go but after a while he started to trust the anchor and the belayer (me), and just climbed. After Mitchell, I sent up his dad Randy, and than gave him a chance to belay the boys up the rock. Carlo, as is par for him, started to explore the other routes on the Tear Drop and Mitchell quickly followed suit. After a while we got bored with it and headed back up to The Grotto proper and got busy with some bouldering there.
There are a couple of boulder problems in the Grotto cave that when clear of logs and debris can be quite fun and there is potential for a monster roof problem there as well. Above the cave, there are some heavily featured boulders also sporting easy to moderate problems. The western wall of the gorge is also made of heavily pocketed sandstone conglomerate and stretches skyward through the trees about 200 feet. Much potential exists here for multiple sport routes and maybe even a trad line up an inside corner on the walls left side. (I have a sense that something is up with the Park Service in the Santa Monica’s that has prevented the development of this crag. Something for me to sleuth out).
Anyways, after a couple of hours of bouldering, we rolled up our gear and started back up the hill to the trailhead. Along the way, we were given fantastic views of the of the red sandstone towers that make up the Backbone Ridge and its high point Mt Allen. It only took us about 20 minutes to get back to the trailhead and from there we decided to meet up at Neptune’s Net on PCH for dinner. After a good meal and some warm fellowship, we consigned to do it all again and headed home.

The Sespe Snakepits (aka The Soul Hole)

If the Sespegorillaz were a soccer team and Pine Mountain was our home field, then The Sespe Snakepits would definitely be our training ground. It’s called the Sespe Snakepits as it is on the upper Sespe River and is home to every variety of water snake as well as all types of lizards, frogs and turtles. It is literally crawling with reptiles and amphibians. Even though the Sespegorillaz are quite adept at catching these critters, we don’t go there to play Croc Hunter, we go there to climb and swim (and catch the occasional snake to scare off the touristas).
The Snakepits, which some locals call The Soul Hole, consist of two swimming holes connected by steep, sandstone cliffs on both sides of the Sespe which winds a serpentine path between the upper and lower holes. The swimming holes are large and deep, each with its own sandy beach and both are partly in the shade. The cliffs and boulders around the two pools can be easily climbed for jumping and diving or just kicking back in the sun. Every now and then we find garbage left behind by some retard but for the most part, the place it pretty clean. There are pools both above and below this area with swimming/climbing potential but as of this writing, they have yet to properly explored.
As far as Sespe climbing is concerned, the climbing history at the Snakepits is relatively recent. Development there began sometime in 2007 by a mixture of local and visiting climbers. Climbers, Max Krimmer, Paul Dusatko, Jondo, Ander Rockstad, and Carl Hess as a crew, put up and named all of the obvious lines at the upper pool. And absolutely stellar lines they are. Recently, we’ve come in contact with Max Krimmer, who has shared all of his beta on the areas original development and first ascents. The Sespegorillaz have been concentrating their development efforts on the area between the two pools where both some highball and short/easy routes can be found as well as a cool mini-roof problem. We’ve done quite a bit of landscaping and route cleaning and there is still a lot more rock to be looked at. The areas full potential has yet to be realized.
Crash Fistfight turned Carlo and I on to one of the swimming holes on the way home from our 2008 Pine Mountain excursion and we saw clear evidence of climbing activity there. A few months later, Carlo and I explored the area further and found even more traces of recent climbing activity on the cliffs above the lower hole. Venturing further upstream, we sort of stumbled through the brush onto the upper hole. Here we discovered, what appeared to be, several established routes on the rocks around the pool, almost all of them water problems (routes over water and or requires swimming to get to). On the shaded southern wall, we noticed that the cliff arched back from a deep overhang, away from the water making way for the pools beach. The cliff itself was dirty and covered with patches of moss and lichen but we saw the potential immediately. In fact the whole area, despite the obvious development, had tons of un-climbed rock. We knew we were onto something there.
Now, as I’ve highlighted above, the Sespegorillaz were not the first ones to climb at the Snakepits. We will however spearhead the areas future development and try our very best to repeat those first ascents put up by Max Krimmer and his boys. Some of those routes have already fallen and some wont be repeated for a while. And that’s OK ‘cause it gives the young Gorillaz something to work toward. Check back in 2010 for The Gorillaz Guide to the Sespe Snakepits.

One Last Caress

Once a year, the Sespegorillaz (our little climbing club) make a pilgrimage to a place called Pine Mountain for a few days of high adventure. This would be our third annual trip. Unfortunately, this year we would be without the guidance of the club’s majordomo, Mr. Crash Fistfight as he had committed to lead a small group on a fifty mile motorcycle ride through Hungry Valley. But, you cant mess with tradition. So, with school starting next week and soccer season just around the corner, me and the boys drove up to Pine Mountain for a weekend camping and epic bouldering. Carlo has been climbing pretty hard all summer and his pal Max, has put in a lot of time in Wheeler Gorge and the Sespe Snakepits of late so a trip up to one of the most glorious boulder fields in California was definitely in order. In spite of the “game over” snags we encountered, this trip would prove to be quite productive and the boys would get themselves a little taste of life as real dirtbag climbers.
Pine Mountain sits atop the Sierra Madre Range in northern Ventura County within the Los Padres National Forest. At over 7000ft, it is the high point facing the ocean and can be seen from anywhere on the Oxnard Flood Plain and the Santa Clara River Valley. From Reyes Peak, its true summit, Pine Mountain offers views of all of the Northern Channel Islands, Santa Catalina Island, the Santa Monica Mountains, the Cuyama Valley, Mt Able, Mt Pinos, the tops of the Tehachapi Mountains and parts of Angles NF. Pine Mountain is also a sort of high altitude, back country trail hub with trailheads for Reyes Peak, Chorro Grande, Raspberry Spring and Boulder Canyon, accessing Lion Canyon and Piedra Blanca Creek down one side of the mountain and the Lockwood/Cuyama Valleys down the other. On its western ridge, Pine Mountain also offers excellent primitive camping, sporting about half a dozen individual campsites and one group campsite. With 360 degree views, balmy temperatures, wonderful groves of enormous pine trees and immaculate trails, Pine Mountain is the best adventure destination in Ventura County. And then there’s the boulderfield.
Scattered across both sides of the entire ridge are hundreds of sandstone boulders of various shapes and sizes. In fact, there are so many boulders, climbers have grouped them into distinct areas with names such as The Happy Hunting Grounds, The Eastwoods, Enlightenment Ridge and The Birthday Challenge Boulders. Pine Mountain boasts some absolutely classic boulder problems including Dissing Euros, Pieces of You, Gyroscope and Whiplash. Pine Mountain sandstone has every rock feature imaginable; cracks, huecos, diadrals, arêtes, faces, slopers, patina, congom and comes in tans, whites and blacks with intermittent spots of green and orange lichen. These boulders are situated within the shade of the pine tree groves and most of them are on ground that is relatively flat and soft. These features make Pine Mountain a rock climber’s paradise.
As is usually the case, this trip was squeezed in between shifts at the hospital, but for once, the boss let me go home early so I got a good nights sleep before we left town. Carlo and I loaded up the truck with gear and departed Ventura around 11am on Friday the 22nd, stopped in Oak View to pick up Max, charged up the 33, and were on top of the mountain by 1300. As we pulled off the highway and on to the Forest Service dirt road that leads up to Pine Mountain, it dawned on me that I had forgotten two essential items at home; our tent and camp chairs. Nuts!

Fortunately, I have in my possession, an original nylon Rivas Mountaineering rain fly. My Dad, Dave Rivas Sr., aka Dave the Cave made it for my old Scout troop to use for backpacking back in the 1980s. It was designed to sleep several people and to be used without poles. It’s shape, size and tie-in points allow for versatility of set up. I’ve only used it a few times since then but I keep in one of my gear boxes for emergencies. Thanks Dad. The camp chairs we would have to do without. Oh well.
The Sespegorillaz normally camp in the last site on the ridge but unfortunately this site was occupied by a lone tent, probably being held for the large group of campers that eventually arrived. We didn’t really care for the other available sites so we decided to sit tight and wait to see if something better opened up. In the meantime, we got right down to business.
From our parking spot on the road, we walked down the hill a little ways, consulted our topo (map), and picked out a boulder that wasn’t listed. Carlo and Max flashed a new route on this boulders south face, something sort of easy but sustained with some tricky footwork and a mantle top out. I got them working on something a little harder on the boulders east side as I noticed some evidence of recent activity there. Nice climbing on good rock that is still un-named at this time. After a short break we moved on to another boulder just above us. Here, with Max and I spotting him, Carlo sent a route called The Place of Dead Roads, that featured some scary face climbing with a terrifying sloping top out. I love the expression on the boys faces when they put up something hard and scary, they get that hardman look about them, priceless. Afterwards, with the boys cheering me on, I flashed a pair of crimpy, overhanging routes called My Education and Turkish Bath. We were feeling kind of pumped after only the second boulder, but with half a dozen routes a piece under our belts, we decided to head up the hill to the truck for a snack. Once we got to the road, we noticed that one of the better campsites had opened up so I told the boys to stay put while I ran down the road to get the truck. It wasn’t the best site, but it would do.

We set up our camp and took care of all our camp chores (firewood gathering, gear sorting, ect) in short order. After a quick snack we tooled around on the boulders sitting in our campsite. A few months ago, Carlo figured out that some boulders could be climbed without using his hands, and made this type of climbing into a sort of competition between he and Max. Now, this is not an original idea. In fact, this special technique was developed by the high priests of Stoney Point in the San Fernando Valley during the 1950’s. It requires balance, good footwork and some minerals to perform. I encourage the use of this technique as it illustrates the fact that rock climbing is not about pulling oneself up the rock but rather standing up on thin holds while using your arms and core strength to keep oneself close to the rock. The idea being to distribute ones body weight evenly between the arms and legs, thus requiring less energy and enabling the climber to get up harder and longer routes. I often wonder what those legendary old school locals (Royal Robbins, Yvon Choinard, Bob Kamps, Tom Frost, TM Herbert) from Stoney would think if they saw these 10 year olds taking a page out of their book. They’d proly be pretty stoaked!
Anyways, after playing around in camp for a while and then exploring some unclimbed boulders across the road from our site, we decided to get busy with the making of dinner. Carlo built us a nice cooking fire while Max and I got the food ready; chili dogs and watermelon with some hot apple cider…yum.

We sat around the fire for a couple of hours then the boys turned in for the night while I stayed up till our fire burned down a bit. The first nights temperature was quite nice but there was a sustained wind blowing from the north and were it not for the large boulder that we had hitched our rain fly to, blocking the wind, we could have been quite miserable. In addition to the wind, I noticed that we were loosing visibility of the stars due to the high clouds that were blowing in. As an alpinist, I’ve become conditioned to paying close attention to things like wind and clouds and changes in mountain weather so I decided to take a few moments and make sure our shelter was secure and our gear tucked away before turning in myself.
I awoke the next morning to Carlo sitting by the campfire he had re-lit, heating up the water for Moonraker Mochas. The Moonraker Mocha is a secret recipe invented by myself and Mr. Fistfight during one of our alpine trips in the Eastern Sierra. Along with hot apple cider, Top Ramen and the Tunapitawich, it is now a Sespegorilla staple. A short while later, Max rolled out of bed and I got breakfast going while the boys sat by the fire and enjoyed their mochas. The wind that blew overnight had died down but skies were still overcast and things smelled ominous so I quickly got some bacon and eggs and fruit into the boys and together, we got things cleaned up and our gear organized for the day. We were just starting to make our initial plans for the day when it started to rain. Bummer. Not just because of the rain, but do you know how hard it is to get a 10 year old out of bed on a weekend? Carlo and Max were fed and sorted and ready to climb by 0830! Now it seemed like it was all for not.
I had the boys get out their books and IPods and duck out under the rain fly to keep dry while I made sure that anything that could get wet was put away. The rain was light but sustained and after the first hour of it I told the boys that we would wait it out until lunchtime. If the rain kept up, we were gonna bail out and head for home. The real problem was not the rain. I mean sure, rain sucks, but its only water, and its not like we were at 14,000ft, on foot, 20 miles from nowhere. The issue at hand was the fact that sandstone and rain don’t go well together. In fact, when sandstone gets wet, it becomes slippery and brittle. If it was to rain for more than a few hours than our climbing trip was over. I explained this dilemma to the boys and all three of us held out hope that the rain would stop soon. In the meantime, we kept the morning campfire going, wandered around the camp and just basically tried to kill time. Carlo and Max were good sports about it all and if the truth be told, being socked in by bad weather is something every climber must endure.

There is a whole skill set that comes with dealing with inclement weather, skills that one day could save the lives of you and your climbing partner, skills that separate the dirtbag from the tourista. And we’re no tourists.
Lunch time rolled around and it was still raining. I boiled up some water for Ramen and we ate our noodles under the shelter of the rain fly, but we slowly started to accept the fact that the party was over. After we ate, we begrudgingly began to roll up our gear and load up the truck. With everything packed away and the camp policed of any bits of trash left by previous campers, I got out our 20 liter water jug on loan from Mr. Fistfight and doused the fire. And then, just as soon as the last drop hit the fire pit, the rain stopped. Not only did the rain stop, but the friggin sun came out and cast a beam of light and warmth onto us. Woot wooo!!!!! Were aint going nowhere!
So, just a quickly as we loaded the truck, we unloaded and laid all the wet stuff out to dry in the sun. I figured the it would take a couple hours for the rock to dry out, so I turned the boys loose and re-assembled our camp. Carlo and Max had found a large fallen pine tree arching across a small gully just down the hill from the camp and built them selves and fort/shelter out of some dead fall they had collected (another useful alpine skill). With the boys occupied doing their own thing, I put on my headphones and took some time to max and relax and enjoy the view and soak up some sunlight. Around 2pm, I determined that things had dried out enough for us to get busy with the boulders so I whistled for the boys and we got our gear together, then headed over to the Happy Hunting Grounds.

HHG was a mere 2 minute walk from our campsite and contains a majority of the developed climbing on Pine Mountain. I let the boys get ahead of me so I could take some photos. As they entered the HHG proper, they walked through a small group of college age boys who working on a boulder problem in the upper part of the area. The big boys were quite surprised to see these two youngsters, all geared up, strolling through and gave some shouts and hoots of approval. As we walked past them, I heard one of them say to another, ”Dude, don’t be a wuss. I bet those kids could climb that”, which was followed by some laughs from the others. That’s right mofos, Sespegorillaz in the house!!!

Just like the day before, we made our way to the edge of the “developed” areas, and got down with some already established routes. Carlo and Max started working on the beginning moves on a route called Pink Fingers, a pretty highball and grainy face with a not so good landing. They couldn’t finish the route this time, but I’m sure it will go for them soon. Maybe next time.

Right next to Pink Fingers, is a roof/cave problem called Dreams, that I sent after only a couple of tries. I love roofs and overhangs, they suit my body type and climbing style.
Next we moved to the Hueco Problem boulder as I had some unfinished business there. I sent Hueco Problem and The Hueco Solution, while the boys put up The Hueco Slab. Slab was tough for them as its rather height dependent, but they worked it out after a few tries.

After a short break we focused on the other side of this boulder where Carlo and Max sent something called Free Thinker and I put up a route called Unseamly right next to it. We were feeling pretty pumped right then so we took another break then moved on to another boulder that was not on our topo. This one featured a less than vertical face that was fairly high and slopey. The boys make quick work of it so we turned our attention to some other un-named rocks in the immediate vicinity a played around on some one and two move problems that required some tough crimping technique. A crimp is a hold that is very narrow, presents from any aspect (vertical, horizontal, diagonal) and allows little more than the tips of your fingers. Finger strength and balance are key.

By this time we could see that the sun would be setting soon so we headed back toward the main area of HHG. On our way up, we stopped and climbed a sit-start hueco problem called Big Fun which was both easy and fun. Once we got up to the Dissing Euros Boulder, the boys let me know that their arms were blasted and that they wanted to have a look around at the rest of the main area. So turned them loose to go explore. While they out scoping out some other routes, I slapped the shit out of two more problems that had sent me packing in the past, New Ways To Get From A To B and Dirtbag. Feeling pretty mustered, I decided to have words with a route on Dissing Euros called Heaven On Top, which I must say, got the best of me…this time. My forearms were so pumped by then I could barely open my fist much less hold myself to the overhanging rock. Even with my boys cheering me on, it was not to be. Besides, Heaven On Top is one of those problems that gets harder the higher you climb, and with without Mr. Fistfight to give me a proper spot, I decided to back off and save the route for another day.
Feeling pretty accomplished with the days climbing and tired as hell, we headed back to camp for an evening relaxation and fellowship. Carlo once again, started us a cooking fire while Max and I collected and broke up the firewood. When the coals were ready, we prepared Tin Foil Dinners (another Gorilla fav) and layered up for the evening while they cooked. The TFDs were delicious and made for an easy clean up, after which we put on the water for cider and broke put the marshmallows. After a couple of hours of fireside fart jokes and bragging of the days climbing exploits we let the campfire burn down and hit the sack. The night sky was clear but the temperature was considerably cooler than the night before and the wind had picked up again, this time from the south. The weather was a non-issue at this point however because we were all absolutely exhausted and sleep came easy.
The next morning we all rose with the sun and fixed up some mochas and oatmeal. After breakfast, we broke down camp and re-loaded the truck. I didn’t have to be to work till 3pm so we took our time and even got a little more climbing in around camp. At 1130 we saddled up and rolled out. We did a little sight seeing on the way down and stopped for pictures a few times as well. It was a quite ride down the 33 and I know that after three days of dirtbaggin’ it, the boys were missing their mommas and had a lot to reflect on, so I let the silence ride. We deposited Max at safely at home and Carlo and I were back in Ventura by 0130.

Sespegorilla Dispatch 082509

ROCK CLIMBING IS INHERENTLY DANGEROUS. ACCEDENTS HAPPEN AND PEOPLE LOSE THEIR LIVES DOING IT ALL THE TIME. IF YOU GO OUT THERE AND START RUNNING UP ROCKS YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS BEING ON, YOU ARE A FOOL AND YOU WILL DIE! SO, LIKE SURFING, SKING, SNOWBOARDING AND MOUNTAINBIKING, DO NOT ATTEMPT WITHOUT PROPER INSTRUCTION OR PARTNERING UP WITH SOMEONE WHO KNOWS WHAT THEIR DOING. LLAP.