Shooting Stars in the high Sierra
After flying to the US from Argentina I got a little antsy. There'd be no more rickshaws, guanacos, or empanadas to be found and I was worried about taking up bad habits from the past. Z spent a week out in the Baltimore/DC area, visited friends and family, and experienced some serious heat and humidity. Cambodia had prepared her well. I would have just melted.
The best part of the greater LA area is getting away, and there are some really wonderful places to escape to when the mercury rises and the smog obscures the mountains. Rick Graham, my uncle and longest-running climbing partner, and I headed up the East Side of the Sierra Nevada in search of long days on clean granite. We secured a permit for the North Fork of Lone Pine Creek near Mt. Whitney and climbed the 'Mithral Dihedral' on Mt. Russell (14,086 feet), and what a gem it is! The route takes its name from a rare metal from Tolkein's Middle Earth and follows a beautiful 300-foot long vertical corner. This was Sierra rock climbing at its finest.
Massive Mt. Russell looms above
"Mithril! All folk desired it. It could be beaten like copper, and polished like glass; and the Dwarves could make of it a metal, light and yet harder than tempered steel. Its beauty was like to that of common silver, but the beauty of mithril did not tarnish or grow dim." Gandalf, Lord of the Rings
Still climbing together: 23 years and counting
Tulainyo, North America's highest alpine lake
Elizabeth returned a week after I did and we quickly scheduled a trip to Crystal Cove, a special beach where my grandparents used to rent a summer home in the 60s and 70s. It was overcast but the waves were enormous and impressive. Perhaps most importantly, delicious date shakes could be secured at a shack above the beach on the Pacific Coast Highway.
My grandparents, Jim and Liz, brother Paul, and aunt Phoebe
It feels good to be back stateside. And I can honestly say I've never appreciated safe tap water as much as I do now.
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