A casual 4-pitch romp via Otto’s Route in Colorado National Monument. First climbed by John Otto, a quintessential outdoorsman whose one (and only?) marriage lasted a few weeks. His wife is quoted as saying “I tried hard to live his way, but I could not do it, I could not live with a man to whom even a cabin was an encumbrance.”
The first few days of what was to be a short stint trying out canyoneering life. Mid-March, 2016.
Winter rambling. I landed a job in Moab that I needed to get to by March 15th. I didn’t have a lot of confidence in the job, but at least it was a plan.
I felt like getting back to NC and having a roof over my head would make everything coherent. Didn’t quite work out completely as I planned. But what does, right? It was nice to see my family and be around the softness of the Appalachian Mountains.
“Because, as it turns out, a huge percentage of what I am automatically sure of tends to be totally wrong and deluded”.
“The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.”
Transcript here
The next few weeks consisted of looking for places to go to be warm. At one point we were at the Grand Canyon on an extremely cold and windy day. Lots of time was spent in the visitor center trying to be warm.
Eventually we drove down to southern Arizona, going as far south as Organ Pipe National Monument, on the border of Mexico. It was blissfully warm but not much going on down there. Tuscon, AZ involved visiting Saguaro National Park and some rock climbing at Mt. Lemmon.
We were invited to Thanksgiving at our friend Michelle’s parents house in Sedona, Arizona. That was a lovely stay. No longer cold, being treated like family. We spent several days there, exploring the area with Michelle and her awesome parents. My first time in Sedona. It is a gorgeous area filled with new-agey people and red cliffs.
A few days in Sedona and Maggie and I drove back to Moab. We spent one last evening up at Dead Horse Point State Park. She had plans to check out the Sierra Nevadas and my plan was to drive back to Asheville, NC.
Halfway between Las Vegas and Joshua Tree National Park is the Mojave National Preserve. A surreal landscape of jagged mountains and endless desert valleys. There are some giant sand dunes in there, we camped a couple nights and checked them out.
A few days in a otherworldly part of southern California last November. Thank you Valerie for arranging the accommodations and to your sister for allowing us to stay at her Airbnb spot.
A few days later we headed out to climb a formation in the Fisher Towers called Ancient Art. It is probably one of the most popular desert towers in the world.
Well hello there. It has been a while. Hope everything is good in your part of the world.
Playing a bit of catchup here.
This is from an evening hike in late October of last year. Canyonlands might just be my favorite National Park.
This all took place in the middle of October. 5 days or so at Indian Creek with great people.
