Parisa's Blog

I went back to Yosemite this weekend with Peter. We decided to take my rental car over Lola primarily because my car (2006 Toyota Corolla) had air conditioning (the attentive reader will note the foreshadowing use of the past tense) and Lola doesn't. Well, about an hour and a half into driving and we both noticed that only hot air was coming off of the AC. Peter fought with it for a bit while I drove, but to no avail; apparently, it just died. So, we rolled down the windows in an attempt to stay cool. At some point soon after, we took a wrong exit onto 580 East and our car-turned-sauna set in to full heat mode. Both of us were completely covered in sweat despite all of the windows being open and me driving over 90 mph. Only because the heat was so crazy did we even question the direction we were driving in, realize that we were off track, and turn around.

Excusing the detour through hell, we got to Yosemite Valley in good time. The Valley was much more touristy than Tuolumne Meadows; tons of people were taking pictures, chasing after their kids, and carrying cameras on straps over sun burnt necks. The Valley itself is quite breathtaking. I couldn't have done the Valley justice taking pictures of it because it's much too large to capture in one snap and would otherwise require some type of photo stiching magic voodoo that I don't have. I'll just have to remember how it looked and recommend you check it out for yourself.

We decided to climb Munginella on Saturday, which is an easy 5.6 that sits 20 minutes off a main trail near the Yosemite visitor lodge. We got there at around 5:00pm and were the only climbers around, but could hear party music over beyond the trail. It was pretty funny being the only people within eyesite on a mountain in the woods and hearing Outkast "Hey Ya" over the trees. We did the first pitch without much excitement, but as Peter set off to do the second, we heard thunder and noticed the sky had suddenly gotten much cloudier. He rushed up the rest of the pitch just as big drops of water started to fall. As he was getting off belay, I caught a glimpse of a rainbow in the distance and took a quick photo just as the rain started to pour. By the time I collected the gear at my position, the water was coming down in full force.

So, it turns out that climbing rock that has water streaming over it is actually pretty tough, especially with soaking, squishy rock shoes. Most of the second pitch had a small overhanging on my left that kept the crack underneath semi-dry, so I jammed my left leg and arm into anything that looked jammable and pulled the rest of my body up along-side. There were points where I was totally out in the open and felt completely insecure. Putting the wrong weight in any direction and I would have slipped off the rock, but everything managed to work itself out and I got up without falling. We didn't waste much time at the top relishing in our survival and walked back to the trail as fast as possible to beat the dark. We got out of the woods just as it became totally dark and went off to find camp ground for the night.

Our original plans were to camp legitimately, but what fun would that be? After getting some food from a grocery store, we went driving and found some nice offshoot road with a big "No Camping" sign posted at the intersection. So obviously, we parked off this road and camped behind our car. After sandwiches, a California Cabernet Savignon in homemade wine glasses, and chocolate macademia nut cookies (perhaps illegal, but not immoderate camping), Peter set up the tent and we did the sleep thing.

In the morning, we drove to Tuolumne for more climbing, but when we got there, the weather was looking mean and cloudy, so we headed back to the Valley. A nice 2 hours of driving wasted later and we parked just off the road near El Capitan, the largest vertical wall in North America. It takes most climbers multiple days to climb the face, carrying food, water, and gear along in their haul bags and sleeping on the wall as they go. We ended up climbing Pine Line, an approach climb to El Cap. All of the gear was still wet, but it was noon, really hot, and we were directly in the sun, so we figured everything would dry up pretty quickly. Shortly after I started climbing, my toes started feeling a new pain that I was unfamiliar with. My rock shoes are pretty tight as it is. They are a good size and a half too small, which is normal for climbing shoes, but can be brutal on long days of climbing. But on top of the normal toe smashing pain, my toes were actually burning. I finally realized it was probably because the black rubber toes, soles, and heals were drying in the sun on my feet. Peter felt the same thing and attested to the burning shoes, so it wasn't my imagination. I also forgot that I left my camera in my pocket when I started climbing. After it fell out of my pocket and down about 50 feet to the ground, I remembered it was in there. Despite the battery falling out and it hitting rock on the way down, the camera seems to be working normally. Of course, any ugly pictures I take from now on will probably be blamed on this mishap. Aside from burning toes and flyaway cameras, the pitch was a nice and short crack that was probably the hardest I've done so far climbing outdoors.

After climbing, we headed home with the windows down and hot air pouring in. My thermometer read above 110 degrees for the majority of the trip, and we topped out at 120 degrees an hour outside of Yosemite. Mountain View was only 90 degrees when we arrived, which sadly felt very, very cool. I never want 90 degrees to feel that cool again, but we just escaped to cool and cushy Google for water and food and air conditioning, and all was better.

I went to Yosemite National Park this past weekend to climb Cathedral Peak with Peter, a Google co-worker, OpenBSD developer (and propagandist), and my summer extreme sports sensei. We drove down Friday night after work and got to Yosemite around midnight. Since we didn't have a camping permit and it was too late to buy one, we dirt-bagged it off the road, hoping rangers wouldn't find us illegally sleeping in the woods. The mosquitoes were biting all night, so I just zipped my sleeping bag entirely closed over my head to keep them out. It seemed to work, but the ground was pretty rocky and uneven. Not the best of sleeping conditions.

We woke up at 4:30am to get an early start so we wouldn't have to wait on other climbers. There was an easy two hour hike to the base of Cathedral Peak. When we finally got there, Peter left to find a place to start climbing while I stayed behind with our stuff. At this point, the mosquitoes attacked. I was swatting away 20 at a time from my arms, my legs, my chest, my back. I couldn't keep up with the swarms. I was smashing mosquitoes all over my arms only to watch the blood and dead bodies be covered by another army of vermin. I've never felt so helpless with respect to a bug attack. I eventually just put on my long sleeved jacket and let the bugs do their biting. I knew what the next day would bring, but there was no use fighting.

So then we climbed. Peter led everything and I top roped behind. I took a bad slip on the second pitch because I wasn't really thinking about what I was doing. I remember just trying to smear up the entire pitch without looking at where my feet were hitting and just slipping on every foot hold. After that ugliness, I had an epiphany to think and look before stepping, and the rest of the pitches went smoothly. There were definitely some challenging parts for me, but I didn't fall the rest of the way up or need to rest on any of the pitches, so I was pretty satisfied. The most awkward part of the climb was the chimney, which is a tiny, narrow section of the mountain shaped exactly like... well, a chimney. Getting our packs into the chimney and then moving up with them was the most obnoxious part, but it's a distinguishing feature of Cathedral Peak, so we had to do it. It was so tight and awkward at the bottom that I think I could have lifted my legs completely off the wall and stayed exactly in place because my pack and hips were so smashed up against the sides. Somehow I managed to wiggle out. I don't know how Santa does it.

Two pitches later and we were at the summit of the mountain, which was amazing. The mountains have this commanding beauty and dominance. Everything is painted in vivid blue or green or grey, the air is still and quiet, and humans are just tiny visiting dots. I can't explain the feeling of getting to the top and looking out, but it was the most exhilarating thing I have done (to date).

Now, for some reason, I hadn't put much thought into how one gets down the mountain once they've climbed to the top. Not saying that I assumed an elevator would be waiting on the other side for a quick ride down, but again, I just hadn't really considered that part. Going down the mountain was actually much scarier to me than going up. It was a mix of rappelling, down climbing, short roping, and belaying. Peter may as well have done cart wheels down the mountain since he wasn't fazed by any part of the climb (up or down), but for me, it was much more nerve racking going down slabs of gravely rock when you don't have the same safety you had coming up.

We made it back to the car at around 6:00pm after wasting some time taking pictures and chilling by waterfalls on the way back. We ran into some Chinese dude that was following us under the incorrect assumption we were heading towards a camp ground. We offered him a ride to a store down the road where he was alternatively destined. Turns out he graduated from UIUC engineering as well. Such a small world.

Overall, the day was amazing. I have approximately 300 mosquito bites (counted in haste), sun burnt shoulders, and a few decent bruises and scratches to attest to the awesomeness. I'm now even sadder to return to Illinois because I'd love to keep climbing outdoors (re: real climbing) on a regular basis, but I don't expect any mountains to sprout in the Midwest anytime soon. Oh well, I'll be out of there soon enough.



"The body of the Cathedral is nearly square, and the roof slopes are wonderfully regular and symmetrical, the ridge trending northeast and southwest. This direction has apparently been determined by structure joints in the granite. The gable on the northeast end is magnificent in size and simplicity, and at its base there is a big snow-bank protected by the shadow of the building. The front is adorned with many pinnacles and a tall spire of curious workmanship. Here too the joints in the rock are seen to have played an important part in determining their forms and size and general arrangement. The Cathedral is said to be about eleven thousand feet above the sea, but the height of the building itself above the level of the ridge it stands on is about fifteen hundred feet. A mile or so to the westward there is a handsome lake, and the glacier-polished granite about it is shining so brightly it is not easy in some places to trace Front of Cathedral Peak the line between the rock and water, both shining alike." - John Muir, "My First Summer in the Sierra"

It has been brought to my attention that my new web design is horrible. It's blinding, boring, obnoxiously plain, and most importantly, lacks the touch of my signature pink^*. Well disloyal fans, the minimalist theme is here to stay. Ultimately, your resounding objections and threats of abandonment don't scare me; It's not like I really noticed you were visiting anyways.

It's been just a hiccup over a year since the birth of this waste of file space and server load, so it's high time for a face lift. This theme is inspired by the many, many pages of LaTeX formatted research papers I've toiled over in the past year, and will undoubtedly keep suffocating in this year. And so, no more 1337 terminal fonts and black backgrounds, no more flashy pink highlights and link decorations. I'm old and cheap and can't rationalize having so much wasted color and patterning. I'm going back to the basics of #ffffff and #000000 and if you don't like it, well, go to myspace or somewhere that acknowledges the Ajaxy world of web 2.0.

*This is only mostly true. There are a few pink-inspired remnants left around for posterity, but kept tightly out of broad view.