Parisa's Blog

By the time I warmed up on Monday, I was already feeling a bit of withdrawal from ice climbing. To be honest, I didn't think I would enjoy it as much. I don't particularly like wearing four layers of clothes, monster gloves (plus hand warmers), and plastic boots that contort my normal walk into something more resembling a duck waddle, but there is something about the touch of ice climbing that is addicting. Sure, swinging around two sharp, pointy metal objects to purposefully hack away at ice is a pretty fantastic way to release aggression. You can kick away at thin, hanging icicles or watch as chunks and sprays of the thick glass fly off where the axe makes contact with the wall, sometimes in your face, sometimes just missing you off to the side. Occasionally, pieces fall so large their absense changes the face of the climb. However, the destructive and aggressive aspect of ice climbing is not its main trait of seduction. Eventually the climber swings with the perfect angle and force to lodge his axe tightly in a feature for secure anchor. Not only can you see the fit in the ice, but you can hear it being lodged in place and feel the solid hold tingle down your forearm. You can similarly hear the perfect placement when your partner is climbing, a shared feeling of accomplishment. Unlike rock climbing, you are very much in control of how solid your position is at any point in the pitch. Of course, with sticky crampons and axes dangling from your arms, slipping and falling becomes much more dangerous on ice. You can't really compare the two sports outside of a similarly wonderful adrenaline rush.

Anyways, despite a week ahead of cold temperatures, I convinced Peter to take me ice climbing again on Thursday. This time, we went to the Ghost River area, a remote stretch of glacier carved valleys north of Canmore. This drive is certainly not for the faint of heart (or four wheel drive). Lola had to get us through some large snow drifts and over 3 tiny rivers before we arrived at The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (GBU) for climbing. We top-roped The Good, the leftmost climb of the three, which was rated WI4. The climb was longer and harder than anything I did on Monday, but the real adventure began after the climb when we returned to the car.

Rewind to six days prior. Peter and I went climbing at The Stronghold and met Nayden afterward at the Ship for burgers. Then we went in search of a coffee shop to cap off the night. When we returned to the car, Lola wouldn't start. As both of her batteries (I guess the fatty needs two) were over 9 years old and Peter had been noticing a decreased voltage reading the past week, this wasn't a terrible surprise. Luckily, Nayden walked back to his apartment and stole his roommate's car to give us a jump. After we were back on the road, Peter and Nayden joked that it was pretty lucky the batteries died in the city instead of The Ghost. You see, the Ghost is not only miles off-road and pretty unpopular, but the area we were going to be climbing in was technically illegal to be driving in. So when Lola didn't start after our climb, things got exciting. Peter thought the starter might have gotten frozen from the water that splashed up after crossing the rivers, so he turned on his engine heater and repositioned the exhaust to try and speed up the warming. After 15 minutes of failed start attempts, Peter went over to put a note on a Honda Element that was parked across the river, the only other car we saw that day in the Ghost. He ended up crossing paths with the owners of the car on his way back and they offered to give us a lift. He checked once more under the hood, this time double checking the wires connecting the batteries. He noticed that one had come loose from being overly stretched when he put in the new batteries, and when he reconnected it as I turned the ignition, the car started! We drove over by the Honda and made sure they made it out of the rough parts of the Ghost before merrily driving off on our own way.

As if car troubles weren't exciting enough, we saw a cougar on the drive out! Similar to my Grizzly sighting, it was really nice doing this from the inside of a car as they are very dangerous. We saw it hop out of the trees onto the road about 20 feet in front of the car, run along the road for a few meters, and then run back into the trees once it realized Lola was coming. Cougars are a pretty rare sighting in Banff, with only half a dozen or so estimated to be living in the Banff area. In the end, we made it back to Calgary, fully intact, on our own wheels, and with only a few minor scratches and sore muscles to tend to from the day.

I made Peter watch Cool Runnings with me since he has never seen it, is actually from Calgary (the movie setting is the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary), and it's one of my favorite movies. In return, he took me ice climbing to Grotto Canyon with Dow and Stacy. This turned out to be an event of many firsts. My first time wearing crampons, my first time swinging ice axes, my first time trying to climb icicles instead of avoid them, and my first time in subzero temperatures for an extended period of time.

Peter and I hiked out early over the frozen river to climb Grotto Falls, an easy WI3. We saw another guy walking his dogs off the frozen river and a tour group that passed by us before Stacy and Dow eventually arrived. Despite the terribly cold temperatures, it was lucky we got out so early because this area is quite popular. After Grotto Falls, Peter led Hers, a WI4 pillar just to the right of His, a complementary WI4 climb. By this time, my fingers were pretty frozen and I was shivering from head to toe. Even though Chicago winters get pretty cold, there is never really a reason to be outdoors for a long time, so while I can handle short bursts of frigid wind, I was pretty unprepared as far as clothes and conditioning for really being outdoors in this weather. I gave Hers a try, but my fingers were so cold I couldn't really grasp the ice axes to swing and gave up before the top. Another pair had come to attempt His, but weren't able to finish it, and none of us tried either. Instead, we packed up and started hiking back to the cars after passing some Native rock art painted on one of the Canyon walls.

And yet again, I return from another trip to Vegas. For a place I describe so negatively, I certainly visit there often enough. The purpose of this trip, however, was not for any dirty hacker conventions, but for some rock climbing in (relatively) nice weather.

The first day, Peter and I walked almost the entire 3 mile stretch and back on the Las Vegas strip and finished the day off with a typically sub-optimal, super-priced buffet at the MGM and night's stay at the Tropicana. We also saw the Hot Babes truck go around about 5 times, with the girl on the side getting just a bit sleazier each time it passed. Outside of risking our good health and karma by being near so much glutton and greed, neither of us gambled. Or maybe we were held up by gunpoint on the shuttle to the Tropicana, forced to give the midget thief all of our $750 in spending money, and stayed up the entire night masterfully winning back each dollar on high roller blackjack. Believe whichever story you want, but in the end, we left Vegas even and headed to Red Rock Canyon to camp for two nights.



The camp site was only about 5 miles away from total suburbia and the Red Rocks Casino and Hotel, so we weren't exactly isolated from civilization. Also, each camp site had its own grill, fire pit, and picnic table and was situated near water pumps and outhouses with solar-powered light sensors. Being out in the fresh air made the two nights camping more enjoyable for me than our time in the smokey strip hotel, but again, not a very high standard to surpass.

Red Rock Canyon is accessed via a 13 mile one-way loop with a handful of pullouts for parking. We tried to find something to climb on Monday from the third pullout, but just ended up doing an unsuccessful approach and return after failing to find the climb.



On Tuesday, we set out to do the Cat in the Hat, one of the most popular climbs in this area located on the Mescalito Buttress in Pine Creek Canyon. The approach still ended up being a challenge since we weren't sure we had found the first pitch even with our noses right under it. The climb was a 5.6+ multi-pitch climb (we did it in 4) that got us pretty high up the canyon for some nice views of the area and the strip afar in the distance. The route was mostly crack climbing and a short slab crux at the end of the last pitch. We rappelled down and walked out just as the sun was setting and it started getting cold, then headed back to camp to make dinner and rest for the night.



On Tuesday, we thought we'd try to find sunnier climbing with routes on Calico Hills. Unfortunately, a 35 minute approach turned into a 3 hour canyon exploration after we got slightly off trail. We ran into a park ranger couple and their two dogs from Idaho on the Stone Wall, who kind of helped lead us in the right direction. The approach was more of a scramble than hike and we had to get over lots of huge boulders, slab, and tight spaces through prickly trees before eventually getting to the Great Red Book wall. We intended on doing the actual Great Red Book climb, but since it still wasn't really in the sun (despite the guide book's promise of all-day sun), we instead did Subject-Verb Agreement, a one pitch 5.8 named after our president, who often ignores this important grammar rule (e.g. "Whether they be Christian, Jew, or Muslim, or Hindu, people have heard the universal call to love a neighbor just like they'd like to be called themselves. - George W. Bush, Washington, D.C. Oct. 8, 2003 ). It's a 9 bolt sport climb that is totally in the sun, with the belayer left in the shade between the climb and a wall at their back. We each did it a few times and then headed back down to the car.



We checked into the Bonnie Springs Motel, a cute little stay on a Blue Diamond ranch a few miles away from Red Rocks. Each room there has their own theme. We stayed in the Indian room featuring an electric fireplace for an extra $10. I'd definitely go back to the hotel because it had that quaint small town charm to it and the staff were all genuinely friendly and concerned about our stay. We saw a few burros before getting up to our room at night, which I suppose are the Nevada equivalent of deer. We tried snapping photos, but they were camera shy and ran off into the night.


The next day we headed back to Vegas to return the car and wait at the airport. Something I should have learned from past experience, but will never again forget... do NOT take Las Vegas Blvd for any reason other than wanting to specifically drive on Las Vegas Blvd. We barely made the drop-off time at Enterprise and would have ended up paying an extra $50 because it took 30 minutes to get down 3 miles of road. We could have probably walked (on our hands) faster, but we eventually made it to the drop-off with 20 minutes to spare and plenty of time to waste at the Vegas airport.

Before getting on our plane to Calgary, we passed an older, disheveled hippie-type that asked the clerk at the information desk, "Hey maaan, I'm supposed to take, like an orange bus to the Mojave desert. You know what I'm talkin about?" The clerk responded with a pricelessly puzzled look, replied that he wasn't aware of an orange, desert-bound bus, and I just giggled as we walked off. If there is one thing to be certain of, there is no shortage of crazies in Vegas.

Enjoyed spending New Years Eve with Frank, Chris, and some red wine (well, we were at least near Champaign during the countdown). Outside of watching Carson Daley bore away the last minutes of 2006 in Times Square (tape-delayed an hour for us CST folk), we spent the evening watching a CSPAN-2 Book-TV Author Q&A with Richard Dawkins on his most recent book, The God Delusion.

I like Dawkins a lot. He is quite witty and as Frank pointed out, automatically sounds intelligent with a British accent. While he doesn't contribute any new conclusions, he very logically presents evidence supporting Darwinism over any type of theological deity in simple, ordered arguments that are hard to refute. Most importantly, he helps bring more publicity to Atheism (recently via a featured article in WIRED magazine), and encourages non-believers "come out of the closet" to help break the stereotype that all Atheists are Godless, immoral, heathens. In reality, we're just plain Godless.

If you have some time, I highly recommend watching part 1 and part 2 of the book talk.