good and bad in Flagstaff

Hey dudes! First off, I didn't realize you had to make an account to make comments, but I finally realized it and fixed it. Now anyone can comment. Flagstaff has been an interesting time. Here's the good stuff:

1. The climbing is crazy cool. We're staying at this place called Priest Draw. It's limestone and it makes tons of completely horizontal roofs.

this is a horizontal roof 30ish feet in the air. It's high enough to be 5.13 trad instead of a boulder problem.


2.The scenery here is also beautiful. We took some side trips. One was to the Grand Canyon, where we got to go on a short hike out to a pinnacle. No one else was there. The other was to Sunset Crater Volcano and some sweet Indian Ruins. Tomorrow we'll do the drive through Oak Creek Canyon down to Sedona (one of the most beautiful drives I've ever done).
these are at the Draw. The sunset with a storm cloud and the high alt. meadow

an elk and some ancient lava flows

ancient volcanoes and indian ruins

the GC! We went with Micah's friends Tony and Courtney. They had a girl from France visiting named Luna. I told her that our names put together make a famous picture book.


3. Matt is here! He was turned into a lizard thing, but he got better!

The bad stuff about Flag is 1. the roadsigns are very confusing. The are non-existent or right next to the turn (so you'd have to slam on the brakes in order to just miss the turn and cause a massive traffic pile-up). 2. there are thieves here. We got our car broken into (luckily not causing any damage to the car). Our iPods were stolen along with my CDs and Camelbak (which had credit card, all my money, drivers license, etc.). Missing my license and music are the biggest bummers. Please feel free to e-mail me any music you think is necessary (Stella.the.Giant@gmail.com is best, but smascari@wooster.edu works too). It has been a big pain in the ass, but things are slowly getting taken care of.

To finish off this entry, here's a picture of New Mexico (if you zoom in, the mountain has sweet patterns on it):

I love and miss you all!
-Stella

Across the Country

!!!

Lots of driving


A Shit ton has happened since I last posted. Here's some pictures in a couple divisions: Nature and Climbing.

Climbing:
Little Rock City, TN

The Wave, V6

??
Horse Pens 40, AL

Centipede, V4 (hard)


Bum Boy, V3 (didn't send yet)


Nature:


sweet purple berries!

these are out of order, but this is Palo Duro Canyon, Amarillo, TXOklahoma

Goats on Horseshoe Canyon Ranch, AR. They were really close to us.
Horseshoe Canyon Ranch

The Ozarks, ARMom - these next two are for you. This is a picture of flint inside chalk, I think?? They talk about it in the Clan of the Cave Bear books. I was really excited to find it this way.

This is what nature does to you (don't worry, I'm since showered and changed clothes):




Another video! This one's way badass:
(Click here to see the video!)

Right now we're in Flagstaff, AZ. I'll add pictures from New Mexico and Arizona in my next post. We're picking up Matt tonight, I'm excited!

Also, if'n ya'll want to see more pictures, try the likes of this website: www.chetroy.com. I reckon it's Micah's blog site.

I love you all and I hope you're all doing well!

Stella

Chattanooga

So I've never done this whole blogging thing before, but I think it's the easiest way to keep everyone updated with what I'm doing. Also I think I can add some sweet photos too... as soon as I figure out how.

Right now Micah and I are in the Jasper Public Library. That's Jasper, Tennessee. We spent last weekend at the New with a whole bunch of WOODS folk (like, 20 WOODS folk + some elders). It was really awesome to have so many people that I love together there. We stayed an extra couple days at the New with Tyler, who helped us out like whoa by letting us use some leftover food stamps from his Alaska job. And by some leftover food stamps, I mean somewhere around $130 of food stamps. It was the best going away gift ever.

We managed to pack the car with enough extra room for Matt (and/or any additional 3rd person), then we took off for Chattanooga. It seems so far that we have gotten really lucky with the weather. A couple guys we saw the first day said "good timing! The weather just broke!" Which, after Katherine Bell's warning of the extreme heat in the south, was a huge relief. We are staying at Foster Falls State Park. I've been here before - freshman year WOODS spring break. it's really cool to be here again. There are a lot of random memories that it's bringing back. There are some differences though, here's Foster Falls from spring, '04:
Here it is (different angle because I was too lazy to walk all the way down to the base) now:

The first full day we had here, we decided to climb at Foster Falls. It's sport climbing, and, apparently, known for it's really hard sport climbs. I wanted to get back on the only climb I remember doing 4 years ago - a 5.8+ that I was extremely proud to say that I almost flashed. But I fell at the top because it was hard. But when Micah and I tried to get on it, we were surrounded by bees. There are a lot of bees at Foster Falls. Instead we did a couple 5.9s.

The next day we went to Little Rock City... well, we also had an adventure in Chattanooga in search of a new stove, since ours has a major leak in it and is really scary. But Little Rock City is badass. It's a boulderfield owned by a golf course. It lines one side of the golf course (on the other sides of the boulderfield are a cliffline, woods, and a crazy canyon maze system - which we'll explore soon). You're not allowed to let the golfers see you, so that gets rid of a lot of boulders, but there are SO many boulders packed into this area, that it doesn't even matter. A lot of boulders look Horse Pens-ish, and every problem I did (or attempted) was really cool. After a rest day today, I think we'll have to go back tomorrow.

Here's some climbing pictures of me and Micah:Also we made a movie, but you have to turn your head or computer sideways to watch it. We don't have the video camera yet, but we'll make some cooler videos when we do:

In a couple days, we'll go down to Rocktown, Georgia, and then Horse Pens40, Alabama. I'll try to take more/better pictures for the next post. I love you and miss you all!

-Stella