We just came to Utah for the March portion of our trip. Right now we're staying at our friend Amy's house is Salt Lake City before heading south to Joe's Valley, Moab, and Zion. Anyway, here's some pictures to catch you up from the past two months. Like last time, they're backwards. So feel free to start at the bottom and look at them from bottom to top.
I had three 4-day weekends from work, and we went somewhere each time. This most recent time we went to Joshua Tree National Park. Where Amber climbed... the bathroom?
She also did this sweet run-jump problem.
The 2nd trip we took was just Amber and I and we went on a tour of the western sierras. We stopped by Sequoia NP, Yosemite NP, and San Fransisco. Amber knows a girl who lives on a farm just outside of San Fran, so we got to see some sheep! This is Mimi. The one next to her is unnamed because he's a boy and is going to be eaten. There were goats too! One was only 2 days old.
This is not a 2-day old goat. It's a lamb!!!
We also went to the beach in San Fran. I saw my first tide pool. Here's a starfish and sea anenomes (sp?)!
and just a few more starfish...
Amber's foot with some awesome sea-shaped rocks, shells, and glass
The Yosemite part of the trip: Amber sends a V10!
and she meets John Muir and gets very forward and outright touches his beard
Yosemite Falls. We were wondering if the water turns to snow (ice?) as it falls because it seems to be landing on a snowbank...
This is not Yosemite Falls. This is in Sequoia NP - at a low elevation. I feel it's important to mention that we also saw a bobcat but didn't get any very good pictures of it, so I didn't include it. Feel free to look at Amber's facebook photos to see it.
And up at the higher elevations. We couldn't even drive all the way here. Chains were required, and we didn't have any, so we had to walk the last mile. I did finally acquire a set of chains on our last day in Bishop. Too late to use this year, but they were free.
Here's a bit warmer weather. The first weekend trip we made was to Vegas. We saw our friends Tony and Sara from the New (and Mania from Bishop!). Sara's 5 months pregnant, so that was cool to see. And we went to Red Rocks. It had just rained, so we didn't do much climbing there, but Amber and I explored the rocks and found this!
Okay, so here's January. Or, as the locals called it (though this picture doesn't show it) JUNEuary. We had a couple visitors. One was Evan. Here he is on his birthday trying to climb the Birthday Boulder! (He did it a few days later)
Also in January Amber did this. It's much more normal looking now.
Uhh... way out of order... here's a controlled burn (we think) outside of Bishop on our way to Joshua Tree.
Hmm... more JTree. Micah's doing a classic problem called Saturday Night Live (V4)
A January trip to Alabama Hills. It's an hour south of Bishop. This is a pretty famous arch that you can see through to Mt. Whitney - the highest peak in the lower 48.
but for being so famous, it's a little smaller than I expected.
A lot of movies were filmed in the Alabama Hills, apparently. Here's a random hole blasted in the rock. It looked like a sweet living quarters.
This is a picture of Rock Creek - maybe a half hour north of Bishop - but nestled right up against the Sierras to the west, so the sun goes down pretty early there. I didn't see it though. I was at work - which I wish I had some pictures of. On my last day of work, I got a pizza party! With cake, banana bread, and a present of two books!!! It was awesome!
Here's Juneuary at it's finest at the Buttermilks.
Amber and I took a day trip up to see Mono Lake. There are Tufas there. Kind of like stalagmites, they are calcium deposits.
Our other visitor in January was Amy (whose house we're at right now). This is her attempting the beautiful but scary as hell Heavenly Path.
We went to the Dreamers (another place just north of Bishop). It was a fun day.
Okay. That catches you up! I'll hopefully get a chance to post again soonish. Love you all,
Stella
Micah and Michael in Bryce Canyon
And some petroglyphs in Capitol Reef.
and here's a play-by-play of Michael doing a boulder problem.
From here, we went to Moab, where we met up with the WOODS spring break group. You can check out those pics (as well as our traveling home pictures) on facebook.
