Easing into winter

Poof! goes another month or two. And all of a sudden it's winter again. I still haven't gotten used to the violent swings in the weather here - both on a day-to-day basis and a seasonal one. It seems as though I missed Fall by blinking at the wrong moment. One morning I woke up and it was winter. Winds are now hitting 60 mph again (yuck!) and the clouds have that thin, wispy look to them that heralds snowfall rather than thunderstorms. Vedauwoo is totally snowed in, and the cracks choked with ice - time to start driving south.

But before all that happened, Halloween came upon us again. I carved my first pumpkin (guess which one!):



And I was introduced to the other good use for white gas:



I also went to a costume party, snazzily dressed as a submarine captain (no mean feat in a landlocked state). No shots of that, but there were some pretty hilarious costumes this year: Bulldog With Lipstick, the Dude, Tom Parchman (bit of an in-joke but the funniest thing I've seen in months), and of course numerous Slutty [Insert Occupation Here]. A good time, as usual. If Sweden hasn't already imported this holiday wholesale, it should.

The Mericans also had an election, which can't have escaped your notice. I tired of the whole circus well before the primaries were over, but then again I can't vote here. Joe seems to have been happy to do so, though:



In the end, and as expected, our team won. Or as they say back in the Old Country: "Rätt låt vann, för en gångs skull". Can you imagine what would've happened if McCain had won, and then predictably croaked before the end of his term? The most powerful country in the world could've ended up with a leader that needs to be briefed on the difference between continents and countries. And you thought Bush was the bottom of the barrel...

But back to it being cold and nasty in Wyoming. This year I have A Plan: I'll escape the windy purgatory that is the Laramie valley as often as possible by going to the deserts of the southwest. Just a few states over, in Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico, the sun shines 365 days a year and the climbing is as tasty in January as it is in July. Even better, actually, since summer in the desert can be pretty punishing. I tested my cunning plan recently, minus climbing, by heading down to the Moab area in Utah. A paltry 8-hour drive through Colorado takes you to some pretty spectacular scenery:



We arrived quite late at night, and consequently I almost shat myself from sheer surprise and wonderment when I stepped out of the tent in the morning. The landscape surrounding us was, for lack of a better word, mind-blowing. Sandstone towers, canyons, rivers, mesas and buttes as far as the eye could see, and then some. We quickly hiked into the most adjacent cool stuff: the Fisher Towers area. The views were quite dramatic:



The rock architecture was beyond freaky:



Although apparently not all that solid:



We made up it up to the Titan before turning back. At 900 feet, it's the tallest free-standing tower in the US, and standing underneath it inspires an immediate wish to climb to the top. Unfortunately the "hike" up seems a bit steep:



After exploring Moab a little bit, and noting the proliferation of old men in very tight bike shorts, we made an afternoon foray into Arches National Park. And there were plenty of arches in there, alright, in addition to other pretty things to look at. Landscape Arch is a fairly unlikely-looking formation, and indeed a good chunk of it fell down in the early nineties:



The local sandstone is anything but stable, apparently. We made our way up to Wall Arch only to find out that it wasn't actually there anymore:



This is the second time I've arrived at a sandstone tourist attraction only to find a heap of rubble staring me in the face - one of the Twelve Apostles in Australia managed to collapse just months before I came to see it. So if you're anxious to see a funny sandstone formation somewhere in the world, I recommend going ASAP: put it off and you might just end up viewing gravel.

The sunset in the Park was lovely:



And it made our destination, Double O Arch, look quite pretty:



As an aside, climbing up onto the second O in hiking boots felt less than trivial. The 5.easy slab move to gain the top had me puzzled for a good 5 minutes. Oh, how I detest low-angle friction climbing...

The next day we woke up in one of the Indian Creek campgrounds. Seeing the North Six Shooter on one side of the canyon, and a couple of thousand crack climbs on the other, was inspiring as all get-out. I immediately resolved to come back as soon as time and gas prices allowed. Tentatively, I'll spend Thanksgiving giving my thumbs a workout and my hands new scars.

But we weren't there to climb; we had come for the hiking. So we went into Canyonlands National Park, and ventured onto the Joint Trail in the Needles. The Needles is a magical-looking blend of towers, fins, valleys and miniature peaks, all in brilliant reds and whites, interspersed with green vegetation:



If you look a bit closer between the sage brush, you'll notice the ubiquitous cryptobiotic soil. It's funny mix of bacteria, algae and protists that forms the basis of the desert food web, and is probably the main reason the area is so green. In spots the ground is almost blackened by the thick mat of microorganisms:



Treading carefully to avoid centuries of bacterial build-up, we made out way through the maze-like trail. There were so many spectacular views that the mind became almost numb after a while: when every corner you turn is more fantastic than the next, it's hard to appreciate how nice the scenery is. But we did stop and get some pictures, at least:



There were plenty of spires to be gawked at and walked through:



Some cool and windy caves to pass:



And even a decent imitation of a slot canyon (probably the best reason to take the Joint Trail in particular):



After 11 miles of fantastic views but strenuous hiking, we arrived back at the car totally pooped. Some milkshakes and beers later we had re-equilibrated and made camp. Having brought a 20 F sleeping bag to a 15 F party, I quickly learned how cold the desert nights are. Shaking ice off the rain sheet in the morning brought home the point, and also did marvels for getting out of there as quickly as possible. A long and uneventful drive brought us back to home base and the drudgery of everyday life. But I'll back soon enough...

Redneckedness

Wyoming seems to be getting to me. After somewhat more than a year here, I'm getting slowly but surely sucked into the local customs. When I see an over-sized truck, I no longer think "Good Lord, what possible use could that thing be?" but rather "I gotta get me one of these":



Listening to country music, yep, that too. It started fairly innocently with some classic Johnny Cash, then slid on through Willie Nelson and clownish Trace Adkins, finally stopping (I hope) with hicker-than-thou Rodney Atkins. I'm not sure how it could get much worse... or, well, I guess it could.

Another rednecky thing to do is to shoot guns just for the hell of it. You can claim you're doing some target practice, or whatever, but it's mostly about the "BANG!" and the satisfying sight of the target being blown to bits. After many years with Nintendo and bb guns, graduating to Colt .45 and assault shotgun felt suprisingly natural. True, it's hard to miss anything at 20 feet with a shotgun, but a semi-auto handgun is a bit trickier. As for stub-nosed revolvers, it's a mystery why anyone would carry such a contraption: at the distance you can hit things with it, it'll do more damage being thrown or used as a club. Nevertheless, it has a funny Western movie feel to it. And Wyoming is nothing if not Western. As Pete so eloquently put it: "I love coming up to Wyoming. I can take a shit wherever I want, shoot my guns and drink cheap beer, without 50,000 people crawling up my ass."

So, am I turning into a total hillbilly? You be the judge:



By the way, I gotta plug Pete's book "An Eye at the Top of the World". Part Himalayan travelogue, part spy novel, part just plain awesome, it's being adapted for the silver screen as I type this. Why not get the book now, so you can go "Oh, but the book was so much better!" when you leave the cinema?

I've also been doing some hiking and camping. Going up to the Snowy Range, just an hour west of town, always reminds me of the forested emptiness of Norrland:



And if you look real close, you can find tiny beautiful things:



A couple of weekends ago I spent some time out in the High Desert proper:



There's lots of sand:



And the odd ghost town - the "ghost" part happens when the oil runs out:



Water supplies don't last real long out there - although the barrels themselves do, what with the low humidity:



The term "county road" has a slightly different meaning:



But the best thing to happen lately was having Dad visit. He happened to be in Kansas, of all places, on business and dropped by Laramie on the way home. I don't see my family much these days, separated as we are by the Atlantic Ocean, so it's always great to see my folks and my sister. This was Dad's first visit to the Mountain West, and I did my best to show him the cool things about it. Just the vast open plains are pretty exotic if you're from Sweden, since the Old Country is like 85% evergreen forest. The mountains here blow anything in Northern Europe out of the water, with Laramie Valley sitting higher than any point in Sweden. When we hiked up toward Medicine Bow Peak, Dad got to experience first hand what high altitude (about 11,000 feet) does to your ability to breathe. Sucking wind from a slight uphill walk, and a resting pulse of 140 or so, no doubt convinced him that the High Country is just that. To recover and rehydrate, we hit the local bars with a vengence, sampling both microbrews and the comparatively awful atmosphere of the Buckhorn Saloon. We also took one of our all-to-infrequent fishing trips, this time for brown trout in the North Platte River. The scenery on the drive into the mountains alone was worth the trip, and the narrow valley carved by the Platte is a spectacular setting as well. Among sagebrush, fiery aspen and sparse pine we had a blast trying to coax the fish out of the water. And I swear, I caught a fish thiiis big!

Unfortunately, I don't have a single picture of Dad's visit, since we were so busy having a good time that we kept forgetting to bring the camera. No matter - I'll remember it for years to come anyway. Anyone else want to come visit? I got a spare bed and any amount of wilderness to show you...

Well, that went by fast

Last week saw me passing three milestones of my time here in Laramie: the one-year anniversary of my moving here, the Official End of Summer and the purchase of my very own automobile. Kind of a big week, in retrospect, although it certainly didn't feel like it at the time.

So, my first year living in Laramie and going to UW is done. Funny, doesn't quite feel like a whole year has come and gone. I can still vividly remember arriving, amazed at the tiny-ness of the town, out of breath (the altitude!) and fairly disoriented after the long flight. Reading my blog entry from one week after arrival, it seems like I was both stressed and pretty happy all at once. In a way, that hasn't changed that much: I still enjoy the hell out of living here, and there's still a lot going on. Between the excellent climbing, the beautiful surroundings (saw one of the prettiest sunsets of my life yesterday), the difficult-but-interesting research and what turned out to be an interesting night life, I'm both busy and entertained. Can't really ask for much more than that.

It's also almost exactly a year since I met Joe, who's probably the very first friend I made in Laramie. He's also my roommate since a few months back, and very handy to have around the house. For instance, he's always ready to go to war to protect our beloved garage from insect invasion:



But I think he's kinda lost it when it comes to yard maintainence, though: there ain't no grass, Joe!



Summer has also come and gone. If you count from the last snows (June 11) to the first week of sub-freezing temperatures at night and constant rain (August 11-17), it worked out to exactly two months. They were two absolutely gorgeous months, though, with possibly the best summer weather I've ever experienced and the best climbing season I've ever had. But it's over, or at least heading that way. The sun is now solely responsible for all warmth, nights are getting toward frosty, and you can smell the autumn in the air. You know that crisp, slightly moist, smell of dying vegetation? Yeah, that one. Although there will be many fine warm days to come - we were up past 80 F again yesterday - summer is for all intents and purposes finito. Time to start heading to Lander, Fremont Canyon, Colorado and the deserts of the south to keep the climbing season going. It's looking pretty grim around here:



Buying a car is something I've been thinking about for quite some time - since, say, September last year. I'd occasionally go into Car Search Mode and spend a week or so checking out the local used car market, and inevitably be severely disappointed. Laramie isn't big enough to produce that many used cars (imagine going shopping for one in Knivsta for comparison), and most of them are of the Gigantic Gas Guzzling Truck variety. I was on the lookout for something small, Japanese and cheap, which turned out to be quite the elusive objective. Last week I finally broke down and decided to just buy something that would keep rolling for a little while. I spent some time scouring craigslist and the local classifieds before heading down to Fort Collins, which is about the size of my home town Uppsala. After a brief search and some very tasty sandwiches, I came upon this beauty:



A mid-nineties Toyota Camry sounded like a good idea in general, and after a cursory inspection and some slight bargaining I closed the deal - much to Amanda's shock and dismay. A multi-thousand dollar "impulse buy" was a bit beyond what she considered sane, but I hate shopping and was most pleased to have concluded the painful task of finding an automobile. The seller drove it up here on Monday, and I can see it parked outside my house from where I'm sitting right now. The car seemed eerily familiar to me, but I couldn't place it until my dad reminded me that a station wagon Camry had been his first company car sometime in the early nineties. I mostly remember it for being light blue (a nice color) and having the awesomely cool power windows. So now my horizons have widened about 1000% and I can drive to... well, not much, actually, since Wyoming is mostly empty, but nonetheless. I celebrated by driving to Cheyenne along scenic Happy Jack Road and having Korean for dinner (not available in Laramie). Life's looking up, or at least it's looking faster. And look what else I found in Fort Collins!



And as usual, I've been climbing. Not that much lately, given the weather and other committments, but progress has been pretty steady this season. I'm bleeding less and less, which is either a sign that I'm getting better (probably) or just not trying as hard (also likely). Pete Takeda, professional climber/author/funny fucker, came up to visit after a lengthy period of injury. He started out pretty skinny, which helped on the finger cracks, and he's even thinner now. Bob Scarpelli obviously took the other approach:



Other than that, nothing much to report. The semester starts again in about a week, and if I play my cards right I should be able to get out of taking classes this semester, greatly enhancing my scientific productivity and reducing my irritation about wasted time by up to 235%. Campus should also be inundated with undergrads, now mostly born in the 90's, presumably not knowing shit about shit. And overcrowding my favorite bars. Why, oh why couldn't summer have lasted a bit longer?

New things are good things

I've always been easily bored. As a kid I must've played a dozen sports, but not a one of them held my attention for very long - a few years at best, and I certainly never rose above a medium skill level in any of them. Later on, I traveled a bunch, and over the last few years I've picked up my bags and moved - occasionally to other continents - every so often, in order to keep things fresh. The whole switch-cities-every-six-months schtick is getting old, but going new places and seeing new sights never ceases to fascinate me. A good friend once characterized this state of mind as being an "upplevelse-hora", but I'm not sure I'd go quite that far... Recently I've moved (but only a few blocks!) into a new house, taken my first steps into Rocky Mountain National Park, and acquired yet another driver's license.

Moving house was, for once, pretty gratifying. After two semesters in the hotel-like accomodations (and hotel-like prices) of the University Apartments I was beyond ready to find some place new. As luck would have it, my good buddy Joe was moving out of his likewise unglamourous habitation around the same time, and was on the hunt for a new place and new roommates. Somehow he got wind of a great deal: big-ish town house, large garage, very reasonable rent, situated not four blocks from my lab. Nice neighborhood, too:



After a swift inspection and a word with the slightly otherworldly landlord we put pen to paper, along with Pat from the UW ski team as a third man. As an aside, this was before I had passed my assessment exam, so theoretically Joe and Pat could've been left standing with a useless lease as I took the slow plane back to Sweden. They looked faintly panicked when I explained this in detail, but I must admit their faith in my ability to not get fired was flattering. However, when all was said and done there were still three of us in Laramie, and we could move in. Joe and I (Pat had already left for Alaska to work) spent a sweaty Sunday moving hauling literally tons of crap into the place - my contribution was dwarfed by Joe's gargantuan collection of miscellaneous possessions. We quickly settled in:



I finally got a bigger kitchen to dirty up when I get to cooking, too:



And finally, le clue de spectacle, my first ever in-house washer+dryer. No more laundromat for me!



Two other activities that never seem to get old are traveling and climbing, and they combine nicely. I'm on my sixth climbing season now, and the obsession seems to get stronger rather than weaker as time goes by. Climbing always has something new for me: new types of rock, new types of cracks, new places to go. And the fear of instant, messy death by lead fall never gets stale, either. One of the best parts is doing routes I've never seen before, and there's no better way of doing that than going to a novel climbing area. This weekend I hit Lumpy Ridge, one of the premier spots for long climbs on flawless granite in the West. It's located on the eastern edge of Rocky Mountain National Park, an immense expanse of mountainous wilderness in northern Colorado. And from what little I saw of it, it looks durn purty:



I went there with Jen, who hadn't been down to the Park for years and wanted to get some adventure climbing in. Lumpy is sufficiently alpine to offer more adventure than Vedauwoo - long approach hikes, multi-pitch routes, complicated descents and few to no bolts - but close enough to civilization that we couldn't possibly get Really Fucked. The rock is pristine white granite, bulletproof and infinitely more skin-friendly than our local offerings. The crags you scale are a bit more impressive, too:



We chose to climb one of the reputedly finest easy routes in Lumpy Ridge: Mainliner (5.9). It takes one of the many long dihedrals left of the Turnkorner Roof (visible in the picture above), through some interesting bulges, 600 feet straight up the immaculate granite face of Sundance. I didn't quite know what to expect when I got up there, but I was pleasantly surprised: clean lines on beautiful rock, composed mostly of juggy jaunts sharply punctuated by short technical sections. In fact, it was very similar to Swedish granite climbing, just on a bigger scale. We also managed to build in some extra adventure by forgetting the guidebook in Laramie, leaving us only with vague Internet descriptions along the lines of "climb generally left to a sloping area" and "descend east". Due to this lack of information, and being conditioned by Vedauwoo to end each climb on a huge ledge, my climbing tended to take me pretty much as far as the rope would reach - instead of stopping every 100 feet or so. Fortunately for me, this method netted me leads of pretty much all the cool sections on the route. Jen was not amused, but since she was literally on a leash for the duration she just had to like it. It's also symptomatic of my current crack climbing binge that I went "Yes, finally!" when I encounted a flaring, off-width pod at the crux of the route. Locking into the overhanging finger crack above the pod felt infinitely better than frictioning across the low-angle slabs below. After topping out and sharing some celebratory energy bars, we went looking for the descent. It took us a good long while and some dicey down-soloing to locate the gigantic gully we were after, so finding some crunchy-old webbing to rap off was like Christmas in July. After that, we just had to contend with the steep hike back to civilization before we could have icy cold beer:



The last piece of good news is that I'm now licensed to drive in the state of Wyoming - and the rest of the US, for that matter. This is the fourth jurisdiction that grants me a license (Ohio, Sweden and Australia also did, in that order), so I have lots of experience of the process by now. The red tape was much as I remembered it: pass a written and practical test, take a bad picture, fill out documents stating that I'm not insane or without one my limbs, etc. The difference between Sweden and the US is that you cannot possibly fail the tests here if you're even slightly competent behind the wheel of a car. The written test poses questions like "If you're at a railway crossing and see a train coming, you should...?" and offers only one sane alternative of action. I got to demonstrate my somewhat rusty driving skills by heading into town, changing lanes once, turning right three times, and then driving back to the testing station. If I'd been dead drunk or legally blind, that might've presented a problem, but fortunately none of those conditions applied on Monday morning. So all I need to do now is wait for the plastic card to arrive in the mail, and I can stop telling the bartenders "My age is on line three" every time I order a drink. It also means I can get a vehicle of my own, and that's none too soon. There is literally no way of getting out of Laramie without a car, and there's certainly no reason to stay in town if you're not working. Looking forward to an expansion of my horizons - but not looking forward to paying the ever-accelerating price of gasoline. I remember when gas went above $1.50 and people were outraged. Now we've passed $4/gallon and are fast headed for $5. Oh, well, I'll just have to con Tom into continuing to drive my ass up to Vedauwoo...

Summer!

Yes siree, summer finally came to the High Plains. The last two weeks have offered more warm weather than the last six months put together, and I've more than passed my personal mark for Start of the Season: climbing a route without my shirt on. Climbing in Vedauwoo, though, makes you consider that decision carefully. Nonetheless, the sun is shining, my pasty white ass is slowly tanning into something more healthy, and life is good in general. Wyoming summers are beautiful, and nearly make up for the brutal winter weather. One shouldn't be fooled, though -- two weeks ago the temperatures went from 80 degrees and sunshine on Tuesday to 32 degrees and snow showers on Wednesday. The climate could still jump up and smack me one at any given moment. But who cares, when this is what you see on most days:



Now that summer is finally here, I've ramped up the climbing part of my trinity of daily activities (science, climbing and drinking). Several days a week at Vedauwoo and two recent trips (Lander, WY and Black Hills, SD) is putting more than gristle on my bones:



Although I still have a hard time keeping up with Uncle Meat (aka Tom):



Tom is in turn dwarfed by Jeff, former Vedauwoo local and abdicated king of the Buckhorn Saloon. At 6'4'' and a good 230 lbs, Jeff is not just a giant of a man but also the proud owner of the foulest mouth in Wyoming. In my favorite Alpinist article, he gets a worthier write-up than I could provide here. The story about the deaf-mute girl alone (ending with the line "Well, at least there wasn't any small-talk!") had me alternating between laughing and going "God, that's so wrong!", and there were infinitely worse tales to come that day. But despite it all, he still floats up 5.12 sport routes at will, which is remarkable for a man of his build:



I had a great weekend up in Lander with Tom, Jeff and Tim, another ex-Laramite. The endless yanking on plastic this winter finally paid off as I onsighted 5.11a and toproped my way up 5.12a. This was lightyears beyond anything I'd climbed previously, and I was pleasantly surprised by the limestone in Sinks Canyon. It felt a bit odd at first - there's no such thing as limestone sport climbing in Sweden - but it obviously suits me quite well. Rumor has it that Wild Iris, another couple of miles up the road, caters even better to my brute-force-over-delicate-balance method of ascent. Can't wait to go there!

At the home crag, the race to get in shape (or get back there in Tom's case) has been on for a couple of weeks. We've gotten horribly spanked on a variety of burly climbs (e.g. Flying Buttress), had some bouldering success (I finally passed the bathang move on Nats Three Star Roof) and gotten close on the straight-forward-but-pumpy classic Spectreman. Neither one of us was anywhere near sending Women's Work, but I got some pretty sweet shots of it:





Most recently I've been off to the Black Hills, South Dakota. Tom was meeting old friends of his from New Mexico, who had been swearing up and down for years that the Needles housed some of the most unique climbing in the West. I tagged along, happy to get to travel a little bit. However, after reading up on where we were going, I was slightly apprenhensive: the Needles have a vicious reputation for being slabby and extremely runout. I can deal with being far above my last piece if I'm feeling solid (e.g. locked into a crack or on huge jugs), but I hate slab - mostly because I'm so bad at it.

My first surprise had nothing to do with climbing, though, and everything to do with landscape. When we rolled into the Black Hills late on Friday, a strong feeling of familiarity crept up on me. After I took a closer look, I realized that I'd just arrived in the US equivalent of northern Sweden:



The more I looked, the more I felt that I'd traveled half-way around the world just to arrive back in Norrland. Bit of a bummer, to tell you the truth - I like my destinations kind of exotic. But I was soon treated to some of that: wild turkeys were running around, chipmunks bounced off the trees and the rock formations were really weird:



As for the climbing, it was mostly as expected. The "classics" included horrific runouts on slick feldspar crystals that would occasionally pop off and send you flying. Topping out some of the thin spires was a real trip, though, and if you're brave enough (I certainly wasn't!) you can try the Needles rappel:



After the first day we were not amused, but the fact that we got consistently either spanked (on 5.10) or scared witless (on 5.8) probably had something to do with that. The climbing at the Needles is so far removed from both Vedauwoo and Sinks Canyon that it might as well not be the same sport. Pessimism quickly set in.

Our second day turned out way better, though. After a slow start (beer takes its toll) we found ourselves at the base of the Conn Diagonal. At 5.7, its three pitches promised to be a pleasant romp. The climb is fairly unique: it follows a gigantic flake several hundred feet up a sheer cliff face, creating easier climbing with fantastic exposure. I was fairly gripped on some of the less secure moves (one is required to climb the outside of the flake occasionally), but the going was easy enough that it was fairly enjoyable. The second pitch is a spectacular hand traverse with hundreds of feet of empty air below your feet, and pitch three delivers you safe into the bosom of a friendly chimney. All in all, highly recommended.

After coming off the Diagonal, Tom spotted something in the distance that he'd seen in Climbing magazine recently. What looked like a thin-ish crack from afar split the Egg spire almost in half, promising severly overhung climbing at the start:



With two days of mincing around on teensy footholds behind us, it was time for revenge, and Michael's Crack (maybe 5.11+) could provide it. The crux, however, proved to be pretty fiddly itself (passing a wide pod at the lip of a roof):



Once you scream your way past the lip (applying anger always helps in situations like these), you still have to contend with 20 feet of overhanging hands/cups/fists:



Unfortunately, once the angle lessens the crack widens to rattly fists and the rock quality turns to absolute shit. Loose blocks and licheny footholds abound, which disqualifies the climb from a list of real classics. The first half of it is spectacular, though, and worth the suffering up top. Another 20 ascents or 5 hours with the Umeå Crew would probably set it straight. Pity it's in the middle of a National Park... Think we could sneak in at night?