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Woops, in my rant state of mind I almost forgot today is Thanksgiving! Good to look at life and pick a few things to be thankful for. I thank God I’m still able to get out in the beautiful wild and do things like rock climbing. That’s my son and myself up on a cliff somewhere in Joshua Tree. Practicing all those old crack climbing technique brought back good memories — even if the difficulty grade is a four levels below where those techniques used to come in handy.
We accessed this climb by hiking a small distance out of the Indian Cove campground, up a boulder filled canyon that had to be one of the worst (and therefore most humorous) “400 yard” approaches I’ve ever seen suggested in a guidebook. This one was filled with an amazing jumble of boulders reminiscent of trying to hike the rubble of a building after an earthquake collapse — combined with thorn bushes. Like I said, humorous. The climbs were worth it.
WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder Lou (Louis Dawson) has a 50+ years career in climbing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. He was the first person in history to ski down all 54 Colorado 14,000-foot peaks, has authored numerous books about about backcountry skiing, and has skied from the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest mountain.
