What has Sam been up to? Josie and I took a great road trip.

First, We drove out through Sonora pass, to a hot spring near Tonopah, NV, then the next day went on to the Paria Canyon area of Utah, and hiked the Paria and Wire Pass Canyons. Red sandstone is incredible, and man, wire pass gets narrow and crazy. almost 200 feet deep and less than 6 feet wide!

After that, we were planning on heading to Red Rocks Canyon near Las Vegas, but we realized it was going to be either brutally hot, so we instead headed to Idyllwild, and Mount San Jacinto, and climbed two days at Suicide Rock. It was pretty wild face climbing there, sporadically bolted and other places with natural pro. Josie talked me into leading a 5.9 face, and I did it great, even though it got a little runout in my opinion.

After that, we drove on up towards Sequoia Nat'l forest, and went on a 3 day backpacking trip to Jordan Hot Springs in Golden Trout wilderness. It was a wild place, where there were just tons of springs, travertine deposits, odd bubbling bogs, and nothing you could soak any more than your feet in... so in some ways it was a little of a bust, as we were expecting a big soaking pool like some of the better pools of the east side (Travertine near Bridgeport, Hot Tub near Mammoth Lakes, and Buckeye come to mind). The area was just strange, funny patches of iridescent colored rocks and grasses, long strings of algae hanging down from overhanging travertine rocks.

That's about it. Hiking canyons, climbing granite, backpacking out. Yay!

Picture is of the Wire Pass slot canyon. I'll probably post a few more.