|
Danielle Jablonski
New York, NY
Birthday:
September 13
Hometown:
Townsville, Australia
Bio:
Click here
Contact:
Danielle@alt9.net
|
|
|
|
Diary
entries: |
|
|
|
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Week 12 |
|
|
|
Week 5
June 13 - 19 |
|
|
|
DATE:
June 13 |
|
ENTRY:
Zak and
Rachael took us out climbing today and
got us trying out new areas that we
otherwise wouldn't have found or tried.
It's so much better to have someone show
you around than to try to work your way
through guidebooks. Not that this area
even has a guidebook which made things a
little difficult anyway. The locals want
to keep these areas a little secret I
think but I hope there will be a
guidebook at some point - there are so
many cool rocks out here that people
(like us!) should be able to find :) |
|
|
|
DATE:
June 14 |
|
ENTRY:
Climbing in Flagstaff. The rock is great
(but a little slimy from the chalk and
heat) and the wind is crazy. I can see
how forest fires could be such a huge
concern. We've been informed that we are
lucky that we can even be climbing right
now - when the weather gets bad (extra
hot and dry) forest areas outside the
city can be off-limits for months at a
time. The risk of fires is too great to
let anybody out there. That would have
been a bummer for our plans. As it is
there are apparently fires around the
outskirts of the city. We can smell the
smoke in the air. |
|
|
|
DATE:
June 15 |
|
ENTRY:
Another day of climbing and taking lots
of photos. I jumped on a really cool
overhanging problem that seemed way too
hard for me but I ended up sending it (yay!).
I wish I'd worked more on another of the
problems that Meghan and Rory finished
but I didn't have the nerve. It was a
little too scary. Next time I'm out this
way I'd really like to try it work it.
All in all I had a great time in
Flagstaff. I liked the city a lot and
the climbing at Priest Draw was very
cool. Between us arriving right in time
for Flagstaff Pride, and me sending some
of the coolest problems I think I've
ever done, it's been a great stop.
Thanks
again to Zak and Rachael for putting us
up for such a long time (!) and hi to
Sunny, Brad and the other climbers we
met up with while we were there. |
|
|
|
DATE:
June 16 |
|
ENTRY:
I slept through the California border
but woke up to see the biggest wind farm
ever. Miles and miles of windmills
of every size and facing in every
direction on every bit of land you could
see (flat, hilly, mountains). Go
California! It's dry and hot but the
mountains are beautiful. The drive up
Black Mountain was long and rough -
don't even try it without a 4 wheel
drive! We bottomed out the back of the
car I don't know how many times.
The
rock is beautiful and big. Some
of the boulders are just massive but
we're having a really hard time finding
ones to climb. The guide we have is
pretty incomplete and the problems all
seem to be super hard. I see chalk marks
on the rocks where people have been
climbing but I have no idea what they
were actually trying to hold on to!
We
ended up hiking up to the top of the
mountain instead of climbing. It was a
little more strenuous than I'd realized
it would be but the view was well worth
it.
We're
now one month into our trip and it feels
like we just left. It's going to be
finished before we know it. It feels
like it will be hard to go back to our
normal lives but then there is a month
and a half of living out of this car yet
so there's still plenty of time to get
sick of it! |
|
|
|
DATE:
June 17 |
|
ENTRY:
Heading down the road from Black
Mountain. We spent a day and a half here
and decided to move on to somewhere
where we could do more climbing. The
drive back down the mountain reminds me
of a James Bond movie. - driving along
narrow winding roads on the side of a
mountain with the beautiful landscape
falling away beside us. Maybe I've just
watched too many James Bond movies...
The
campsite was great - our view of the
sunset from the top of the mountain with
the sun dropping behind the mountains
off in the distance. We got some pretty
cool pics.
I woke
up a couple of times in the night
thinking that the wind might blow our
tents (and us) off the edge of the
mountain. The wind here is almost as
crazy as it was in Flagstaff!
We ran
out of water this morning (our second
day here). That, coupled with the lack
of climbing for us helped us decide that
we should head down and go check out
Joshua Tree for a day. It's nice to be
able to be flexible with our plans and
fit in an extra day here or there. We
almost ran out of gas too, but that's
another story... |
|
|
|
DATE:
June 18 |
|
ENTRY:
We're sitting inside a coffee house in
Bishop, California eating very expensive
bagels (we didn't know they'd be so
expensive!) Joshua Tree had seemed like
a good idea but then it got late and we
didn't really know where we were going.
So with the extra 2 days we have we
decided to head north to Bishop. We
hadn't planned to come here, I can't
remember why we took it off our list of
places to visit, but I'm glad we'll get
to check it out after all. |
|
|
|
DATE:
June 19 |
|
ENTRY:
Whirlwind stop in Bishop. The wind here
was crazy too. We ended up sleeping in
the car last night because the wind
pulled the tent stakes out of the
ground! We had a good lunch of curry and
rice before getting back in the car to
head into Bishop and re-supply and work
out where in San Francisco we are
heading. The Buttermilks (one of the
climbing areas outside Bishop) was
beautiful. Lots of highball boulders
(40ft!) that I was not going to
get on. And the down-climbs off even the
smaller boulders were pretty dodgy. I
think I would definitely come back here
and spend longer sometime in the future
but only if I cam out with someone who
knew the area and could give me good
beta. I'm looking up at all these
boulders thinking "what the hell am I
supposed to do here?".
I'm glad
we came though, albeit for such a short
time. It's one of the most beautiful
landscapes I've seen so far. What with
the huge boulders littering the hillside
and the snow-capped mountains behind
them.
I
finished reading "Like A Knife" by Annie
Soloman the other day (go Annie! - I
loved it!) and I've started on "the Kite
Runner". I'm glad to be doing some
reading finally. |
|
|
|
(The writings in these
blogs are our personal
views, not those of any of our sponsors,
so
please don't send them any nasty
emails!) |
