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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 7     June 27 - July 3
 
DATE: June 28
ENTRY: Climbing on the beach is so much fun. Moonstone Beach yesterday was great and Lost Rocks today was great too.It seems like most people that come down here spend a few days and camp. It's not surprising given how nasty the hike down here is. I've never walked (stumbled) through such thick vegetation before. The climbers we met at the top who were leaving as we arrived weren't joking about wanting a machete - it really would have helped. I was very impressed with the way Meg made it down with a crash pad on her back without falling at all. On the other hand, I managed to land on my butt twice and take a couple of slides without even carrying a crash pad.

We didn't even get to explore half of the climbing on the beach which apparently stretched south for about two miles. we were pretty content climbing the boulders within a short walk of where the trail let us out. That was enough to keep us occupied for the day. Once again is was too cold though. I'm excited to climb on a beach where it is actually warm sometime. It takes away just a little of the fun when you are shivering between climbs.

We met a few cool climbers during the day and quite a few cool older people who kept stopping by the top of the trail to enjoy the view. Strangely enough we even met some people who live near Elephant Rocks in Missouri where we're heading at the end of July.

I wouldn't mind spending another day here but it would take a lot to convince me to go back down that trail again, and I think Meg agrees. So I guess we'll be taking off for Portland.


On the trail - smiling before the jungle got really wild
 
DATE: June 30
ENTRY: I had an awesome day today. We stayed at a motel last night so I got to sleep in (9am!)! And we watched a great game of soccer on TV (Germany vs. Argentina - it went through overtime and on to penalty kicks). We found the Portland Rock Gym and discovered that we'd arrived on one of their free bouldering days (great timing!) and spent about an hour and a half climbing hard, fun problems. Then we headed over to the Portland airport and met up with Meghan's sister Tammie and her 1-year-old Tanner (who is SO cute!) who had a stopover in Portland the same day we were here - perfect timing!

Then Meg and I headed back to the gym, with a detour for some ice-cream, and then spent another four hours of amazing climbing.  I think today was the best day of climbing for both of us on this trip. We jumped on really hard problems, overhanging stuff, crimpy and slopey and had an awesome time. It's funny how when you're having such a great time you don't get nearly as frustrated with not being able to do moves. It's still frustrating but you can say whatever and jump back on or move on to the next problem without it becoming a big deal.

At the end we started climbing some problems with a couple of really locals (hi Abbey!) and had a great chat with Kenny, the GM of the gym who really kindly leant us a guidebook for Smith Rock (where we're heading next). Great times in Portland! I wish we could come back tomorrow and keep working on some of these problems. I jumped on more V5's today than ever before and I onsighted my first V4. Pretty cool. My fingers are so sore right now though. I feel like they are nearly as sore as they were at Horsepens 40 in Alabama.
 
DATE: July 1
ENTRY: Happy Birthday Andre! Meghan and I are sitting in the car listening to Fiona Apple play across the river. We got into Bend, Oregon this afternoon and saw that she and Damien Rice were playing tonight. Pretty cool lineup! We couldn't afford to buy tickets ($40 each!) but were basically handed two tickets as we walked up to the gate. Awesome. I love Damien Rice who I first saw in NYC a few years ago and I've never seen Fiona Apple live so it's pretty cool. The concert is at a park on the river and the sunset was really beautiful. It's a really nice setting. We just headed back to the car because it was getting too cold - we didn't have out jackets because we weren't really expecting to get in.

We spent the afternoon walking around downtown Bend and had some great ice-cream (we've been eating so much ice-cream lately!) and also found a really great outdoor/sports shop that was having an amazing sale (20% off everything and 50% off all winter gear!). But we were able to control ourselves and managed not to buy anything (shocking). Then we found a really cute craft market across from the library and proceeded to lose out control and bought some cute stuff there.

Fiona is singing one of my favorite songs of hers. This is very cool.

Last night we slept in the car between Portland and Bend and had a nice drive out through the mountains in the morning. We stopped to take a look at and get some pictures of Mt. Hood and read all about the crazy fires that they had here in 2003.

Another Fiona Apple fav: Fast As You Can

Also at the craft market we got talking with a local guy who knows Smith Rock and we got a rundown of the places we should head to (thanks!). We'll be heading out there early tomorrow, hopefully the whole of central Oregon won't also be there! :)

 
DATE: July 2
ENTRY: Smith Rock is beautiful and really really hot. We got in to the camping area in the early afternoon and set up camp and made lunch and then drove to the top of the trail. The hike down isn't too bad but it's pretty far when you have heavy packs on your backs. We had the guidebook that we'd loaned from the Portland Rock Gym so we headed to an area that looked like it had some good warm-ups and dropped off our stuff. The warm-ups weren't as easy as I'd hoped. It really is strange climbing here if you've never done it before. I think Meg explained it pretty well in her journal so I won't go too into it but I can say that it really hurt my feet! Standing on those little knobs in the sun is not fun. I did onsight a 5.10b which felt really good but it didn't feel so good that the 5.8 and 5.9 also felt like 10b's :)

We also found some "classic" climbs and jumped on them and I think we'll be heading back here tomorrow to try some more that we didn't have time to do today. We left just as it was getting dark and got back to camp and cooked and played cards till late.
 
DATE: July 3
ENTRY: We got up early to climb but not as early as we'd have liked and it was pretty hot by the time we got down there. We went back to the same area as yesterday. I got on another "classic" 5.8 and got totally freaked out. I don't know why but it really scared the heck out of me. I think it had something to do with (1) being soooo high and (2) the rock being hollow and sounding as though it was going to give way each time I grabbed it. Not fun. I wasn't so into jumping back on the wall after that so I told Meg she had to do some climbs :) I'm really proud of her for getting up and leading two really hard climbs. One of them looked ridiculous and I can only imagine how bad it was up there in that heat.

After she's done the hard climbs it was mid afternoon and we were hot and tired so we headed back to camp, packed up and made some lunch. We had planned to go into the nearest city (Redmond) and get online and then come back out for an afternoon session but after we'd been in Redmond for a while a storm rolled in and we decided to hit the highway again.

I started driving (only my fourth time driving so far - hey, I'm still getting used to driving on the right side of the road). About and hour into the drive we passed through some more storm and then had the most beautiful sunset so far. There were storm clouds on three sides of us and the sky was pink in front of us and pink and orange behind us. The pictures on the photos page barely show how beautiful it was. It made the driving easier and reminded me of how much I used to love highway driving (when there is nice stuff to look at).
 

 

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Weekly favorites:

Music:
Fiona Apple
Damien Rice
Alanis Morissette

Climb:
Portland Rock Gym

Snack:
Ice Cream