Birthday: September 13
Hometown: Townsville, Australia
Bio: Click here
Contact: Danielle@alt9.net

We meant to meet up with Rory today but he wasn't due back into town until late so we headed to the movie theater and saw "The Break-Up" (it had some funny moments). I really wanted to see the 4th of July parade through downtown but after the first movie we looked outside and saw that a storm had moved in so we went back for a second movie - "The Lake House" (which was pretty good). After spending so much time in front of tv and movie screens I had a nasty headache so we just parked the car where we had a good view of the fireworks and I think I fell asleep watching them. Not a bad way to end the fourth.

I think my head was still a bit out of it from Smith Rock and I had a shaky start but I finished up with a 10+ which felt good. Meghan was climbing so well and jumped on some more really hard stuff that looked awesome.

We met Rory's brother Nate and his Polish "brother" Thomas and had a big dinner with everyone. After dinner the guys headed off and Meghan and Rory's sisters Felicia and Elizabeth and I watched a movie and used up the leftover sparklers and noise-makers from the 4th of July. I think we woke up some of the neighbors but it was great fun.

Playing with the glow-sticks with Felicia

Luckily, after driving for a while a white car pulled up along side us and a very nice guy said that he had seen us drive by looking for a spot and saw that we had traveled so far and offered us a spot at his camp with his family. Lucky break! So we went and met some of the family (the Keefe's) and set up our tent.

Another lucky break is that the guy, Kevin, has been coming to City of Rocks for years and knows a lot of the areas. Lucky because we also didn't have a guidebook and the visitors center where we could buy one was closed. Yes, we were well-prepared for this part of the trip! So after setting up camp Kevin took the three of us out to one of the climbing areas and we got in a few climbs before it got dark and we headed back to camp. When we got back we met the rest of the family (who are all really cool!)and we all made our dinners and chatted before going to bed.

After getting back to camp Rory, Meg and I took off to try some routes that Kevin suggested. We did our first climb that needed a two rope rappel. It takes so long to set everything up for three of us to climb and then rappel. It was a really hard climb for me and one of the scariest things I've ever done. I don't know how I even made it to the top I was such a wreck. I really don't like high (50 or 60ft?) climbs on slabs. Not my idea of fun. Meg was the first one up and did a crazy scary lead. She ended up missing a bolt and being about 20ft above her last one because she went up left (the way that looked right) but needed to go up right and once you were up left you just had to keep going up and up before you could cross back over to the right. Yuk. Once Meg was up she belayed me from the top and then also belayed Rory. Then we rappelled down one at a time. Fun.

By the time we were done we needed lunch. We also needed gas so we headed for the nearest town (far too far away) to fill up and then headed back to the City to find Kevin and his kids.

We did a couple of climbs with them and then went to check out some other climbs nearby.

This place is so beautiful. The rocks all have such character and they are so big. As you drive in you see an ocean of green grasses with ships of rocks spread out around. A lot of the rocks are actually off limits either because they are on private land or because they have historical significance. The Oregon Trail ran right through here and there is apparently one place where you can still see the wagon wheel ruts and there are several rocks that have names and dates marked on them with wagon grease. That barely seems to leave a dent on the amount of rocks that you can climb there are just so many.

One problem we've run into is that the guide book doesn't really give you a good idea about which climbs are sport (bolted) and which ones are trad (you need to place your own protection). That makes it difficult when you only sport climb. It's also difficult here because the bolts are pretty sparse and the first one seems to always be at least 20ft off the ground. That's not a very comfortable feeling, having to climb so high before you get any protection.

Meghan, Allicia and I headed to the nearest phone to call Alicia's mom to ask her to video the World Cup finals for us to watch tonight (very important!) and then we met up with Rory, Kevin, Danielle, Tory and Jeff and did some climbing.

The climbs today were so much better for me than the ones yesterday. More straight up and down walls with real, albeit small, holds (for hands and feet!). The first climb was a 5.10a which was pretty cool. I also did a fun 5.7 crack route that was cool - I haven't really done any crack climbing before, and although you may not actually call this a "crack" climb, there were a couple of hand jams and some funky foot work. Meghan and Rory did a cool - and really hard-looking - 5.11 to finish the day. I had wanted to try it but after a little accident belaying Meghan (involving my hand, a belay device and quite some pain), I decided to call it a day.

After climbing we packed up our car, the Keefe's packed up theirs and we headed to the visitor center for some lunch before getting back on the road.

The Keefe's have kindly offered to let us stay at their place tonight so that we can shower and get some good sleep before heading to Montana tomorrow. Talk about hospitality :)

I forgot to mention the chipmunks. I've never seen chipmunks up close before, they are so cute! The ones around the camp are so used to being fed that they walk right up to you and jump on the table. Talk about nerve. Meghan and I were sitting on the ground next to the table reading our books and a chipmunk came up and sat on my leg!!! It didn't stay long but it was pretty cool! We also saw a woodpecker about 10ft from us and we could hear cows moo-ing and there were also apparently coyotes. Animals everywhere. I wish I'd gotten some photos...

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