It was fun watching the odometer on our van tick over 110,000 miles.
We’ve travelled over 13,000 miles on this trip. It made me think back over some of the awesome places we’d been to and the great people we’d met over the last nine months. Such wonderful memories! I don’t really know what I was thinking, but for some reason, I just didn’t think this trip would ever end. But as they say in the classics, “all good things come to an end”. I don’t care much for this saying...
Mars’ shoulder wasn’t improving and therefore very little climbing was done in the last few months. So we made the decision to end our trip earlier than expected L. At that moment of realisation, I cried a lot! Never mind that it was actually Mars who was in pain. I was never happier than when we were tucked up in our van after a big day out climbing, cracking dumb jokes, laughing and drinking cheap wine out of a tin cup. But, the upside is coming home and seeing family and friends. We are currently staying in Natimuk and can still be contacted via the usual email addresses etc. We’ve pretty much settled into Nati for the time being, so come & see us! I couldn’t think of a better way to keep the trip alive.
So, I’ll do my best to wrap up the final months of our trip together (with pics)…..
After we left Vegas in December, the plan was to climb in Joshua Tree National Park. I say ‘plan’ because we turned up there in an absolute hurricane with snow-flakes floating all around us. We lasted one night there in the freezing cold and decided to head straight down to Mt Lemmon, Tucson, Arizona. The weather was a little better there. There was quite a lot of snow on Mt Lemmon, so we were very limited to climbing on the lower mountain (The Hairpin, Ruins, etc). The climbing was OK, but not great. I assume the good stuff was higher up where we couldn’t get to.
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| Tucson, Arizona |
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| The last (disabled) Titan Misile - Tucson, Arizona |
So after a Christmas of Mariachi & Margaritas in Tucson, we headed back up to J-Tree in California where the weather was really improving. It was just stunning winter climbing! We climbed in singlets and it was even warm enough to do campground yoga again. The town of J-Tree seemed to come alive in winter with a whole new range of cool little cafes and vintage shops opening up. This was peak time for J-Tree climbing.
We celebrated New Years J-Tree style – bbq, campfire (which burnt out by 9pm), wine, etc etc etc. The fire brigade and police turned up at about 2am to put out a fire at someone else’s campsite, which was the most excitement we’d had since midnight.
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| Sunset at Joshua Tree (winter) - hard to believe that it was only 5pm |
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| Ha - not so vertically challenged now! |
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| Gnarly cracks at Joshua Tree |
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| Conans Corridor, Joshua Tree - thats Mars waaaay back there! |
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| We could just it through the corridor with packs on |
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| The beautiful sunset at Joshua Tree - New Years Eve 2011 |
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| Cairn art - Joshua Tree |
We then did some touristy stuff at Sedona and the Grand Canyon before heading back to Tucson with the plan to head across to Hueco Tanks, Texas for some bouldering. I didn’t anticipate the 3 week wait before we could get a reservation at Hueco. That put a bit of a spanner into the works. So, we just ended up staying out of town at a place called Tucson Mountain Park. I was looking for some bouldering and managed to find one “good” bouldering area at Gates Pass, which kept me entertained for about 30 minutes. But the weather was warm and we had a cheap campsite – with electricity!
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| Bouldering at Gates Pass, Tucson |
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| Sunsets just seem to get more stunning - Gates Pass, Tucson |
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| Our van! I miss him.... |
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| A cool art installation (permanent) in Tuscon |
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| Skiing at the top of Mt Lemmon |
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| Beautiful Sedona, Arizona |
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| Between a vortex and a hard place |
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| More Sedona |
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| The Grand Canyon |
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| The Grand Canyon, Arizona |
To be continued....
