Heading to Alabama Hills

Kids enjoyed playing in the desert.

A long awaited moment had come: after a half day of packing we waved granny goodbye and drove out, direction Tehachapi. The weather had been nasty throughout December and finally a somewhat drier window opened in the forecasts — fortunately just in the week between Christmas and New Year.

We went straight for (Vietnamese) Blue Ginger in Tehachapi, but it was closed. A favorite Chinese buffet disappeared altogether; at least King of Siam across the street looked functional. Entering from the frosty night into the restaurant, I noticed some families with children eating there — a table at the door was fully occupied by a large group. A server started showing us to our table, when some Czech yelps emerged from the party — it was Brehs with their Swiss neighbors. It would seem that all roads lead to Tehachapi here (as opposed to Rome).

A disappointment awaited Tom in the morning. A model of Tehachapi loop in the diner was missing a train. I missed a waffle that they did not have, but quickly solved it by ordering French toast. Some two and half hours later, we were checking out a grocery store in Lone Pine, bought a few things for picnic and headed to Alabama Hills. Given some reports of catastrophic floodings I was nervously scanning the unpaved Movie Road and subsequently our unmarked turn-off for any chance of a mudpool, but all was well. The road carried clear signs of flood streams, but they were all dry.

Climbing pictures situated from below are always dominated by a butt.

Hippo faithfully belayed the whole time.

At Paul's Paradise, juniors shot out of the car and proceeded to scramble on rocks in the desert. Hippo and I meanwhile slowly re-packed our bags so that we could move to the southern (warmed-up) side of the rock and did not have to return for stuff. After a moment of disorientation among the boulders we found the balcony with bolted routes and unpacked our snacks. Then I tied up and led a route, which I know from last year and which I found easy. Hippo gave it up shortly before finish. I went up the neighboring one, which I never climbed before, but according to the guide was 5.7 or 5.8 (i.e. easy), and it was — and I also liked it.

Here I'm encountering a problem with Alabama Hills. Guide books are either very brief, noting only about a third of existing routes. Without a proper description, it's really difficult to recognize what one is scrambling up on, so I rather stick to known or well explored parts. Later at home I found an internet guide, which is a little bit easier to use, and according to it I had climbed Sweet Pete (5.7) and De Hambone (taky 5.7). There's another sports climb, possibly Filthy Pete (5.6), which I climbed a year ago and which I did not like. Then we advanced around to the western face. Some chaps were climbing a crack there. They kindly let us have a look at their guide (Bishop Area), yet it did not make me any smarter either.

I had climbed this before.

Lisa is focusing mostly through her tongue.

And on we went to the northern (or north-western) face, where I know of climbable routes. I had quite a hard time around the first bolt, eventually I swang on my rope when a ledge gave way under my hand. I managed to top it somehow, clipped to an anchor on the left and top-roped another route there. According to the internet, I had led an unnamed 5.9 and top-roped North Face (5.8), but by my reckoning, I would rate them the other way.

Lisa said that she, too, wanted to climb, and we made the full circle to the eastern part, which is not shown in any guide, but contains one very easy practicing route, and a slab from the same anchor. Lisa tried just a bit and started to scream that she wants to go down. Hippo screamed much less and climbed a little higher, but with about the same effect. So I went up the slab, as to not feel left out. Kids ran away checking out a dry seasonal creek bed, I felt my fingers hurting (rock is very rough here) and the sun started setting, and temperatures nose-dived. It must have been in low forties the whole day, but you could last in the sun just in a sweat-shirt. When the sun vanished, dawn jacket was on order.

Hippo drove our bus slowly towards Movie Road and I joined the kids, discovering the wonders of a dry creek, until it cut across the road and we met with our transport. We went to the hotel checking for heater being on (we got rather cold on our previous night in Tehachapi). While there, we discovered that we got a very nice room, but the toilet looked like somebody was trying to bathe a dog, which subsequently ran away (a dirty foam on the toilet lid). Whether the janitor had poured dirty water from a bucket into the toilet and didn't flush, or whatever else happened there, we don't know; fortunately while we were off for dinner, the hotel people fixed it. Mentioning dinner, the family was unanimous — we were going to Pizza Factory. It's not cheap (especially given our kids' appetite), but it's good once in a while. Then we stuffed juniors in the tub — for five dollars extra we had reserved a room with a whirlpool, which was not large enough for my Hippo, but kids liked it very much. I am not sure whether the yelling and splashing and running bubbles was equally enjoyed by our neighbors.

Junior got themselves soaking wet in the snow.

Lisa in Mosaic Canyon.

We had our breakfast with an amazing view to a snow-capped Sierra Nevada. Since my family had shown a great deal of love and patience on the previous day, and endured many hours of climbing, time had come to execute a program more befitting the whole expedition. It was not too hard — to take the bus on Whitney Portal Road until we could not drive anymore, and release ecstatic children into the snow. I thought it was a good idea to dress them in snow-pants, but perhaps it gave them a false impression of warm and dry — after two hours running in snow and pushing through snow-banks, they were taken aback by having wet feet — they would sometimes sink in to the waist, and picked it up by their boots.

Back at the hotel, the children were issued dry shoes and we all set out to warm up in Death Valley. Not that it would be too much warmer there (the desert cools off fast), but at least there was no snow laying around. We started by a walk in Mosaic Canyon, but Tom was obnoxious about wanting to go to the dunes. Sometimes his memory of places and connections crushes me like a press. Sand Dunes were a success, again. That is, besides my sudden and violent urge to go to the bathroom. As if to compensate, the setting sun finally peeked through the clouds and gradually illuminated the desert in fantastic colors, and we had plenty to photograph.

On the other hand, clouds moving in caused us a few wrinkles on our foreheads. Our original plan counted with Moab and Arches, but the forecast looked rather hostile — continued snowfall in Utah, which did not strike us as a good conditions for traveling with our bus, and road-tripping in general. With heavy hearts, we called it off. At breakfast in our hotel in Lone Pine on Wednesday, we noticed that Sierra Nevada had disappeared in clouds and a storm was truly approaching. We packed and amids showers began to return to the west. Within these few days, the desert (literally) turned green, and we had several opportunities to admire amazing rainbows. Crossing the Tehachapi Pass, we entered an area of sustained rain, and even were forced to abandon our plan to visit the railroad loop from the parking lot — after courageously fording a creek which found its way across the highway, we got stuck at a road closure — the only option was to return to the freeway and continue home.

Tom finally reached his sand dunes.

Sun cast this light on the dunes shortly before setting.

On Thursday I exectued the "ball lightning" operation — I took all possible (and impossible) stuff out of the bus and moved mine and Sid's parts into our wagon (subaru). We decided to sweeten our unplanned, early return from the trip by accepting Kovar's invitation for New Year's Eve skiing. We had been on skis for total two afternoons within previous eight years, in both cases before Lisa got born. Thus packing also consisted of archeological digs of the type, finding ski boots, sweeping out dust and spiders and cobwebs, discovering whether our skis and poles had survived somewhere (only partial success there). Then we had to arrange with Vendula and Bára, who shall bring what and if it was possible to borrow or rent missing parts of our gear.

On Friday we re-started our old tradition — we bought take-out sandwiches in a small deli in Pioneer and by twelve thirty we parked at Kirkwoodu. I discovered there that my cell phone wasn't working; Sid's phone was OK (for some reason, my phone was blocked, but they said they'd fix it) and Vendulka awaited us "in the cabin", alias rented one-bedroom condo, which, however, with its interior more resembles a mountain cabin. We borrowed what we could (I got skis, trousers and a jacket, Hippo got skis) and set out on the slopes. I was pleasantly surprised that skiing cannot be forgotten, although I cannot deny that some of it must be attributed to those proper skis.

Soon my Hippo began to squeal that his legs were aching, and despite him being a much better skier than me, he fell behind and kept resting and whimpering. I longed to ski more, in part to keep warm, for after two pregnancies my feet are wider, and my ski boots got too tight and my feet freeze in them. Still I would not hesitate to declare our skiing a success.

Rainbow in the desert.

Fireworks.

When lifts stopped moving, the whole gang got together in the "cabin" — some snacks materialized and some beer "evaporated", while we were all taking turns in using the bathroom. Given the nature of this accommodation, everyone (except for Bára) ended up in long pant underwear, or in better cases, sweat-pants, thus the atmosphere was truly "friendly". By six we sent masked sentries to find out when the New Year's Eve Program was going to begin. Sentries returned very quickly — reporting that lifts were already transporting torch-equipped volunteers up-slope, and fireworks were about to break out. And so we all spilled out relatively fast to see the show. I would like to mention that I consider it very humane from the ski resort management, to plan the public performances early in the evening — I was personally anticipating that by ten o'clock in the evening we would be all fast asleep after that day's worth of skiing.

This, strangely, did not occur so. I attribute it to a ingenious plan to pack Fernet along with us. Earlier we had observed that the amount of singing is directly proportional to volume of ingested Fernet, and we did not hesitate this time and sacrificed our last stash. What more, Bára under the influence of Fernet tends to play less sad songs than without it. Eventually we stayed up well past midnight; the only one napping was Martin. He was the only one not joining in our midnight outdoors stroll that refreshed our foggy heads a bit.

New year's toast.

First time on skis after eight years.

It snowed in the morning and even our very eager skier Martin did not rush to get on the slopes. We had a long, slow breakfast, one by one performing the necessary excavationary steps (e.g. coffee in my case) and started to contemplate skiing by eleven o'clock. Pavel and Martin got our first, I lingered till twelve-thirty, when they start selling half-day (cheaper) lift tickets. Hippo refused to ski on account of a hangover and general laziness. Eventually I skied with Vendula and Bára, most of the day only catching glimpses of the guys. A crazy wind blew on the back side of the mountain, but because it immediately covered up previous ski tracks, one could float in a foot of powder. Then they closed up the lift right behind our backs, and we became the last people on the slope. The girls wanted to go down through Thunder Saddle, I stayed on a regular course. Practically alone at that, which was a scary feeling until I spotted ski patrol on the lift, who (I hope) check the slope and herd all wayward sheep. Then I joined with the girls at the bottom of the lift again and we moved on to ski the front (main) side. We lasted till closing time, although my feet felt (literally) cold again. It looks like I'd need those new boots after all.

By five in the afternoon we were all packed up and sped off to liberate our granny from the clutches of our children. Tom had been allegedly obnoxious, not taking well our absence; Blanka came to rescue and came visiting with all theri kids, inviting them over for lunch on New Year's Day. When we spoke about it with Sid, we discovered that this had been the first New Year's party we had ever been to since married — most of the New Years we are speeding somewhere, on or off roads, and there's no time or need for partying. Connecting a celebration with skiing seems to be a very positive endeavor, and we hope to repeat it.