Hiking up Mt. Ruskin ridge with Arrowhead Peak looking awesome in background
To have an adventure there must be uncertainty and typically discomfort which pays off with surprise, presence and exploration. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in Kings Canyon and for this backpacking trip I wanted to get back into the high country and access an off-trail, high elevation lakes basin. A loose plan, an opportunistic permit grab and a cursory Summit Post look at a peak was all that I needed to push my self physically, feel like I was in a wilderness, have scrambling fun and be surprised by maybe the most beautiful, blue alpine lake I’ve ever seen on this 36mi, 13,000 ft, 3 day trip.
Two days before my flight a forest fire had started just outside our booked campsite and reservations were canceled, the forecast had rain every day starting halfway through the ten day trip, but I just packed more non-climbing stuff because British Columbia in the summer is AMAZING. The fire would die quickly and the rain would mostly stay away. Last time I rolled through here on my way to Alaska my partner had a broken thumb so I wasn’t able to get much climbing in so I was excited to get a real taste of Squamish climbing this time and got on everything from leading 10d Sport, 5.9 Trad Multipitch and following 11d Sport across Murrin Park, The Chief, Chek and Shannon Falls areas.
Recently I spent a week out in the Zion area with some best buds canyoneering some classics. While Mystery and The Subway get all the hype, others such as Dothraki are diamonds outside the park without permits. I love a varied canyon and Dothraki (3A III 17r 150ft) delivered with a fun off trail scramble and ridgeline approach with stemming, steep walls and minimal water.
I’m not sure how I heard about the desert wilderness granite climbing area called Cochise Stronghold in SE Arizona 40 miles from the Mexican border, but I think I first peeked a look at these domes from Fred Beckey’s 100 Classic Climbs of North America. So when work brought me to Phoenix in the winter, I thought there was little excuse not to check out its desert domes with their abundant featured granite, chicken heads and alligator plates uncommonly found in this rock type.
New to Reno in 2023, I attempted this hiking route up the Long Valley Creek river canyon towards the Lagomarisino Petroglyph site at 39.44359, -119.57045 at the end of November. From the hiking stats (10mi, 600ft), I thought it would be a straightforward thing but was turned back by underestimating how long navigating the terrain would take and how filled in the canyon could be with brush and trees. Armed with that knowledge and more scratch-resistant clothing in 2024 we did a successful hike up this very wilderness-feel river canyon with loads of cool natural features and many pieces of rock art.
There is a group of canyons that drop into Fall Canyon from a multi-descent day Scott Swaney did in 2014 descending several canyons. Crater of Doom (3A III 6r 120 ft) was the furthest in and provided an adventurous approach with some rock band traversing to end it out. The canyon itself was short like many in the Grapevine Mountains. The descent was straightforward with some fun down climbs, but I was kinda disappointed there was no scary looking crater given the name.
There are three Red Wall Canyon descents: Main (1r 20ft) , West (5r 200ft), Northwest Fork (5r 150ft), We chose the option with the most rappels (it listed 10 at the time): Red Wall Canyon (West Fork) (3A III 5-9r 200ft). It had an approach with one short spicy, loose gulley in the beginning. A mostly straightforward decent with a couple longer drops. One of the best, most beautiful exits I’ve done in Death Valley hiking out Red Wall Canyon.
This trip we decided to check out the Grapevine Mountain range which is a zone I haven’t spend time around in Death Valley because it’s in the North near the Scotty’s Castle section of the park. It feels like when storms hit, it also gets maintenance last since it no longer has a heavily visited roadside attraction like the Badwater area. One of the canyons I had always been interested in from its picture of smooth runnels was Goblin Canyon (3A III 5-9r 80ft). I found canyons in this zone to have a characteristic of mostly decent rock with some sections of chossy hardpack with longer approaches and relatively short technical sections. Goblin delivered both a fun medium sized canyon and a bunch of fun runnels to descend.
Of the few thousand people who live on Haida Gwaii, 1,000 live in the town of Daajing Giids near Robertson’s Island where I stayed on my visit. As I said introducing my kayaking trip here, it feels like the inner corridor of Alaska: mostly undisturbed nature with bountiful resources (at least in these ‘warm’ summer months) punctuated by small communities. As in many small communities, you more easily know your neighbors, they are more willing you help you out, people have to work together to get things done themselves and gossip abounds.
Three 1-2 hrs flights followed by a bus, ferry, friend’s car, friend’s boat and finally a friend’s ATV to help carry our bags, we finally arrived at Sadie’s mom’s place on Robertson Island near the village of Daajing Giids on the Haida Gwaii archipelago in British Colombia, Canada. It feels like the inner corridor of Alaska: ocean surrounding heavily forested misty mountains where there is little development and abundant bald eagles. Our first goal is to explore indigenous cultural sites and nature of Gwaii Haanas National Reserve in the South via eight-day ocean kayak trip guided by Green Coast Kayaking totaling 45 nautical miles.
