Thug Life

Our trip to Joshua Tree ended on a somewhat sour note, as Mat took his first leader fall and it wasn't a very good one. In a strange bit of counter-intuitiveness, the higher you get while rock climbing the safer it is to fall - there are more pieces of protection in, more rope stretch, and less chance that you will hit the ground. Mat unfortunately fell very close to the ground and in fact did hit the deck. Before you worry too much, he is okay, although he managed to cause quite a scene at the Hidden Valley campground on a quiet Tuesday morning. The order of appearance of good Samaritans responding to Mo's yells of "HELP!!!" were other climbers from the campground, Sky the hippie covered in Grateful Dead tattoos (was this the end? I'm coming to your side Jerry!!), the professional, courteous, and light-humored NPS EMT team (dude, is that your Eurovan? Si-ick!!!), and the private ambulance that somebody called in (If you don't ride in my ambulance you will probably die, blah blah blah, natural morphine secreted from the brain, blah blah blah).

Trips to the ER are always quite bizarre, and the Hi-Desert Morongo Basin Hospital Emergency Room was no exception. While waiting multiple hours to be seen by the triage nurse, we made friends with a local tattooed skinhead named Bonehead, who appeared to not really be in any sort of trauma but just there for the social networking, heard a teenage girl wax ecstatically about the $1500 credit she would receive for her newborn child, and witnessed another teenage girl obviously bad-tripping on something, writhing uncontrollably while screaming about a miscarriage and numb hands only to be galloping around greeting doctors with a smile and a handshake one hour later. Upon finally making it out of the waiting room Mat was cared for by a large, also tattooed Mexican nurse named Pete who took his vitals and asked him about his employment history while cracking truly funny jokes all along (Which falls faster - a feather, a bowling ball, or a science teacher? Neither - acceleration is independent of mass, homie!!!) Thank god for personable nurses because the lady who drove 5 staples into his skull and left shin did not deserve a five star bedside manner rating. I guess stapling flesh is serious business after all. (Another one from Pete's standup science routine: Why would an Eskimo never eat a Penguin? Different sides of the globe, homie!!! (There's got to be a better audience for this brilliant material somewhere!!))

All in all, we are counting our blessings and considering ourselves very very lucky. There were a number of things that could have gone wrong to make the situation much worse, and the fact that Mat emerged from another high velocity impact with the ground without a broken bone (see previous bicycle crashes) is a testament to all the milk that his mother fed him as a child or some strange genetic trait of a resilient skeletal system. We have again retreated to the safety of the Sacramento area, and are treating this as an opportunity to slow down and really assess what we want to do for a next step in our lives. Translation: we are watching the 7th series of Survivor (Go Rupert!) while avoiding all of the tough questions floating around in our heads. Is bike touring in a foreign country really safer than rock climbing? How would Mo like a four year Chinese medicine school program? Could we trade our climbing rack for a nice setup of fly fishing gear? Can the Giants really beat the Patriots? How do we catch a stowaway desert mouse potentially living in our van? How does one remove staples from one's head by oneself?

As for the photo - Mat has traded in his wrap-around bandage of gauze for something a bit more fashionable, and has not run into any problems on the Carmichael streets as of yet. We will continue to ponder our next move, and while our plans may have changed, we remain happy that nothing has tarnished the bright joy of being alive.

The Chasm of Doom

When a tall, skinny Alaskan runs through your campsite at the ungodly hour of 9PM on a nearly moonless night, PBR in hand, promising to lead an adventure through the Chasm of Doom if he can find enough takers, there really is only one possible answer. It didn't take our group too long to sign our lives away as we were eager to partake in this age-old Joshua Tree tradition, having never been around at the right time in the proximity of a willing leader our many trips before. Mo and I were in, as well as JP and his beau from South Carolina, along with Matt, the solo Canadian camper in our site, and the skinny Alaskan's (not to be confused with Skinny the Alaskan, an entirely different person) better half.

The skinny Alaskan (real name: Aaron) was in the middle of proclaiming how a lithe group of seven was the perfect number for the Chasm, being small enough to maneuver easily but large enough to have a critical mass of fun, when Matt the Canadian started running through the full Friday night campsite inviting anyone he could find. As the word got out the campground turned into a sea of headlights, looking and beaming for their future leader as if they were welcoming the Mars Rover. In the only moment of panic that he showed all night, Aaron declared that we had to get out of there before the group got too big - we high-tailed it toward the Real Hidden Valley only to be cut off at the pass by a group of four eager Chasm-goers who had correctly transected our intended route. The final group was 11 plus one American pit bull, the sky was dark and filled with stars, and adventure was in the air.

A trip through the Chasm of Doom is steeped in tradition, and this outing was no exception. Headlights are allowed on the short boulder scrambling approach into the chasm, but once inside they are strictly verboten. The actual Chasm consists of an enclosed tunnel and cave system through a rock mass that would be no big deal in full daylight - there are no real technical climbing moves and your feet are grounded for pretty much the entirety of the journey. However, in pitch darkness, using only your hands, feet, body, and the person in front of you for navigation, the Chasm can get downright scary. There are no actually dangerous drop-offs, but a pit of 2 feet might as well be 100 feet in 0% light. Boulders are scattered all about, and easy scrambling takes on a more challenging element when you can't see your hands in front of your face. Every so often the roof opens up to a view of the beautiful starlight, which helps eliminate the claustrophobia as well as confirm that you are going in the right direction. The Chasm has a general upward trend, with a successful trip exiting onto a huge ledge high above the desert floor, with a breathtaking vista all around. The combination of trust, navigation, communication, and fear results in either the world's perfect potential teambuilding exercise, or a pretty fun thing for a bunch of climbers to do on a Friday night.

Just as the final headlight was extinguished before filing into the mouth, a dark shadowy figure turned towards Mat.

"Mat?" the shadowy figure asked.

"Yeah..." Mat replied.

"Mat Glaser?" the shadowy figure continued.

"Yep... who is that?"

"It's Jullian!! From Cal Cycling!!"

And suddenly, like only the Chasm of Doom can possibly do, two friends were reunited after some seven years of separation, with memories of an epic dirtbag mountain biking trip to Moab and Fruita in their minds. There was no time to talk, however, as the leader had entered already, and Jullian filed in behind Mat, occasionally touching his butt and other body parts as they navigated through the darkness, bonding and reminiscing in the terror of the night.

Our personal Chasm adventure was epic and fun, if not entirely successful. The girth of a few of our members picked up in the parking lot along with the somewhat sketchy navigational skills of the skinny Alaskan combined to prevent a pure through-tunnel of the Chasm. We were eventually stymied after not finding "the birth canal" passage, and not wanting to look too hard with the larger Chasmers in tow. No one in the party wanted to do the old-school 5.9 chimney route, and the promised easy bypass was never located. Declaring it a success, despite not actually tunneling through, the party turned around and retreated the way we came in, this time working our way down the boulderous passageway instead of up. Perhaps our eyes had adjusted to the darkness, or perhaps someone somewhere turned their headlight on (shhh!!!), but we made it out quickly and safely to be greeted by Joe the Pitbull and a still amazing desert vista. Jullian and Mat had the whole weekend of climbing to catch up on life, Aaron the skinny Alaskan vowed to head back in the day-time and perfect his route, and we awoke the next morning to only minor bumps, bruises, and scratches from the previous night's adventure. All in the desert was good.

Desert bound

As most of you have guessed by now, we are not still stuck somewhere between Texas and California. We made it back safely for Christmas, with a few days of epic driving and an amazing stop at the Gila Wilderness to visit some hot springs and the cliff dwellings. The holidaze have somehow come and gone, and we have managed to see a bunch of friends in the Bay Area and even landed for a few days in Santa Cruz to wait out the Storm of '08.

Our van is packed with food and our heads are packed with ideas, dreams, goals, and plans for this new year - a bit overwhelming but much better than the alternative. We will be greeting the first new moon of the year in our beloved Joshua Tree tomorrow night, and will be seeking solace and answers in the winds, stars, sands, cacti, and cracks of the desert for a while.

We love and miss you all! Many blessings in 2008!!