THE LAST BLOG- AND ITS MUCH SHORTER
Every trip needs to come to an end. During our 10 week journey across north America we experienced many highs and lows, epics and challenges and came across many great people. Through our dirt-bagging adventures we have come to a new appreciation for good meals, clean clothes, deodorant, and long hot showers. Currently we are on the long three day drive home from the west coast to the east just trying to pass the time. It occurred to me that I have not updated the blog for the last month due to time constraints and shear laziness thus I am going to share some major highlights.
Squamish (B.C.) Highlights
We stayed in Squamish for an unplanned 3 weeks because it was just that good. Steph Boakes let us crash at her place for the duration of our stay which was amazing. She put up with our dirty croc feet, our complete take over of her house, and our many dirty dishes that wouldn't stop piling up no matter how many times we cleaned them.
Climbing:
The cracks were amazing!!! I led 2 trad routes myself.. We soon discovered that everything in Squamish which is bolted happens to be slabs- Elan now hates slabs. One day we got up pretty early to do an 18 pitch climb but unfortunately 3 pitches into it we had to stop because of a major runnout. Not to mention we were pretty stressed over the first 2 pitches which involved the sketchiest traversing known to rock climbing and where following was actually more dangerous and scarier then leading (I was the follower).
Bouldering:
We discovered around our last week that the bouldering was incredible so we put down our rack and grabbed a pad instead. Steph introduced us to her friend Jeff who showed us around and took us on many late night bouldering sesh's. I learned the beauty of top outs, and Elan basically raped every route he got on. We checked off as many classics as we could.
Other Interesting activities:
- We went to a pure climber/hippy rave where we learned that apparently the modern hippy loves trance music and heavy hoops (a twist on the hula hoop- just add more weight and glow sticks).
- Elan bought a fishing licence that he used all of 3 times.
- 4 bying for Steph's B-day
- Hanging out in whistler for the day
- Hiking the chief on our last day
Alberta
The Canadian Rockies, Jasper and Banff impressed Elan and I perhaps more then any other landscape. Unfortunately it rained a couple times but regardless we managed to get in some hiking and climbing. In order to find the crag we had to do a 2 kilometer hike around lake Louise which was completely worth it. The climbing here is amazing, perhaps the best face climbing we've seen yet. It was a great way to conclude our trip. Our last day we were going to simul climb like Hans and Yugi on El Capitan but we got rained out :( ...maybe next time.
Drive Home
While crossing the border back into the states we were stopped, separated, and interrogated for about an hour. Finally after thousands of questions to make sure our stories matched they let us go free.
OUR TIRE FINALLY BLEW OUT. We've been expecting a blow out ever since a man in Utah inspected our tires and exclaimed that a blow out was inevitable. We were further warned by the mechanic fixing our breaks 2 weeks later and Steph's boyfriend Craig who is a mechanic. This set us back about 4 hours and a lot of money. And that’s pretty much all that happened between the fast food stops and aimless discussions…Hope to see you all in a couple days. Thanks for bearing my long detailed accounts of this trip…hope you enjoyed.
Interesting Stats over 10 week period
- Number of Showers: Sam- 14, Ryan and Elan- Unknown
- Number of times we did Laundry: Ryan- 1, Sam- 4, Elan- 3
- Number of times we paid for camping: 9
- Number of times it rained: 4
Sam and Elan
