It's kind of funny

Sometimes, climbing trips and plans fall perfectly into place. Everything in perfect order, nothing to ever stress about.

I'm just going to rattle off most of the things that have slowed us down so far:
My mom had to drive me to boulder because I didn't have my car.. I woke up late for that (add 1 hour)
I put some bananas on the roof of our car for my breakfast and drove away (ok not that big of a deal..)
We forgot a bag of aid climbing gear that was in colorado springs (add 2 hours)
Took a 'detour' to get to i-70 from the springs (add 3 hours)
Colin got a speeding ticket (add 5 minutes and $169, the cop was unreasonably quick)
Ran out of gas in Nevada 1 mile from a gas station
Colin ran the mile to the gas station, the gas station was out of gas. Ok... what is going on here (add 1 hour)
Colin and I synchronized our sleeping schedules. We had to stop twice to pass out (add 3 hours)
     Normally we can make it the entire way without stopping
I realized I packed absolutely everything except climbing pants... we had to stop at an REI that didn't carry a SINGLE pair of pants suitable for climbing.
We finally got here, and it's snowing, hard. Have to set up a tent at 1am with 8 inches of snow on the ground.

Ok now it eases up now.
I slept great, only waking up once to put socks on and to go into mummy mode in my sleeping bag.
Colin woke me up with a nalgene full of hot chocolate, and gave me a ride to eat at the buffet in curry village with his parents.

After breakfast I dug Colin's car out of the snow with a mountaineering axe, and put his chains on. While Colin and his family went skiing for the day, I checked out the reason we came to this place, El Capitan.
I put my mountaineering boots and gaiters on. My rain jacket immediately got soaked from the wet, heavy snow, my glasses kept fogging up, and the fresh bear tracks made me turn off my ipod.
I hate being wet. I kept on hiking up the talus starting at the nose, all the way to zodiac.
I realized that being on the ground (even though I was nearly soaking), is going to be the most comfortable I am going to be for a while... assuming that everything goes accordingly and we can actually climb el cap.

Fresh tracks at the base of the captain. They're lurking. 

Dry and beautiful

I seem a little more negative than I mean to be in the video. I'm just really exhausted. I am very happy to be here.




It's funny... feeling miserable makes me feel better. To be honest, I didn't come on this trip to climb el cap. I didn't come on this trip to get better at rock climbing. I came because I'm able to catch a break from of all of my mental garbage.

zenyatta mondatta: Grade VI A4
This is one of two possible routes on el cap right now with the weather. We are planning to fix our ropes as high as we can and then blast off.