Whoah.

Wow. what a crazy weekend.  Definitely some highs and lows.

As I was leaving the central valley on Friday afternoon I was thinking to myself: ha ha I'm going to leave this smoke behind!  But it was not to be.  Heading over Monitor Pass and down 395, it just got more and more smoky.  (by the way, is smokey spelled like that or like this: smoky?) 

Anyway, it was a little depressing to say the least.  To top it off I wasn't exactly sure who I was going to climb with, if anybody.  So to cheer myself up I decided to call my ex-boyfriend, Alex.  Predictably, I was left feeling sad, tired, drained and unsatisfied.  Let's just say that free soloing Moonlight Buttress must require a certain amount of detachment that will inevitably pervade all aspects of one's life.  On the bright side, this 2.5 year experience allowed me to use a twist on one of my favorite expressions: our relationships was "like a turd-filled road with a few daisies scattered here and there."  Always psyched to use that one.

Okay, moving on, I drove up to the Meadows hoping that it would be more clear...well, it was a little more clear.   I wanted to hike up Dana or down towards Glen Aulin, but what's the point if you can't see any of the views because of all the heinous smoke?  Fortunately I found out that John was coming and was planning on climbing with me.  Sweet!

Saturday morning I kicked John awake and we went over to Medlicott to do some sport climbing.  Medlicott is a pretty fun place to hang out, and the climbing is good.  We did get lost on the approach a little bit, which is foreshadowing to some later events.  

The afternoon saw John and I climbing West Crack.  A nice climb, mostly it's just knobs and not very much crack, but I'm always happy to do the longer easy classic stuff in Tuolumne.  We did it in two pitches by simul-climbing.  The descent on the other hand, wasn't so much fun.  We ended up down climbing this 5.3 crack or something like that with our approach shoes.  Finally, after surveying another pitch of down climbing, we passed a rap anchor and I said: "I'm rapping."  And rapped a pitch to meet John where he looked up at me and said "I'm stuck."  I replied: "I don't think this is the official sanctioned descent."  He replied "no, it's not."

Hmmph.

Okay, Sunday we did the Direct Northwest Face of Lembert Dome, which was a good, fun 3 pitch climb.  Fortunately the descent went without event.  The afternoon, however, did not.

John had to meet up with Matt and Susan so he could catch a ride home.  They were climbing at South Whiz Dome, and even though I was knackered I said "oh what the hell I'll hike out there anyway."  Let me say that South Whiz is kind of a pain to approach.  You hike through the trees for 20 or so minutes on no trail and can't even see the dome until you're right there.  So I said "hey I don't have a lot of energy right now, so can you just hold up?"  Naturally, John saw adventure and went charging for it, and naturally I couldn't or wouldn't keep up.  I ended up yelling "JOOOHN!!"several times...loudly and in a most frustrated tone of voice.  Ultimately I found South Whiz Dome, with about ten climbers there who had all heard me yelling John's name.  Very embarrassing.  

Anyway, a storm was rolling in with very loud thunder and very bright lightening.  We all bailed at the last minute, not knowing what a wild storm it would be.  I only had on a tank top and a thin cotton shirt and pants, and John only had on a t-shirt and shorts.  It had been so hot in the morning!  So it started raining and we started hiking.  And then it started raining harder, and then it started pouring.  Then it started hailing, and then it started hailing harder.  Then the hail was pouring in pea-sized pellets and it was positively apocalyptic.  That shit HURTS!  It would hit my head and hurt and then I would put my hands on my head and it would hit my fingers and hurt.  The only thing to do was to charge back to the car, which I did with my superior sense of direction, Susan and Patrick in tow.

We all made it back pretty quick except for John.  Where's John?  Thirty minutes pass.  "Where's John?"  I said "oh, he's probably under a rock somewhere taking pictures of the hail."  More time passes, and a few people go to look for him.  John is probably pretty cold by now, and we are all a little worried.  By now about an hour and a half has passed and something is definitely wrong.  So these guys I had just met, Brian and Aaron, called SAR.  Just as they drove off Jeremy looked down the road and said "I think I saw John, he just got picked up by a ranger!"  Sure enough, a cold but psyched to drink some good warming whiskey John had made it back.  Turns out he had gotten lost and couldn't see anything through the hail and fog and ended up a mile or two down the road.  Fred the ranger picked him up, and SAR was called off before it even began.  John got his whiskey and all was right in the world.

Today I've gotten about 10 emails regarding this incident.  I told John he should be pretty proud of inspiring such a lively email thread.  

After the hail storm I made the mistake of calling Justin and casually leaving a message saying "oh yeah, it was an exciting afternoon, we called SAR on John...hey what are you doing on Tuesday?"  Then he called Shannon to find out what happened and she freaked out.  Sorry Shannon - I didn't mean to scare you!

Okay I have a lot more to write, but I'm in the middle of a Project Runway marathon so I must go.

I'll leave you with a few memorable quotes from this weekend:

"If I started dating someone else you'd be crying yourself to sleep at night."

-Alex

"I have a really nice rain jacket...in the car!"

-John

"I FUCKING HATE hippies!"

-Lucho