I love birthdays. I love my birthday. I love other people’s birthdays. I love celebrating birthdays. I love birthday surprises. And most of all, I love birthday surprises that involve making awesome memories. My boyfriend officially crossed the threshold into his late twenties earlier this month. He’d never actually been backpacking before, so what better place to take him than Lake Aloha in Desolation Wilderness?
Friday afternoon, a week before Red Rock Rendezvous, I frantically dialed the number of the dude organizing the entire festival. In the span of an hour, en route to Joe’s Valley, I managed to completely freak out and convince myself that my measly trad skills were too measly for an advanced gear placement and anchors class. I anxiously rifled through the website, hoping for something, or anything, to tell me that I’d be okay. But somehow things looked a little different from when I bought my early bird ticket back in November. And this time around? There were skill levels associated with all the descriptions. Crap.
I feel like a reoccurring theme in my life is bad weather on climbing weekends. Josh and I drove up to Castle Crags for a weekend to hop on the Cosmic Wall for some nice, runout easy trad, but once again, Mother Nature threw a wrench in our plans.
Even with ski resorts closing their doors for the season and uncharacteristically warm weather in the Bay Area, winter is still very much alive and kicking in the Sierra. After a short day of wrestling pebbles and battling high winds on Hogsback, Josh and I called it quits and decided to go catch a sunset somewhere. We always talk about sunset, but by the time the sun starts to go down, we’re maybe still stuck on a route, or bouldering stoke is high, or we’re in the midst of preparing dinner. We headed east on highway 50 with Lower Echo Lake in mind, something nice and easy that we could drive up to and relax at.
The rain doesn’t stop on the West Coast of New Zealand. It pours and pours and pours. My trip onto the glacier was canceled due to inclement weather. Shoes were still still soaking wet. The giant bed in the hostel welcomed me with loving arms. My desire to lay around was very, very high. I thought about walking all the way out to Lake Matheson, but with the previous day’s soaking excursion still in mind, I wussed out and paid an old man a few dollars to drive me there and back.