Whoo. This is the 41st day of my road trip. That is the longest time I have been out on the road by a factor of about 3. It will be interesting to see how I feel after two or three months, because right now I can hardly believe it has been that long. I don't miss home yet (not that I have one anyway), nor do I feel any need to get back to a "normal" life. I should probably work a bit harder to meet up with partners for my various climbing trips, but it has been just fine so far. I have stopped myself from climbing some high/more scary stuff b/c of a lack of spotters, but that has not prevented me from having fun and occasionally sending some stuff.
So I am back in the Looney Bean enjoying some wireless interweb and flush toilets. This morning I lazed about in the sun eating my breakfast of granola and (rehydrated) powdered milk. I recently tried to explain why I eat granola with powdered milk, since I don't much like powdered milk or granola. Here is the explanation, since I don't have a cooler (and don't want one) powdered milk is great cause it doesn't go bad and doesn't take up too much space. It doesn't taste great but it is not disgusting when rehydrated properly. I like cereal but I am not much of a fan of granola in most cases. However, I am fine with the combo of powdered milk and granola because neither one ruins the other. The powdered milk would ruin my cereal experience, but since I am eating it with granola there is nothing to ruin. And granola would ruin my regular milk and cereal experience, but with powdered milk... See? Makes perfect sense to me.
After breakfast today I drove up into the mountains west of Bishop to see how high I could get before I was stopped by closed roads. I tried driving up to South Lake first and encountered a road closed sign at about 8100 feet. So I parked the car and went for a run up the road as far as I could make it. I must say it was more of a jog for a while since I was heading distinctly uphill at an elevation for which my lungs are not prepared.
I went up the road for a couple miles, at least I hope it was couple miles since I ran for about 24 minutes up hill. I passed several patches of snow covering the road and a truck sized snow blower working on clearing up those snow patches. I finally had to turn around when I encountered a plow working on a stretch of road that was covered with a couple feet of snow. I stopped running the first time my foot sank into the snow up to my ankle. Running shoes are not the best for post holing. (the video in the link is guy I know from Bay Area ultimate, funny since I found it just by doing a google search for "postholing")
The downhill run went faster than the way up. Shocking, I know. Although I felt bad cause the giant snow blower had to stop and back out to let me through since I couldn't get around him. I got back to the car in 21 minutes.
Nice Face, Loser.
I next tried to get up to Lake Sabrina but was again stopped by a road closed sign just past Aspendell (like possibly #1 on my list of place to live). This view was as close as I would get to the mountains today:
Later I am planning to head up to a bouldering area called The Druid Stones. There are supposed to be some good boulders and good views up there. I have never been b/c there is a substantial hike involved in getting up there and I have never had the time or partners interested in going up. I figure it might be a fun hike for the afternoon just to go check it out.
Tonight I plan to camp back at the Pit b/c in the interests of saving my finger tips a bit I will climb at the Sad boulders tomorrow. The rock there is not has harsh on the skin as the Buttermilks. So camping at the Buttermilks and driving down to the Sad boulders is kind of a waste of time/gas vs. the two dollar cost of camping at the pit. I think it might be more cost effective to save the gas money, especially at $3.63 a gallon for the cheaper stuff.
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