Spring Break Day 6

Day 6 of our trip was, unfortunately, our last day full day in Arizona. We decided to try to pack in as much climbing and adventuring as possible, which resulted in a huge overload of photographs (meaning this will be a long post). We started the day climbing in the Prison Camp area again, since there were still a few routes there that we wanted to do in that area. After climbing until we were exhausted we drove higher up the mountain to catch the sunset. Unfortunately I foolishly deleted images on my SD card before I transferred them to my computer, so almost all of the sunset images are gone. If anyone has any miracles to recover files from a formatted SD card I would love to hear them!

Spring Break Day 2

Day two (Monday) of our spring break was spent in the Prison Camp area again. We still had quite a few routes in that area that we wanted to try, so after cooking breakfast and making a quick run back to Tucson to get some more supplies, we hiked in and climbed for the afternoon. I don’t think this place could get old to me. I also shot some Polaroids here, but will share all those in one post once I get them scanned in.

 

Happy Sunday everyone!

Spring Break Day 1

Last week was our spring break here at Kansas State. Scott, our friend Ben, and I flew down to Arizona for a week of climbing, camping, and sunshine. I, of course, took a ton of photographs, and will share them based on the day that they were shot to avoid an incredibly long post.

We flew into Phoenix late Saturday night, and after picking up our rental car drove to Scott’s sister’s house in Tucson. We crashed there that night, and then Sunday woke up to get supplies and head into the mountains for a few days of camping and climbing. We camped at the Prison Camp area (Gordon Hirabayashi Campground) in the Santa Catalina Mountains. The great thing about the Prison Camp campground is that there is a ton of climbing just a short hike down from the campsites. It is a beautiful area in a little canyon with a cool view of the city in the distance. Enjoy day one, and be on the lookout for day 2 soon!

Finding Winter in Kanopolis State Park

A few weeks ago I was sent a jacket from Mountain Hardwear with the mission of exploring/adventuring in it (findingwinter.com). Unfortunately I got the jacket right when school started, so I wasn’t able to take a very epic trip. And, the weekend Scott and I were able to go on a trip happened to be around 60 degrees during the day, so it wasn’t exactly your typical idea of winter.

We went out to Kanopolis State Park, which is about an hour and a half west of Manhattan, KS. Scott has been there before, and thought there could be some potential climbing that we wanted to scope out. I was also excited for the weekend in part because I had rented a lens to take with, to give me some variety in images for the trip, and also to test it before purchasing. We got to the park Saturday afternoon, set up camp, and went out hiking. It was a beautiful hike, and I was pretty surprised to find such a landscape in Kansas. The sun was getting fairly low on our hike, and down in the canyon without the sun on us it got a bit cool. I was impressed by the Mountain Hardwear jacket; it was warm, but breathed well and didn’t get too warm when we were in the sun. After hiking for a while we went back to our campsite, started a fire, and made a delicious (and warm) dinner. It was a pretty windy, chilly night, but once again I was impressed at how well the jacket blocked the wind; that was one of my favorite features. It is also a great layering jacket; flattering to the figure yet lots of room for warmer layers underneath, so with a synthetic down on as well I was nice and warm. In the morning the wind had calmed down some and the sun was out, so after a quick breakfast we went for another hike before packing up to head back to Manhattan.

I also played around with some time lapse stuff on our trip, but that will have to be posted to youtube/vimeo once I get it edited and pieced together. I will be sure to post a link once it is done, I’m pretty excited about it!

Christmas in Tucson

**Prepare yourself, this will be a long post.**

This Christmas I went along with Scott (the boyfriend) and his parents to visit his sister and her family in Tucson, Arizona. It was my first Christmas away from home, which I was a bit nervous about. But, his family was so very welcoming, the scenery was beautiful, and we managed to climb nearly every day; needless to say I was sufficiently distracted from being homesick for most of the week.

During the early part of the week any trips into the mountains (the Catalina Mountains to be exact) were fairly quick, or were filled with climbing or climbing instruction. I didn’t even bring my camera with me onmany of those adventures, so a fair amount of these images are from my phone (just a little disclaimer).

The trip down to Arizona was quite the adventure since we got caught in a major snow storm. We knew it was a two day trip, but got stuck in Dalhart, Texas, which was not even close to where we had planned on spending the night. This image was from when we were stuck in traffic in Dalhart, before we heard it would be at least 4 hours before we would start moving again. Luckily we made the decision to stay in Dalhart fairly early and were able to find a hotel room, and one that was rather nice and clean for that matter.

Our first day there we hired a climbing instructor for half the day to show us some multi-pitch and trad climbing techniques. It was an incredible day and we both learned so much.

Christmas Eve was a rather busy day, but we managed to fit in a quick hike early in the day to scope things out, and later a quick climb before the sun set.

Christmas day was probably the most memorable day of climbing I have every had. Most of the day was spent with Scott’s 2 nephews and brother-in-law teaching the boys how to climb. Once they headed home for the day, Scott and I stayed to climb a pinnacle that we had been eyeing since our first trip into the mountains. Luckily there was a woman there with her kids who had climbed the same route before, so she helped us much sure we were on the right line. We were climbing right near sunset, so the light was rich and golden. It was magical I tell you.

Scott on the top of the pinnacle, preparing to rappel down.

The rock was glowing.

Together, post-climb, in the magical light.

Our last day in Tucson was entirely dedicated to climbing. We went out to this amazing canyon that seemed to have endless climbing just in the one area. We also talked to quite a few local climbers there, and I was blown away by how tightly knit the climbing community in Tucson is. It was a fantastic end to the week.

Thanks for sticking around for the whole post, hopefully you enjoyed it!