Pilgrimage

A brilliant combination of work and play has me living on the road for the next couple months. After a last minute climbing trip to Tuolumne, I packed my bags and headed off on the first leg of a trip that will take me to Utah, Colorado, British Columbia, New York, Wyoming and Montana before returning to California for fall quarter.I headed out with my good friends Zach and Brad initially aimed at some big objectives in the High Sierra. With an iffy weather forecast, we opted to stick around Tuolumne for some world class rock climbing. On our second day, we managed to climb the West Ridge of Mount Conness which had turned me back just a few weeks earlier.Following a conference in Utah, I made my way to Colorado where I met up with my friend James for a week of climbing, hiking and 14er peakbagging. We started off with a couple amazing days in Rocky Mountain National Park and are headed on a quick loop over the next few days.Yesterday, we hiked up Glacier Gorge and climbed the beautiful yet moderate Spearhead.Today, we got an early-ish start to try Kieners, the classic mountaineering route on the East Face of Longs Peak. At the base of the route, James decided to rest his legs for later in the trip. Unable to contain my love for the peak that started it all for me, I climbed up and over Mount Lady Washington and soloed the North Face. On the descent, I bumped into Tommy Caldwell and Jonathan Siegrist, who were projecting a wild route on the Diamond. I ran the whole way down with Tommy, whose intimate knowledge of all the shortcuts had us in the parking lot an hour and a half after topping out.