B² Productions | Climbing Blog

We were heading west across California; back towards the coast. It was a deceptively long drive from Valencia to our next stop over point: Pismo Beach, CA. We were about two hours or so into our journey as the sun began to sink into the ocean and we were beginning to get peckish. We decided to try our luck in a small back of restaurants and bars just off the road around the Santa Maria area. It had been a good few weeks since Colorado, and as the huge, bright plastic Red Lobster lobster loomed up on he horizon, my seafood craving set in again! We swung into the parking lot and headed inside. Sadly though, my hopes were dashed when we were informed that Red Lobster (unsurprisingly, in hindsight) don’t serve any vegetarian dishes, other than possibly seafood pasta without the seafood. Not the most appetising prospect. Thanks, Snoo! It reminded me of that episode of The Simpsons where Homer and Marge visit the ‘Frying Dutchman’ only to discover, to Marge’s seafood allergy suffering disappointment that even the bread contains fish. Undeterred, tried an Appleby’s which was just over the road. Surely a chain restaurant of that size, with menu that vast would offer at least some veggie friendly meals. As we enter we’re greeted by a seemingly friendly girl, she flashes us a pearly white, California smile and hands us a menu. Encouraged, Snoo asks if they do any vegetarian dishes. At which point the facade comes crashing down; she stares at us like we’re speaking swahili, mumbles something about maybe being able to do a salad without chicken or something, before ultimately losing interest in us all together, and speaking past us to the far more carnivorous looking couple which have just walked in behind us. None of us can really believe it. It’s the first bit of bad service we’d had in nearly two months in America, and it’s is in California of all places. Poor show Appleby’s. Furious at the rudeness of it all, we throw the menu’s back at her, and decide to get back in the car, ignoring the protests from our stomachs and push onto Pismo Beach.

It was pushing 9pm by the time we arrived and almost totally dark as we pulled into the parking lot of The Mission Inn. We were tired and hungry but above all, we were glad to have finally arrived in this small town on the coast of California. There was a chill in the air as we got out of the car, stretched and headed into the lobby. The sound of the waves breaking on the shore in the distance seemed to wash away the stresses of earlier in the day. We had arrived and what looked to be a very nice, pleasant little hotel. Little did we know quite how nice it would turn out to be. We’d been on the road for over a month by this point staying (mainly) in one faceless place after another. Best Western’s, Super 8’s, Holiday Inn’s; they’re all much of the same. Nice, but ultimately quite sterile. The only time I’d truly felt “at home” was when we’d stayed at the Hueco Rock Ranch. Until now. The Mission Inn was a hotel much like any other, but it did little things which seemed to set it apart so much from everywhere else. For example, when we checked in, we were each given a token for a free beer or glass of wine in the bar. A simple thing, but a lovely touch. We lugged our stuff up to our room which was huge, with a massive window at one end which over looked the sea. The hotels Wi-fi was fast and more importantly free (something by which we’d judged most of our prospective accommodation during the trip. I am a self confessed geek, and comfortable with it). We unpacked the bare essentials, and headed down to the bar to make the most of our free drinks. The hotel also seemed to have a Tardis style quality to it, feeling a whole lot bigger inside than it appeared on the outside. Plush, thick carpet lined every corridor with arrangements of fresh flowers decorating the little art deco alcoves along their flanks. The bar area doubled as a small, and packed, restaurant. The barmaid greeted us with a friendly smile as we handed over our tokens and received a generous glass of red wine each in large, engraved Mission Inn glasses. We chatted with the barmaid briefly about our trip and where we were from before lounging back on the big sofas just outside of the restaurant. As we sank back into the sofas we joked about the day we’d had. It was at this point we remembered that we still hadn’t eaten. There wasn’t a huge amount available in Pismo Beach (at least that we could see) and what there was would be shutting up shop pretty soon. Luckily enough, just opposite the hotel was a Japanese place which still seemed to be serving food, so we made a dash for there. This was only my second time trying Japanese food (my first being in Bishop, CA) and it was lovely. We each went for different dishes with vast amounts of Tempura and Seaweed being shared round. Perfect. We were literally the last people in the place, but we were made to feel very welcome, as the staff tidied up around us and sat around having their own dinner and end-of-the-day beers. Fed and watered, we returned to the hotel and slept soundly in a large, comfy beds. It wouldn’t be long before we’d be back on the road.

Benny & Snoo at Monterey Country Line

I opened the curtains the next morning to be greeted by a beautiful, clear blue sky. Just what we needed. Our plan was to head up Highway 1, which basically follows the coast line of California. A hugely picturesque drive in the sun, but I imagine, hugely dull and potentially dangerous in the wet. We packed up and headed down to get fuelled up on breakfast. Unsurprisingly, there was a generous spread on offer. A buffet featuring Bacon, Eggs, Sausages, Waffles, French Toast, Tea, Coffee and Cereals. We ate our fill, and then with some sadness bid farewell to The Mission Inn and headed out. A bit of research online and in guide books warned us that Gas along Highway 1 would be scarce and expensive, so we thought it wise to fill up before hitting the winding coast road. There was a gas station close by, so that would be our first port of call. We wound our way through the twisty, residential streets of Pismo Beach; all lined with large, grand houses which made you feel like you were in an episode of The OC or something before hitting the gas station. We fuelled up the car, as well as loading ourselves up with snacks and water for the trip and left the town to join the highway. We made slow, steady progress up along the highway, stopping intermittently to stretch our legs, breath in the sea air and take photos. We wound our way up into Monterey County and through Big Sur, during which time I found it impossible to get that damn song by The Thrills out of my head, no matter what we had on the stereo. We stopped at the Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park and had a wander round, taking in the beautiful coast line. The rest of the journey continued in this relaxed stop/start fashion as carried on north long the coast. We bought lunch at a small roadside store (pretty much the only one we saw; and which bizarrely sold PG Tips tea bags which was hugely exciting!) and ventured down a small track to a beach at the bottom where we sat and ate and skimmed stone across the random pools of sea water. The highlight of the trip for me came further up the coast as we crossed the rather impressive Bixby Bridge. The 700 foot long, and 280 foot tall structure crosses, as you might expect, Bixby Creek and pretty much makes this journey possible without it taking several days. Not only was it a beautiful sight to behold, with an impressive clash of colours between the vivid green of the coastline and the deep blue of the sea, but it finally meant my internal jukebox now shuffled onto a much more agreeable song; Death Cab for Cutie’s “Bixby Canyon Bridge“. All was well.

Bixby Bridge Panorama (Click for a larger version...)

Hitting the bridge meant that the bulk of the picturesque part of our journey was over. As we skimmed round the edge of Monterey the roads became quicker, and we started making quicker progress up around Monterey Bay, into Santa Cruz and finally up towards our stop for the evening in Santa Clara. It was another beautiful evening as we arrived at our Vagabond Hotel. Checked into our room, we sat with the door open, soaking up the last of the sunshine before heading out for curry in a very plush Indian restaurant near by. The next day was hopefully going to involve some climbing! We hadn’t done any since Joshua Tree, and we were feeling rested and ready. Bring on Castle Rock!

Six Flags Los Angeles Map (Click for larger view)

The journey to Valencia was a short and pleasant one. At a mere 75 miles, it was a real blink-and-you’d-miss-it kind of a journey. We were well hardened to long drives by this point. We checked into our Best Western and chilled out for a few minutes, before heading out for dinner. Aside from the car full or random drunk/drugged up (Citation Needed) youths who took it upon themselves to hurl abuse at us as they hared past; Valencia seemed nice. We had a nice, slap up meal at a local Mexican restaurant and hit the sack.

The next day was a rest day. As would be the bulk of the next week. There would be no rest for our adrenal glands however, as Benny had something planned; A trip to local theme park Six Flags. We checked out and made the short drive to the park, paid the extortionate parking toll, parked up, paid the extortionate entry fee and had ourselves “A Six Flags day”. Apparently. It was a grey, and quite cold day, yet the steady stream of people into the adjacent water park was still pretty constant. I have why. It would have been the last place I’d want to be on a day like that. Inside the park, we consulted the handy map, and tried to plot a course round the park. First up was ‘Colossus’ a 30 year old ride, made from wood. Hmmm. If we survived this we could survive anything. Snoo’s not a huge fan of roller coasters, but she played along like a good sport and screamed herself silly. At a girl! We carried on round sampling the delights on offer. We rode ‘Goliath’, ‘Superman: The Escape’, ‘Ninja’, ‘The Riddler’s Revenge’ and ‘Goldrusher’ (a child’s ride to keep Snoo happy, and to settle her nerves. Bless her.) My personal favourite was the new ‘Terminator Salvation: The Ride’ erm, ride. It was also the only ride we had to queue for for any length of time (around 40 minutes). The queue wasn’t too bad though. Burnt out wrecks of jeeps, oil drums and general nuclear war style fallout paraphernalia were strewn around as we snaked our way round, interspersed every thirty seconds or so by a collective scream as the ride itself hurtled past. Eventually, we ended up in the “base” where we were treated to various video transmissions which usually ended up with someone about to be brutally slaughtered before their transmission cut out. How charming. The decor appeared to be in a “Robot snuff house” theme, but it all added a nice touch the experience. Eventually we had to be “evacuated” via the ride itself. I was interested to see what all the fuss and hype had been leading up too. As we got strapped in and we braced ourselves. Then the thing took off. Literally. This thing was fast. So. Unbelievably. Fast. Like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. And I’ve been in a car when Snoo’s been driving. I just about managed to prize my eyeballs out from the back of my skull in time to catch the latter half proceedings. It was so fast. I cannot stress this enough. My meagre grasp of physics had me believing that usually a mode of transport accelerates, reaches a cruising speed, continues at that speed, then comes to a stop. The designers of the Terminator ride clearly seemed to think that this was a far too convoluted chain of events, so decided to cut it down. Our course of events went something like this: Accelerate. Accelerate some more. Stop. I think blind panic might have been involved somewhere along the way, but my mental faculties weren’t quick enough to comprehend that. Like I said, it was pretty quick, y’know. After what felt like no time at all, we had stopped. We staggered off and decided to by pass the oh-so-flattering mid ride photo of us with our brains leaking out of our ears and instead went for an ice cream and a nice gentle sit down.

The last ride of the day was ‘Tatsu’, which boasted that it gives you “the sensation of flight”. This was simply achieved by laying you face down as you hurtle over the heads of those below you. However, no amount of suspending you, face down over hundreds of feet worth of drop is anywhere near as scary as watching the thing break down, and thus leaving the people on the ride previously to you stranded in their seats at forty five degrees. Which is exactly what we had the pleasure of witnessing. We get to the front, all ready for one last adrenaline hit of the day, and the thing stops working. Granted it was the train on the other (of the two) tracks, but it was enough. It took a good twenty minutes to free the people in the train stranded in the station from their seats, and you really felt sorry for them until you realised that there was a whole other train still out on the track, full of people stuck face down. The claustrophobe in me decided that it might be a good idea to do something else about now, but soon enough we were herded into a free train and strapped in. Then we sat there. Then we were unstrapped (shortly before I totally freaked out) and told to get off. Despite my insistence, Benny wouldn’t let leave, and before long we were back on things seemed to be functioning as the should. We made the long, slow creep up the start of the track to the apex of the track, which offered a wonderful view of the park and the all the little people milling about. Well, it would have done for Snoo if she had had her eyes open. And wasn’t quite so preoccupied with screaming. The screaming didn’t last long though; as we hit the high point and the real fun began, so reached a whole new level of fear, which involved a worrying amount of silence. Before we were thrown through a series of loops, twists and corkscrews before coming to a screeching halt again in the station. As we strolled down the ramp, Snoo managed to regain her composure, and ability to speak, and announced that that was probably enough for her for the day. We’d been in the park for a fair few hours and we were feeling pretty tired now so we began to make our way out. However, Snoo wasn’t done quite yet…

As we headed towards the exit, we were greeted by something we didn’t expect. A climbing wall. We stopped and watched as couple of muscle bound guys took a break from stuffing nerds into lockers or something (if ‘Saved by the Bell’ is to be believed) and stepped up to try the “Expert” route on the wall. We watched on with interest as they were harnessed up and clipped onto the auto belays, and tried to get established on the first holds. I couldn’t really see from where I was, but it didn’t take a genius to work out the equation that plastic holds + no chalk + no brushes + overtly sweaty, scared people = filthy, greasy holds. To be fair, they did pretty well. One guy got about a third of the way up before getting shut down by an obvious crux section. He tried to battle his way through but after a few more attempts was forced to admit defeat. I looked over to Snoo and I could see a familiar flicker in her eyes. When climbing is involved, Snoo doesn’t so much have a competitive streak as a whole competitive nudist colony, storming centre court during a day out at Wimbledon. She was itching to get on the wall. Benny and I were too, but since we were both sporting Sanuck shoes (comfortable, but no good for climbing) it wasn’t really possible. Snoo was at least wearing shoes which fitted her feet and could be fastened, and after some gentle encouragement, she stepped up. Benny and I took up cheerleading duties from the sidelines as she headed straight to the Expert route and got tied in. You know the film “The Colour of Money” where Tom Cruise plays a Pool Shark; imagine that, but on a climbing wall. And the instead of Tom Cruise you have a 5′6″ girl with windswept hair and an ill fitting harness. That is what we were seeing. Hollywood would eat it up I reckon. She managed to get further than the previous guy, but got stumped about half way up by a huge reach. When she got back down to the ground, the people running the wall let her have another attempt on the “Hard” route (the one down from “Expert”) for free. We whooped it up in true Jerry Springer style and encouraged her to get back on, which she did. This route definitely looked hard from the ground, and tricky read, but Snoo sailed up the first 90% of it. There was a tricky move right at the top to the last hold. On the first attempt Snoo came up a little short, but managed to save the move, retreating to a large bulging feature where she could rest out. Benny and I were going crazy down on the ground shouting up encouragement and even the four or five staff members working on the wall were joining in cheering her on. After a minute or so’s worth of rest, she attacked the move again, and with a bit of a pop managed to latch the last move and letting out a huge whoop of victory! She lowered off to a rapturous round of applause from the ground, untied, thanked the people working there and cool as a cucumber, walked out politely shunning her prize for reaching the top. How cool.

It was about time to go. It was surprisingly tiring walking around and being scared half to death all day, and we had a fairly long drive ahead to our next destination. We piled into the car and hit the road again, headed for Pismo Beach, and the nicest hotel ever…

We were greeted by another cloudless, California morning when we awoke from a good nights sleep in our modest Super 8 room. It was a fleeting stop over in J-Tree (Benny and I were getting good at these one night stands); we got dressed, packed up our stuff, hauled it into the back of the car and went to grab some breakfast. It was during said breakfast that we made a startling discovery. We’d been eating a lot of Raisin Bran (when available) as we had assumed that it was the healthiest breakfast cereal choice on offer; similar to Fruit & Fibre in the UK. It wasn’t until closer inspection that each humble raisin was covered in sugar, for reasons totally unknown to us. I dread to think how much additional sugar we’d unwittingly ingested on our trip! No wonder I felt so heavy on the rock (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking too it). Still, mountains of sugar or not; the Raisin Bran was still infinitely preferable to the ironically named “Fruit Loops”. They appeared to be made from small circles of raw plutonium, and stuffed into a box. From the looks of them, the closest they’d ever come to fruit was being situated five feet from bowl of apples and sorry looking bananas on the adjacent table.

Snoo on 'Gripper's Traverse' (V0+)

Anyway, with the breakfast rantings over with, it was time to head back into the park for few hours bouldering before it was time to push on again. Benny had some things in mind for the day: Namely repeating and attempting problems from his previous visit. With no real agenda, Snoo and I were happy to go along with this. The first stop was ‘Grippers Traverse’ (V0+). Intended to be a warm up, it ended up being trickier for Snoo and I than hoped. Starting with a sit start on the left hand side, the traverse follows an obvious, thin crack right for around fifteen feet. Snoo, who loves a good traverse, was keen to give it a go. It must get a fair amount of traffic as the thing felt awfully greasy and I came a cropped a couple of times as the tenuous crimps totally gave out beneath my fingers. Benny made a quick repeat, and once I had the sequence sorted, followed close behind. Snoo kept getting stuck on a couple of big, awkward moves but was making good progress. However, after some good attempts, she was getting pretty tired so we got back into the car and headed to another problem Benny had tried the previous year.

Benny on 'Velvetta' (V2)

Another short drive lead us to ‘Velvetta’ (V2). A vetical, real, sharp crimp-fest of a problem. Starting from a high start from side pulls, you make a couple of deadpoint moves on more small crimps before a big slap for the lip. The sun was baring down now. It was approaching midday and it was hot. We weren’t to be deterred though. As Snoo made herself comfortable and watched us from the ever decreasing shade, we started to piece together the beta and made a few tentative attempts. After a couple of goes, I’d managed to link up to the last move, but was struggling to see how make the reach to the lip. After some close examination, and cleaning of holds, I found a wide left foot which looked like it could work. I managed to get into the position again, and found the foot hold. I was pretty stable now, with my left up on a high gastone crimp, my right on a low side pull and my feet planted, I made a near full span bump with my left hand and got my finger tips over the lip. Unfortunately, I hit totally the wrong place and ended up slipping off. I was convinced it would work though, and on the next attempt, I stuck the move and made the easy top out! The move felt big for me, so I wasn’t sure if Benny was going to be able to make it. Looking back now, it was pretty foolish to think like that. Benny is nothing if not a dynamic climber and after a few attempts and some liberally applied tape to his now raw finger tips, he managed to stick the move! Two for two on ‘Velvetta’, and with the razor sharp rock beginning to take its toll on our fingers; not a moment too soon.

It was getting near time to leave, but before we could go, Snoo was determined to give ‘Grippers Traverse’ another try. On the way out of the park, we swung back into the parking lot right by the problem, and Snoo got prepared to try it again. The problem was more in the shade now, and it felt noticeably cooler, and the friction was definitely better. Snoo had a few isolated attempts on the crux moves that were stumping her previously and made them with ease. It was now or never, so she got back and went of the send! She came really close on the first attempt, but again, came unstuck on the awkward, wide crux move. The second time however, she sailed through it, and with gritted teeth edged her way along the final, overhanging, crimpy seam to the end of the problem! Success! We’d all done problems we were happy with, so we decided to leave things on a high. We packed up our stuff, loaded up the car and headed out of the park, and out of J-Tree again. Before long we were back on the I-10 heading west towards LA. It was only a short drive (especially by our recent standards) to our next stop over: Valencia, CA…

Right, sorry about that. Where was I?…

We snaked our way down through the desert back roads back into California. The stresses and strains of Nevada now far behind us we rolled into the small and understated town of Joshua Tree. Benny had been here by himself the previous year, and his tails of crazy arrangements of razor sharp rock were intriguing. We made it into town, and stopped for a while at a cafe on the main strip to grab a drink. Refreshed and relaxed, we nipped into the small climbing store next door which hired out J-Tree guide books. Armed with our temporary guide, the next mission was to find some where to stay. The ever organised Snoo was by now none too impressed by our frankly slap dash approach to accommodation booking since she’d left the first time, and to be fair, we weren’t really doing much to convince her that our current technique was really working. There are a few hotels available in J-Tree. First off, we tried the rather nice looking Best Western. Unfortunately, it was almost at full capacity, and the rooms that were left were out of our price range. None of these little inconveniences would stop us using their Wi-Fi from the car park in order to find somewhere else though, oh no. Our next stop at the Super 8 just up the road proved more successful, and the friendly Indian family running it checked us in without any worries and a smile. We dropped our stuff off, placed the three bottles of Budweiser which Benny and I had been hauling around since Hueco and which had since become our travelling companions, into the fridge and relaxed for a few minutes. It was getting quite late in the day, but we decided to get up into the park before it got dark.

Joshua Tree Landscape

We bundled ourselves back into the car and made the short but twisty drive up to the entrance of the park, bought our pass and continued in to try and find some easy problems on which to see out the day. Joshua Tree National Park is bizarre landscape, but in a really good way. It appears to be a mix of, as you might expect, Joshua Trees and random stacks of boulders strewn around. These odd formations make for a very interesting drive as we meandered slowly up through the park to our a parking lot which held, what we thought, would be an easy slabby warm up. It had been a scorcher of a day as we drove in, but as the sun began to drop and the wind picked up it got pretty damn chilly. We found ‘Intersection Boulder’ which was pretty much in the parking lot, and I have to say we were stumped. The thing was (or at least looked) blank. And tall. Benny and Snoo made a few tentative attempts at the first three or four feet of the problem, without much success while I shot some photos and tried to get warm. I decided to step up and have a crack. Since badly spraining my ankle in Fontainebleau in 2008, my slab climbing hasn’t been the strongest, but I had a go anyway. The thing was blank! It was a real mental battle to trust your feet on these nothing footholds with very little to pull on with your hands. I made some decent progress, and managed to get a little over half way up the slab which felt a whole lot taller when you were on it than when you were looking at it from the ground. My confidence was starting to improve until I hit a move which seemed to involve a very high foot rock over, again with poor handholds. I tried a few times to try and make myself trust my feet but it just wasn’t happening – after a while, the toe of my high left foot popped and I had an awkward fall, having to tap the rock to try and get out over the bulge at the base. After a couple more attempts ended the same way, we decided to move on to something else. Not far away was a nice, vertical crimp fest called ‘Dynamo Hum’ (V1). This was a nice break from the previous problem in so much that it actually had holds! Quite biggish moves between, sharp but positive crimps and flakes. I managed to nail it after a couple of attmepts and only the smallest of blood injuries on my leg. However, the descent turned out to be even scarier than than the ascent. Shuffling and sliding down the steep, slabby backside of the problem followed by an awkward jump onto the crash pad was one that I didn’t want to repeat too soon!

Benny on 'Dynamo Hum' (V1)

Snoo and Benny worked the problem for a while; Benny employing an incredibly elaborate and scary array of toe hooks and and the like, and managing to despatch it as the sun sank below the piles of boulders that littered the park and the long shadows were cast across the rocks. Before long, it was getting too dark to really try the problem safely. We wandered around to see if there was anything worth returning to the following day, before scrambling to the top of a small stack of boulders to bask in the incredible sunset on offer. As the sky went from orange to blue to black, we headed back to the car, and wound our way down through the park and back into the small main drag of Joshua Tree itself. Pizza and a few beers was in order before a well earned nights sleep, happy in the knowledge that we’d broken out of Vegas and were back on course…