Wonderland of Rocks

I understand that this was now a long time since my last entry. Work had got me almost every minute I had - but now I'm back. My supervisor at Johns Hopkins, John, invited his whole research group to the ARO conference in San Diego, California. San Diego is a nice city, you can go out for a walk at night without having the fear of being shot or something, and the conference was really not bad either. After the 5 days of the conference, Bernhard and I took five days off, rented a Jeep and headed to the Joshua Tree National Park, which is about a two and a half hours drive from San Diego.

Joshua Tree is awesome. It is one of the most beautiful places on earth I've ever been to. Basically, Joshua Tree National Park is a region where two different types of desert come together, often named as 'high' and 'low' desert: below about 900 meters, the Colorado Desert occupies the eastern part of the park with the typical creosote bush and the cholla cactus as you see it in the famous Cactus Garden in the center of the park. The higher, cooler and wetter Mojave Desert is typical for the northwestern part of the park and habitat for the Joshua Trees - which are no real trees at all. 

Even more astonishing as the flora is the geology of the park and its surroundings. On the south end (standing on Keys View) you can clearly see the San Andreas Fault, and within the park are rugged mountains and twisted rock formations of exposed granite monoliths which look very dramatic on the one hand, and are absolutely irresistible for climbers on the other hand: Joshua Tree is one of the best climbing areas in the whole U.S. - if not world - and the fact, that you can climb year round, makes it even more popular. 

In Joshua Tree, you can find such amazing big wall climbs as onto the Astro Domes (a climbers dream, I'd say), but in fact, you find about 8000 routes in the whole park, and an uncountable number of boulder problems. Bernhard and I were long discussing how and in which form to climb there - we definitely wanted to. The only drawback: we started climbing just in October, and still had not gathered too much of the gear necessary - the trad gear you need there is often worth literally thousands of Dollars. So we booked a Guide for an 'Intermediate Rock Climbing Course' - but essentially, this was a private guide: we were only four people in the group. The guide - mountaineer and sooner or later doctor of Chinese Medicine Scott Cole - taught us about anchoring, equipment, self-rescue and thankfully chose quite difficult routes for us: I wouldn't have been happy with beginner routes ;)

We were climbing at Cap Rock an Echo Cove, developing better climbing technique in cracks and especially on friction climbs which are typical for Joshua Tree: you can understand such a friction climb as walking up a sometimes almost vertical wall just by using proper footwork since you have almost nothing to hold on to for your hands. If you find the tiniest chip of rock on the otherwise really smooth rock surface, you can consider yourself lucky but then you will be climbing a grade below 5.10 or so. The first friction climb I tried was rated a 5.10d/5.11a (which I didn't know at the time I started) - and I remained the only one of our group who could climb that without falling. I'm really proud of that. 

The conclusion of our days in Joshua Tree are: I want to come back. The Astro Domes look very interesting (a famous 5.9 leads up there) and it is so beautiful... I wouldn't have been able to go away if I wouldn't be sure I will come back and do some more climbing. 

But now, let me show you a few pictures of Joshua Tree:

Arch Rock at night. A self-portrait. (Run, Karin! Run!!! And now hold your breath for 30 seconds...).









Rappelling off a rock.






Scrambling in Hidden Valley at night.






In the Wonderland of Rocks.



















A Joshua Tree with star rails.


















The route continues right above the climber's head where you see the white rock surface. It's indeed quite steep and there is nothing for your hands to hold on to.










One of our fellow climbers in Echo Cove.










Clove Hitch, Figure 8, anchoring...

Stars vs. fireworks - Happy New Year!

December 31st and January 1st we spent hiking in Shenandoah National Park and later the day drove to Blackwater Wildlife Refuge in Maryland.
The woods in Shenandoah are a bit frustrating right now, full of bare and windswept trees, maybe a bit mystical.

Bare trees in Shenandoah.



Dark Hollow Falls.





On the trail.







And this is it: Happy New Year!





And on the next day: Blackwater.

Sunset at Blackwater.



Thousands of Canada Geese gather there in the winter.





Swamp land.



Bald Eagle and Canada Geese.

Christmas in America

Quite frankly, we planned to work more or less during Christmas. We thought there is nothing else to do. But then, Dale, a fantastic colleague at Johns Hopkins invited us to celebrate Christmas Eve together with him and his family who gave us a warm welcome in their home. They insisted on not being called a 'typical American' family, not celebrating 'typical American' Christmas, and so we spent the night eating, playing and talking about adventures in every possible corner of the world. ;)

Anyway, later the evening we decided that we wanted to see something typical American as well, and so we drove to the 'Miracle of 34th' street, which is - guess what - in 34th street in Baltimore. For years now they decorate their houses for Christmas, and people from all over the area come and watch the lights there. It's hard to stand it, really, and the hip swinging Santa really caught my mind. And another thing I was wondering is... what if the house owners don't want to decorate their houses?

But have a look now, here are some pictures I took on Christmas Eve (which is December 25th, here, just to let you know).