November 7, 2003
Oro Valley, Arizona, USA
1pm. I'm at my sister's house finishing a morning of editing images of Burning Man and the fun since then. This afternoon I'm off to Scottsdale, a couple hours drive north, where I'll spend the weekend learning as much as I can and making connections at the Independent Education consultant's conference.
The climbing at J-tree was rad, as always, cranking nothing less than three stars under blue sky in Dr. Seuss Land. I crashed at Hidden Valley, international climber summer camp, and hung with a bunch of chill cats: Bing, Sam, Carol, Alice, Gene, and Alex. Dirt bags live there under boulders for weeks, but that's changing in February, when the park service starts a $5 per night camping fee. I did a bit of bouldering and hit a few classics around Hidden Valley: Sail Away, Double Cross, The Flake, and couple in Wonderland-- Mental Physics and the 9.5 slab to the left. All in all... pure bliss!
Monday night we took a night hike to "The Cave with an Iron Door," where Alice told the story of a rancher who lived there before it was a park, and used the cave to lock up his retarded son. The next night we visited the legendary "Chasim of Doom," a 300ft pile of boulders the size of houses, and damn it was scary... the perfect Halloween trip, crawling around inside in the dark, like in a castle, squeezing through tight passage-ways and jumping gaps with huge drops, ending up on-top, on like a turret, with a killer view over the desert lit by moonlight. It's a hoot kickin' it with big-balls kidz and tough-ass chicks.
Alex rode with me here to Tucson, and then caught the bus to Los Mochis, where he'll take the train to Copper Canyon. The bus from Tucson to Mazatlan is only $60US.
From yesterday's visit with Mother Goddess AJ and her girls:
