All Alone

Do you remember the movie "Christmas Vacation" where Clark goes up into the attic and the door locks behind him leaving him stuck for the entire day while his family parties without him? Well, this week I am home alone as the rest of my family party it up in Utah. And just like Clark Griswold, I entertained myself by finding some old family movies. I think I'll share:

Joshua Tree Campout for Father's Day

Does it seem like this is turning into a climbing blog more than a family blog?

J-Tree Rock Formations

We live directly in the middle of some of the best climbing areas in the United States, right here in Southern California. Jeremy lent me a copy of his climbing guide to Joshua Tree National Park a few weeks ago and I have spent many nights studying the thousands of routes listed in the nearly 500 page book. When Leanne asked me what I wanted for father's day, I requested a day of climbing out at the park. We quickly expanded it to a camping trip for the whole family, then invited Jeremy's family as well.
Joshua Tree gets its name from the unusually shaped trees that dot its desert landscape. I was interested to learn that the name "Joshua Tree" was coined by the Mormon pioneers as they traveled through the area on their way to San Diego and San Bernardino as part of the Mormon Battalion in the mid 1800s. The official park website states the limbs of the unusual trees reminded them of Joshua guiding them home to heaven with outstretched arms. Yeah, the trees were cool, but we were there for the rocks, and rocks they have a' plenty.

Camp

Garrett demonstrates proper marshmallow technique

We arrived Friday afternoon and setup our campsites. We started a campfire and the kids spent the next few hours swinging flaming marshmallows around the campsite. Then they smeared melted chocolate on their hands and faces. Garrett is especially gifted in the study of "dirty faced cuisine" and spent some time instructing his little brothers on chocolate mustaches and marshmallow mouth rings. A small field mouse came to the edge of the campsite to check out all the commotion and was spotted by the little boys. The little guy was unafraid of the man-cubs and allowed them to play with him until it was time for bed. I think the mouse was able to get more of the smores in its mouth than the boys.
Climbing the next day was as good as I had hoped. The rock a Joshua Tree is a really rough granite that provides excellent traction for climbing shoes. Jeremy and I headed up a 5.6 route named "The Dutchess" and set up a top rope for the kids to play on. I have learned that route ratings are very subjective as a 5.6 route at our normal climbing area would be relatively easy compared to this challenging climb. There were many more routes we wanted to try, but this time of year can be scorching hot in the California desert, so we had to abandon the fun when the rocks came free of the shadows and the sun hit us full force. We had a great time and will be returning as soon as time permits to prove our skills on other J-Tree climbing routes.

How does the saying go, "Dirty hands, warm heart" or something like that?

Liam draws a star with his glow-stick

More glow-stick action after sunset in the park

Chloe and Charly

Jeremy leading "The Dutchess"

Chloe trying out the small stuff

Me on "The Dutchess, Left"

Liam and Grant keep the gear organized and clean

Marci on the route's final, difficult moves

Liam is a good boy

Liam's birthday is near the end of November. In most states, he would not have made the cut off to start school, but in California, he made it by about 5 days (they are changing that next year). This makes him the youngest kid in the second grade, yet his size makes him the tallest in his class. Through a few different channels, we learned last week that Liam was suffering though some social difficulties at school, namely he has been on the receiving end of some cruel, and unkind treatment by the other kids in his grade. He was surprisingly unconcerned by the incidents and consistently maintained good grades and behavior in spite of these difficulties. However, learning of his situation brought some tears of sadness to his parent's eyes, and we thought and discussed much trying to find a way to help our little boy.
Leanne developed the opinion that having him repeat the second grade would be the solution to his problems as his church and neighborhood playmates were all 1st graders. My thoughts were that having him repeat a grade was akin to running away from our problems instead of working to fix them. We were at an impasse as both solutions had merit difficult to ignore. It was decided that we would involve Liam in the discussion and we sat down one evening to explain the situation and possible solutions to the little boy. It was decided that we should have him pray for some guidance. I explained to him how to interpret an answer given by the Spirit and prayed silently that he would be successful in obtaining the answer that had eluded his mother and I.
  Well, let us just say that he received his answer, apparent by the wide grin that spread across his face. I wont go into details here, but I will say how grateful we were to be able to witness the Lord's concern for the individual, even a young, struggling 7 year old.

Failure at Tahquitz Rock

This is Tahquitz Rock in Idyllwild, California, one of the birthplaces of rock climbing in the US. People travel from all over the world and test their skills on granite mammoth, and we are lucky enough to have it right in our backyard. Well, backyard in SoCal terms means about an hour drive from home, a relative hop, skip, and jump compared to the 2 hour daily commute many endure in our area.
Jeremy and I have been training and collecting gear for a few months in order to make our own attempt on the historic rock. Our day of proving came last Saturday, and if you were thorough enough to read the title of this entry you already know that we failed in our attempt to reach the top. A little more than 1/2 the way up, we were forced to retreat back the way we came and kick pine cones down the trail in frustration.
Question: Cyrus, why are you such a wuss?
Answer: Three reasons - 1. I was totally unprepared for the amount of exposure on this rock and it really made me doubt my ability to climb, heck, being that high in the air made me doubt my ability to move and breathe without falling 1200 feet into the valley below - 2. I have only done a small amount of crack climbing and this climb was all cracks - 3. This was my first time climbing on my own protection, meaning there were no pre-placed bolts on the routes so we had to place our own anchors in the rock. These anchors look really solid when your feet are on the ground, but when your hundreds of feet in the air...well...i was a little less...sure.

This is the view from the start of the route. I know it is hard to tell from the picture, but at the start of the climb, we are already hundreds of feet above the surrounding hills and mountains. Intimidating.
The last shot is looking down from the first of 4 rope lengths up the rock. We got stuck about 2/3 the way to the top. We plan to return soon in order to re-establish ourselves as real men. Updates to follow.

My New Obsession

It is difficult for me to turn my brain down from dealing with the daily stresses brought on by fatherhood, work, and priesthood responsibilities. I have never been able to “chill out” like many men can by watching sports all afternoon some Saturdays. In the past, I have found the motocross track to be an excellent method of relaxation as it requires a significant amount of physical effort and control coupled with total mental concentration and focus leaving no spare brain cycles for the day-to-day worries. Two traits of this activity made me finally put it away for a time:

Grant has no fear. Should I be worried?

1. Expense – not just the bikes, but of all the required accessories such as a truck, trailer, membership fees,  fuel, maintenance, gear, ect…

2. Solitude – it is largely a solitary activity, meaning it was difficult for my family to participate. Even when you have several bikes, it is difficult to have conversations with your family members through helmets and over noisy motors.

Over the past few months, I have begun to love a sport I thought was just for hippies and tree-huggers; rock climbing. I have found that I get the same benefit from climbing that i used to get from motocross.

Physically demanding – isn’t it great to wake up on Sunday morning and discover your muscles are so sore your wife has to help you put your shirt on.

Mental focus – Imagine this: your 100ft up the rock face clinging to a 1/4 inch lip and you feel your feet start to slip. You thinking about work? Yeah, me neither.

Expense – Our whole family was outfitted for a few hundred dollars, now you kids might get to go to college!

Voices – One person climbs at a time, but everyone is on the wall with them. We laugh, we cheer, we tease, we push, and we all hold our breath in unison during the tricky spots.

Craig the hippie giving me some pointers on anchor set up.

A game of stratego while waiting for a turn

Charly's job is to pull the rope down when we have finished

Headed home, the easy way.

Goldilocks takes it down a notch

There comes a time in every girls life when they begin to be concerned with how they look to others and start to take a more active role in the determination of their outward appearance and grooming. Today, at the age of three, Charly decided she would no longer have her hairstyle decided for her, but would trim her lovely golden locks more they way she thought would be best. She grabbed a pair of decorative edging scissors and before anyone was able to intervene, several large chunks of yellow hair lay on the kitchen floor.

I was working on a motorcycle in the garage when Garrett came to tell me the news. Why does it happen when Dad is supposed to be watching the children? It is hard enough convincing our wives we are responsible adults without this type of catastrophe.

Well, that is a lot of hair. After a decent spanking we surveyed the damage. See that significant portion of forehead that used to be covered up? Yeah, that is going to be a problem.

I put her in the tub and asked, “Why did you cut off all your pretty hair, Charly?” She said, “Its OK Dad, Mom and Marci will fix it.”

She was mostly correct, in that Leanne was able to make it look a lot better that I feared at first site, but I guess the Price family will have two unusual hair dos for a little while. (Leanne and I were talking about how my hair doesn’t lay the same after my horse incident.)