Sunday August 8, 2010
Lots of Friends Great Weather

Normally air temps in the 80's would seem hot but following on the heels of the recent record breaking heat it almost seemed cool. I hiked with two friends from PATC Trail Patrol and two of their friends from PATC as far as the top of the chute. At this point I decided I would hang out and watch over the rock scramble from the chute for a few hours. After that I proceeded slowly up the Ridge Trail. I took numerous long stops at various view points along the way and had a long conversation with Michael Doyle and his climbing partner. Once I got to the summit I waited a couple hours for sunset and then headed out on the Saddle Trail and fire roads.

ROCK ADVENTURE MOVIE

I blogged about this about a year ago but thought I would write a fresh post.
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Speaking of rock climbing if you are a fan of rock climbing history than check out the blog about an upcoming Rock Adventure Film Diary being created by a young film maker story teller Director Oakley Anderson-Moore and Producer Paul Blair with lots of help from others.

http://rockadventuremovie.com/film.html

They are operating on a shoe string budget so I sent a little money to help their cause and would encourage you to do the same. I have no idea how they are doing with their budget or how close to finishing the project they are but I imagine that even ten dollars would help with their goal of finishing the movie. My sense is that they are going to do a great job at capturing the essence of a passionate way of life for hundreds of climbers during the 60's and 70's. I am sure their film will record a lot of great stories and pieces of verbal history that otherwise would have been lost with the passage of time.

My 16 years of personal climbing adventures were on grades below 5.10 but I spent more than half my weekends rockclimbing and understand what it means to be passionate about the sport.

Raising my two daughters, advancing the application of computer technology, nature, climbing, and mountains have been my life's big passions so I am really excited about seeing the final movie.




Catherine taking a picture of Ellen and John with John in the foreground.
John, John, Ellen and Catherine on the first false summit.



ORMSer Liz on her third circuit just below the PATC/Skyline Wall area. She is preparing for an ultra-marathon The Mountain Masochist. Knowing I would post this on my blog she told me to give a shout out to all the ORMS crew whom she is looking forward to volunteering with in the Fall.

Liz's sharp eyes spotted these galls. I have not been able to get a definite identification of the insect that makes these but there were about 30 or 40 of them on this one plant.

A Red Admiral on granite.

I spotted this interesting collection of cairns on the way down the Saddle Trail.

A different angle on the same cairns.

Another great Old Rag sunset.

Twilight over Mt Robertson from just above the CCC stairs.

This Copperhead was crossing the fire road about two tenths a mile below Old Rag shelter.

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Besides the friends pictured above it was good to catch up with the Contact station staff, my Old Rag friend April and Michael Doyle as he was finishing off a climb at the top of Skyline/PATC wall. It is always fun swapping stories with the folks I meet on the mountain and of course good old Toes (one of the Old Rag Dogs) greeted me at my car when I finished my hike.

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For some reason this was a day for huge heel blisters and I got to help two hikers with mole skin and duct tape . Plan on being self sufficient on Old Rag but if you happen across a volunteer do not hesitate to ask us for help.