I was lucky enough to have 4 friends meet me in Lake Tahoe for climbing at a wall called Lover's Leap for a solid 5 days of great climbing. From left to right in the picture is: Craig from Phoenix, Kevin from LA, Peter from Portland and Pat from Olympia. We are all friends of some way or another from all working at Intel at some point of our lives. The weather was great and in total I think we climbed a total of 18 pitches in 5 days which is a heck of a lot of climbing. One of the coolest climbs we did was called Bear's Reach which is about 400+ feet. You can watch a famous climber by the name of Dan Osman climb the same route here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ADOK6LD70w
He did the climb without ropes or gear in a little over 4 minutes. Took us a little under 4 hours I think. Believe it or not the guy died in a climbing accident. Crazy huh?
The one thing that I did notice is that now that I am getting older fear is catching up to me! Kevin and I were sitting about 200 feet up from the ground on the side of the rock at a belay station as Craig climbed on, and we both realized that we were scared out of our pants and started giggling uncontrollably. At that point we both agreed it was time to get to Santa Cruz and start surfing as soon as possible!
Before Kevin and I left Tahoe we spent a night at the casinos to try and win some money to fund the rest of the trip. Well that didn't happen. . . . However we spent about 4 hours at the blackjack table with some new friends, Lalani, Milly, and their husbands who were all 80+. Lalani and her husband Tony (a WWII vet) were married for 63 years. Kevin and I had a blast with them all night and it was so nice and inspiring to meet couples that have been together for so long and still out having the times of their lives.
Here are some additional pictures of us climbing:
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Hey Russ, what's all the dirt on your face? Need to wipe it off.
ReplyDeleteglad to know you guys weren't giggling because i had a hole in my pants or something! hahaha! ton, ton, ton of fun! thanks for playing! craig
ReplyDeleteFrom the pictures, I can't see where Kevin is storing his laptop so that you can take your PC turns. Please advise.
ReplyDeleteBen, it is just a good thing there are enough pixels with cameras today so you ca at least see the dirt on my face!
ReplyDeleteCraig R - thanks for towing us up all those great routes. Best quote of the week from you, "I think we would have been just fine" after your shoes were covered with rubble.
Craig K- both Kevin and I have boycotted PC as we are anxiously awaiting the iPhone version that mark is almost done with.
Some great photos. Thanks for sharing!
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