1 Tbsp chipotle powder – more or less according to your wimpiness
Preheat oven to 350F. Clean the sweet potatoes, remove any uglies (I like them unpeeled) then cut them lengthwise into quarters. Then cut into bites that your 1/2 bacon slices will wrap around.
Melt coconut oil over low-heat and stir in chipotle chili powder. Toss the potatoes in the spiced, melted coconut oil to coat.
Cut the bacon slices in half. Wrap each sweet potato bite with a half slice of bacon, and use a toothpick to hold the bacon in place.
Place on a baking sheet and bake for 45 minutes, turning once about halfway through.
These are done when the bacon is crispy and the sweet potatoes are fork-tender. Remove from heat and let cool (but not cold) before serving.
Carol sends "Tag Team", 5.10c at Kelly's Rock, UtahRoad Trippin'
Sixteen days, 8 different climbing areas in California and Utah, new rock climbing personal bests, new friends, old friends, givebacks to the climbing community, new climbers pushing their boundaries (and possibly spending less time underground and in canyons from now on!), dinners, drinks – just an outstanding outing.
Climbing friends, keep reading and I’ll be talking about some awesome climbing areas you may never have heard of and/or that I know you’ll want to put on your “must do” lists.
Guidebooks
Please buy guidebooks. I’ve done a lot of writing, and it’s obvious what a labor of love these books are – the authors deserve our support. In general, they’re full of useful data about the general area, climbing history of the area, and can lead to so many awesome adventures.
Climbing guidebooks for this trip!
1 – Pine Creek Canyon / Bishop, CA
Pine Creek Canyon – a place many climbers we’ve met have never heard of (ref. “Bishop Area Rock Climbs”), yet it’s full of beautiful Yosemite-grade granite (without the crowds). Over a hundred sport and trad climbs are listed in the guidebook.
One of our objectives on the trip was to push our trad climbing personal best, so with this in mind, we headed up into Pine Creek to the Barbershop Buttress. The plan was to sport climb “Just a Little Trim” (5.9, 3/5 stars) to warm up, then head to a nice crack nearby to climb “Vegetarian Delight” (5.8, 2/5 stars). Turns out I got schooled on “Trim” as it turned out to be slabby and thin – I bailed, Carol jumped on and soon found herself at the top. We spent the rest of the afternoon reclimbing it; though I reclimbed it 3 times, I never did feel like “OK, I’m ready to lead this” – so we’ll be back.
In the same area is Pratt’s Crack Gully, with 52 sport climbs 5.9 to 13a and 42 gear climbs 5.8 to 5.12a. Our impression is these are Old School ratings so you better bring your “A” game. We’ll be working this area for years to come.
Found this recipe, which looked promising, but I modified it and used yogurt instead of cottage cheese (way too salty for me). They’re pretty tasty, but won’t remind you of fluffy pancakes – more like crepes.
With all the protein and little or no fat, they like to stick, so you’ll need some fat in the pan, and I had to resort to my non-stick fry pan ’cause I was essentially chiseling them out of my cast iron fry pan.
1 C Oatmeal
1 C plain yogurt
3/4 C egg whites
2 Tbsp honey (or sugar, or skip entirely)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Put the above in the blender and do so for 30 seconds or so.
1 C blueberries
If you’re using frozen blueberries, defrost and drain before adding.
Cook over medium heat in a non-stick pan with a little coconut oil. I wound up using 3 minutes per side. YMMV.
I toted up ~750 calories for the batter, plus however much oil you use and about 36 g of protein for the whole batch.
P.S. – looks like there are a lot more good things over here at cleananddelicious.com, so check it out – I’ll be looking at the sweet potato recipes!
One afternoon, while waiting to head over to our friends’ house for bar-b-q and beer, this occurred to me as possibly a great thing to bring. After all, bar-b-q and beer pretty much demand bacon to complete the alliterative hat trick.
I’ve now made this three times, so I consider it a keeper!
I had some freshly cooked black beans (I pretty much always have freshly cooked black beans around) so I made this up:
16 oz (by weight) cooked and drained black beans
3 slices uncured bacon
2 Tbsp EVOO
8 oz (by weight) chopped onion
1 Tbsp ground cumin
1 Tbsp chipotle chili pepper (more – in my case – or less – to adjust heat level to your liking)
3 Tbsp seasoned rice vinegar
2 Tbsp water
1 fistful of fresh cilantro if you’ve got it
In a fry pan on medium heat, cook the bacon in the EVOO until it’s crispy. Remove the bacon slices and set aside.
Add the cumin, chipotle and onion; saute until soft.
Add the rice vinegar and deglaze. Add the beans and stir until mixed.
Put the bacon in a food processor, pour the bean mixture on top, add cilantro and run it until you get a good consistency.
Randy shows off treasures found in the White Mountain peak register
Early July of this year – I had just discovered my SNAFU with the dates for my Whitney Trail permit and Randy was one of the affected parties. Randy thought he could scramble and still make the trip, but together we arrived at the conclusion that 2 weeks in August would trump one week in July.
Randy arrived at SFO on Saturday 8/13; we picked him up and headed to Tiburon for some lunch and a view of San Francisco from across the bay. Crawling through Saturday afternoon traffic in SF, I was reminded why we’re seldom in SF on a Saturday afternoon in a car. Some lunch, a visit to the railroad museum, then it’s “you want to see more City or something wilder?” – something wilder it is. We headed down Highway 1 towards Santa Cruz, stopping to see a few sights along the way. Dinner on the SC Wharf and then home where Randy crashed after a long, long day – Alabama time being 3 hours ahead of us, he was coming up on 20 hours or so of being awake.
Next morning (Sunday), we went to our climbing gym for a little tuneup – turns out Randy, while a beginner climber, has some good intuition for body movement and climbed some nice routes. We abused him a little with a roof problem, some crack climbing and I think a mantel move or two, and all too soon we were all nicely burned out and ready to move on.
On the way home, we decided to head east and get into the mountains right away. We packed all our gear – and Trebuchet – into the camper and headed out; my plan was to sleep just outside the YNP west entrance and then get into the park early in the morning. As we were nearing our camping spot, just a little after dusk, a mountain lion ran across the highway in front of us. Nice. I would not have been more surprised to see a herd of unicorns.
The Donut Lady
Monday morning, up and out and off to the Tuolumne Grove of giant Sequoias. There’s no picture I’ve seen that does justice to how big these trees are. The best perspective we got was actually an old dead tree lying down – incredible. We headed on east, stopping at Olmstead Point to take a look at some big granite. Nice views of Tenaya Canyon, Cloud’s Rest, Half Dome and other et cetera, but the Donut Lady had her back to all the scenery due to other priorities. Takes a lot of frosted deep-fried simple carbs to achieve that profile, I guess.
We crawled on through Yosemite, parked just outside the East Entrance, and headed out for a little leg stretcher up Gaylor Peak. The map on the signage at the trail head called out Gaylor Peak at 12,750 feet, an amusing mistake. Wandering along, taking our time, taking pictures, looking at stuff, we were on Gaylor about 45 minutes later – ostensibly having gained 2,800 feet in that time, we were definitely in shape for any adventure we could dream up! We contemplated the Gaylor Lakes basin, the Cathedral Range and other outstanding scenery while snacking. We then downclimbed off the north end of Gaylor and made our way up to the old mining works. On the way back to the trail head we discovered the wonders of the mosquito bloom after a late summer. Continue reading → Post ID 593
Mountaineering /n./ – slow walking uphill while not feeling very well…
Polemonium eximium and Mount Muir
Mount Muir is located just off the Mount Whitney Trail, which means it’s in the Whitney Zone, which means it’s a PITA because of the Whitney Lottery. Last January, I collected names and exclusion dates from 3 friends, picked 10 2-night windows, and then sent in my application – and actually got a set of dates.
I misread the dates, thought it was August, got all the parties lined up for that window, then for some reason picked up the permit again early morning July 2 – while planning a different trip to Colorado and Nebraska – and oh, crap, the dates are in July and only 2 weeks away. Carol was flexible but I lost everyone else; long story short after casting a wide net I found 4 people (Michelle, Hugo, Delia and Justin) to make use of the 6 permit slots.
Another big oh, crap – living at sea level and having done no hiking or aerobic activities at all, we were ill prepared for the 18 miles and 12,000 feet of elevation gain and loss involved in getting from the Whitney Portal to Mount Muir and back – 12 miles and 8,000 vertical feet of that with backpacks.
Sunday 7/10 – packed, loaded Trebuchet in the truck, headed for the Sierra Eastside via Highway 120 through Yosemite. Near Tioga Pass, I said something about “we should at least get out and stretch our legs today”; Carol noticed a sign that said “Mono Pass” so we parked, grabbed gear and headed out. Nice, easy hike (apart from fording some flooded streams) and great views along the way. Camped for the night at one of our favorite spots in the Mono Basin. I won’t say where, ’cause I don’t want to find you there. 😛
Monday 7/11 – Mono Pass looked interesting from the west side; let’s go see what we missed on the east side of the pass. The hike starts at Walker Lake and climbs up through Bloody Canyon. Before we started, I assumed Bloody Canyon was named for the iron oxide in the rocks – not too far in, we decided it was named for all the bloody mosquitoes – Carol got to moving really fast once we hit the mosquitoes (of course our bug shirts were back in the truck). There were beautiful, Douglas Iris-filled meadows, but no one wanted to give enough blood to take pictures, so we kept moving. We ran out of food and water at Lower Sardine Lake, which was well worth hiking up to, and turned around. We had some fun along the way doing a short glissade and wading flooded streams with our boots around our necks (“Do not drop that boot in the water!”).
Tuesday – rest day.
Charlie the Mount Dana Marmot
Wednesday – Mount Dana. 13,000 feet, flowers (including one of our favorites, Sky Pilots – one of the Fourteeners, Polemonium Peak, is named for them), pikas, marmots, incredible views from the top – and a great test piece for high altitude acclimatization. We had never failed on a Fourteener attempt if we had climbed Mount Dana first. Great day out, Carol had her best Dana climb yet, snow fields to climb (and glissade on the way down), Charlie the Mount Dana Marmot was there to greet us at the top for the second year in a row. After snacks and some time spent enjoying the views, we made our way back down the mountain. One BIG highlight was getting to glissade down two long snow fields – number one, fun and number two, easy on the legs. Back at the car we headed for Lee Vining and Nicely’s restaurant, which produces the best fried chicken I’ve had anywhere (sorry, Mom) as well as an amazing bread pudding. We’re all about food rewards when we feel we’ve earned them.
Thursday / Friday – rest, drop Trebuchet off for boarding while we’re in the backcountry, meet up with Michelle and Hugo, get permits set up, camp at Lone Pine campground.
I had some leftover freshly cooked black beans (that I made for this brownie recipe) so I made this up:
2 C cooked and drained black beans (or 1 15 oz can; if you use canned be sure to rinse them well)
3 Tbsp EVOO
2 Tbsp sesame oil
2 Tbsp seasoned rice vinegar
1 Tbsp ground cumin (or more, yum
1 Tbsp chipotle chili pepper
1 fistful of fresh cilantro if you’ve got it
I put it all in my food processor and ran it until I liked the consistency. Carol says “2 thumbs up”. Use it for anything you’d use chickpea hummus for…
1 cup semisweet choc. chips (I used 1 C organic coconut) (Note – it was a mistake to leave out the chips – too dry – will try adding both next time)
1/2 cup walnuts (I used 1/2 c raw almonds)
Put everything but chips and nuts into food processor, process until it’s batter. Add coconut and nuts, process until nuts are broken up. Pour into baking pan greased with coconut oil. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes
When the weather at our favorite destinations is bad (like now), or we’re between outdoor trips (gotta come home sometime), or recovering from injury (frequently), Carol and I spend a lot of time at our climbing gym working on our climbing skills and strength.
Our favorite climbing gym activity is called bouldering, a branch of rock climbing that dispenses with harnesses, ropes and protection gear and focuses on making a few (let’s say typically less than 15) very hard moves relatively close to the ground. Protection from falls is provided by a crash pad and / or spotters (other climbers whose job it is to guide a falling climber onto a fall-friendly surface).
Bouldering is very compelling for a number of reasons, but my favorites are 1) the climber doesn’t have to tie up another person’s time being a belayer and 2) bouldering tends to be a very social activity with a number of climbers working the same problem at a time and giving each other encouragement, beta and tips on technique.
We had gone bouldering outdoors a couple times in the past, but had no crash pad, which severely limited what we were willing to try because of the risk of significant injury from a relatively short fall. Duh, huh? In October we went to a local bouldering hot spot called Castle Rock with our friends Eric and Brian; had a great time and decided to commit to getting a crash pad.
Since then we’ve been on a couple trips to the Eastern Sierra to try out the crash pad and are pretty much hooked. Our Bishop Bouldering guidebook lists 2,000+ climbs in the area, so we’ll not run out of things to do for a long, long time. The bouldering venues in the Bishop area are just unbelievable – the Sierra Nevada crest is to the west and the Inyos and White Mountains are to the east so the views from the top of each climb are just breathtaking.
There’s also a tremendous amount of variety in types of rock and in climbing skills required – from deeply pocketed gymnastic climbs on welded volcanic tuff to thin, technical slabby climbs on granite. We’re better at the former than at the latter ’cause it matches more with what we see in the gym – and it turns out you’re good at what you practice (how’s that for insight!).
We took a lot of video and I’ve spent some time editing them; I think I’ve come up with a couple fun ones.
I have to say I never thought we’d do something like number 4 on this trip, but we met some other boulderers that had done it before and we got some good beta and encouragement. It was so awesome we climbed it 7 times between us over 2 days.
I’ve included a scan from the inside cover of the Bishop Bouldering guidebook for the purposes of a little orienteering. The guidebook is really good – for instance, finding Pocketopia and the Catacombs involves driving around on the volcanic plateau on forest service roads, some of which are unmarked – but we drove right up to both these spots on the first try.
We’ll be off again as soon as we spot a break in the weather around Bishop – snow, rain and nighttime temperatures in the low 20’s don’t work for us.
Namaste, Rick
P.S.
We’re always looking for an excuse to head to the Eastern Sierra to do most anything. One of the best excuses is when friends or family want to go and explore, so help us out and propose a trip!
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