We went to climb at San Ysidro yesterday, the approach path has been drastically changed. We were part of a group of 7 people, I was in the lead and it was a good thing because I barely made out the remnants of the path that took us down from the main trail and eventually across the stream. Portions of the path had been swept away, large bushes were gone, and the once small stream was now fairly wide and swift enough to create portions of white water. By following the remnants of the path we were able to cross with some boulder hopping.
We arrived on the scene and I found one backpack, the climbers who owned it were not in sight. We did see Sage though!
Sage is the most adorable yellow labrador. She apparently is the Trail Dog. She lives in the house right next to the trail head and if she decides to hike with you she will just run out of her loosely fenced yard and act as if you were her best friend. She’s hiked with us around 4 times. She goes all the way to the base of the cliffs and then hunts for sticks or takes a nap while you climb. When you finally come down she bounds over to you, very happy to see you, and then walks back with you. She is the most adorable dog. Everyone who sees her thinks she is lost and secretly thinks in their head that if the owner isn’t found they will adopt her.
I’d post a picture of her but my camera’s batteries failed me Sunday… as did the back up batteries!
Anyway, climbing was great as always. And the day turned out to be a surprisingly social one. Aside from the 6 other people I was with, a group of four set up a climb to the right of Orangahang and it turns out I had met one of the women, she asked if I knew G and I was able to tell her that I had climbed Half Dome with him. Then we found out who owned the one backpack we had seen. Turns out it was a couple we had met about a year ago according to them. Eventually I recalled who they were too. Then we saw P, he’s there quite a bit, but he was more talkative than usual this time. Then was a pair of guys from UCSB, and a couple who wanted to climb with K next time. And finally a guy who K had wanted to climb with also showed up. I don’t think I’d ever seen so many people at the crag at once.
Well, with all the socialization going on (and due to the fact that I wanted to let the newer climbers in the group get as many climbs in as possible) I personally did not get to climb very much. I lead up Orangahang and set up an anchor for it and then cleaned up routes when we needed them done quickly. Mainly I was belay and advice giver (I asked first if folks wanted beta before dispensing it). I also did a lot of free soloing on the “descent traverse” which goes across the face of Many Happy Returns because I had to shuttle gear back and forth between folks and routes. I could have done a little more climbing once some folks took off but the guys wanted to get going to see at least some of the Super Bowl.
On a sad note: K broke off a critical hold on Vanishing Flakes! That’s terrible, especially since that is one of the few 5.11s I can climb cleanly.
We ended the day with alcohol, snacks and pizza before the TV. We only caught some of the half time show and then were surprised to see the score 7 to 7. We watched the rest of the game. I was sort of rooting for the Eagles, just for the underdog factor, but it was a pretty good game in general. The commercials didn’t seem as good as those in the past Super Bowls though. I remember my days at BBDO and being called in to watch the preview of their Pepsi Super Bowl spot (it was a big deal at the agency).
