Big Bear

No I didn’t go to Big Bear, I made friends with one! Well actually I just saw one (up close). I wanted to make friends but Joe made us take a detour around the big fella.

Way Lake was a great experience as always*. I made the epic drive out of the greater LA area on Friday and stopped in Riverside to pick up Joe Yun. Including that stop, one for a quick dinner, and miserable traffic, it took me a total of 8 hours! It was a crispy 37 degrees when we finally parked the car at the base of the mountain just before midnight.

In the morning we hiked straight up to the meadow where I worked on Chumscrubber V11 and Joe worked on Meadow Roof V8. Going in I was pretty confident that I would send since I was fresh and I had sussed out the problem on my last visit. But on Saturday I didn’t feel as strong on the finishing crux as I had before. Then on my second attempt I desperately tried to grab the last hold when this happened (not for the faint of heart). Probably the worst flapper of my life. I decided that chumscrubber isn’t worth the loss of skin and have written it off forever; there are far better lines at Way Lake that deserve more attention. Joe sent Meadow Roof after some effort and then we headed over to the dragons boulder.

*Except for lowball choss chumscrubber.

I repeated Morpheus (amazing highball) and Two Dragons (classic). Joe did all the moves on Two Dragons but didn’t send. Next we walked down through the talus where I climbed a handful of lines I hadn’t see before. All moderates, most tall. I gave Joe a quick tour of the talus field before we started the hike out.

As I was hiking, a few hundred yards below crimp ladder on the main trail, I glanced to my right to see a large bear standing up looking at me from fifteen feet away! He was brown in color with a blonde face and I would guess weighed at least 400 pounds. I stopped in my tracks and quickly turned around to tell Joe there was a bear. We retreated a few steps and decided to take a slight detour uphill to avoid irritating such a large animal. He looked friendly enough to me, he didn’t appear bothered that we were there at all. As soon as we took a few steps uphill he went back to his business of lumbering around the forest looking for tasty treats. After further research I’ve learned that Black Bears are the only species found in that area and aren’t necessarily black in color. I was also happy to learn that human fatalities from bear attacks are extremely rare (0 to 2 per year). So it does happen but driving your car is probably more dangerous than walking through the woods in bear country. See below for a reenactment of my bear encounter.

On Sunday we started at Crimp Ladder V7 where Joe made an epic send and then we threw the pads down on Wave Catcher V11. This beautiful line on a slightly overhanging wall has rad techy moves finishing with a dyno to a bucket! You begin by gaining the wide hold in the middle of the face, then making a big move out left to a small incut sidepull. Next you make room to place your heel on top of your right hand in order to move it up to the sloping “crimp”. This hold has no real bite to it but you have to use it to make a huge move with your right hand to the lip! Everytime I got to the last move it looked impossibly far away. On my last go I tickled the lip of the boulder but didn’t get over it to latch the hold. It’ll have to wait till next year since Mammoth is supposed to get a foot or two of snow tomorrow.