Matthew and Cassie's Big Climbing Trip.: Penitente Week 2

Our second week of climbing at Penitente has been one of discovering that we don't need to rush it. We're starting to feel the pace of our days better and are listening to what our bodies tell us. We have climbed a bunch more routes and projected a few climbs. Each day seems to pass so quickly.

Matt at the Rock Garden

We made some new friends (Tom and Annie) who swung by to say hello after seeing our van. They have a VW syncro which is a 4wd van. They converted it to quite the comfortable living quarters and had many cool accessories. They've been coming to Penitente for quite a while and were very kind to show us some new areas we hadn't been to yet. Both Witches Canyon and the Rock Garden are within a short walk of the campgrounds but the guidebook has no descriptions and the internet isn't very thorough either. We climbed a great slabby 10 something at the Rock Garden and climbed a bunch of really nice short routes at Witches Canyon. As our earlier post said, Penitente is mostly slabby climbing with holds being few and far between. Witches however, had a ton of huecos and pockets to choose from and reminded me how much fun a 5.8 can be. Yesterday Tom and Annie took off to meet friends at Shelf Road and we took a rest day after climbing 3 days in a row. We're headed to Shelf on Tuesday.

Tom and Annie and their VW Syncro

Rock Garden

Tom climbing at Witches Canyon

We got a chance to try the solar oven out again on our rest day and were happy to find that it cooked a whole chicken in about 3 hours at around 270 degrees. The meat was incredibly moist and we'll definitely plan to do it again since the whole chicken only cost us $4.50. We did laundry in town, filled up our propane tank and bought groceries. So far we've been able to stay under budget and were happy to see that we've only driven 150 miles in almost 2 weeks. The temperatures have been rising and the sun continues to get more intense. I've been outside more in the last 2 weeks than I have in quite a while and the damage is noticeable with chapped lips and slightly burned faces. No matter how much sunscreen we put on we still seem to get a bit burned. We've been using the awning a little, but the wind has been howling for the past 6 days and turns the awning into a sail.

Solar Chicken

the Van and awning at camp

One of our favorite climbs we completed this week was called Not My Cross to Bear (11a). It took us each 2 tries to redpoint and wow was it fun. Stemming pretty much the entire way up the wall with shallow pockets on each wall. It was continuous with the final crux right at the top. Great climb.