Rain...rain...rain.

	Tonight	Tomorrow	Tomorrow Night
Partly Cloudy	Snow Shower	Scattered T-Storms	Clear
36°F	31°	48°	24°
Feels Like: 31°	Low	High	Low
Past 24-hr: Precip: 0 in Snow: 0 in	Chance of Precip: 50%	Chance of Precip: 40%	Chance of Precip: 0%

If I would have copied and pasted this a few days earlier, it would read day after day after day of T-Storms, Chance of Precip: 100%!  Yikes!!  We are getting very excited for tomorrow night as the chance of precip is down to 0% finally and it says "CLEAR!!"!!  Hopefully this forecast will stay and following tomorrow night things are supposed to start looking up for us!  We are thinking of heading up the East Ledges of El Cap on Friday and staying on top/on the wall for a few days.  I might try to get some running in along the rim of the valley, rappel in and take some photos of the guys working on the upper pitches and then rap back down to where they will be setting up camp and spending a couple of nights in the portaledge.  We climbed again at Jailhouse this morning followed by time in civilization to run some errands and get a new sim card since Tommy dropped his phone off of El Cap already!  Despite the rain, Yosemite is still so breath-taking, and just being out of the Valley 2 days makes me excited to get back tonight!

Back to the Valley!

Well, we are on then road again. This time there is a good chance we won't be home for four months! Our first stop was in Jackson for a week long photo camp in which Becca was a student, and I.... Believe it or not, was a model. So while Becca was dialing in the apertures and f-stops, I was flexing my rippling back muscles and flashing my blue steel eyes, Ha! When i was introduced to the class as the model, the general reaction was a mix between nervousness and despair.

"oh man, how are we going to make good pictures of this yahoo."

The instructor staff; on the other hand, was a dream team. They included photographers, Corey Rich, Kieth Ladzinski, Lucas Gilman, And phot editors from the North Face (Scott Wilson) and National Geographic (Ken Geiger). With Cory as the head instructor it was as much of a lesson on sleep deprivation as photography. We got up before the sun came up most days and went to bed around midnight. The fall colors were out in all there glory so there were plenty of opportunities for great photos. Becca soaked up a mind boggling amount of photography information. I even got to escape the classes each day for a few ours of training. By the end of the week I was feeling pretty antsy to get to Yosemite. We jumped in the van and bolted straight to the valley.

Monday morning... Rain! What?! October is supposed to be totally drat in Yosemite. Last spring we endured a snowstorm every week. I was sure this fall would be much drier. We decided to try and be productive and hike a load to the top of El Cap in the rain. If nothing else it would be a nice hike, right? Not quite, we narrowly missing getting washed away by a flash flood on the east ledges. Becca was two pitches above me on the fixed lined when it came. Feeling quite worried I sprinted up the fixed lines only to find her whooping, hollering and snapping photos.

"that was so rad" Becca shouted over the sound of the raging water.

What a woman! I was once again reminded what a lucky husband i am. We brought our packs to the top, then ran down. Bt the time we got back to the van we were properly soaked. The forecast is for a few more days of rain, so we are headed out for some sport climbing at Jailhouse. The cliff is so steep there that one can climb during any kind of weather.

JACKSON, WY!!

Tommy and I are on the road again after a REALLY fast 14 days home in Estes.  It was so good to sleep in our bed, have a kitchen to cook in, and see all of our Estes friends and our families.  We planned to leave early yesterday morning to get to Jackson where I am enrolled in an adventure photography workshop, but did we leave early??  Of course not.  :)  We finally got out of Estes at 3pm, ran errands in Fort Collins, and by 6pm or so we were officially on the road.  "Van-go" is packed to the brim and the Caldwell psyche is high!  This is going to be a very exciting 2 months starting here in Jackson and then off to Yosemite for Tommy to give his big proj (article and photos in Oct '10 Climbing Magazine) a push and hopefully send!!!!

Good Morning Middle of Wyoming!

As we started driving yesterday I began to relax.  I think I'm really starting to get used to all of this traveling.  Being on the road is where I relax now...where I can breathe.  Transit is when things are still even though that's when you're moving the most...covering the most ground.  It's when I get to regroup, take time to think, reflect on all of the excitement going on.  It's good.  Transit is when I used to be the most antsy...wanting to get to the destination or home.  Now I enjoy transit.

Wyoming Cowboys... :)

Jackson Hole Roasters Coffee House

Tommy's China Trip Report Link...

Check out Tommy's trip report from China on Patagonia's Blog:  The Cleanest Line!!

Sombrero Ranch Trail Run!

Yesterday after finishing a run to start building up my miles again after the break in China I remembered that the Sombrero Ranch Trail run was today.  I mentally committed and thought that it would be a great race to try.  Tommy and I decided to switch roles and he tagged along to try and snap some photos.  We got up early to get to race-day registration, I guzzled some coffee, made it to the bathroom and chewed on some Clif Bar Shot Blocks (which I love) and got ready to go.  I'm not exactly a "racer" and as everyone around me stretched out and were jogging around in circles, I just kind of stood there...not sure what to do, so I bent forward giving a little stretch to my sore legs from yesterday.  Soon enough all the runners gathered, I handed my jacket to Tommy, the bells rang and we were off.  Within minutes I was smacking my dust crusted lips and digging into our first uphill.  With the course being a single-track, rocky course it was pretty hard for people to pass each other.  I told myself to just run slow and steady and was hoping that my feet would thaw out.  It was either really cold, or I just had poor circulation to my feet, but I couldn't feel a thing.  I thought maybe not feeling a thing would be better as long as they weren't clunking around.  However, after the first mile or so I started to get that warm sensation rushing through my toes reassuring me that I would be fine.

Flat spots to downhills and back up again, the trail was all over the place and everyone was clamping down and hoping their shoes would stick and they would stay upright.  In 3 instances people ate the dust right in front of me, occasionally rolling off trail, but always immediately getting up as if they hoped no one had seen their misstep.  On a few of the downhill spots, you ended up "glissading" more than running.  As we reached the "high point" of the run at 8,005 feet a trail volunteer falsely cheered on that "the rest is downhill"!  This got me excited and I started to let myself go a little more, thrilled in the challenge of accurate foot dabbing and making split second decisions if I could sneak by the person sucking air in front of me.  Heavy breathing seemed to be the tune of the race, which I definitely didn't avoid chiming in on.  After a while of cruising down and feeling great, I glanced up and saw bodies bobbing uphill again.  Sandbagged!!  I put my head down and grimaced up again, not even close to continuing up with my downhill pace.  I locked my eyes into the back of someone's Brooks trail shoes and made sure I didn't lose ground.  As this hill plateaued and the downhill came again, I used the opportunity to have some more fun cruising down.  It was kind of a rush!!  After hoping that maybe we were going to stick to some flatter ground the trail started to curve up again.  I don't even remember how many more times this happened, but each time I felt I started to get a little slower and slower on the inclines with my tired legs burning.  Many times I had to switch over to speed walking, which I've decided makes me faster at this point in my running.  After a burner hill we finally hit another downhill and I could tell that this was the last stretch. I knew I had it in my to go for it.  My stride lengthened and my legs were moving faster than I could ever make them go on my own, running loose so as to roll off any bumps.  Had I needed to stop abruptly, I would have eaten dirt and rolled for sure.  I tried to pass a few more people, but there was one girl in front of me that had the same idea.  As the finish line approached I pushed and finally crossed the blue mats and flagged arch.  Woo!  I had finished the race, which had been goal one.  Goal number 2 was to finish in less than one hour, and glancing at my watch, reading 48 minutes, I realized I was successful!  I was so happy to be done, guzzled some gatorade and realized this was only 1/3 of a half marathon.  Yikes.  I have some work to do!  I went to the massage table and put my name down for a 5 minute teaser massage and gave Tommy a hug.

I glanced through Tommy's photos and saw a photo of a tiny young girl I had seen at the starting line.  Tommy said she finished near the top!  I went over to tell her awesome job.  This little 11 year old girl (who had never run a trail race before besides at "camp") was the first woman to complete the course today at 41:12 (the women's course record from 2006 is 38:20!!  How rad!!!  Kudos to her and my friend, Alex Wieser, who took second in our age division (20-29 yrs) and all other finishers!  What a fun Estes race!

Only One More Week at Home...

As some of you know, our fall/early winter is jam-packed with travels.  We have officially been home for one week since China and we have exactly one week left until we hit the road for 4-5 months.  Things around our house have been pretty busy from dealing with lost luggage, trip planning and socializing to Tommy training ultra-hard for his Mescalito project on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park and me getting trained to run a trail half marathon!  Our travel schedule (so you all can keep track of us in case we get lost) is as listed:  Jackson, WY for 1 week, Yosemite for 7 weeks, Brazil for Corey and Marina Rich's wedding for one week, and then down to Patagonia, Argentina for 1-2 months.  Lots of excitement and chaos here in the Caldwell household.  

Amongst the excitement, our good friend, Kelly Cordes, decided he needed to change things up a bit and asked me if I could give him a haircut.  I'm used to giving Tommy haircuts and was up for the task.  However, he then he threw in that he was interested in growing a mullet for South America later in the season, and thought that maybe some stripes would be fitting as well.  I decided to stick to my commitment and brought on the challenge.  After no luck trying to google how to put stripes in someone's hair I grabbed the clippers, talked over with Kelly, drew some diagrams and started clipping.  Patrick Martchink, our roommate, gave some input and I think the results are promising.  Who knew Kelly Cordes could look this good!!

"Trimming" Kelly's neck hair led to shaving his back because the hairline did not stop.  :)

The final product.  He can really pull it off folks!

Patrick hard at work refinishing ski lift chairs.

This is Tommy's psyched face while taking pics of him.

Just one of our wedding photos that I like.  © Corey Rich

I Love America.

Well, we arrived back from China late on September 10th after a lot of traveling!  Our destination in China from our house was: a 1.5 hour drive, then a 2.5 hour flight, followed by a 12 hour flight, followed by a 4 hour flight, followed by 10 hours of driving (and lay over time in between!).  We were a long way from home!  When we made it back into the country after our trip to the San Francisco Airport from Beijing, we learned while waiting for our luggage at customs that 3 of our 4 bags did not arrive with us.  Lovely.  After going back and forth with employees of Air China, informing us that this was ridiculous (I agreed) and that we should go look AGAIN (the 6th time for both of us), and no bags appeared, they took our luggage tags and looked on a sheet and confirmed that 2 of our bags were in Beijing.  Alright...not a problem, we just needed them to get to our house, which we were ensured they would arrive in San Francisco the next day then fly out to Denver and finally be delivered at our house in Estes Park.  The 3rd bag was still missing.  After the trip through customs I enjoyed a wood-fired oven baked pizza and a smoothie (things I had been dreaming of - literally - since day 4 in China).  Tommy and I had separate flights home and met at the Denver airport to be picked up by his parents and home to Estes.

We rallied Saturday morning to enjoy the Scottish-Irish Festival Parade and felt chipper after only 5 hours of sleep.  We were determined to kick jet-lag in the butt and conquer it.

Tommy got right to climbing and I got to settling us back in at home.  My trip to the grocery store was so wonderful.  So many amazing options and so much produce!!  We are so blessed here in the States with the food variety and choices that we do have!  I vow to make an effort to never take that for granted again.  The next few days ended up consuming hours of time trying to get our luggage to our house.  Air China sent our bags to United in Denver and expected them to ship our bags to us.  However, since Air China lost the bags and there is not an Air China desk in Denver, United and the delivery company in Denver refused to pay for our bags to be delivered since it was not their mistake.  Finally I caved and took the day to pick up our 2 bags.  On the way down, I received a call that notified us that our 3rd missing bag was still in Urumqi (our original departure city in China) due to the bag containing a "Lithium Ion Battery".  This was a possibility because we brought a drill and 2 batteries with (having no problem westbound), but I thought I would wait and sift through our bags after I picked them up.  Good news...the drill was in one of the bags that arrived and the batteries, which meant that there was NOT a lithium ion battery in our luggage in China and there should be no issues with shipping it.  I then proceeded to inform Air China and was told that I should call Beijing in the middle of the night (my time) and let them know.  At this point...I got a bit frustrated with Air China and refused.  I was then asked to fax to our liaison at SFO a letter requesting our luggage and information on the contents of our luggage.  We have a Goal Zero battery (NOT LITHIUM ION) in our luggage, along with a small bouldering pad and a solar panel and a coffee mug.  This was successfully faxed, and we are still waiting to hear something from someone...anyone.  Ahhh, the joys of traveling.  :)

On the bright side...besides getting sick for a couple of days, nauseating breakfast every morning, and red tape galore we had a blast in China with such a great crew, got to go rock climbing and see some amazing cultures!!!  I will let Tommy give the updating on that, which he is currently working on typing up a trip report for Patagonia's Cleanest Line Blog.  There were 2 updates posted on the trip already, so check it out!  Since this trip was sponsored by Patagonia, they get first rights to all of the photos and so photos are to come eventually!

Keketuohai

Keketuohai is a geologic park in northern China on the border of Mongolia. Climbers have been trying to go here for years. But due to park regulations, no one has officially climbed here. There are allegedly 111 granite domes and the climate looks to be high desert. Since no one has climber here, we really don’t know exactly what we will find. But the pictures look cool, so we are going for it. Bring it on! Can’t wait to see this place!

Sharing the adventures

“I’m not scared, this is totally safe” Fynn whispers to himself over and over, We are nine hundred feet up the dark imposing face. Or at least it must look that way to my partner for today, Fynn Sagar…… who is nine years old. His dad Nick and I had concocted this plan the day before while climbing a three pitch 5.7 called White Whale. It was Fynns first multupitch climb and he wind sprinted up the pitches while my arms filled with lactic acid trying to whip rope through the belay. “We’ve got to get this kid on something bigger.” I said. Nick smiled, we looked across the Estes valley to Hallet Peak and the plan was set. I don’t remember if we even gave Fynn a say in the whole thing.

I love to share the adventure and experience in the mountains with my peers. I see there eyes brighten as they tell the stories of long days, thunderstorms and how the persevered and got to the top. It’s what I know, and maybe also my way of sharing this incredible life. Last week was a great reminder of all those thing.

Between these climbs I made trips up to Cayoss Canyon for bouldering. I bit of trail running with my lovely wife, and the occasional cross fit workout. All that mixed in with the frantic packing and preparing for our trip to china.

China.

As some of you might know, Tommy and I are heading with a crew to China for a climbing trip. The crew consists of Tommy, Hayden Kennedy, Corey Rich, Marina Rich, Jeremy Collins, Mark Jenkins and myself.  We are SO excited to get our passports stamped and venture into Asia.  We are traveling to Keketuohai Geological National Park, which has an abundance of granite domes that climbers have not had the opportunity to spend much time exploring as far as we know.  We are excited to see what we will find!

The whole team is spread out (Tommy is in Truckee at the Craggin' Classic to do some climbing and give a slideshow), and so some of us will rendezvous in San Francisco and head over the Pacific from there, and I'm actually not sure where we are meeting the rest.  Regardless, we have a great group of friends and I'm looking forward to it!

I've been fortunate enough to fall into the position of assistant photographer to Corey Rich, which I'm so looking forward to observe and learn from one of the masters in adventure photography.  Seeing how Corey prepares for trips and is so organized is inspiring.  He is so on the ball.  Things here at the Caldwell household always manage to work out, but not usually with as much grace and fluidity as I've observed from the Brock and Rich household.  As I've mentioned before, we are learning and working towards these lofty goals!  Another of my roles for the trip is belay slave.  I love the opportunity of being able to be a part of the action, doing rope work and best of all....jugging!!!  :)  Some think I'm crazy, but I love being able to get up walls and into these places I can't necessarily climb, spend time with Tommy in his element, and just racing up the ropes!

In my glory jugging on El Cap in Yosemite National Park this past spring!

I'm not sure what the internet connection situation is going to be while in China.  There is some question as to what the Chinese military is going to let us do in regards to accommodations.  We would prefer to camp or stay in a yurt, but there's a chance we will stay in a hotel outside of the park, which in that case, there may be blog updates.  Otherwise, we will be back September 10th!

Here's a peach marg recipe from the Pioneer Woman that Susan and Patrick and I made up today (Disclaimer:  I am by no means trying to compete with Kelly Cordes and his delicious margs).  Enjoy the rest of the summer!  We are excited to come back to one of our favorite times of the year in Estes!!

Peach Margarita from Pioneer Woman's Blog.

Visitors!

After getting back from Nashville we were looking forward to being home, and we were both lucky to have our great friends come to visit!  Nick and Fynn made the trek from Vail for the weekend and got out on the rock with Tommy.  This was my first time meeting Fynn, and it was great getting to know him.  It was also great to spend some more time with Nick in between his travels and busy schedule!  Nick also brought us fresh eggs from the chicken house at their place in Vail annnnnnd....the best part....HOME BREWED BEER.  Honestly, I think this is maybe some of the best beer I have had.  I am no connoisseur, but Nick knows what he is doing.  

Tommy started to write about their adventures while here and has been so slammed with work and traveling that hopefully soon he will get the chance to update the blog!  (It will be great when he writes though...he is such a talented writer...he puts me to shame.  When he starts writing I'm going to have some work to do to keep people amused.)

Nick's Brew!

While Nick and Fynn were visiting I got to have my bestest, Lyndsay, and her roommate and my friend Katy come for 4 days.  We spent a lot of time in the kitchen while they were here making bread and homemade pizza and salads, etc.  It was Katy's first time, or first time in a long time, to Estes so we had to make sure to give her a great tour!  We started out their time with church Sunday morning followed by breakfast at Meadow Mountain cafe in Allenspark and the hike to Ouzel Falls out of Wild Basin.  While on our hike about halfway to the falls a bear darted across the trail 10 feet ahead of us.  Surprised, we hesitated at first to keep walking forward, but finished the hike standing in the mist of Ouzel Falls.  That night we made 3 DELICIOUS homemade pizzas.  The toppings consisted of:  1. Bacon, pear and arugula  2. Margherita with onion on part of it 3. BBQ chicken with onion.  They were so tasty.  I'd have to say the bacon-pear-arugula was my favorite.  Tommy and I had this for the first time when we were in South Africa and are still trying to replicate it.  This one came close.

My favorite...the bacon-pear-arugula!

We had some leftover pizza dough and so the next morning we experimented by rolling the dough into balls, then covering them with melted butter and cinnamon sugar.  We put 3 balls in each muffin cup of the muffin tin and baked them in the oven.  It was alright for an experiment.  Fynn really liked these.  The rest of their trip here consisted of a great couple of runs with Lyndsay (we are training for a half marathon in Napa at the end of October!!), a drive up Trail Ridge, delicious cinnamon rolls in Glenhaven, a trip to the Estes Park Mountain Shop, downtown shop browsing, Lattes and Americanos at Kind Coffee, and I'm pretty sure the list could go on a bit longer, but my brain is a little frazzled so we'll stop there. 

Our left-over pizza dough concoctions.

 

It was sad to see them go, but I'm getting really excited to see Lynds again in California for our adventure!!

Lynds and Katy enjoying the nice evening.

Tommy exhausted at the end of the day.

Fynn showing us his stellar yoga moves.  Very impressive for a 9 year old!

Our honey whole wheat bread dough starting to rise.

The finished product.  A little dense.  I need to figure out how to bake at altitude.

Katy and Lynds on Trail Ridge in RMNP.