🌞 Cochise, Joshua Tree and Huntington Beach🌞

 

Longer stays, slow mornings, finished books, cut up hands and some occasional sends. The second year van life pace has both Felix and I feeling very content and satisfied with our choices. We have decided to really just do what we want to do, go where the good weather is, limit the places that are not easy to be in a van and just take the pace that feels right instead of forcing a schedule to "fit it all in". It is crazy to realize its been about a year since we started on the road, which means I have been doing a lot of reflecting on the past year with equal anticipation and recognition of the year to come being the "second half" helping me appreciate it all the more. 

Cochise Stronghold. 

An Arizona hidden gem. It might not be hidden to Arizona locals, but I had never heard of it and man oh man was it just absolutely beautiful. It reminded Felix and I both how much we just really love the desert terrain, the vastness of the horizon, the colors of the sunset, the crispness of the air and of course, the amazing climbing. We had originally planned to just stay for a day since we didn't have a guidebook but it was too good so we stayed for 5 days and would of stayed longer if the weather hadn't of kicked us out. 

Woke up to snow the first morning! Unexpected, but it cleared and warmed up quickly. 

Took a slow day to let the snow melt and the rock warm up for us to climb the next day. 

I mean, come on! This was just up the hill from where we parked our car, the rocks in the background is the west side of Cochise. 

The sunset view. 

Short leg Felix.

Short Felix or tall plant?

Selfies are what we get together these days. 

Being back on the ropes after weeks of bouldering felt very freeing. We did peacemaker, a 6 pitch climb with all pitches rated 10a and they were all stellar, we swapped leads the whole way up. 

Top out views. 

Taking in the sun!

The wispy grass shining in the sun. 

Really loving the warmth, long full days and feeling of being tired for a good reason. The large dome in the background is the dome we topped out on. 

Kubb with the neighbors! A Swedish lawn game that Felix just taught my parents and I that we are incorporating at our wedding! A couple we climbed behind that day told us to come hang later, that they had Kubb in their van and we couldn't believe they even knew what that game was. Of course we kicked their butts...

Slow mornings to let the sun warm everything up. 

We did 2 days of single pitch climbs before doing a longer day again but didn't take any photos. The 4th days we did another 6 pitch climbed called Absinthe of Mallet, good but not quite as fun as Peacemaker.

The top out was about the same as the other climb, decided not to get in the hot tub at the top since we didn't bring our suites. 

Home. 

Finally a fire! We really have not done many fires since being on the road. Hopefully being back on more open land it will happen more often. 

In this photo you can see Venus, Jupiter and Saturn all at once! 

Tucson. 

We left Cochise with full hearts but with snow and high winds on the way so we headed to Tucson for the day! We ran some errands, enjoyed a coffee shop while getting some things done, walked about the historic 4th street area and had a nice dinner out which has become a rarity for us. 

Who is this hipster?

Told Felix he should start taking more photos of me since I take so many of him...this was the best he got. 

See what I do for him? 

Tucson was full of art, character, unique shops and styles - it reminded me of an Austin/Santa Fe vibe. 

Home. 

Felix has talked about getting prayer flags for awhile, he's always enjoyed them so we finally ran across a small set in Tucson and got em! I loved learning more about what they mean and represent. 

Prayer flags are always in the same color order. 

Each color represents a different element. 

(blue:sky - white: air - red:fire -  green: water - yellow: earth)

They are meant to be hung where wind and blow through them and send goodwill and positive energy. 

Sedona. 

Unfortunately Sedona was a bust. We just had bad timing with weather. It had dumped snow for days in the area and both things we love to do outside, climbing and biking require dry ground and dry rock. When it rains/snows on sandstone you have to wait until the ground is dry to safely climb the rock and when we arrived and saw how soaked the ground was we knew we would have to wait awhile and by then another storm was already rolling in. So we walked around for a day, drove on some pretty roads and headed on down to Joshua tree where the weather looked better. 

Walked to some rocks we couldn't climb. 

The only picture I took of Sedona. 

Joshua Tree. 

One of the best places ever. Joshua tree is a special place to us, it feels like another world, a world meant for climbers to play and explore. 

We spent 11 days in Joshua Tree and with so much climbing everywhere we only drove away from our campsite that you can see in this picture twice before leaving the park. 

We didn't have service at the campsite but each afternoon at sunset we would scramble up the rocks behind us and could get enough service to check in and download our daily games of mini crossword and spelling bee of course. 

The views and lighting from the top of the rocks at sunset were always worth going up for on their own. 

Joshua Tree.

This hole in the rock is known as the space station. If you look closely you can see people huddled inside it. Each afternoon it would fill up with people usually singing songs and playing guitar/ukulele. One night a girl decided to just belt out songs by herself terribly off key for the whole campground to hear but I found it hilarious and enjoyed it.

Warm days mean back on the rock! Mixed pictures of rope climbing and scrambling. 

Clouds/storm rolled through one day but didn't last long.

Shilpa! Our good friend Shilpa joined us for a day and we took her on an adventure through a Chasm which involved lots of scrambling, tight crevices, laying flat to squeeze/scoot through rocks and lots of "why don't you try it first". 

We made it through! We started on one side of a pile of rocks through a chasm to the other side. 

The next day Sarah joined us! Huntington Beach is only 3 hours away, she was supposed to arrive with Grace but her flight from Texas got cancelled and she was able to arrive the next day and borrow Sarah's car to drive up. 

Joshua Tree was an absolute favorite of Gavin's. He spent a lot of time out here climbing and with Sarah and their girls. The last day I got to spend with Gavin was in Joshua Tree last February sharing the stoke on climbing like we always did. He talked about trying Tax Man all day but we had gone to an easier place to warm up and unfortunately Grace broke her ankle as we were leaving the area which meant no more climbing to get her to an ER. 

SO on Gavin's birthday, Feb. 3rd, when we should have been celebrating turning 32 with him, Felix put up Tax Man for him - Sarah and I followed it. It was bittersweet. He would have enjoyed that we were out  celebrating him while doing what he loved, but man, he should just be here too. 

Then Grace finally arrived! We still had time to fit in some bouldering. Felix and I are trying to convince Sarah to become a boulderer and so far we are failing. 

But she still gets out there on the rocks and gives it her all which I admire so much. Climbing clearly has a ton of mixed feelings for Sarah and us as well, we have had many conversations about it, what her future with climbing looks like, how Felix and I are approaching it and also forever changed by what happened. It is something that has brought us all so much joy and community for so long, but the fear is real, the seriousness of what we do is real. We don't have a guide for how to continue and it won't look the same for any of us, we are just taking it day by day and climb by climb and supporting what each person decides to be the best way for them to continue. 

No sends, but all smiles. :) (Felix technically got to the top of one problem by literally jumping past the crux..still counts I guess). 

Grace delivered with the photos! 

The vans. 

We took Sarah and Grace on the same adventure we took Shilpa and they handled it like champs. This photo was actually taken by Grace at night but with the night edit it looks like it could be midday. 

View from inside the chasm. 

Exiting the chasm. We stood and held hands in a circle and sang Happy Birthday to Gavin which he would have cringed at the cheesiness of but it just felt right. 

Mom squad. Grace and Sarah heading to Huntington Beach while Felix and I enjoyed just one more night in JTree before joining them. 

Felix finished Pillars of the Earth! He committed to reading my favorite book on the trip and I started to lose hope that he would actually do it, but he did. 

The last days we had we were able to meet up with Nicolas who we met in Hueco Tanks with some of his friends from flagstaff, it's always fun to meet people on the road and quickly/easily bond over climbing.

And that was it for Jtree! I put up a climb called White Lightning on the way out since per Sarah it was one of Gavin's favorite climbs - it was a beautiful 5.7 long crack and I understood why he loved it so much.

Huntington Beach. 

Onto Huntington Beach for a couple days! It was lovely to be in a home with a shower again, do laundry and re-group. Unfortunately I had a pretty terrible headache that lasted 4-5 days which limited my engagement while I was there but great memories were still made, a major one being we covered ourselves in fake tattoos and I'm not gonna lie we were all feeling ourselves! 

Cutie Charlotte. 

The crew. 

Whale, whale whale...

Should we make them permanent or nah?

Chef Josey making dinner! 

Mermaid Charlotte.

From Huntington beach we moved on to New Jack City for some easy camping and climbing! Sarah and her girls joined us for about a week in their van which will be the next post!