SATURDAY morning, August 7th, we're driving out of town on a two-week road trip. The sky is overcast, disseminating grayness upon the cityscape. The sun doesn’t begin to punch through until Magic Mountain, and over the Grapevine it's all sun and heat. For the first time this year the weather actually feels like summer.
For a while now, Terry and I have toyed with the idea of buying a camper van of some sort. A number of friends have Westfalias or Sportsmobiles. Maybe I’m getting a little soft around the edges, but sleeping in a tent at Joshua Tree in February is just not as enjoyable at 57 as it was at 27, when the temperature is freezing and the wind pummels you all night and in the morning while you’re trying to make breakfast. So it was Terry’s idea to rent a van for an extended trip to see how we liked it. I came home from work the day before our trip, and there it was in the driveway: a Ford van converted into a camper swagger wagon.
The roof line has been lifted so you can stand up straight inside. It sleeps two. There’s a propane stove; a sink; small fridge and microwave—even a DVD player with a 17-inch flat-screen and Bose sound system. Not bad. There’s also a small toilet/shower, but we employ it as a closet to stow baggage and personal effects. My only complaint is the lack of a hitch adapter, which meant we couldn’t use our bike rack. And since we could only squeeze two mountain bikes into the back, the road bikes got left behind. Drats.Par for the course, we threw this trip together only a few weeks ahead of time, with plans of rendezvousing with some of Terry’s siblings at the Columbia River Gorge, fitting in several stopovers along the way and back, seeing friends and relatives, plus check out Crater Lake—which somehow I’ve never visited—and of course get in as much climbing and biking as we can. A challenging objective, I will confess.
Home is 220 miles behind us when Terry pulls off the freeway in Kettleman to change drivers. It’s my turn now. Back on I-5 we continue north, through the farmlands of the Central Valley. The first stop in our trip is my sister Maggi’s place in Chico. She lives on a shady lane, walking distance to Chico State and the Sierra Nevada brewery. There is cold beer waiting for us when we arrive, which after an 8-hour drive, sure hits the spot. Maggi’s boyfriend, Steve, tends to the barbeque in the back yard, grilling vegetables and shrimp. As the day wanes, we sit down to an evening dinner in my sister’s garden—it takes up most of the yard; she has a phenomenal green thumb—and eventually we get around discussing tomorrow’s plans. Maggi and Steve are avid kayakers and they’ve planned a day for us on the Sacramento River.
After dinner we go for a walk down the road, to the woods along Big Chico Creek. It’s a clear, starry night: all is quiet but for the murmur of water coursing over rocks and the hoot of an owl overhead in the sycamore trees. Parts of the Errol Flynn swashbuckler The Adventures of Robin Hood were filmed along here in 1937, and standing beside the creek, swaddled in darkness, it’s easy to imagine oneself in the heart of Sherwood Forest rather than the middle of a Northern California college town. 
WE’RE up at sunrise to the sound of roosters in the yard across the street. Our first night sleeping in the van was cozy—though Terry accuses me of hogging the bed, but she harps about that at home, too (at least I’m consistent). While Maggi prepares a picnic lunch and tracks down more paddles, Terry and I go with Steve to retrieve two kayaks that are stored at his house in Paradise. Counting the two kayaks in Maggi’s garage, we now have four, and we load them all onto Maggi’s truck. Steve lashes them down good and snug. Then off we go.We’re driving west out of town, both vehicles, past walnut groves and sunflower fields. First we drop Steve’s truck off at the take-out point on the Sacramento River, and then we all pile into Maggi’s truck and drive upstream to the put-in point on Big Chico Creek. Unfortunately it’s not until we’re unloading the gear that Maggi discovers one of the paddle assemblies—the one she had borrowed from a friend this morning—is a miss-match. Both pieces are female, which means we’re one paddle short. This is not good. She has no choice but to drive back to town and fetch the male part, which she says will take about 40 minutes. Terry goes with her.
After the ladies’ hasty departure, Steve and I put the kayaks in the water. Steve offers me his pride and joy: a sleek, hand-crafted wood kayak that gleams with a fresh coat of varnish. Though I graciously accept, I’m nervous as hell that I’ll capsize it, or worse, bang it up on the rocks. Once we have the gear stowed away, he has me take it out for a test cruise, providing me with good instruction on how to maintain balance and maneuverability. Heck, by the time Maggi and Terry return, I’ve got it wired—sort of.Alas we shove off and paddle a mile or so down Big Chico Creek, which more resembles a bayou than a creek. There is no measurable current. An impenetrable curtain of trees and brush hang far over the banks. Up ahead, a snowy white egret is perched on a low-hanging bough over the water, and as we draw near, it suddenly takes flight and glides gracefully downstream. Before long, we’re into the Sacramento River where the current carries us along at a leisurely pace. Occasionally we come to a snag in the middle of the river—usually an uprooted tree—but they are easily avoided (though Terry bounced over the top of one, which added to the adventure).
At mid day, we put in on a sandy bank for lunch: ice cold beer and leftovers from last night’s dinner. The sun is exceptionally warm, so afterwards we go for a swim. Then we shove off and continue downstream, sometimes paddling, sometimes just drifting along, soaking up sunshine and watching the birds. Blackberry brambles grow along the riverbank, and floating past, we munch on the ripest berries. Late afternoon, we reach the take-out point. The girls stay with the gear while Steve and I hop into his truck and drive upstream to retrieve Maggi’s truck. Altogether I figure we’ve paddled ten to twelve miles.The sun hangs low on the horizon when we pull into Chico. After hot showers, Steve and I ride bikes down to the neighborhood Thai restaurant and return with dinner. It’s been a long day and my arms and back are a little sore. But I’m not complaining: Terry has blisters on the palms of both hands from all the paddling (now she knows why Maggi was wearing fingerless gloves). No doubt we’ll both sleep well tonight—and I’ll try not to hog the bed. ___________________________________
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DAY 3: dusk weighs heavy on the Columbia River Gorge. Sky and river are both slate gray; a cold wind rustles through the trees. We’ve been on the road almost ten hours now. Early this morning we exchanged farewell hugs with Maggi and then trucked up I-5 to Redding, past Lake Shasta into Oregon: Medford; Eugene; Portland. Fatefully, we then got trapped in awful bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-84 near Multnomah Falls. Night-shift construction crews were repaving the freeway: Federal stimulus money hard at work.
In due course we finally wheel into the gravel drive of the Rowena Ranch, which belongs to Terry’s sister and brother-in-law, Maureen and Harv. All the lights are on in the house. Terry’s brother, Pat, is already here with his family. In a couple more days, her sister Beth will arrive, finalizing the gathering of the clan. Between Pat, Maureen and Beth, Terry has four nephews and a niece, ages four to ten, and she adores them immensely, showering them with gifts and affection. Auntie Terry is extraordinarily popular.
Pat and his wife, Catherine, are in the midst of preparing supper. Catherine is busy in the kitchen, while outside on the patio deck, on the leeward side of the house and out of the wind, Pat is tending the barbeque grill. 
He’s all stoked to do some fly fishing and whitewater rafting on the Deschutes River. There were some showers today, he says. But warmer weather and sunshine are forecasted for the coming week. Good news, all around, for one of the objectives during our stay is to climb Beacon Rock, a 600-foot crag on the Washington side of the Columbia River. I had spotted it during our stay here two years ago, and after doing some research, learned that there was a good route on it.
Before dinner, I return to the van and unload the mountain bikes and other gear, stowing them in the barn among the numerous windsurfing boards and sails. Harv locates a long extension cord so we can have 110-volt power. Once the back of the van is cleared out, I call my daughter Allie to see how things are going back home. Turns out, things aren't going well at all—her Grandma Motts (my ex-mother-in-law) has unexpectedly just passed away. ___________________________________
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TERRY drops me off at the Southwest terminal at Portland International at 6:30 A.M, and within an hour I’m on a 737 to SoCal. It was all happening so quickly. After talking to Allie last night, I had relayed to Ter what had happened. Allie was dearly close to her grandmother and was very distraught. I was feeling the need to be there for her, but I was a thousand miles from home and seventy miles from an airport… Leave it to my wife to put things into perspective. She suggested I go online and buy a plane ticket. She would borrow Maureen’s car and shuttle me to the airport first thing in the morning. It wasn’t going to ruin our vacation, she assured me: only change it a little.
Eighteenth century novelist Ann Radcliffe asserted that there is comfort in dying surrounded by one's children. In this respect, Allie’s grandmother would’ve passed away with a sense of contentment. She had been at the beach all week with her family: husband; daughters; grandkids; great-granddaughter. For years it had been a family tradition to rent a beach house for the summer and everyone was invited. Regrettably this year ended in a freak accident. Motts had lost her balance in the bedroom and struck her head as she fell, seriously enough that her husband, Buddy, called 911 right away. The ER doctors performed surgery immediately to stop a brain hemorrhage. But she didn’t pull through.
When I land in Ontario, Allie is there to pick me up. It is hot and muggy; big thunderheads are stacking up over the San Gabriel Mountains. Over the next two days I spend time consoling her and visiting with grieving ex-in-laws, extending my condolences. I don’t have many answers. I haven’t seen Buddy in years. We sit in his living room, just the two of us; nobody else is home. We drink beer and visit for over an hour, just like old times, only in a more subdued tenor.
Thirty-eight hours after leaving Portland, I’m back. My plane touches down after dark, 45 minutes behind schedule. Terry greets me inside the terminal. Since it will be quite late before we get back to Rowena, we stop at a coffee shop on the outskirts of the city to grab a bite. While I was gone, Terry had spent the time visiting with her siblings and playing with her niece and nephews. In that regard, our sudden change of plans worked out well: she had family to hang with. Her sister Beth had arrived earlier today, along with her husband, Tom, and their twin boys, and also some friends of theirs from Truckee. It's a bona fide powwow.
We pull into the ranch around midnight, parking Maureen’s car next to the house, beside a row of apple trees. It’s dark and still. Our van is parked across the grassy yard, and in the frail light of a partial moon we stroll across. The last two days have been a blur. I’m tired and all I want now is to fall asleep. Terry already has the bed made. The rest is easy. ___________________________________
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HARV had warned me this morning that it was going to reach 90 degrees today, and it was warm indeed. I’m pedaling up the last steep switchback to the river overlook above Rowena. It is late morning and I’ve got the two-lane road to myself. I had originally planned to go down to the camp kitchen for breakfast, where the men were watching the kids while the ladies went on a bike ride. But after spending the past two days sitting in cars and cramped airline seats, I was going stir crazy. So instead, I hopped on my trusty Stumpjumper and started riding down the highway towards Mosier.
I reach the top of the grade, shellacked in perspiration. To my left is the overlook turnout; to my right, a trailhead, where a singletrack leads into the yellow grass. A weathered kiosk states it is 2½ miles round trip. Looks like an enticing side trip, so off I go, across the treeless plateau towards the river. I’m bounding down the trail at a good clip for a mile or so, when suddenly I flush two deer out of the tall grass. They leap in front of me and the chase begins. But it’s a short-lived chase, for they easily pull ahead and disappear over a small knoll. I follow the trail around the right side of it, gaining speed, fully intending to cut them off at the pass. Yet once I charge around the bend, I immediately slam on the brakes. Directly in front of me, the trail ends at a sheer drop-off to the river, which glimmers far below in the morning sun. Where the deer have gone, I have no clue.
Back on the highway, I continue on to Mosier, through rolling hills dappled with orchards and vineyards. Mosier is a quaint little river town of a few hundred people. There is one good sandwich shop and I stop there for lunch, eating outside at a table on the front porch, my only company being a fluffy white dog which I assume belongs to the owners of the establishment. Then it is eight miles back to Rowena, the last mile streaking down steep switchbacks.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, everyone is staying cool down by the river. The kids romp at the water’s edge while Terry and her sisters watch from the grassy bank. Beth’s husband, Tom, and Harv are windsurfing, skipping across the whitecaps on a robust wind. Due to the strong venturi effect through here, the Gorge is one of the premiere windsurfing destinations in the country, and the reason why Maureen and Harv—expert board sailors—bought the riverfront property with some windsurfer friends. It’s an idyllic spread: four acres on a country road, with a rustic farm house and outbuildings; a couple of trailers; a hot tub and camp kitchen down by the river. And tucked away behind the camp kitchen is an open-air shower facility with a knockout view.
Later on, I’m soaking in the hot tub with Beth and Tom’s 4-year old twins, Nic and Colby, acting as a quasi Jacuzzi Lifeguard, which I’ve agreed to do so long as I can drink beer. Interesting kids, Nic and Colby. Both of them already have their Fibonacci number sequence memorized up to 610. And not only that, they’re ahead of the game at figuring out their priorities in life. Their mom recently asked them what they didn’t like, and Nic replied: “I hate falling down... bee stings... mean people… and salad.” How can you argue with that?
Presently Nic stands before me, requesting an audience with the Jacuzzi Lifeguard.
“Do you wanna see my guns?” he asks, raising both arms and flexing his biceps like Mr. Universe. He then asks to see mine, and I comply. He studies me carefully.
“My dad’s are bigger,” he says matter-of-factly.
Honest, Beth. I don’t know how Nic fell out of the hot tub.
Can't get enough of those stars. ___________________________________
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FRIDAY the 13th is a travel day. We’re on the road again. Nevertheless, there’s time to fit in a morning bike ride if we get going early enough. And Terry is the ultimate early bird—she can literally jump out of bed each morning like a prize fighter, throwing jabs and punches while singing “Eye of the Tiger”, and then dash out for a 4-mile run. Me? I’m groping around for coffee with my eyes half shut.
“Coffee?” she scoffs. “You can get coffee in The Dalles. Let’s go. Chop chop.”
Of course The Dalles is ten miles upriver, but no matter. We pull on our fancy cycling duds and bike shoes and meet Beth out by the barn. She’s coming with us, and she too is dressed in fashionable cycle attire. Harv is also coming, and he strolls out of the house in an old tank top, running shorts and flip-flops. Now I’m feeling over-dressed.
Needless to say, Harv sets a grueling pace in his flip-flops. I’m not kidding. We’re in The Dalles in no time, having brunch at a scrumptious, downtown café. It’s a small town with a lot of history. French trappers came through here in the late 1700s. Lewis and Clark camped here in 1805. The word “dalles” is French for a flagstone sluice, describing the unique basalt columns that channeled the Columbia through a series of cascading falls—which are falls no longer, because a giant hydroelectric dam was built at that location in the 1950s. The Dalles is also the northern terminus of the 500-kilovolt DC line that delivers power, via direct current, from the Pacific Northwest to the Los Angeles Basin during the day, and in the opposite direction at night. And since 2006, the town has been home to a giant Google facility that houses all their data servers. How do I know? I Googled it.
Upon returning to the ranch, we load up and say our goodbyes. Our journey next takes us south along Highway 97 for three hours, across sagebrush and cattle country to Bend. I’ve never been to Bend before, and Richard, a friend of mine who used to live in Joshua Tree but now lives here, has been pestering me to come up and visit. It’s a picturesque town, surrounded by forested hills and snow-capped peaks. In the early 1900s it was a rough and tumble logging town, but now, hip restaurants and coffee houses abound at the center of town. And it has EIGHT bike shops. EIGHT! They take their cycling very seriously here. And there’s a serious climbing scene, too, at nearby Smith Rock. Add the skiing at Mt. Bachelor, and you have a year-round playground.
Richard and his wife, Bobbi, live in the forest on the edge of town. A stream meanders along the back of their property. Bobbi has to go to work, but Richard takes us out to dinner at a hoppin’ little downtown bistro with a bluegrass band. During the meal, Richard briefs us on the itinerary he has planned: Climbing at Smith tomorrow; mountain-biking on Sunday. It’s looking to be a busy weekend.
After dinner, Richard takes us into the hills to check out a lava tube. We park the car on a dirt road and hike into a sage-covered meadow as the sun sets. In the middle of the meadow, an old metal staircase descends into a bottomless, dark hole. Richard had told us to bring our headlamps, now I know why. We clamber down into a lava tube that is seven feet high and fifteen across, and we follow it for a good half mile, until it pinches down to where you must crawl on your belly to continue. Fascinating: four hours in Bend, and we’re somewhere beneath it in a prehistoric labyrinth. ___________________________________
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TODAY is a very special day: It’s our 2nd Anniversary. Yep, Ter and I have been married for two years now. And what better way to spend the day together than to go climbing? Although when we leave the Crooked River and start up the steep hillside, I realize that I didn’t bring enough water. The jagged spires of Smith Rock are aglow in the hot morning sun. Their stark beauty takes my mind off the heat—for the time being.
Back in the Eighties, Smith was the venerated nexus of sport climbing in the USA. The first 5.14 route in North America, To Bolt or Not to Be, resides here, established in 1986. Ah, those were the days: a fist-full of quick-draws, day-glo Lycra tights, mullet hairdos, and a cassette tape ghetto-blaster playing Duran Duran’s Greatest Hits.
Richard has invited a friend to join us since Bobbi had to work, and he was waiting for us in the parking lot when we arrived. His name is Randy. He and Richard know each other through their involvement with the local search and rescue team, a capacity that Richard also performed at Joshua Tree National Park. The four of us trudge up the slope to Adit Rock, 500 feet above the Crooked River, hunkering down in the cool shade on the west side of the crag. From here we hold a sweeping panorama of the surrounding farmland, the Cascade Range on the horizon. I could sit here and look at this all day.
As I’m buckling up my harness, Richard studies the guidebook, deciding what climbs to recommend to me. He suggests Munchkinland, a 5.7 crack that takes gear—which is why he had suggested I bring a rack of Camalots. A trad route at Smith? Whoa! On the other hand, the crack is full of cobwebs so I don’t think it sees much traffic. It’s a shame, too, because it turns out to be a fun climb. I lead it, Terry follows. Then she takes the sharp end of the rope for a bolted route called Lollypop. All this time, Richard and Randy are around the corner, scaling some sporty lines. But once the sun swings around the corner, warming things up rather quickly, it’s time to pack up and hike further into the hinterlands.
Now it’s really getting hot, and as we tramp up and across the open hillside, I deliberate between tanking down more water, or reserve it for later. Damn, I should’ve brought more. Richard and Randy march on, seemingly unaffected. Brogan Spire is our destination, and it doesn’t come soon enough. We scramble up over a rocky notch and around to the east side of the formation, which has just gone into the shade, and drop our packs at the entrance to a large, cave-like feature. Sitting in the dirt, I take a slug of water.
“That’s our route,” says Richard, pointing above our heads.
There is a bolt at the overhanging mouth of the cave, twenty feet off the deck. Miss the clip, and you crater (from what I’ve read, this is the tradition at Smith: drill the first bolt up high to infuse trepidation). It’s called the Cave Route, a 250-foot line. Terry will lead the first pitch, I’ll take the second. After that, the plan calls for Richard and Randy to climb up on a second rope, and then ascend a route that is parallel to ours for the second pitch. We’ll meet on the summit.
The overhanging start looks harder than its 5.7 rating, and it takes Terry a few tries to work out the opening moves. She pulls through the overhang and scales up a vertical wall to the first bolt, all the while I’m standing beneath her, arms raised; ready to catch her if she peels off. But she doesn’t fall. After clipping the bolt, she takes off after the next one higher up. That's my girl.
The belay anchor at the top of Pitch 1 is on a broad ledge with a rock arch behind it. It’s a small arch, but you can walk through it if you duck, and in fact the second pitch does just that. It’s my lead. I step through the window and onto the sunny south face of Brogan Spire. Passing through the arch is pretty cool—but then having to climb in the fierce sun… not so cool. I’m guessing it is close to 100 degrees in direct sunlight. Sweat streams down my face; the rock is hot; my feet are hot. Even so, I follow a line of widely-spaced bolts up the face. The climbing is easier than the pitch Terry led. Unfortunately I don’t realize that I’m on the wrong route until I top out on a knife-edge ridge that is lower and way to the left of the summit spire.
Richard, who is now on the ledge with Terry, pokes his head through the arch window.
“That’s not the route,” he hollers up.
No kidding.
By now it is late afternoon, I’m wrung out from the heat, and only a swig of water remains in the bottle hanging from my harness. It doesn’t take much to talk Richard into calling it a day, either. 
However, I need two ropes to rappel back down to the window, so everyone is obligated to climb up to where I’m perched on the ridge. For the life of me, I couldn’t locate any rap anchors, but Randy finds them down the ridge a short ways, hidden behind a large block. We tie the ropes together. It is two rappels to the ground.
Returning to Bend, we meet Bobbi at a downtown restaurant for dinner. It’s much cooler now, so we sit outdoors under big trees—besides, we’re all grungy from the day (except for Bobbi, she smells nice) and we don’t want to risk offending the indoor patrons. The meal is superb. Richard picks up the tab, wishing Terry and me a happy anniversary. I’m beginning to really like this Oregonian hospitality. ___________________________________
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WE’RE up bright and early, loading mountain bikes onto Richard’s Highlander. He wants to be sure that we’ll be doing the uphill grinds in the morning rather than the heat of the afternoon—which after yesterday’s scorcher is just dandy by me. Bobbi will join us for part of the ride, though she’ll have to cut out early to see some clients, and because of this, follows us out to the trailhead in her own car.
Phil’s Trail is our destination, which is actually not a trail per say, but a vast spider web of fire roads and singletracks. Richard has an 18-mile loop in mind for us: a worthy sampler, he says, of the Bend mountain-biking scene.
It starts off pleasant enough: a singletrack that undulates through the forest, steadily gaining elevation. After five miles we come to a fire road, and at this point Bobbi says goodbye and cuts down the road back to the parking lot. We then pick up the trail on the other side of the road and continue up through the trees. In a mile or so, we come onto another fire road and follow it up a long, steep grind to our highpoint.
“Now the fun part,” heralds Richard after we take a break.
I’m still re-adjusting my helmet strap when he and Terry start down the road, and by the time I shove off, they’re already out of sight around the bend. 
It’s a curvy road, so I can’t see that far ahead anyway. I pick up the pace, but still no sight of them. How’d they get so far ahead? The answer lies a half mile further when I come to a fork in the road and find nobody waiting for me. I know Richard would’ve stopped here—he’s done so at every trail fork today—which can mean only one thing: I’m lost.
Okay, I’m not really lost. I’m just a little disorientated. It’s nothing that a quick phone call can’t rectify. I fish my cellular from my Camelback and give Ter a jingle, and even though I only have a half bar of reception, it’s enough. Barely.
“Where are you?” she answers, her voice breaking in and out.
Where am I? Where are YOU?
Turns out I missed where they had cut from the road, actually not far from where we stopped for our break. Terry had assumed I was right behind her, and that I had seen where they turned onto the path leading into the woods. But of course I had not: I was preoccupied, fiddling with my helmet strap. Pay attention, Barry.
After we regroup, Richard leads us down one of the finest singetracks I’ve ever ridden. It weaves though the trees, mile after mile, over dips and swells; fast sweeping turns; tight technical turns; high-speed straightaways. But the further we descend, the more challenging the terrain. Some of the tight turns I find especially tricky, and twice I go flying over the handlebars and tumble in the dirt. Even Terry has her share of spills, taking one particular hard fall onto a rock that bruises some ribs. What can I say? If yer not fallin’, yer not learnin’. As for Richard—Ter and I had to ride hard to keep up with him, and still I don’t think he crashed once, his jersey is too damn clean.
Bobbi is home when we get back to the house. While we relax and visit on the backyard deck, Richard throws some steaks on the grill. He and Bobbi have been wonderful hosts, especially when you consider that they’ve had gypsies (with California plates) camped in their driveway for three nights. But we’ll be heading out in the morning, moving the adventure along. In the meantime, though, it’s another day in paradise. ___________________________________
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MOUNT Mazama was a child of the Pleistocene, brought into this world by the colossal friction between two tectonic plates. Over the millenniums, she grew in fits and starts as hot magma from deep within welled to the surface, until she was a 14,000-foot behemoth. Distant ancestors of the Klamath dwelled in the region, and no doubt they regarded her with awe and reverence during her livid eruptions, which would be followed by decades of slumber before the next outburst.
But then one day, around 7,500 years ago, Mazama awakened with a vengeance. The ground rumbled, smoke and lava poured forth, possibly for months, and finally she exploded with cataclysmic might. For miles in every direction, all life was incinerated or buried in ash. It would be hard to imagine flora or fauna ever returning to this apocalyptic wasteland—but it did in the fullness of time, bit by bit, year after year. As for the remains of Mazama: something wonderful was in store.
From the lodge’s stone veranda, perched at the forested rim of the caldera, we can peer down at extraordinary outcome of the volcano’s demise. The iridescent-blue lake sparkles in the late afternoon sun like a topaz jewel. It fills the entire caldera, roughly six miles across, and plumbs to almost 2,000 feet, making it the deepest lake in North America.
This alone makes it a natural wonder, but what’s even more remarkable is that all this water comes from precipitation—no rivers or streams feed into it. Annual snowfall here is 40 to 50 feet, and even at that generous rate it would’ve taken centuries to fill the lake, to the point where climate and geology attained equilibrium. Now it maintains a constant level, never varying more than sixteen feet over the past century. What it gains in rain and snowfall each year, it loses to evaporation and ground seepage.
This is my first visit to Crater Lake National Park. Terry camped here years ago when her kids were younger, and we were hoping to do the same. But alas we didn’t call to secure a campsite until we were driving down from Bend this morning, and by then it was too late: the Park was full. “Plan B” landed us at Diamond Lake, eight miles outside the Park, where we were able to snag a decent site for two nights. By then it was mid-afternoon, so there was plenty of time to drive up the volcano; sightsee our way along the Rim Road; and then dine at the Crater Lake Lodge.
This brings us back to the veranda, where our seats grant us a breathtaking vista. The three-story Crater Lake Lodge, built in 1915, sits right at the precipitous edge of the caldera. Inside, the lobby is bustling and the posh restaurant is doing good business, with no table available until nine o’clock. So we sit outside on the veranda and enjoy cocktails and appetizers, relish the sunset, and mingle with the hotel guests. I’m even wearing my favorite “date night” Hawaiian shirt, which is also my lucky shirt—if you know what I mean. Just to be sure, I order Terry another Martini.
We have a very attentive server: a hard-working young man who could be a double for actor John Cusack. His name tag says “James,” but I later learn that his real name is Michael. So maybe he’s not an aspiring actor—he’s a secret agent. In either case, he takes good care of us. Drinks at hand, we sit and watch the sun sink below the horizon. The sky turns to gold and then deep magenta. The lake darkens to a fathomless indigo, and then blends with the night.
Later on, we relax in the lobby in front of the giant, stone fireplace. It’s much quieter now. The restaurant is clearing out; most of the guests have retired to their rooms. Our “room” is out in the parking lot, but we must drive twenty miles before we can get into bed. Which is okay, because it’s a beautiful evening. And I’m wearing my lucky shirt. ___________________________________
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WE’VE been living out of the van for eleven days now and I’m getting into the groove of it. In fact, I could make it a lifestyle. However I’m not so sure my wife would agree—at least in regards to living in the van with ME. 
She’s a neat-freak Nazi and everything must be put away in its proper place, arranged and organized alphabetically, numerically and chronologically. On the other hand, I’m not so refined in the organization department. I’ll admit it. I did leave my hairbrush lying on the bed this morning, and she wasn't happy when she sat on it. Yes, that’s my shaving kit on the galley stove. And okay, my lucky Hawaiian shirt is still draped over the passenger seat up front. Geez, give me a break.
“Living in this camper is like living on a sailboat,” she informs me, and I presume she should know—she grew up around sailboats. “Everything must be stowed away when not in use.”
Aye aye, skipper.
Captain Bligh leaves the bridge and steps outside to the picnic table with a mug of Java and her laptop. It’s a sunny morning at Diamond Lake Campground. Our site faces the woods and blue jays and nutcrackers flitter through the branches, squawking and carrying on. Terry checks her emails, oblivious to the birds swooping down to snatch grapes from the table. We both have some e-business to attend to, and since the campground has a good Wi-Fi connection, it’s as good a place as any. If only my office back home had this view.
Terry is still sore from that fall in Bend, and she’s beginning to wonder if she cracked a rib. Even so, she’s game to heading up to Crater Lake in the afternoon for a bike ride. The Rim Road around the caldera is 33 miles and incredibly scenic. Maybe we can do that.
Or maybe not. By the time we drive up there, dark, ominous clouds are looming to the north. I’m not too concerned, but Terry is fretting about being out on a bike, miles from the car, and then getting hosed by a downpour. Her apprehension stems from her last visit here, when a vicious thunderstorm almost caught her and her kids out on a hike. So instead of riding the Rim Road around the crater, we drive it.
There are two things that the National Park Service loathes on their trails: dogs and mountain bikes. The only thing worse would be dogs RIDING mountain bikes. For this reason I was surprised to see in the NP pamphlet that bicycles were allowed on the Pinnacles Trail at the south end of the Park. Sweet! 
We drive out to the trailhead and unload the bikes. It’s a casual romp in a pine forest, following the edge of a canyon. But as we’re riding, I frequently glance over my shoulder to monitor the ugly weather bearing down on us. It doesn’t look good. We’re a mile and a half out when we decide to turn back. I can smell the rain coming.
We’re back in the van and driving on the Rim Road when the squall hits. Captain Bligh is at the helm and she slows to a crawl. The rain falls in sheets. The sky rumbles. Suddenly there’s a loud BANG on the roof, causing us both to jump—rocks are tumbling off the mountainside, and one the size of a softball scored a direct hit. Lightening crackles along a nearby ridge, followed by rolling thunder. And just when I’m thinking it can’t get any worse—it begins to hail. Hard. The windshield wipers are next to useless, and in no time at all, the world outside is veiled in a gossamer coat of white.
It rains on and off all the way back to Diamond Lake. The campground is quiet; everyone has retreated into the warm, dry confines of tent-trailers and fifth-wheelers. We were hoping to have a campfire under the stars tonight, but I don’t see that happening. Once the van is situated, we declare Happy Hour and relax in the back with crackers and hummus and a bottle of wine, listening to the rain patter against the roof. There’s something magical about summer storms. After a while, Terry suggests that we watch a movie, so I put one in the DVD player—Mutiny on the Bounty. ___________________________________
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ONCE again we’re on the road, southbound on Highway 97. Terry has the first driving shift. The storm clouds are gone and the sun reigns supreme in Klamath Falls. Countless miles of open country slip by, and at long last we cross back into California, where in the town of Weed, we switch drivers. Weed is a curious little hamlet. A dude by the name of Abner Weed settled here in the 1890s and built one of the largest lumber mills in the country. 
The lumber industry is a bygone era now, but Main Street still hosts numerous gift shops where one can buy T-shirts that say “Enjoy Weed”; “I heart Weed”; or “Weed is Awesome!” I mean, ol’ Abner died over a half century ago, and they’re still commemorating him on shirts? What’s up with that? Maybe they’re referring to something else?
Once Captain Bligh has scored T-shirts for her kids, I weigh anchor and set sail, merging onto Interstate 5, jockeying around 18-wheelers, motor homes, and dually trucks pulling brawny ski boats. The grandiose Mount Shasta rolls by. Then the towns of Redding; Red Bluff; Orland; and finally the glass towers of Sacramento come into view on the flat, delta horizon. The end of the day is near.
Our destination is Meg and Stan’s place in Folsom. Meg and Terry had been best friends during high school back in Connecticut. Inevitably, after going off to college, they lost touch with one another—until 18 months ago when they reunited on Facebook. Even more incredible is the fact that Meg and her husband, Stan, are into cycling and rock climbing. What are the odds of that?
The sun is going down when we turn off the freeway in Folsom and drive into the El Dorado Hills. Our trusty Tom-Tom directs us to Meg and Stan’s house, which sits atop a knoll with a commanding view that reaches to Mount Diablo sixty miles away. After trucking 400 miles, it’s refreshing to lounge in their back yard and relish the evening breeze. Over supper we discuss plans for tomorrow: climbing at Lover’s Leap, which for years I’ve been pining to check out, but somehow, for one reason or another, it has always eluded me. Now I will have my chance. But it will be just Stan, Terry and me, because Meg has a broken arm—sustained in a bike crash—and she’s still on the mend.
Meg has a guest room waiting for us, so for the first time on the trip, we sleep on a queen-size bed in a house (at least for Terry—I slept two nights at home when I flew down to SoCal). The last rudiments of “roughing it” have been cast aside. Life is copacetic. No longer do I have to check the parking brake before turning in. No longer does my darling wife risk being goosed by a hairbrush when she sits on the bed. ___________________________________
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THERE’S nothing like the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee to get you rolling out of bed in the morning. Meg is in the kitchen, making sandwiches for us. Stan is out in the garage, loading climbing gear into his truck. I’m moving a little slow: the consequence of a dull headache. Maybe it’s from all the wine last night? Naww.
On the hour drive into the Western Sierra, Stan gives us the rundown on some moderate routes we can climb at Lover’s Leap. Located near South Lake Tahoe, the granite cliffs of the Leap never attracted any climbers until the 1950s, its proximity to Yosemite Valley being the main problem, as that’s where the action was. By 1960, only a handful of lines had been established, and they saw very little traffic. There was no guidebook: information was passed by word of mouth. But it was only a matter of time before increasing numbers of climbers heard about the vertical stone above the sleepy, alpine village of Strawberry. New routes started going up; a guidebook was published; the rest is history.
From the parking lot, it’s a 20-minute jaunt through forest to the base of a hulking formation called the Hogsback. It’s a gorgeous morning. The air is crisp; the sky is a fearless blue. Stan leads us to a battleship-gray buttress, where a single-pitch route, called Ham & Cheese, ascends directly up the prow. 
We take turns leading it as a prelude to our next climb: Hogwild. According to the guidebook, “Hogwild is one of the best 5.7 pitches at the Leap,” an outstanding line up a steep, 170-foot corrugated face. A unique feature of the rock here are the horizontal ripples, called dikes, which give the cliff a corrugated texture. They range in width, from comfy foot stances to tiny fingertip crimpers—the smaller the dikes, the more difficult the climbing. Taking the lead on Hogwild, I find it to be an exceptional route, never relenting. Terry and Stan take a lap on it, and then we climb the 5.9 route next door, called No Gaynor. It’s good, but not near as good as Hogwild.
All morning, Terry has been experiencing a sharp pain in her ribs when executing certain moves, but she’s too tenacious to call it quits. After breaking for lunch in the shade of big conifers, we head over to a route called It’s Better With Bacon. It is four pitches long, but according to Stan, they are fairly short pitches and can be linked into two very long ones. Stan leads the first; I take the second. The crux is turning a 5.8 roof on Pitch 2, which is quite the rope-stretcher—when I reach the belay chains, there’s literally not an inch of cord to spare. 
This is another excellent route. But times flies when you’re having fun, and when my cohorts join me at my cozy belay perch, 400 feet above the talus, the entire canyon is cast in deep late-afternoon shadows. Preferring to be back in Folsom before dark, we descend to our packs via a pair of double-rope rappels, knowing that we have shared a good day together on the crag.
Back at Stan and Meg’s hacienda, I thumb through the guidebook after dinner, seeking out potential routes for tomorrow. Stan has his heart set on Corrugation Corner, one of the Leap’s mega-classics. It’s been on his hit list for awhile, but due to the route’s popularity, there is normally a long queue of parties amped up to climb it on the weekends. For this reason, since tomorrow is Friday, Stan believes we can get a jump on the crowd. I’m in. It will be just the two of us, however, as Terry opts to spend the day with Meg. ___________________________________
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DAY 14: The last play day. Stan and I are up at dawn and on the road before seven o’clock. Coffee and conversation accompany us into the mountains, where the South Fork of the American River glides by in early morning shadows. With caffeine and energy flowing in our veins, we’re stoked for another day at the Leap.
Luck is on our side: the parking lot is empty. Shouldering our packs, we follow the climber’s trail that zigzags up to the East Wall, which is higher up the mountainside than the Hogsback. To our utter delight, there’s not a soul around: we have Corrugation Corner all to ourselves. It’s an impressive vertical corner, at first glance looking more difficult than its moderate 5.7 rating—in fact, at second glance it STILL looks more difficult than its 5.7 rating. According to our photocopy of the route topo, it is four pitches long, about 500 feet of climbing. It also follows a meandering line, exploiting weaknesses up the sheer East Wall, so not wishing to risk getting off route, I ask Stan to stick the topo in his pocket for future reference. Never hurts to have a road map.
Stan offers to take the first pitch: Sustained jamming and stemming up a corner, and then a delicate hand traverse right to a small ledge. I follow. Steep it may be, but with all the horizontal dikes, there are plenty of holds if you look for them. At the belay ledge, I take the gear rack from Stan to lead Pitch 2. I ask him for the topo when I’m ready to start climbing. He fishes it out of his pants pocket, and just as he passes it to me, a sudden gust of wind snatches it from our hands and it goes fluttering down and out of sight. What can I say? It is what it is.
I’m forty feet up the second pitch when the hand-size crack I’ve been following flares into an ugly squeeze chimney. Not good. I suspect this is where the route jogs left, to the outside edge of the corner, only it doesn’t look feasible and I’m thinking our topo map would’ve come in handy right now. In the end, I go with what doesn’t look feasible. Small, horizontal dikes lead left across sheer rock, and I use them to traverse out to a minuscule stance on the very prow of the corner. There I find an old knifeblade piton that’s been hammered into a tiny crack (a good sign I’m on route) and I clip the rope into it, venting a sigh of relief. 
I am now staring straight up the renowned Corrugation Corner where, about twenty feet higher up, I see another knifeblade protruding from the rock. The terrain to reach it is near vertical and dauntingly exposed, but the moves are all there—just when you desperately need a hand or foot hold, a little dike appears for purchase. It goes like this for over a hundred feet, right up the corner’s edge, clipping three more knifeblades along the way, until I’m able to step across a gaping void and clamber onto a thank-God ledge. I then belay Stan up. And when he scrambles onto the ledge, his grin says it all: That was one awesome pitch!
Pitch 3: Even though it’s Stan’s lead, he offers it to me and I take it. The opening moves entail shimmying up a short chimney, after which I gingerly step back onto the corrugated face and traverse right. From here it’s smooth sailing: follow a nice, long crack up through a roof, and then shoot for the top. Halfway there, a climber comes into view to my left: he is finishing Traveler’s Buttress, another classic route here. I had heard him and his partner shouting belay signals all morning, but they were around the corner and out of sight. Now we are close enough to chat as we converge below the summit headwall, and when I start looking for a spot to set up a belay—I know I’m close to running out of rope—he assures me that if I’ve got a 60-meter cord, I’ll reach the top. After he pulls the summit overhang, I follow him—and he’s right: I have four feet of rope to spare.
His name is Petch, a climbing guide out with a client. He’s an amiable young man (everyone looks young to me); lives just across the canyon on the other side of the highway, where from his front porch he enjoys a view of the smoke-gray cliffs of Lovers Leap. As we belay our partners up, we talk and I learn that he has put up many routes here over the past dozen years, some of which are very hard, and others more in the “fun” range. 
In fact, we climbed two of them yesterday: Ham & Cheese and It’s Better with Bacon. Once Stan tops out, we high five and coil the rope, visiting with Petch and his client. We have just sent an extraordinary route on a gorgeous day in the Sierra Nevada, and it doesn’t get any better than that.
We’re back at the house by late afternoon, where preparations are underway for a poolside barbeque. Terry’s sister, Kathy, has driven in from San Rafael to join us, and so too has Meg’s sister, Cathy, from Vacaville. The four women ran around together during their teenage years in Connecticut. In fact, before dinner, Meg drags out her high school yearbooks and they flip through the pages, reminiscing on old classmates. 
The stars are out and the meal is superb. Another wine bottle appears on the table, silently beckoning, but I’m quickly fading. Tired and content, I turn in early. And as I drift off to sleep, I can hear the ladies in the back yard, talking and laughing in the moonlight. There’s a good chance they opened another bottle. _____________________________________
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ALAS our road trip is a voyage that is homeward bound. Ter and Meg’s sisters head home first thing in the morning, and after packing the van and saying our final goodbyes to Meg and Stan, we drive south. Visalia is our destination, where we visit Terry’s mom. It’s Saturday night and she treats us to dinner at a nice Mexican restaurant in town. 
Sunday morning, after coffee and breakfast, we’re back on the highway for the final stretch: Tulare; Bakersfield; over Tejon Pass and into the Los Angeles basin. Terry does most of the driving—she has taken a liking to the van. I have to admit, it has served its purpose well (though a bike rack would’ve been nice), and I can see us getting something like this in the future. Maybe. If we do get one, the biggest hurdle will be deciding on who gets to be the skipper.
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MORE PHOTOS
To view the entire photo set, go here... http://www.flickr.com/photos/91696789@N00/sets/72157624966273906/
In memory of Motts Cataldi,
who always maintained that the first step to getting what you want out of life is to decide what you want.
