Paul Morgan and Paul Doherty set off for adventure in a new van.
Road Tip 2005 Owen's Valley California and Moab Utah
At the end of September 2005 Paul Morgan drove up to my house in his new Ford Van. It had a sleeping platform inside and a pop-up top penthouse sleeping platform as well. I loaded up my backpacking/rockclimbing/mountain biking gear and we headed off on a climbing/biking adventure to Owens Valley and Moab Utah.
Our goals for this trip were to climb the east face route on Mt. Whitney and to ride mountain bikes around the slickrock trail in Moab Utah, we wanted to have some fun too.
As we drove to the east toward Tuolumne meadows we noticed towering cumulus clouds building over the Sierra. We drove into porcupine flat campground and noticed that everything had been soaked by a torrential downpour earlier in the day. It sprinkled on us as we ate out first trip dinner. We backed under the shelter of a tree and I mentioned John Muir who knew where to find places under trees in the Sierra that stayed dry for one to three days during storms. He classified trees as one day trees, two days trees or three day trees. In the morning the storm was supposed to clear but the clouds lingered on as we ate breakfast and headed out for our warmup climb the north ridge of Tenaya Peak, 14 pitches, 5.5 ish. As we drove up the road I was shocked to see that the mountains above 10,000 feet were covered with snow. I began to worry about our plans to climb Whitney.
Here are tales of our adventures:
1, A climb of the North Buttress of Tenaya Peak in Tuolumne Meadows California.
2. A traverse of the Mono Craters to the summit of Crater Peak California.
3. A mountain bike ride to White Mountain California.
4. Mountain Biking to Hurrah Pass near Moab Utah.
5. Mountain Biking the Slickrock Trail, Moab Utah
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Scientific Explorations with Paul Doherty |
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11 October 2005 |