Road trip USA

One month with traveling and fun in the US is over, and it has been completly awsome! Here is a map over the trip, me and Kristin actually got 5 states now! I'll try to tell the most interesting thing that we have experienced on our travels underneath, and post a lot of pictures. But in general I can just say that US was a lot cooler than I ever thought, with a lot of really really awsome nature and climbing, and that the people are a lot friendlier and nicer than I thought in my media influenced prejudice. I got a positiv surprice, you can say a lot of negativ things about the US, but its not possible to deny that it is a really cool country too!

(Remember to scroll down under this post for new USA trip blog post :)

And for more US road trip (or NPNW tour, Norwegian Pasific North Western tour) see Gregs blog. He has climbers profiles! :)

Leavensworth

From Mt. Washington we headed up to Leavensworth in Washington state. Leavensworth is a fasinating little town. Its a town so cute and nice and friendly that it almost makes you nauseus :) The town has taken on a complete bayerish theme, and everything is in bayerish style. You can buy bratwust and sourkraut and there are people in bayer costumes and bayerish paintings on every wall! I can just say: Only in America!

But the reason we went there of course was for the climbing. Around the little town there is a lot of really nice granite walls with som beutifull cracks, which we spent a few days climbing on.

One day we did a little speed climbing competition :) Up condorphamine addiction which is a 7 pitch climb, 5.10a or b. Norway vs USA. USA won of course, with a lot more big wall experience and the advantage of having climbed it before they did it in only 49.24.19 while Norway was not far behind at 1.00.09 (not counting penalty min for one fall and one take..). We do have videos from this but I have problems uploading it... Hopfully one of us will get it up, because those videos are good! :)

On the way back from Leavensworth we drove through Seattle and got to see the big market there. The americans found me wierd wanting to find the hospital in Grays anatomy (it seems like it dont exist! disapointed!!!) more than to see the fish trowing guys (at the market, its some famous stand where they trow the fish around...)

Little boys with all their toys!

Team USA celebrating with corona on top of Condorphamine Addiction

Team Norway doing the same :)

Jake on Classic crack, which is an absolutly beutiful 5.8 sandbagged crack. Its just perfect!

The Javelin! Strange, fun, layback, undercling and the climb on the front page of the Leavensworth guidebook

We also went minigolfing one day, since it was way to warm to climb in the middle of the day anyway. And I, who have never minigolfed before, and hate everything golf related, got hole in one on the first hole!!! :D

Portland, Smith Rock and Mt. Washington

We finally met up with Greg in Portland, where he took us on a boat trip on the Willamette river, and we got to try bot intertube and wakeboard. Wakeboard was really cool, almost like kite surfing, exept you dont need to think about the kite all the time :)

Boat trip in Portland!

Jake and Greg at French's dome by Mt. Hood outside Portland

We then headed to Smith Rock and climbed some awsome climbs like Monkey face. We also got time to climb Mt Washington before heading futher north.

Jake on second pich, monkey face. Me and Kristin belaying

Monkey Face from Wherever i may roam

Greg on last pitch of Wherever i may roam (5 piches, 5.9)

Greg, Jake and Jakes brother Tim on Mt. Washington. Three finger jack and ? in background.

Jake leading last pitch on Mt. Washington

Greg, Kristin, me and Tim on top of Mt Washington

Nevada, Eureka and Lost Rock

From Zion we drove through Nevada, and in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, on what is called US loneliest highway Kristin suddenly notice blinking light behind us while we are driving.... I get a bit scared an pulles over, and since no one comes I open the door to get out of the car. This makes Jake pull me back, saying I should never do that! When the police officer comes he is really mad and says that no one not having done anything wrong would get out of the car like that! He gets me to go out of the car, and sit on the front of the police car, and starts asking me out suspecting me to have drugs and acting exactly like police in a movie!

The reason he pulled me over he claims is because I was to fast through a stop sign (it was completly flat there and not a single car for houres...) but he probably just stoped us because we looked a bit shabby and young, and therefor could have drugs... I seriously was about to cry sitting alone on the front of the car waiting for the officer to call whoever he was calling.... After showing norwegian passport and looking really scared he luckely let us go quite fast (at least fast compared to what he could have done according to Jake). If there is something I really do not like about the US its the police! And an advice to everybody: never EVER go out of the car if you get pulled over in the states!

The next day we drove through northern california and experienced more than 45 degrees C in Redding and some huge wildfires closer to the coast. At one point me and Kristin just sopped telling our mums what we where doing :)

We then went to Jakes parents in Eureka, got some really good food and slept in beds, and then we headed towards Oregon and Portland, with a stop for some beach bouldering in Lost Rock and a stop in Corvallis.

Jake and his mum Sarah like brown cheese!!! :D

Kristin in Lost Rocks

Lost Rock

In Corvallis I finnaly got some proper american hamburger!!

Zion

After Yosemite we drove to Zion in Utha and passed through Bishop on the way. Bishop has the best bakery on the west coast and some of the best bouldering in the world. Only problem there was that since its in the dessert it was to warm to climb there even at 9 am.

Grandma and Grandpa peabody (?) in Bishop

If you could choose one boulder in the world to have in your back yard, which would you choose? :)

Zion is completly different from anything I have ever seen before. It is just this area of deep narrow canyons of red rock and tall red cliffs. Looks in a way completly artificial. We did not climb much here, just some bouldering in the evening. And we got one cool day of canyoneering through the pine creek canon. And I hitchhiked! :)

No, the background is not artificial!

Kristin, me and Jake in the narrows.
The narrows

Jake bouldering in Zion

Arriving USA and Yosemite

The 30th of June i arrived in San Fransisco and Jake picked me up at the airport, the first thing we do is to get lost in San Fransisco trying to get on I5 north :) After a night at the Gradek family farm and picking a lot of the best oranges I have ever tasted there we went back to San Fransisco, picked up Kristin (who had lost her wallet and was out of battery on her cell) and drove to Yosemite (I lost my credit card on the way). The first sight of El Cap and Half Dome completly stunned me! It is truly amazing nature there and I have never seen anything like it! Its just these strange 1000 m tall straight up granite walls!

Half dome! (its taller than Galhøpiggen!)

About the climbing in Yosemite: Its hard! But cool! The first 5.6 crack we tried there made us realize our inferiority. But it really is absolutly awsome thought! I would love to get back there and climb more and climb some of the classics like Royal arches. Another cool event appening when we where there was that it was set speed record on El Cap 2.43 i think the new time is. Of course this was the big gossip at camp 4 :)

Jake on top of the manura pile which was a 6 pitch climb

Kristin on a 5.6 crack (5.6 in Yosemite is not as easy as it sounds!)

Another thing about Yosemite that we discovered are the bears. Its a lot of them, and they are really smart and not afraid of humans at all! Its a lot of signs around with warnings about the bears, and at camp 4 they have bear boxes where your are to put all your food, and if you dont do so, you get a fine. Of course we are law-abiding citizens and did as the rangers said, put all the food in the bear box and where very carefull. But one night we woke up by some rangers with flashlights in our faces asking if we drove a golden volvo stationwagon. Reason: A bear had broken into our car! It had broken the front seat window, climbed in and into the back seat, taken Jakes school backback, draged it out, opened it, let all the climbing guides in it out, and taken the cake Jake had gotten from his aunt that we forgot about, eaten the cake and left everything in the parkinglot. Nothing was damaged exept the window and the cake! This resultin in us having to spend a day driving down to the town Merced in central valley and fixing the window instead of climbing... We where a bit sad that we did not see the bear though, but Jake and Kristin saw one later, lucky them!

This is where the bear got in!

Back in Norway!

I can hereby happily announce that i am back in norway after one month in the states! I have a lot of stories and pic I am going to post, it might take some time but I will try to be fast :)

And Ingrid is now also back in Norway! After crossing Greenland from south to north with kites she is now back in Oslo. Congratulations Ingrid!!! I am so proud of you! http://jenterikuling.com/index.php