But once I cleared the summit pass around Mammoth Lakes and started heading down to Mono Lake Basin, I was greeted with the sight of a massive low-lying cover of clouds in the basin.

The first thing I thought of as I raced down and towards the edge of the clouds was Stephen King’s ‘The Mist‘.  Would I be swallowed up in the mist to never be seen again?

A surreal world laid below the mist, as everything was coated with frost.

I made a short break for drinks and snacks in the town of Lee Vining and tried my hand on a car-placement shot.  Mr. 2010 Ford Fusion SE in Metallic Gray.  Quite the looker, huh?

Leaving the town of Lee Vining – ghostly trees and brushes floated into sight and faded away quickly.  There were virtually no traffic to be seen, giving an even more eerie sense of another world and time.   As 395 climbed upwards out of Mono Lake Basin, I was greeted with a beautiful sight high above what I’d just drove through.  You can see in the photo below, 395 coming out of the cloud cover.

I suggested that we head on south to check out Manzanar which sat in the shadow of the Sierras about ten miles south of Independence, CA.

Our nation, founded on the principles of equality, justice and freedom for all has had its share of ugly chapters in her history.  This is one such chapter.  During World War II, when anti-Japanese sentiments reached dizzying heights, the Army sought out – and received authorization from the President to “relocate” all residents of Japanese ancestry on the west coast to relocation camps such as Manzanar.  Concentration camps in other words.  It wasn’t just the Germans that did this during the War.

After browsing the exhibits inside the center, I found myself feeling saddened and angry.  I felt sad for all those Japanese people who were suddendly uproooted from their lives and forced to move.  Many of them had to quickly sell their homes, businesses and possessions.  Then they had to endure living conditions out in the high plains desert.  Hot, dusty summers, and howling windy winters in quickly-built barrack style houses that barely offered any protection from the elements.

I also felt angry over yet another example of racism and hatred that had been allowed to grow out of control in America.  It was only when the War ended that the Japanese were allowed to leave Manzanar and resume their lives.   I could not help but feel like there are so many parallels today with Muslim citizens of America.  Indefinite lockups without any basis (simply fear) or due process.  Does that sound familiar?

Virtually nothing remains of Manzanar.  Almost all of it was dismantled and sold off after the war.  Here, you can see the remains of one of the mess halls.

A few of the most enduring remains of Manzanar were built by the Japanese residents themselves.  They built and maintained several gardens on the site.  This is one such garden that was built next to the hospital.

A memorial marker sits on the grounds where Manzanar residents that died were buried.  Six remains still lie there, nestled in the cradle of the majestic mountains.

Fire is the rapid oxidation of a combustible material releasing heat, light, and various reaction products such as carbon dioxide and water.

But to me, its an fascinating subject to photograph.  These pictures were taken while sitting around the campfire.  Even at ISO 6400, f/4 and 1/8000sec shutter speed to freeze it as still as possible, the chaotic energies and dynamics of the fire is undiminished.

The second week is when thing would be getting dicey.   Leo would be up here from L.A., and we’d need to look for a place, move in, get settled, find furniture, go food shopping and all these motions that come with relocation.

My optimism that we’d find a place within a day was being too optimistic, apparently.  While there are plenty of 1BR or studio apartments that I could probably slide into within hours of looking (and not having someone else that needs to approve the location), the selection of 2BR apartments were more slim.  We looked at a few places, some of them nice, some of them not so nice.

But we DID find a place we were happy with, and we moved in that night, and aside from having no furniture at all, its going great!

As timing would have it, there were two friends of mine from San Francisco that came down to climb for four days.  I tagged along with them most of those days and on the last day of climbing, I brought along my camera.

The approach hike to Happys. The day was one of the most gorgeous I can remember, being just perfectly warm, but not too hot.

Being completely shut down by Seregenti on their first day out to the Happys, Matt and Carolyn returned with a vengeance and renewed confidence after a few proud sends over at the ‘milks.   Their perservance paid off and they both fired off amazing sends to cap off the morning.

Fresh off success on Seregenti, we all walked up to the southern ridge of the Happys and gazed upon the nearly featureless wall of Mr. Witty. None of us had tried it before and we had no beta to work from, but there wasn’t much to figure out.  There were maybe five useful holds on the whole wall and we were pretty sure all of them would come into play somehow.

Leo led the charge by solving the reach for the little sidepull that would prove crucial for the setup to the good double-finger pocket.  Working off that beta, I retraced Leo’s steps and moved on to the last set of pockets, which by themselves didn’t inspire much faith, but it was just good enough for me to carefully setup my feet – and then after a silent little prayer to myself, I exploded off the pockets and nailed the slap to the top perfectly!  A quick mantle later, I was standing proud over the Happy’s, feeling just RIGHTEOUS over my new tick.  Rawr!

Leo all sorted out on the sidepull and pocket.  The move to the two bad pockets lies above him, and if he could hang on long enough, the throw to the top!  But that day wasn’t meant to be for Leo, sadly…  but there’ll be all winter for a chance to stand up and deliver, no doubt.

After a long day of climbing, we were all feeling a bit knackered and burnt, so we all wrapped up the day with a easy hike up Slight Inducement, a lone boulder found at the near-end of the valley.

And with all good things coming to an end, Matt and Carolyn had to head back home to San Francisco.  We bid them farewell and firmly insisted they come back again soon.

Come back again soon y’all!

It was with no small amount of trepidation and excitement that I headed back out east to Bishop with friends for the Thanksgiving week.  This would be a one-way trip.   My friends would be going back to the Bay Area after the holiday while I’d remain behind.

We were greeted with some really great weather.  It was sunny and warm, almost hot during the days.  The nights were not too cold and there was plenty of climbing to go around.

Gabe immediately got to work on projecting Seregenti at the Happys.

There were many many other climbers in Bishop over the week with the same idea as well.  Seregenti saw a steady stream of climbers looking to make their mark on the area’s V5 testpiece.

Thanksgiving was composed of various pre-made meals from the local Vons.  Sliced turkey breast, cornbread stuffing, mashed potatoes and quick-fried vegetables.  I ate enough for three men that night.  Urp.

Cozying up to the roaring campfire while passing around the bottle of Grey Goose, naturally.

Camp Sweet Camp.  Enjoying the last bits of the fast fading daylight at the Pleasant Valley Pit Camp.

I originally sent Sucker Punch a few years ago, I’d found out recently that the major starting hold on Sucker Punch had broken off within the last month, and the problem had become a bit harder.

So I headed back to the valley to scope out the problem, and after two days of trying out different beta, I finally repeated it for the ages!

On the next morning, after a hearty lunch, and farewells, my friends headed back to the Bay Area.  I watched them pull onto Main Street and head towards the highway and I thought to myself, “Here I am… again!”

I was poking around Wikipedia the other day, and stumbled across this colorized image of a woodcutting that was done hundreds of years ago.

I can completely put myself into the shoes of that red-robed guy – pulling up a curtain of stars to peer at the celestial machinery that operates the entire universe.  Why do it? Simply out of curiosity.  OF COURSE.  I love it.

I’ve been kicking it up around in San Francisco for a little over a year.  I really love this city warts and all.  The weather is one of the best things about the city.  Its rarely too hot, or too cold.  Its always just nice and mild!  Its been an amazing experience living in a city that’s so full of cultural vibrancy, the let be and let be attitude of everyone and meeting to many geniune people.

Yet, it is time to move on.  My heart looks out east, back to Bishop.

It was a little less than two years ago, I stood in front of my little rental cottage as I bid my parents farewell as they drove back to Phoenix.  They had come up to Bishop for two days to help me pack up my meager posessions into my truck so that I could drive home to Minneapolis.

It was a bittersweet day for me.  I was finally wrapping up my stay in Bishop.  It was the realization of a dream I’d had for a long time to actually live in Bishop, doing nothing but climb rocks day in and day out.  But it was hardly the end of that dream that I’d imagined, taking that nasty spill off Jedi Mind Tricks and blowing up my foot, not even two months into my stay, and a unfinished tick list a mile long??

So as I drove away from Bishop it was that frustration of unfinished business that gnawed on my head.  I was unsure if I’d ever return to live here again, but I think in my heart – I knew I would.

In a week.  I’ll return to Bishop to make it my home again for the winter.  I’ll be joined this time by a friend of mine from NYC, Leo.  I’m sure I’ll be blogging about it and sharing more photographs over the days.  I am truly excited to return and I invite you to join me once more again, my friends.

I made a short video when I was sitting at a little bench by a gravestone marker.  Thank you whomever had it put there! You’ll have to excuse the shaky camera work.  I was working in the face of a very stiff ocean breeze, any harder and I’d probably have flew right off the bench.

The air was getting bitingly cold.  I cranked the small gas furnace up to the max and settled in for the night, sipping a bottle of Heineken and thinking about what I saw the day prior.  (See yesterday’s blog post).

Part of the reason that spurred me to take this trip was because after I sold my truck, I realized how much I missed the road trips.  I drove bazillions of miles in 2008, crisscrossing the country and taking a ton of photos.

And now in San Francisco, I was staying in my little 7 mile by 7 mile sandbox.  I wanted to be on the road again!

I badly miscalculated how far I’d go on US-1 though.  I only made it 60 miles north (as the crow flies) before night fell.  I knew from pictures and from what I’d read that US-1 was pretty twisty, but I had no idea HOW twisty.  30 miles a hour would be considered reckless in some sections…

So when night fell, I found myself close to Guerenville, and stopped in for a night’s say.  I woke up to gray skies and low fog.

After a long hot shower and some food from the store, I rolled on out of town under a gray canopy.  I wondered to myself if this would be on the order for the rest of the day…

While roaming along the banks of the Russian River, I noticed that the sands were all duck footprints.  No human footprints, except mine own.

Houses sat under the shelter of the pines.  I pulled my jacket tighter and stashed my gear in the car and headed on back to Highway 1.

And lo, behold!  Like Dorothy finding herself in full TECHNICOLOR in the Land of Oz after a violent cyclone ride, as soon as I hit the coast, a strong wind blew in from the ocean and pulled the sky wide open under the brilliant morning sun.

First stop of the day was the Salt Cove.  I pulled in the park to take a leak, then decided to explore the beach.  The incessant pounding of the surf in this cove had smoothed down the large stones in the beach, and turned driftwood into creepily organic tendrils that looked more like snakes than wood.

Lone cypress trees dot the cliffs edge, their shapes indicative of an entire lifetime spent in the face of the oceanic winds.  The wind today was especially powerful, forcing me to continually brace myself against it when taking photos.

About a mile before my turnoff on US-128 that would take me through Navarro Redwood Forest (and back to San Francisco), I drove past this small cliffside cemetery.  I stopped in for a small break and to sit amongst the dead, enjoying the same view, if only for a few moments that some of the cemetery residents have enjoyed for centuries.

Ten miles off Highway 1, I entered the dense canopy of the Navarro Redwood Forest.  I stopped for a little bit to explore.  The information I had read on the web the night before said that Navarro was basically a second-line redwood forest.  Much younger and smaller than the giants that once dominated the entire northern part of California.

But still, those trees were HUGE!  Trunks that stood over eight, ten feet in diameter and tops that towered out of sight, I walked around in awe.  If those were considered “small”, then I definitely had to head on up to see the ancient redwoods.  Maybe next month?

Even the cloves were super-sized.  Those cloves were easily the size of dollar coins.

After my time with the redwoods, it was time to head home.  I drove eastward to meet up with US-101, and raced home.  It seemed so strange to me that it would take me two days to drive only 120 miles north, and less than two hours to return home.

And the drive up north was so many times more rich and rewarding than the drive home.  Its kind of sad that we have become so accustomed to driving on those big interstate freeways that blur us past all those amazing views and sights that our country has to offer….

Yeah I’m headed to Bishop next weekend, but I wanted out.  Now.  A quick check online showed there was an Avis close by.  I walked over there, and drove out with Ford’s econobox, the Focus.  Ugly maroon, but it would get me where I wanted to go.

The next question was – north or south on US-1?  I decided to go north, since I’d gone south a few times with friends already.

First stop was required to make my own shot of the Golden Gate Bridge from the Marin headlands.  This shot is made millions of times everyday by tourists who flock to the vista points.  But even in spite of this massive redundancy, it just begs for a shot anyway.

Another common shot, the San Francisco skyline from the Marin headlands.

After about an hour of driving, I found myself heading into Point Reyes.  Its an finger of land that sticks out in the ocean that sports treacherous rocks and currents that lured in and sunk many many ships in the early 1900s.

Completely by accident, this crow flew into my frame when I pulled the shutter.  Not bad!

I had barely gone 60 miles north on US-1 when night fell.  I checked in an hotel and here I am, posting a couple pictures I took.  I don’t quite know where I’m going tomorrow, but this trip ain’t over yet!