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Year: 2012

Climbing in Prescott

Yesterday, after having lunch with my ex-colleagues, we drove up from Phoenix to Prescott. We wanted to camp by Watson Lake but found that it is only allowed during the weekend. So with some help from a park ranger we found another place to stay by Lynx Lake. The campgrounds are really nice with benches, fire rings and toilets.

At the campground with new vacation hair cut. 🙂

After a good night sleep we drove back to Watson Lake to do some climbing. There is a nice wall with 5 or 6 routes in the correct level for us. The views of the area from the top of the wall were beautiful. After climbing today with our twin ropes we decided to buy a single rope for shorter climbs like the ones today. So we plan to go back tomorrow morning to try it out before moving on.

Visit in Sweden

I have spent 1.5 weeks in Sweden to finish up at work and visit family and friends before we go on our trip.

The first weekend I spent in Mariefred with family. The weather was perfect so we did the classic outing. Steam train to Taxinge, had afternoon coffee with lots of cakes and then caught the steam boat back to Mariefred.

Gripsholms Castle in Mariefred

Along the water front

Taxinge is a castle, or more of a mansion maybe, where they have a large selection of cakes and sandwiches. I try to come here every time I visit the area. Below you can see my choice of cakes. 🙂

 

My sister and two nephews back in Mariefred with the steam boat in the background.

 

 

All packed and eager to go

The car is now packed and just waiting for it’s next adventure. Yesterday we left the apartment and I worked the last day in Phoenix. Now I am at the airport waiting for the flight that will take me closer to home. I will spent a couple of weeks in Sweden, Andy in Switzerland and we will meet back up here in Phoenix 4 June to start our trip.

It is starting to feel very real now with so little time to go. And it will go fast I believe, I have a quite busy schedule in Stockholm in order to meet family and friends and 4 days of work are still remaining too. Probably need a long holiday after that. 😉

Our soon to be home – FJ Cruiser

Last week we put together our soon to be home for 4-5 months this summer. The car is serviced, washed and all eager to go.

This is the car and the boxes we custom made for it. It is a bit of a hassle to get them in place. They have some sharp edges and are fairly heavy which makes it a workout to mount.

The drawers we usually use for our cool box, food, water and cooking stuff. This is what they look like in place.

In the images below you can see the front box which is basically a storage box with 2 compartments. These are great to store backpacks, camping gear and other things you don’t need if you are on the road. The second image shows what it looks like when the extensions are in place and it is all ready for sleeping. It might look short but we do actually fit straight lying down. Good thing none of us is very tall, then we might have had to get a different car.

It looks very clean and roomy right now but wait until we put all our stuff in there. The boxes are full and there is lots of things also on top of the boxes. Usually during the day we just fold the mattresses once without completely deflating them in order to make it easier to make the beds at night. This takes up a lot of space during the day but is all worth it when you just want to go to sleep.

Could you imaging living like this for a year or so? 😉

Outdoor climbing finally

It has been a few months since we were outdoors climbing last time. We have been spending more time in the climbing gym which does not make any sense at all because the past month has been the best, temperature wise, of the year. But for some reason we have just not made it outdoors. Today it was time. We drove to Queen Creek which is just past Superior about an hour east of Phoenix. Just next to the highway is a fairly large climbing area with both bolted and traditional routes.

The image shows a very nice 5.9 route that we spent some time on. It had some nice moves and was a lot longer than what we are used to in the climbing gym.

The main objective today though was to try out some new gear we bought last week. A set of 6 cams is the happy addition to our rack.

We are currently learning traditional climbing where you have to place your own protection (like the cams in the picture). The routes are not bolted. This takes a bit getting used to. First you have to spend more time to actually find spots to put your gear. Second, you have to be sure that the stuff you put there will hold. And the gear weighs a bit so you are heavier than you are used to. It simply needs practicing and that is what we are doing.

Being able to do traditional climbing will make us more flexible during our trip. We like multi pitch climbing and actually reaching a peak of some sort. These routes usually requires that you place your own gear so this is something we just have to do.