Norcal: A Beginning

It’s been a long time since the last blog I guess, and I guess a lot has happened too. I have received my certificate for Watercraft Inspector, started working, biked, hiked and climbed, along with other things.

Let’s start where we left off last time. I was still in Bishop and being a complete bum. I had mentioned that I had tried Flyboy Arete. Well Ryan and I went and sent the sucker with minimal tries. Felt good to get another V5 under my belt.

Me sending Flyboy Arete (V5)

I also worked on Molly (V5) for a bit and got most of it down. I was on my last day in Bishop and felt kind of weak due to climbing for two days in a row and this being my third day on. I found out some better beta, and got to the top hold, but my feet popped and I fell. Peeling off the rock left me with two flappers (think skin gone) on my fingers. I gave it a couple more tries but lacked the energy to get it. Now it will be the first thing I do next time I am in Bishop. To stick with climbing, I got to fool around one day on a boulder in town here called the Memorial Boulder. Its got pavement right up to it and a gazebo on top of it! Not so scenic of climbing, but getting on top offers some real cool views of old downtown Truckee.

On to business… I went to South Lake Tahoe for two days of training for my watercraft inspector certificate. A lot of it wasn’t pertinent to the few of us who are involved in the Truckee program and not the Lake Tahoe program. They had all sorts of rules and regulations that they had to go by, and none of them pertained to us since we are a voluntary program up here and they are a mandatory inspection down there. Anyways, I got paid to sit on my ass and think of things not related to work, most of these thoughts involved something to do with being on a trail or rock of course. I did give a brief thought of what I’m going to do this winter, but decided it was best to think of that after I have been here for awhile and when winter jobs actually get posted, so somewhere around August.

Anyway, my work schedule looks like it’s going to be a 5am shift five days a week. I’m not sure if I’m going to have a 4 hour shift in the morning, or a split shift of two in the morning and two in the evening. I’ll have to wait and find that out later. I’m currently working another guy’s eight hour shift, and it’s pretty dang slow; only three boats in four hours so far. As far as my campground host job, I heard that I will have training somewhere around May 11^th. I went for a bike ride yesterday to the campground I will be hosting and It looks like I’m going to be in a pretty sweet spot. I will have shade for my trailer, but enough sun to run a solar panel (which I plan on getting within the next two days). The road was open enough for me to get back there with my trailer, but the gate is still closed to the campground. I’m going to call or stop into the Forest Service to see if they can open it for me. I was surprised to see about thirty camping rigs at the campground I was at this weekend with it being pretty cold. It seemed that all the plates were from Nevada, so from now on these will be referred to as Reno folk. They all seemed to have noisy four wheelers, drink excessive amounts of booze and were especially talented in the whooping and hollering scene. I am going to try my best to get over to my site before the Reno folk come rumbling back up the grade to Boca. I bet I will still be able to hear them across the lake though, a little John Denver or Zac Brown Band should  drown out the idiotic slander that the belt out. I think I’m going to have a pretty easy summer overall. The watercraft inspection job is a lot of sitting around, and the campground host job is a lot of waiting around. I think I just have to be present 6 hours a day. I don’t know if this means I can nap, but it sure would be nice so I can get in an afternoon session of biking or climbing.

Weather is supposed to start warming up, and it better because my water lines in my trailer froze the other night. I had to go without coffee and 4am before work and that wasn’t cool by any means. They are talking 70 degrees by Wednesday, and that means I can work on my tan even more while I work two ten hour shifts on Thursday and Friday.

I met a guy, Kyle, at training that let me stay on his couch the night between training. He is a climber also and I hope to get out with him on the rock here pretty soon depending on our schedules. I definitely need to meet more climbers in the area though so I can feel comfortable doing some of the boulder problems around here with sketchy landings. A roped climbing partner would also be nice.

Sunrise from Kyle's deck

P.S. Since my writing this, I have met a bunch of locals that are into all sorts of outdoor activities. If they aren't into it, they are naming off people that do. It's like they are some kind of local outdoor mafia that has a finger into every outdoor adventure you can do around here. Biking, paddling, running, climbing, sailing, you name it, they do it. I'm going to go try my hand at outrigging today. Not exactly sure what it is, but i found out that it has to do with paddling, so I'm interested. Before that, I'm going to go bouldering up on Donner Summit (yeah the one that's named after those cannibals). They also invited me to have a shower and come over for dinner, SHIBBY! I just hope I can pay them back somehow.

I'm really liking this area, you are a half hour from the high desert, an hour to warmer weather down in Sacramento, all the city things you can want are 20 minutes down in Reno, Bishop is three hours away, and that's not including all the awesome things right here. World class skiing, climbing, fly-fishing, etc are all here. I just might become a local someday. Too bad cost of living is pretty high here, and my itch to travel is still high. We'll have to see closer to the end of the summer on what I want to do.

Until next time, keep your hook baited!

Working is tough at Donner Lake :)