Friday, July 13, 2012

Malibu Canyon

It's not a complicated feeling, but leaving Misa and John-Pio to go on a climbing trip has a familiar bitter sweetness. On one hand, it feels like a necessity, and on another hand, it feels decadent. Thankfully, as they've gotten older I sense that they understand why I need to go and it's less of a struggle to leave.

Thanks Dad! He's in charge and other than hammering down vital information and quizzing the kids on my Dad's address, phone number, and what to do in case of an emergency I didn't have anything to worry about. My dad parented me well and I know that his only concern is if he somehow makes a kid cry. So my final parting words of advice to the little ones was not to cry.

It was easy driving to Los Angeles since I knew I was going *to* meet up with two of my favorite people. We cut right to getting our boulder pads in the car and headed to Malibu Canyon. We didn't have to go into the park itself since the bouldering area was just off the highway. I know that the area is a designated state park and protects Malibu Creek, 25 miles long and possibly a watershed to the Santa Monica mountains above it.

I have lots of pictures to post that shows a portion of our approach, including the walk along the highway, and I'll do that later. For now let me just say that the second part of the approach beats the times we carried our strollers with a kid inside it through loose talus, tight squeezes between tall boulders, and slippery granite surfaces.
This approach was unlike any other, even the ones at Devils Lake.

Definitely steep - about a 45 degree
angle, coupled with loose soil, nothing to hang onto and tripled by thorns and occasional shards of glass not to mention a significant misstep meant a slide into volcanic rock, then the creek . . .

Yeah, we made it down.

And once down, the prize was working these boulder problems.



No documentation exists showing our graceful finesse getting back up and onto the highway after climbing. But this is pretty classy - double pads looped haphazardly together along with a plastic grocery bag.

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