Cowboy Up or go sit in the Truck (by Karen)

'Project Wall crag' at Rifle 

Rifle wasn't on our original American road trip plan, I actually hadn't even heard of it before.  But I had emailed some climbing buddies that I knew had done climbing trips to the US and Rifle was one of the spots recommended.  So of course I jumped on Google to check if it appealed to me, and to see if it would be feasible to include in our trip.

Rock and sunshine ... heaven ;)

Rifle is in Colorado, 200 miles directly east of Boulder.  The town is pretty small, but the climbing is big :) It's all situated in Rifle Mountain Park, roughly 12 miles out of Rifle town.  The park is basically a narrow gorge (varying from 50m to a maximum of 100m wide) with a single dirt road running all the way through.  Both sides of the gorge are lined with stunning limestone rock faces, with varying degrees of angle and difficulty and height.  A river runs down the gorge too, frequently meandering from one side to the other. The crags run on both sides of the gorge with so many routes to choose from, and so much potential for even more development.

Porta-potti luxuaries

The park is extremely well maintained, and offers rustic camping (no showers or water supply), picnic tables and chairs, and porta-pottie toilets at every parking pullout (of which there are many and close by to each other).  You do pay for these luxuaries though at a cost of $7 a day park fees.  However if you are staying for more than 4 days then get an annual pass which is only $30.

Belaying in style 1 meter from the road - Project Wall crag

Rifle has by far the shortest walk-ins I have ever experienced in my 14 years of climbing!! The longest walk-in that we had to endure was probably as much as 200 meters (all flat), and the shortest was 3 meters (there are actually signs at the crag saying you are not allowed to belay out of your car :).  The biggest novelty of all is walking just a few meters from the crag to a porta-pottie for a luxuary toilet experience! Never before have I sat on a proper toilet while at a climbing crag :) 

Rone Thompson on Irie Meditation (5.11d)

Now onto the juicy stuff ... the climbing! Rifle has an awesome selection of routes, lots and then lots more :)  Unfortunately, as is the nature of limestone, many of the routes were pretty polished, some of them to the point of being unpleasant and almost unclimbable (at least not without adding a couple grades to the original number). However that said, there were plenty of non-polished routes to do too, it was just a matter of looking in the right places, and avoiding some of the over-climbed classics.

The style of the climbing varies from crag to crag, but predominantly you looking at an obscene use of kneebars on the steeply overhung routes (bring your kneepad!), with large moves between flat or sloping laybacks. On the vert or off-vert the crimpers start to kick in, but it's still a lot about them laybacks. There are no tufa features on this limestone, and not many pockets either.  For me I definitely needed a bit of time to build up some crimper strength, and to get used to the layback-dominant style of climbing, which often means tricky footwork and off-balance slapping between grips.  It was super fun though, and the routes were all well bolted.

The Royal Seat at Anti-Phill Wall crag

Rifle has a mind-boggling number of 5.13 and 5.14 routes, compared with many other climbing destinations, so if you're cranking those sort of grades you'll be kept well entertained.  But the dominant grade range is 5.12s, with decent selection of 5.11s.  There are limited 5.10s and not much below that, but if you are climbing those grades then there are still sufficient routes for at least a few weeks worth of climbing.

Our campervan which we hired in Los Angeles

I found the grading to be quite solid and you really had to work for a tick.  As I got more familiar with the rock and the style of climbing this did ease up a bit, but the grades still felt pretty hard.  I chatted with a number of other first-time-Rifle'ers from all over the world and it seems to be consensus that Rifle's grading is quite staunch.

However it's not all about the grade, at least not for me, and Rifle offered some really stunning routes with great climbing, so it was just good times!


HOW TO GET THERE
For travel in the US I would definitely recommend a car.  Well, to be honest that's all we used so I couldn't really comment on feasibility of getting around using train and bus.  If you don't have a car, but can manage to get to Rifle town, then it would be possible to hitch out to the park and camp there. There was always climbers around, even mid-week, so you might even manage to hitch a ride into town and back to get supplies.

Feeling da rock in Yosemite National Park

Denver and Salt Lake City are your closest big airports, but there are plenty other options like Las Vegas (we drove there after our climbing in Rifle) and Albuquerque.  You can even fly in to Los Angeles or San Francisco and drive out from there.  We drove out from San Francisco, stopping along the way at Yosemite National Park and Bryce Canyon, both breathtaking spots that I highly recommend seeing!

Our camp at Rifle Gap State Park

WHERE TO STAY
As mentioned above, Rifle Mountain Park offers rustic campsites from which you can walk to the crags.  I think they are only first-come-first-serve, so you cannot pre-book.  Alternatively there are 2 campgrounds to choose from outside of the park: Rifle Gap State Park and Rifle Falls State Park.  

We stayed at Rifle Gap and it was perfect.  Price was $16 for a primitive site, which means no electric or water hookup.  Each site had a picnic table with roof shelter overhead (more for the sun than rain!) and a fire pit. There was running water and treated drinking water, and the showers cost $1 for 4 minutes.

Bryce Canyon National Park - absolutely breath-taking

From what I read on the internet, Rifle Falls State Park is the more popular one for climbers.  However that was fully booked up so we stayed at Rifle Gap instead, so I can't really comment on Rifle Falls except that I'm sure it will be of similar quality to Rifle Gap.  Rifle Falls is about 4 miles from the climbing, and Rifle Gap about 6 miles. The one thing to warn you about is that you have to pay a daily fee for all State Parks in the US.  For Rifle this is $7.  So remember to bear that in mind and add that to your daily camp expense.  However, if you are there for a decent length of time then it's better to get an annual pass which was $60.  

If you have the dosh then there are a number of motels in Rifle, prices ranging from $64 to $99+ a night.  

CLIMBING INFO
The Rifle Mountain Park guidebook by Dave Pegg seems to be the best one out there.  If you're only there for a short time, or if you're traveling like we were and couldn't afford to add another book to an already overweight backpack, then you can get the guidebook on your mobile phone through the Rakkup app.  It's a lot cheaper, especially if you go for the 2-month subscription book at only $9.99. This is what we used and the app was great, with good pictures and descriptions for finding the routes, and good beta on the routes (length, bolts, stars, general features etc). 

Yosemite National Park - To infinity and beyond!

FOOD
There is a large City Market supermarket in Rifle town which has everything you need at good prices, plus a bakery which produces some very tantalizing goodies which maybe you don't need but will definitely want :) The town also has a few liquor stores, laundry, post office, and other bits of bobs.  It's also got a movie theatre and various take-away joints.  

The one thing to note is that you cannot buy any climbing chalk in Rifle. The closest outdoor shop that we found that sold it was in Glenwood Springs, about 30 minutes from Rifle (Summit Canyon Mountaineering).

WHEN TO GO
From what I've heard, Rifle is a popular summer destination crag.  This is because you are guaranteed to be able to find shade no matter what time of the day it is ... with one side of the gorge having shade in the morning and then it moving over to the other side of the gorge for the afternoon.  It's also at a slight elevation so the temperatures are slightly cooler. I'm not actually sure about what conditions are like for the rest of the year, since we were going in summer I just researched that. You'll have to do your own bit of Googling to find out.

Campervan-ing ... the perks and snags (by Karen)

Meet 'Snoet' (that's Snout in Afrikaans)

After my first few weeks of campervan-ing I have begun to get a feel for the perks and snags of this adventurous mode of travel. I'm certainly no expert yet, but give me a few more weeks and I'll be sprouting all sorts of wisdom :)

After 4 months of being limited to carrying only what could fit in our backpacks, the first big bonus of having a campervan is that you can spread out, and even make a few purchases. Of course, the snag is that at the end when it comes to fitting everything back into the backpack we'll be screwed!

Our camp in Rifle Gap State Park (Colorado) ... so serene and peaceful

Our food and toilettries only juz fitting in the bear box

I can see why there are so many snails out there, because having your house with you at all times is very handy indeed. There's no chance of forgetting your wallet at home, or not having your rain jacket just when it decides to bucket down. You can also pull off anywhere and sleep, provided it's legal of course (or not likely to be noticed :). The snag is if you do get noticed then you get a rude awakening at 4am with a cop knocking loudly on the window ... which is what happened to us one morning. As it turns out, the cop wasn't actually interested in us per say, but was responding to a 911 call and thought it might have come from us. But since it was illegal to sleep in your car in that particular county he was obliged to mention this to us. He did very kindly let us sleep on till day light though :)

Fat American toilet :)
(actually its a flush basin)

It helps to have a well trained bladder if you want an undisturbed nights rest. With all the pallava of climbing over the other person and getting out the van to pee in the middle of the night you end up being quite awake, and getting back to sleep can be tricky. I find the key is to not open your eyes fully and to try to keep your mind in that drowsy-almost-drugged state. Hang on to the images of your last dream and  don't let your mind fire up with any real thoughts. However you can train your bladder to hold it in, and after a week I now seem to be fine till morning. But it is such a nice treat when we stay in a motel and can simply slide out of bed and pee quickly and effortlessly :)

Our dashboard: 4th of July party flag, San Fran half marathon
bling medal & Mr Bobblehead (free in the race pack!)

But the real problem is if you do hold it in, then by morning you're pretty busting and it can be quite desperado getting out the van in time. With my experience of this there certainly wasn't time to carefully select a choice pee spot, instead I went crashing through the scrub and hunkered down just in time. It was only then that I noticed I was surrounded by poison oak. Shit! Did it touch my legs? Did it touch my bum?? I couldn't really remember, but there was certainly a chance I got touched somewhere. For the next 3 days we were on red alert (it can take up to 3 days for the incredibly itchy rash and blisters to appear). Placebo affect immediately came into play and now suddenly itches were sprouting up all over. I frantically googled what to do if you get poison oak on you, and spent a day worrying about what luckily turned out to be a false alarm.

Washing in the river, California coastline

I've come to realise that a hot shower is probably the next best thing since chocolate. While in San Francisco we really struggled with where to sleep. All the camp grounds were either really far out the city or were super expensive. But even if we were willing to pay the unaffordable rates or travel the distances it made no difference as they were all fully booked up anyway. So we mostly wild camped a bit out the city, and then broke this up with a couple treat nights in a motel. 

Wild camp shower in Rifle, Colorado

So after not showering the previous day it was a priority to find somewhere, anywhere, to shower! In the end we went to a public swimming pool where we managed to get a very 'public' shower ... no closed cubicles, just and open shower which we had to share with all the kiddies who had just finished their swim lesson. I'll never forget the image of Roné huddled in the corner with her back facing out, looking over her shoulder and saying "Kaz, I don't do public showers!" :)

Just one of the stunning places our campervan has taken us to: Bryce Canyon, Utah

The charging station

You don't resize how much electrical equipment you have until you don't have a permanent power supply. Our little van doesn't have an extra battery for powering things, so we bought an adapter that goes into the cigarette lighter and provides a USB plug as well as a standard USA wall socket. However it is limited as to what you can run/charge off it since the voltage is pretty low. All ova sudden you find that you have 101 devices that all need charging at the same time. Our adapter is permanently on the go with at least 2 things charging at one time :)

Our camp in Yosemite ... the smell of the pine forest was really something special

Morning coffee after a wild camp outside San Fran city

Ever had it that you're on a road trip or journey somewhere and as you cruise past a pretty beach you say "ooh wouldn't it be nice to stop and have a coffee here"? Well, with the campervan you can :) It's so easy to pull over at any point and fire up a brew. And not only coffee ... breakfast, lunch, dinner, you get to choose what view you enjoy while cooking and eating.

Stopping on the coastline for a lunch break

Wild camp outside San Fran

One of the best things in this world is waking up to the sound of the ocean, or the smell of pine trees and forest and birds singing. It's the little things, like doing my exercises looking up at the stars, staring into the flames of a camp fire, peeing with only a full moon as witness, and driving long straight desert roads with vast open plains all around, that really feed my soul. And in our little campervan we have got to experience this plus so much more. So despite any snags I would most definitely say there are way more perks!!

I love a big fire at night :)

Chilling the white wine!

Another stunning spot our campervan has taken us: Yosemite National Park, California

Adventures and training while traveling (by Rone)

It's been amazing to travel these last few months and combine it with some good training all over the world. I can really feel the health benefit from solid training, healthy eating and getting away from the rat race back home. The adventures started with doing an off-road race in New Zealand, hiking in Patagonia and traveling South America (see previous blogs). This inspired me to enter the San Francisco half marathon in August. I have to admit it was pretty challenging trying to keep fit while backpacking through South America. It just isn't always possible to do a run after a 15km sightseeing day, or some places such as Cuba or Jamaica just didn't allow for running. 

   

Sightseeing in Rio

Rio and New York offered some solid running opportunities and I will never forget our morning training sessions in Rio where I would go for a run on the beach and Karen will do her climbing training. We lived 100m away from Copacabana beach in a very nice apartment for 10 days. 

Climbing training in Copacabana beach in Rio

Morning runs on Copacabana beach in Rio

Karen starting a climbing route

But as always, the training never goes according to plan, and I managed to sprain my toe running barefoot on the beach in Rio, and then the injury flared up massively after a hectic day of sightseeing in Washington DC, just one month before the race and taking me out of running for 2 weeks.  And to make matters worse I picked up a serious bacterial infection when in Kentucky (we think due to being exposed to air con!) and was flat on my back for another week and had to take a 10 day course of antibiotics! This resulted in me doing a very harsh last minute bootcamp to try and get some good fitness for the half in San Francisco.

Me finishing a route

After Washington we went to Kentucky for a climbing trip in the Red River Gorge. This is one of the best places in the states to do sports Rock climbing (see Karen's blog) and offered some SERIOUS hills for me to do some tempo training sessions.

Brutal hills after a days climbing

Our pad in Kentucky

The people, atmosphere and vibe there were amazing!! We even went to the Drive In movies a couple of nights.The beauty about climbing all day in Kentucky and combining this with running was that we could indulge in the naughty stuff every now and then:

Best Pizzas in the world!!

After 4 weeks in the east we arrived in California and collected our Campervan at LA one week before my half Marathon. The first 3 nights we stayed with some of Karen's friends on a ranch next to the coast line just north of Santa Barbara. It was another very cool experience since it was an organic farm and they choose to go with the more natural living experience. They are awesome people and it was great to get to know them over dinners and campfires.

Heidie and Guner- awesome friends!!

We made our way to San Francisco via the coast line road which was spectacular, but surprisingly the weather was very cold. We had imagined shorts and vest tops, but we ended up with down jackets and beanies!

California coastline

My medal after the race

As a treat and to enable a little less stiffness in the joints and my back we stayed in a hotel the night before the race. Karen got up at 5 am to prepare some porridge for me before I started the race at 7am, next to the Giants baseball stadium. The vibe was immense!! The route took us along the waterfront with awesome scenery of the Bay area. I think the very steep hills in San Francisco are very well known, but thankfully we only encountered a few of them during the race. We turned around at the Golden Gate bridge heading back where we actually finished in the Giant's baseball stadium!! It was really something special and I managed to touch the holy infield grass where the Giants play. 

Kaz behing bars :)

It was definitely one of the best half marathons I have done, but there was no rest for us and after gulping down some protein shake we started exploring the city. I really wanted to go to Alcatraz but unfortunately you have to book these tickets up to a month in advance. But our luck just kept on getting better and we found a few Canadians who wanted to sell 2 tickets. The Island is 2.4 km offshore from San Francisco and is surrounded by artic waters and extremely strong currents.  Alcatraz, or "The Rock", is where all the most dangerous prisoners were taken when it was a federal prison in the time period 1933-1963. There have only been 3 successful escapees in the history of the prison, and even now they don't know if they survived the swim to the mainland since they never found them. We had a really interesting and informative tour at this well-known jail on Alcatraz, and I can definitely recommend this tour for anyone who is visiting San Francisco.

Our first baseball Game

After a relaxing day in the city the following day we went to our first baseball game ever! It was the Giants vs Blues and the Giants won!!! It was just like in the movies!!

Yes, we have tickets!!

Golden Gate Bridge

Afterwards we drove outside of the city again to get a spot for wild camping since it was just too expensive to stay in the city. We found a nice spot with a beautiful view where we enjoyed breakfast and coffee the next morning before heading over to the Golden gate bridge. It was a pretty spectacular bridge and I guess famous from all the movie scenes. You also have really good views of the city, the bay and Alcatraz from the other side of the bridge. San Francisco is an amazing city with a really nice vibe to it, and I wish we had more time to spend there. We both felt that this is somewhere we can definitely live, except for the major issue:  It was freezing cold!!! We had to wear our down jackets and Jeans most of the time. Apparently July and August gets very cold due to the fog never leaving the bay area. But when we looked at the average temperatures for this region it rarely reaches the 30 degrees which we as South Africans love so much!

Our campsite and bear box!!

Our next stop was Yosemite and this was up there in the same league as Patagonia for me. We stayed in a camp site called Crane Flat which was inside the park, but 20 minutes away from the Valley. It gets really crowded in the valley and we wanted to avoid the crowds. If you want to stay in the valley then you need to book weeks in advance.  It was my first experience in bear territory and we had to remove everything out our van which resembled food, toiletries, and even something as small as lip balm!! So we had to spring clean the van and put everything overnight in what is called a bear box.  This is a big brown aluminium box you can lock so that the bears can't reach your food. Apparently they have had a few incidents of people leaving food in their car and bears literally ripping open the doors of campervans and cars. That story was enough to motivate us to make sure we had everything in the bear box!!  

After an awesome sleep we headed off to the start of our hike which was an 18km round trip. The Glacier point is the number one recommendation on Trip Advisor to see in Yosemite. You can either drive there which takes about an hour or take the steep hike from the bottom of the valley.

On our hike towards Glacier Point

The view from glacier point

We of course did the hike and it was just spectacular the whole way!! The view from the top allowed you to see most of the valley and a great view of Half-Dome.  

Karen soaking up the atmosphere at the top

S'mores 

Our legs felt like jelly after practically running down, but we treated ourselves to a nice big campfire and S'mores for desert.  S'mores are roasted marshmallows over the fire and then put in between two crackers/cookies with a small piece of chocolate in between. One is enough to make your teeth almost fall out!!

There are massive, ancient giant sequoias which live in three groves in Yosemite National Park.  Day 2 we visited the Tuolumne groves where we did a shorter hike to see these ancient trees. Some of them reach up to 3000 years old!!

Kaz standing on one of the dead tree roots 

This use to be a tunnel for the wagons in the late eighteen hundreds

Lunch in front of El Capitan

Amazing El Capitan

Kaz climbing in Yosemite :)

Day 3 and we had to start our drive towards Colorado, but we thought we would sneak in another long hike before we left. We decided on the 15km hike where you hike to the top of North Dome. Initially we thought this wouldn't beat the Galcier Point views, but we were left gazing at this STUNNING scenery all the way. And it was absolutely amazing at the top. I can definitely recommend these few hikes for anyone who goes to Yosemite!!

Hiking up North Dome

At the Top of North Dome with a view of Half Dome

After Yosemite it was Bryce Canyon where we stayed in a campsite 2 nights. I didn't know what to expect, but this turned out to be one of my favourite places we've visited so far. We did the Fairyland loop hike on day one and walked for 13km between these soft rock formations.  I've never seen anything like this before. Hoodoos, which are odd shaped pillars of rock left standing from the forces of erosion, are seen everywhere. It's like a stone forest!!

Amazing site!!!

My horse Spur

We have had so many amazing days and time on this trip and it's so difficult to say which the best were. But if I have to name the most amazing and unique morning of the trip then it was day 2 at Bryce Canyon. I did a 3h horse ride through the canyons with my own cowboy called Cash.  I had to ride western style and not European style. The cowboys actually laughed when I told them I can only ride European style. It turned out to be much more relaxed and actually easier with the horses being very responsive, but very sure footed. Which I was really grateful for since the paths were very steep with high drops offs at the edges in the canyon.  I loved every minute of this experience and was so grateful for Karen's research to get us here. This place is highly recommended!!  

Cash- my cowboy!!

Riding through the Canyon

We left that afternoon to drive toward Rifle in Colorado where we stayed in Rifle Gap State Park's primitive campsite. The main goal here was to climb for 2 weeks. 

So it's really been fantastic to get away from the rat race and stress from work. Although you have some minor stressful and tough times when you travel on a budget, you just get over it and laugh it off. I can honestly say that these kinds of trips give you more confidence in life.