It鈥檚 just before Christmas and the family visiting has begun, with nights spent in spare rooms as a family, bedtimes thrown right off, far too much drinking and eating to be healthy, and tempers flaring as sleep-deprived parents battle their kids and their own ma and pa for precious sleep and parenting tidbits.
At the same time, however, there鈥檚 close bonding time when all the various members of the family come together and re-remember how and why they are all part of a larger family unit.
While this is all going on, somewhere back in my mind 鈥� not quite at the forefront but definitely not at the back 鈥� is the planning, thinking, scheming and dreaming of the spring roadtrip. Things aren鈥檛 quite like they used to be as far as planning these climbing trips. The night before, we usually had the van parked with flashers on as we piled gear into the back until midnight, and then a few hours of sleep before darting for the U.S. border before the line ups, intent on making it to our destination in one glorious 24-hour push. We would bring every conceivable food item from home in an attempt to lessen our expenditures on the road in the foreign land. The sack of green lentils I bought when I was on an Indian dahl kick or the dried chick peas 鈥� which, no matter how long they were pre-soaked, would wreak havoc on my digestion 鈥� would all be included. We tallied kilometres and worked out how many tanks of gas and where it was cheapest to buy, and the adventurous stopped en route behind supermarkets to dumpster-dive for the remainder of their groceries. Once there, we would camp at 鈥淭he Pit.鈥� This was the climbers鈥� campground, which was by donation and was really just a pit in the desert under the stars.
Things have definitely changed for me. We cross the border and head straight for Trader Joe鈥檚 to do a massive deluxe grocery haul, still being cost-wary. We don鈥檛 choose the shockingly cheap beer to drink because we are in America and instead check out the fantastic beers that Washington, Oregon and California offer up. Now my partner and I send a message via Facebook to a friend in Bishop, Calif. to book her backyard cottage complete with all amenities, even a sauna. Having stayed with her before, we live like locals there, walking for groceries, eating out, going on art-studio crawls and doing anything else that only a local would know to do.
What hasn鈥檛 changed, given that all this time has passed and there has been a radical life change, is the climbing. In the past we pored over guidebooks, made checklists of boulder problems we deemed ourselves worthy of having a crack at and trained in the gym with the trip in mind. This still goes on. Hands cracked and bleeding after a day bouldering in The Buttermilks, opening a beer on the tailgate of our van, and enjoying the feeling of being wasted tired from a day bouldering in the High Sierra had all happened 15 years ago and again last year, with no lapse in how satisfying they feel. We may have more deluxe accommodations and a sassy little daughter with us now, but the parts of the trip that gave us those memorable highpoints are rooted in the activity. Now, it turns out, the sassy little girl who runs around the desert, wipes out, laughs and keeps on going through the dust has increased our enjoyment of these trips. Our minutes, hours, days, months and years are now measured by this little girl鈥檚 life, and it has meant we really enjoy our time together.
The bouldering, the successes, the defeats, the camping, the dinners with friends, the coffees, the hot springs on rest days 鈥� everything tastes that much sweeter and is that much more rare and special. We enjoy the adventure now as adults, but with that same childish belief that it will never end.
