Joshua Tree, Thanksgiving weekend

Joshua Tree has been on my hit list for a while. I bought a climbing book for J Tree even before I got back to the US. It is also a convenient "midway" point to camp between Yuma and San Diego.

Thanksgiving seemed like as good of a time as any to head out there. Cool fall weather in the desert. One of the reason for going was getting some last footage for Lele Kawa's Literally Living the Dream movie.

Unfortunately since I was the only rock climber in the group I didn't get to put the climbing book or gear to use. My hopes to use this trip to draw my friends into the world of rock climbing did not pan out. The best I was able to get was a little bit of scrambling and some easy bouldering, in addition to some hiking.

In addition to scrambling we did get to do some long boarding. There was even some long boarding at night that resulted in some good looking photos.

Our only attempt of the weekend at slack lining did not go so well. No makes.

We also stopped at Keys View to take in the valley.

One of the most enjoyable parts of the weekend were the nights spent around the camp fire.

-James

Lele Kawa

San Bernardino camping

After I split from my friends in Joshua Tree, I headed to Big Bear Lake, CA for some snowboarding. I didn't really have any plan for this part of the weekend. Before I hit the road from J Tree I went online to see what camping and lodging options I had.

I found out about Yellow Post camp sites, from my google search. The main permit needed was the Adventure Pass, that I have had and barely used for about a year now. A further search gave me the map below, which showed me the locations of all of the sites.


View Yellow Post Campsites (partial) in a larger map

I decided to try for Yellow Post 26, because it was the closest to the lake and the ski resorts. I was amazed to find that the site was empty, since it was less then a mile off the paved road and 3 days into a 4 day weekend.

Once I arrived I was disappointed I didn't have my mountain bike. There was a constant stream of bikes headed up and down "Plantation Trail", which is mapped below. The weather was perfect for some biking. The ground was a little crunchy from the cold rather than wet with snow in spots but the air was a comfortable 60 or so in the early evening.

-James

Lele Kawa

Scout Camp in El Salvador

The best weekend program I have ever experienced at a Scout Camp. The Scout Camp near the Honduras boarder in El Salvador has a great facility and run an amazing program. They organized it so we would share the camp with a similar sized local Scout troop. This provided both troops the opportunity for a cultural and scouting exchange.

The camp had a climbing wall, a C.O.P.E. course, zip lines and the human pendulum. Our scouts and leaders got to take advantage of all these activities. As a bonus the Leaders were invited to do the extreme portion of the zip lines, which the scouts were not. These turned out to be more extreme than I was ready for. On the top zip line which was very steep I failed to slow down enough and there were no safeties. I put out my feet and hit the tree still going fast. I was lucky to have only bruised the bottom of one of my feet, and managed to limp through the rest of the camp.

Getting ready to ice my foot.

When we finished the rest of the zip lines that ended back at the camp all the scouts were working on climbing on their climbing wall. This took them up to dinner. After dinner the camp had a large fire where the scouts preformed skits and sang songs.

The next morning after breakfast it was time for the C.O.P.E. course and the pendulum. The scouts and leaders split up and went through both of these activities. These were both very fun, and I was able to do both of them with my injured foot.The weekend closed with a nice ceremony.

 Giant pendulum