Adventures in and around Joshua Tree National Park

My friend Liz and i recently went to Joshua Tree National Park in southern California on a climbing trip. it was a great trip, but the climbing was harder than we expected. The beginning of the climbing season is always a little rough, but it was particularly rough in Joshua Tree. The grades of the climbs were steep and the climbs did not always have protectable starts. We still had a really great time though. I used to work with Liz when i worked at the orthopedic center and she's a great road tripping and climbing buddy. She's also who i went to Devil's Tower with last september.



A surprise stop at my brother Nelson's house in victorville! We didn't realize how close to victorville we were passing to enter Joshua Tree. It was great to see him!



Nelson fed us a wonderful dinner- the steak was nearly as big as me!



Liz and I. The weather was crazy- i'm wearing flip flops and a warm jacket. One moment in the sun it was warm, the next the wind would blow and it was freezing!



well, of course this is sideways.. We did a fantastic climb up the arete (an exposed outside corner of a rock) of a balanced boulder. The picture doesn't really show it, but the rock is about 60 ft off the ground, hanging over another boulder. it was scary, but fun!



Here you can see the exposure. this is the other side of the boulder of the previous picture.


Liz, sweetly dreaming of her next climb in Joshua Tree..

These Next few pictures need some explanation. We had 3 days to climb in Joshua tree. the first day was great- warm with a cool breeze. the second day was brutal. we slept fitfully all night due to the flapping of our tent tarp in some crazy wind gusts. the next morning was freezing! the day continued with gusts of wind up to 50 mph. liz and i were not going to be blown off a climb, plus our hands were so cold we could barely light the stove to warm up some tea. so, what else do you do on an off day? take pictures and explore the surrounding area!



we did a short hike up a paved path to an over look. if we thought it was windy before, we got it handed to us here. we both just about got blown off the top of the mountain. i guess the wind farm in the valley below should have warned us...




here's Liz being blown over...



the middle of the road.yeah!



playing by a Joshua Tree.



yes, an explanation is needed here. what, climbing in joshua tree? what are they doing in a pool? well, with the wind and the cold we went to a nearby spa/hotel we heard about from the local climbing shop. supposedly the pools were warmed by a natural hot springs nearby. we were skeptical. here, in the middle of the desert, was a pure oasis with random people from all over? i mean, who goes to these things?! since it was spa too the whole place smelled like old lady perms or something. it was a bizarre experience. we had driven 10 hours to go climbing, and ended up in a hot tub in the middle of the desert with a bunch of strangers. oh yeah, and the man wearing a speedo.



Liz and i are our campsite. it was uniquely beautiful in Joshua Tree.



We actually did do some climbing...and it was hard! this is pretty much the first lead of the season for me, a 5.7, and it was scary! Joshua tree was established as a climbing area in the early sixties. that means all the climbs were rated when the hardest thing anyone had ever done was a 5.9. so a rating of 5.7 is really more like a 5.9 by today's standards. at least, that's what we told ourselves the whole trip :)



hmm, where can we go next that has a bunch of 5.7s- the only thing we can do here?


Liz hiking out from one of our climbs. Joshua tree just has these blobs of rocks everywhere that you can get to in about 5 minutes from your car. that part of the place was really nice. We met a random climber who needed a partner on this day, his name was Ted and he was from Bellingham, WA and is about my parent's age. he took a lot of our pictures. you can just see him behind liz here.



Me on seriously the hardest 5.7 crack ever! this is the only one that i actually remember the name of, Double Cross. an ex-yosemite climbing ranger was climbing next to us when i did this and he agreed that this was the hardest 5.7 climb anywhere!



Me higher up on Double Cross.


Liz on a hard sport route. Go liz!



me on a pretty, long crack.



what trip isn't complete without some shopping? Liz and i couldn't resist stopping at one of the outlets in vegas on our way home. this was the zappos.com (an online shoe megastore) outlet and we had too much fun with the stuff. that purse i'm holding costs $455!! no i didn't buy it, or those shoes!



Liz is on her way to being a shoe model....

Getting People the Things They Need

My upcoming medical mission trip to El Salvador was cancelled last week. I was schedule d to go to El Salvador in March and work as a post-operation nurse with the University of Utah's Operation Walk. Op Walk is a national organization of medical missions comprised of Orthopedic surgeons going to third world countries specifically to replace worn-out and malfunctioning knee and hip joints. In the united states having this type of surgery can cost from $15,000 to $30,000. We do it overseas for free. Until this year. the DOJ(dept of justice) has recently decided to crack down on 'gifts' given to Orthopedic surgeons due to some corruption that has occurred in the system. When a knee implant is deigned, often there is a design surgeon on the board giving his/her input into the designing of the knee. When the knee comes out and is approved by all the red tape, this surgeon will often place only this type of knee in his patients. he is receiving a bit of a kickback for using only this knee, made by this company. the DOJ decided that was wrong, b/c maybe that particular knee is not right for that particular patient. the truth is is that there aren't that many types of knees or hips out there and in general, what's out there works for most people. patients are not getting screwed out of a healing surgery, they still get up and walk without pain for the first time in many years. this system works. well, when the DOJ decided to crack down on the orthopedic industry, they said 'no more gifts to surgeons or doctors in the ortho industry'. this means no more gifts of cruises or farraris to docs for using a knee system. okay, that's alright, most docs don't really need that. however, it became personal when we cannot now get the needed knee and hip implants donated to our group. b/c it is a gift. b/c the DOJ has decided that is not right. b/c we are part of the orthopedic industry. no implants. no mission. no healing surgeries. no walking el salvadorians.

let's talk about socialized medicine. if we go there, more of this will happen. docs will leave the united states b/c of the regulations imposed upon surgeries. b/c the kick backs will be less. and other countries will give that to them. the most specialized and best surgeons will leave the US. it will become like the veterans hospital. routinely i see vets in the ER who come to us b/c the VA refused care. or b/c the VA had a 6 month wait to see the next orthopedic guy and they hurt right now. the VA is socialized.

however, let's talk about the ER. we are part of a broken system in the United States. I bet half of the patients i saw last weekend did not have insurance or any way of actually paying the bill that will soon be arriving in their mailbox. however, they still received care- good care at that. we didn't refuse them an Xray or a CT scan b/c they didn't have an insurance card. who is paying that? i am. you are. someone is and it isn't them. we can't continue this way. i have to ask myself, " is being healthy and receiving health care a human right?". i don't know.... if it is, surely our government should do something about it. but if it isn't, then maybe the world should continue on like it has for the millions of years before i walked on the planet. natural selection? it sounds harsh. i don't think we should go that far. but a balance is needed. health care is nearly unaffordable and people are not taking care of themselves, and then turn up on our doorstep asking for a better heart since they didn't take care of the one that was given them.

all this sounds harsh, yet my daily battle when i walk into work is to love the people i meet there as jesus would have loved them. how come there are no parables about jesus loving on total drunks or complete druggies? would jesus just listen to them, give them some juice, and tell them it would be okay? or would jesus say, you are not taking care of the body given to you, shape up or get out. maybe jesus would just lay a hand on them and they would be cured of their addiction. i'm not jesus, and my hands don't have that kind of power. what about the mentally ill? jesus just cast the demons out of the guy by the heard of pigs. is this the case with so many patients who come in in some type of psychotic crisis? what if i just started casting demons out in the ER? .......so i look hopelessly at the drunk and silently pray for them. i look hopelessly at the druggie and silently pray for them while i push yet another round of IV pain killers. how would jesus love these people? i'm looking for the answer every day.

i am part of a broken system. I am deeply saddened to not be going to El Salvador. I am a christian. I want to love people more completely. I am in process.

where i've been

Early in January Mark, Katie, Eric, and I decided to do a 'dawn patrol' ski tour where basically we meet up before dawn and decide to skin up a big mountain and ski down. we started in pitch darkness and worked our way through a beautiful sunrise. it was glorious!



skinning up for Dawn Patrol


Katie, Mark, Eric, and I on the summit


the best part- coming down through the aspens!

Then a bunch of us (8!) from salt lake traveled over to Glenwood Springs, CO for a 3rd annual Glenwood Ice Festival. Lest you think this was a public event, it wasn't. Just a few (20+) friends everywhere from Washington to Utah to colorado got together to climb ice and go backcountry skiing. It was a blast!




waking up on saturday morning. that's (L) joy, katie, lacy and me


many ice routes were right next to eachother. then all the girls got really hot (b/c believe it or not the temperatures were rising in the sun, then the ice melted, then the shirt you were wearing got soaked anyway so what was the point?) what's better than all doing it together?!


Eric and I goofing off a the entrance to the canyon with the ice climbs.


if you turn your head sideways that's the way i actually climbed the ice....

We had a big party saturday night with friends from all over colorado coming to Mike and Joy's house (that's where we stayed in glenwood). Sam Higby got to meet up with us agaian! It was all going very well until i came down with another horrible round of the flu! the festival would have been much more enjoyable for me if i had gotten to partake in more than one day. that's why there are no more pictures b/c i laid in bed all day sunday and monday. i let the flu go for 24 hours until i almost passed out from standing up. it had been 24 intense hours of losing fluids from both ends. luckily i had 2 nurses to take care of me! joy(whose house we were at) and lacy arrived home from backcountry skiing to find me worse off than whenthey had left that morning. Joy works on a labor and delivery floor so she ran to her unit and 'stole' me some IV fluid and and IV start kit. Lacy, my friend in salt lake, works at the Pediatric ER right down the hill from where i work. Lacy started an IV in me at home and they gave me 2 liters of fluid right there. the bag was hanging from a plant hanger in the ceiling...it was crazy. but it was life saving as well. i was very sick. this all happened sunday night so monday i woke up better, but not well. that's when a couple of us decided to head back early to salt lake while the rest of the crew went ice climbing again. my crew got stuck in a horrible snow storm which closed the road we needed to get home. by the time the ice climbing crew made it to the road closer point it had opened. in the meantime we had secured a hotel room int he nearest city. the ice climbing crew decided it was time to push on so into the snow storm and the barely opened mountain pass we went. it took forever to get home from colorado to say the least, and i was still feeling pretty lousy. i can't believe i came down with another flu bug! i still had a good time in glenwod, but eric had more fun b/c he actually got to play inthe mountains. i'm lucky i had two nurses to help me get better though!



eric and i ended the month up with some turns at our own resort, Snowbird.

we were supposed to ski into a mountain yurt last weekend with katie and mark, but another huge snow storm blew in and we all decided that breaking trail through 3 feet of snow for 6 miles was not our version of a fun weekend. so to the resort eric and i went. i hope next year the yurt will work out.

that pretty much sums up january. now it's back to work until the next round of fun begins!

is it over yet?

well, let's wrap this december up in true fashion- how about some merry christmas flu? i've had mine thank you very much. i started working nights on the 23rd, got paid the big bucks on the night of the 24th (holiday pay and all), and was supposed to return to work on the night of the 25th. well, return to work i did, but as a patient not a nurse! i woke up in the middle of christmas day with a horrible bout of flu. i kept at it until later that night when i called all of the urgent cares (which are closed on christmas for future reference) and finally had to resort to my own dear ER for treatment. it wasn't cheap. but i was badly dehydrated and needed something to make me stop throwing up. a couple of liters and some meds later, i was gorked out and getting better. the next morning we awoke to find eric's grandmother in the hospital in the town we were all supposed to be meeting up in for a late family christmas in colorado. our christmas trip was canceled, i was still contageous and we didn't know the full story yet with his grandmother. this is certainly not an afterthought of the day after christmas when all this happened, but my grandfather also passed away on this same day. he is finally with jesus and with his beloved bride; my grandparents were some of the most wonderful people on this earth and they are dearly missed.

i am still in bed today trying to fully recover. the bug doesn't want to quite let go yet. eric's grandmother will be alright and is being transported back to a lower elevation in texas. this certainly was not the christmas we were planning for. in fact, it feels like it may not even have happened. so many of the family traditions both eric and i have grown up with went undone this december between my family trip and eric's business trip, work, and then being sick. we tried to do advent together at night when we were together, which is one of my favorite family traditions. but things just really never came together for us this year. we will have to celebrate christmas the whole rest of the year then, which is the way it is supposed to be anyway.

sorry, no new pictures from this fabulous week. i know, you're disappointed. actually we did manage to take a photo of the gigantic icicles hanging off the back of our house. we definitely had a white christmas!

a different december

It's been a different december for me. My only grandmother passed away at the beginning of this month, so i've had a flurry of activity flying up to ohio for the funeral and trying to understand death, grieving, my own parent's retirement and immanent aging process, right up to eric's and mine own aging process and future decisions.

I was also called upon to fulfill my civic duty and report for jury duty. Now, how many people get called in for jury duty? not that many. how many people, when called in for that jury duty, actually get put on the jury? even fewer. I was selected for the actual jury. it might have been fun if i wasn't supposed to work that day, and it was my first day off orientation. it stinks to call in to your new work and say you have been selected for jury duty.... it was an interesting process though. i felt like i was in a movie!

eric left for most of a week on a business trip to florida where it was muggy and warm. we've been cold here in salt lake and i've got a few more ski days under my belt, including a telemark lesson. i'm doing much better now- this type of skiing is hard to get the hang of!

i've spent the last week relaxing, hiking to the hot springs with a couple of friends, and making christmas cookies. my friend tracy had a good friend of her's from high school come in to salt lake for a few days. we hiked down to diamond fork hot spring- i posted pictures of the same springs last year this time. it seems to be at least an annual trip down there. i love it- it's quiet, always snowy, and always fun to sit in warm water with snow all around.

in other news, i think we are going to put pilsner up for airedale adoption. we have an excellent airedale rescue society located here in salt lake. he has just been too much. it seems that even with regular exercise he gets bored around the house. the other week while i was away from the house he got down into my sink and drug out a glass bowl that i had eaten soup out of earlier. it, of course, broke on the floor. i was so mad. i think he needs a home with another dog. or maybe a million acres to run around on. i just feel that we either need to get another dog or give pilsner away. i don't want another dog. i think i'll miss pilsner a whole lot the first couple of months and then our first summer vacation we'll be so grateful we don't have to place a pup somewhere. he's a great dog- just still so much puppy! i've done all the hard work with the training and such, now some other family just needs to love on him. it's not an easy decision, but ultimately i think it will be better for pilsner to have another doggy or just another family member always around. as it is now i have to leave him locked in a crate whenever i leave him alone. that's not fun for either of us. i don't know when he'll be leaving us, probably after the holidays. :(

sam higby is coming for a visit! he'll be here for christmas day. i have to work a whole lot, but he and eric i am sure will get a lot of skiing done during sam's time here.



Tracy and Paige posing for my picture on our hike out to the hot springs


Along the path


Sorry for the soft porn.... Tracy, Paige and I in the springs

experience and judgement

Eric gave me a quote that can sum up my past two months in the ER:

" Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from a lack of good judgement".

i walked into an interesting situation in the ER. they hired me knowing my past experience and 4 weeks into my orientation called me into the manager's office to tell me that they thought i didn't have enough of a knowledge base to be working in the ER. they asked me to do a bunch of homework, study, and prove that i could learn quickly and well. this was a pretty big hit to take, since i knew i didn't know anything about emergency medicine, but i figured it would come with time and experience. it was like i was expected to know everything already. so i was on needles and pins feeling like i was always being watched and had to prove everything i was doing. a week ago they let me know that they would keep me in the ER. hooray!! i absolutely love the nursing work- i finally have found the place where i fit! i am learning a ton, and i feel so much more prepared for life with the new knowledge i get everyday. this is why i became a nurrse- so i can help anyone in any situation. it's just been rough feeling under the spotlight. not the way i wanted to start a new job... but at least i still have the job!! that is why the posts suddenly stopped on my blog about 2 months ago. not only ami working, taking educational classes, but also reading books and studying on my own time. just when i thought i was caught up they gave me a whole new computer program with modules that i have to complete in the next 3 months. it's like being back in school again...but this is also why i left my old job. i wanted to learn more, and keep progressing in my nursing skills. i got what i wanted! it's just a lot of hard work. i like the quote above b/c i feel like that is how real medicine is learned... you have to be able to make mistakes and learn from them. not learning from mistakes is what is wrong, but making the mistake the first time isn't! i'm sad that i am starting a job already scared of management, but i guess there is no perfect job. i love the nursing work and that is enough for now.

over thanksgiving eric and i went up to jackson hole, wyoming with some friends to stay at one of the girl's parent's house in jackson. we skied Teton Pass (well, i kinda fell down teton pass since it was the first day back on skis and i'm not really good at telemark skiking yet), and hiked into some hot springs near yellowstone park. it was a blast! we had planned to be climbing in southern utah, but the weather was frigid! skiing in the tetons was a great second choice though. i'll put up pictures soon.



the group before skiing on Thanksgiving Day


me, Joy, and Luke (joy's cousin) hiking up to Glory Bowl


Katie, Joy, and me on the top of Glory Bowl before skiing down. The Grand Teton is in the background



this is how i spent most of my time 'skiing' down the mountain :)


Katie and I on top of one of our tours


Eric and i in the hot springs

Away from work

I am probably most proud of this climb, Scar Face, 5.11. The two hills in the background are called The Six Shooters. I love this Wild West!!

I took myself down to Indian Creek in southern utah in october to do some climbing. a couple of the partners i was going to meet couldn't end up making it, but eric met these really great guys in salt lake (who were friends of friends from washington) who were also headed the same direction. i met up with them for a few days before eric could make it down for the weekend. we had a blast! eric and i have spent a few weekends in indian creek over the past two years, and we really enjoy the climbing there. however, it is very hard- harder than most climbing b/c of the steepness of the rock and the parallel cracks that form in it. if the crack isn't big enough or small enough for your particular hand size the climb can be extremely challenging. this was the first time down there that i felt i could actually climb!

my friend lacy also came down to try out crack climbing. we had some good times (that's all i'll say Lacy!). indian creek has a special place for me b/c it is so....utah. so desert. so why we came out here. it is positioned just outside canyonlands national park and is some of the most beautiful wild terrain i've ever seen. camping there, sharing the camp fires, the meals, the beauty are what make it so special. the climbing is mostly secondary. i had a great time with quite a few friends coming and going in the few days i was there. Wes and BJ were the two guys i climbed with first, then lacy, then eric and my friend Liz came down.


Me and Lacy after our great day of climbing together. The weather was great-especially for lat-ish October, but sometimes the heat can wear you out! we look pretty beat in this pic. we had just climbed Pente, 5.11.


BJ, me and Wes. i don't know what had just happened but I'm laughing at something. these guys were hilarious!


me and Eric at camp


This climb was hard! It was too small for my whole hand to fit in so i was trying to make my fingers fit but they kept rattling around. Coyne Crack, 5.11+


me on Kool Kat, 5.11.

"A nice little Home Wife, giving me the Stable life"- David Gray

Our Little Cottonwood Canyon with the first sticking snow!


Eric and I out on a glorious fall day


Me leading Plumbline Crack, 5.10 in Little Cottonwood

Snow had come to our hills, and most of our friends are getting very excited about the ski season again. We still have a couple of months before we strap on our sticks though, but it's still exciting to see the progress of change in our hills.

The ER has been great! My brain seems too full after every shift- there is so much to be learning and remembering at the same time. but i have met a lot of nice people, and i feel confident that i will get the hang of it there. it is always hard to be new though, and i've felt kinda lonely the past couple of weeks. Eric has been great and has been trying to wait up for me to get home at night. i'll still be very sleepy when he leaves in the morning so he stays up until all odd hours to spend a little more time with me. it's working so far! i am transitioning from the morning-day-time Polly that most of my friends know into the night-time Polly. it kinda does a number on my brain, my body, and my energy level. i can't seem to wake up before 10 am nor fall asleep before midnight. one good thing that comes out of all this is that i really appreciate my days off. they seem more full b/c i am more satisfied with the time i have. work is exciting, and i actually look forward to the shifts. they are just long. a whole stinkin' lot happens in an ER in 12 hours!!

so we were without internet for a few days. we couldn't figure out why until one evening eric noticed the wire cable for our internet was completely chewed through and pulled off the back of the house....by PILSNER!! we put him in the back yard every day when we leave for work, and i think he gets lonely, stubborn, and bored back there. so, of course, how enticing and yummy is a plastic encoated wire cable?! that dog!!!!! he's officially one year old this month. i think in human years that's like 7 or something. we still have a long year ahead of us!


some nice october facts:
*I have almost all of my christmas presents bought.
*I had strep throat again this week. i just had it last spring. i've only ever had strep throat these two times and they were both within the same year. i can only thank the new job and the couple cases of strep i saw there last week. i had to call in sick on my second week of work. bummer!
*with my insurance, a full dose of penicillin only costs me $3.
*The CD i've been listening to and really like is KT Tunstall's new album "Drastic Fantastic".
*Drivers don't look for bike commuters at 12:30 AM. I have to be extremely careful.

Another Fall, Another New Job

Well, I have a pretty good record running here in Salt lake. Seems i have moved to a new job every fall we've lived here (this fall will be the third). and, this will be my third job. I am going to work for the University of Utah Emergency Room. hooray! a whole new kind of medicine, pace, and patients. i currently work for the university of utah orthopedic hospital, so at least i am just transitioning rather than moving to a whole new company. however, the ER will be extermely different than anything i've done in the past. i have a lot to learn, and it is a little intimidating. also, my schedule will revert back to my personal version of hell- night shifts. nights, swing shifts, weekends, and holidays. yes sir, i will be a regular nurse now, absent at many friendly gatherings, absent from the bed my husband will sleep in, and absent on christmas day. HOWEVER, i am very excited about the ER. i've always wanted to work in the ER, and the orthopedic hospital is getting more than a little old. i have found myself very inept at the politics that run that nice shiny building, and the nursing just isn't very challenging. so despite the schedule i will have to do, having the hoped-for job satisfaction in the ER will hopefully make up for the schedule. and this crazy schedule can't last for longer than a year. after that i will hopefully move out of those dreaded 7 pm-7 am shifts and work more 'normal' hours (such as noon to midnight - ha!)

it was a hard deicision given the schedule is such a con. but my current working environment is an even bigger con, so i took the plunge. my first day is oct 1. that's pretty much a full year from my start date at the ortho center. hmmm, i hope i haven't started a pattern here.


fall has finally arrived in Salt lake, and the hills received their first dusting of snow yesterday. Eric managed to pull off being a grad student one more semester, so we were able to get student passes to a ski resort again. thank goodness b/c i need another season of resort skiing to get a little better at Telemark(free heel) skiing. we've got those fall climbing plans again too-
hoooray for the colors burnt-orange and pomegranite, pumpkins, cinnamon, falling leaves, crisp mornings, hot tea, and....oh yes, hooray for eric now having to bundle up and ride the scooter to work!!!!! :)

Devil's Tower Pics

well here we are folks. if anyone can figure out why our mac computer won't let perfectly rotated pics be posted to blogger, please comment. until we can figure it out just keep turning your head 90 degrees one way or the other.


Liz getting cold while waiting to climb and the mist rolled in.



at the start of our one climb it was actually clear for a while. this is devil's tower's shadow over the landscape. it was beautiful!



i was starting to get really cold waiting for our climb....



frowny faced for having to wait too long, the rain coming in, and not getting to climb our route to the top. the first pitch of the Durrance route is up that leaning column in the background.



an unhappy polly pouting with a foggy Devil's Tower in the background



just half of devil's tower.. we were socked in!



all over wyoming they had these crazy boots in the front of yards and businesses. who knows? wyoming is a little strange.