An Epic...

Or so it would seem.

Hi.

Apparently you don't have to travel very far to have
an Epic Adventure, in reality all you need to do is go
about 400 feet off the ground! But I'll get back to
that later.

This past weekend Java and I set out to try our
sea-legs, although, it turns out, that the best we
could muster was harbor-legs. On Saturday I had fun
paddling around Alamitos Bay in Long beach in several
different Kayaks, and what may turn out to be,
regrettably, at least for my wallet, my next new piece
of outdoor gear - A expedition touring kayak. I've
been in several kayaks and this was was fast, agile,
and tracked wonderfully well - Very fun!

While I was on the water, Java was busy playing escape
artist and making friends amongst the beach goers, all
except for the Life-Guard who promptly kicked us off
the beach when I landed :-( An even bigger surprise
came when we went to a neighboring beach and were
swiftly kicked off that one too! I appears we took
the one and only route that avoided the many posted
signs that read, "Java, Bad Dog! You Are Not Allowed
On the Beach!"

Since our fortunes did not work out well on the beach
I headed back to do some rock climbing on Sunday,
which brings me back to our epic adventure. Why epic?
Well after Steve called out 3 ft left, I was only
half way up my route, called Ending Crack. Well there
I stood about 180 ft. off the ground on the face a
sandstone wall, with no way to go further; my last
protection point about 15 ft below me, and nothing but
sketchy flakes available for building an anchor.

Using some creativity, a lot of time, and nothing but
shakey legs I built an anchor, tied my trail line to
my lead line and rappelled down to the deck, wherein
Steve cursed me profusely and simultaneously
celebrated being of belay. After Steve topped of the
route, up I went to reach the top fixed anchor, which
after some creative rope management and good climbing
I was roughly 115 meters (380 ft.) up the Black Wall
at Sespe Gorge. After getting pumped (shakey legs)
again, I did a multi-pitch rappel from the top to a
secondary fixed anchor, about 40 meters (130 ft.) up,
from where I took the pictures I've attached, and then
down to Tierra Firma - Like I said, a bit of an Epic.

One thoroughly destroyed radio (free fall from 380 ft
up), 4 climbs, all gear retrieved and 6.5 hours later
were headed home satisfied with a good day of
climbing.

I'm Glad To Be Alive - And Loving it! I wish the same
for you.

-Manny

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