My Summer Vacation

At the beginning of June, Greg Sievers and I rode our bikes up to the Indian Peaks, high above Boulder. It was like a summer bike ride, but different too.





The higher we got, the less like summer it became.






After camping for a night, we climbed a big route, the 2,000-foot northwest face of Apache Peak. It might have been a new route, but then again maybe not.





Then I went to the City of Rocks. It was fun! I got to jump real high on this climb. I got to climb Donini's Crack with Jim Donini. It didn't look too bad, so I just put one wrap of of tape around the back of my hands. The tape slipped, I fell off, and I still have an oozing gobie on my hand two months later. Jim said, "I soloed that thing in 1973." Sometimes I hate that man.


After a quick trip to the Tetons, I had to do some work. I had less than two weeks to complete my section of the American Alpine Journal. I was supposed to be working on this project all winter, but you know how deadlines are. So, it was not a very fun two weeks.




Finally it was time for our big trip of the summer: Africa! My wife had been to Africa twice already, but not me. I asked her, "Why would you want to go again?" But now I know.






Our group camped for two weeks straight in the bush of Botswana. We saw every animal you'd want to see, and then some. At night, we could hear elephants ripping up trees behind our tents and lions moaning in the near distance. Hyenas and jackals picked bones from our campfire. Back home, people asked us, "Were there fences? Were their guards?" No, there were not.


We didn't do much climbing on this trip. Chris did the girdle traverse of a 4,000-year-old baobab. I climbed the World's Largest Aardvark, but I did not summit. The summit cone was unprotected, and even though Botswana is a very nice country, I did not want to visit its hospitals.