Needle summit part deux, cali dreams

the expedition to the needle part two was a success--smashingly so. we got out there much earlier than when molly and I hiked it and we made far fewer wrong decisions. All told, we achieved the summit in 5 hours and made it back down in 4. The way back down we ran in to some treachorous navigating alongside the grey emminence. there is one small knoll that you must take care to ascend, lest you be funneled into a canyon of pure choss. we missed the knoll and had to hike back out of the choss canyon and then scramble around looking for our connection. we finally got it.

this is a photo from about the midway point. we stopped here and had a light lunch of rabbits and moss at about 10 am. from here the summit and the rest of the route are directly in front of your face. I like the different looks on people's faces as they contemplate the remaining 1300 vertical feet.



this photo shows my coworkers at different stages of the crux. as you can see, the crux is not all that difficult, but it does involve some actual rock climbing. it's like a rock ladder, but it's only as long as what's in this photo.



this is the triumphal death leap of summitude that we all experienced a'top the needle.



it was a beautiful day and we were all deliriously tired when we got back to the jeep. we downed two pitchers at high desert shortly there after, and I think these were some of the silliest, most strung out beers I've ever had.

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last night we got our tickets to san diego for the last weekend in march. seems like a fun trip, what with dwyer and tiff coming out and ari, hurt, miss, and frank already there. there's talk of a greaser two party.

I'm getting paid to do this right now. so I better go, in other words.