Bouncing Marty

Times are changing. As much as I love my Land Cruiser, its going to have to go. Its just too much truck to be driving my commute every day, and the utility of the big 4×4 isn’t getting used as much as it should. So, we’ve been shopping for something different.

To complete the whole domestication process, I need to have a pickup to haul general house-stuffs around. I have always been a Toyota fan, and wanted something smaller with decent gas mileage, so the Tacoma was the obvious choice. The flavor of mine is a 1999 4×4 with the V6, and the TRD Offroad package. Fun stuff. Shouldn’t be getting stuck anytime soon.

And of course, its already come in handy. Hauling lumber, and an impromptu work-bench. And of course, gotta haul something ridiculously large with it, so we piled some of our new trees into it instead of opting for a delivery. Is hanging 15′ of tree out the back of the bed legal?

We didn’t get busted…so it must be. Now to plant those trees. Anyone want to come over for a potluck/hole digging party?

And this one’s for the Swenson’s. Nice personalized license plate, seen on the commute.

We live in a track home. Hard to believe I know, but Las Vegas is packed full of them. One thing we’ve discovered about living in such a cookie cutter house is that the builders don’t often spend the money on quality materials, in order to save a few pennies here and there.

Prime example, side house gate. Rusted. Paint didn’t last for 5 years, and the masonry bolts holding it all together were loose and painfully ugly. Typical in the neighborhood.

So last Saturday I was digging holes in the backyard in some attempt at landscaping (I use the word ‘digging’ loosely here. Maybe picking rocks and chipping desert concrete is a more appropriate description.) After swinging the pick one too many times, I stood up in my frustration and the gate caught my eye. It was GO TIME.

See the gate doesn’t open either. The previous owners left a padlock on it. Yes, also rusted. Convenient. I grapped pliers, snips, cutters and other tools of destruction and managed to destroy the gate. I felt wonderful. That is until I realized that now I had to explain to my wife why I destroyed our perfectly functional side gate. Oh yeah! Its because I want to build a NEW EVEN BETTER ONE YEAH! Heh…of course that was the plan all along.

I don’t have too many photos of the process. Keithers previously mentioned that I should post more details on the stuff I do, to make it more informative and useful. So, I’ll give the basics of gate building. Or at least of how I tried to work it.

Trip to the Depot. Three 8′ 2×4’s, and seven 8′ 1×6’s are all the lumber that I required. More might be necessary if your gate is wider…mine was right at 40″. The Depot has all kinds of hinge setups available, and I found some black painted weather resistant ones, that came with burly wood screws. Three hinges seemed appropriate. Grab a matching clasp and you are good to go.

My situation was kind of different because I had to attach the thing to concrete block. This required another trip to the Depot to grab a 1/4″ masonry bit to drive holes for some wedge anchors. I used Redhead wedge anchors when I used to metal frame and knew they worked well, so that’s what I went with. I have a hard time trusting masonry screws.

I built the gate with a center spreader, and three cross braces. The planks are screwed down to the frame using 2″ coated screws to prevent them from rusting and turning the purdy wood colors. I pre-drilled my holes, and countersunk them by drilling with a larger drill bit 1/2″ into the wood or so to make a slot for them to sit in. I opted to make the arch on top to spice it up a bit (man that sounded lame). I did this by getting Mollie to hold a line at the base of the gate for me, then I scribed a circle across the top. Little work with the handsaw and some sanding and I was good to go.

I shimmed the gate into place with some wood scraps, marked my holes and drilled away into the masonry. It really went fairly smoothly and all the wedge anchors held well. I hung the gate one hinge at a time, fixed the clasp, and it was basically done. Now we just need to stain it with some kind of sealer to keep the weather from destroying it. All in all it took me about five hours to build and hang it. Time well spent to not have to look at the rusted junker gate anymore.

Last year at right around this time Matt and I were bailing out of attempting a High Sierra ascent of the Fishook Arete on Mount Russel. Snow and cold weather forced us to abandon hopes of climbing. We decided (and had planned for months and months) to try to get up there this year, but things just weren’t coming together (re: I am lazy and didn’t train and don’t want to freeze on some big cold mountain while spooning with Matt on some bivy ledge.) Buh…Anyway…we had a free weekend.

So, to take advantage of my hall pass from Home Improvement 101, we headed to Tahquitz to pick off some moderate multi-pitch. Brian Frandsen carpooled with me down to the big granite rock, and Brian Burgess met us there as well. The Brian’s and I spent an anticipation-filled night in our bags on the forest floor outside of Idyllwild, CA and eventually met up with Matt early Saturday Morning.

Tahquitz climbs are somewhere between 600-1200ft in height, and both of our climbs were in the 700-900ft range. Matt and I teamed up to climb Sahara Terror (5.7, green dots) and the Brian’s shimmied up The Consolation (5.9, red dots). Climbing with Matt is a blast (obviously).

Brian and Brian headed right up, while we waited for another party who was ahead and likely faster than we were. This turned out for the better, because they did climb faster and we weren’t in each others way on the climb. Sahara Terror is named so because of the propensity for large slabs of granite to be loose on the climb. I can’t say I’d disagree with this reputation, but it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be avoided.

One particularly noticeable loose stone was this guy, which I coined the ‘Death Block’. About 6′ tall, and 2′ wide, this thing must have slid down the face above me, and perched directly on this tree. Incredible. And really scary. Sounds like this stone has been here for years though, and isn’t going anywhere. No choice but to stand on the block while you climb this route, which definitely increased the pucker factor by a few notches.

Photos may say otherwise, but Matt has turned into quite the Trad leader. Long way from a few years back when I drug him up El Whampo and scared the ba-jimminey out of us both.

Matt lead the first three pitches, along with the crux 5.7 pitch, while I lead the 3 top-off pitches. The entire climb wasn’t super difficult, with most all of the climbing hanging in the 5.5 to 5.6 range, with a few exciting 5.7 moves thrown in. The cruxes were fun and challenging, but stayed within the 5.7 grade. Fun stuff.

We topped out to find Burgess and Frandsen chilling in the sun, shirtless and enjoying the fine weather. They beat us up by an hour or so, and snapped this photo of us finishing up the final little slab. (Thanks for the photo Burgie.)

I miss climbing at Tahquitz. I think Bergie got it right when on the downclimb out he said, “I feel like I’ve just re-found an old friend!” Tahquitz has so much solid granite, just grainy enough to give your shoes great purchase, but not too sharp to cut your hands up. Awesome hand jams, finger jams, body jams, fist jams…you get the idea. Cracks everywhere.

I think we all decided that we need to make it out there more next season.

Sometimes coke cans outstay their welcome. And when that happens actions are taken. Death by pellet at 1000ft/second.

So a couple Saturday’s ago, Mollie and I took a break from the house and drove North into the desert a few miles. We found a cool spot recommended to me from a coworker where its cool to shoot things ’till your heart’s content. Not only Coke cans, but computers, furniture, and any moving thing was in danger of our pellet gun infused wrath.

Nyah stayed away from the front lines and stowed away in the Subaru/gun-rest, after she got tired of chasing butterflies. Next time we may have to bring out some heavier artillery.