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Family Desert Adventure in the San Rafael Swell, March 24-26 2006:
The weather forecast was supposed to be great and our original weekend plans had fell through,
so we took a long weekend and had a fabulous family trip to the Swell. On Friday afternoon after we'd
gotten camp set up and the little man settled I took off and soloed James Tower...AKA "The Lightbulb."
It's long been on my must-climb list just cause it looks like such a cool summit! As Shannon and Canyon
we're waiting for me back in camp I hurried and soloed it in 2hrs 19 minutes car-to-car....I think
marriage/fatherhood has been the best thing ever for my speed climbing!!!! It really is a classic summit,
but the climbing to get to the summit really isn't that great....definitely high-quality adventure though! The
next morning we met Mom and Dad Stone and went on a whirl-wind tour of some out-of-the-way parts of
the Swell looking at tons of rock art sites Shannon and I had no clue existed! We even found a ruin
which is highly unusual for the swell....after soloing some rather "interesting" 5.6 on crumbling dirt-clods
to crawl into it I was rewarded by some really cool rock art inside the ruin and of course the possibility of
contracting hanta-virus as nobody else had been foolish enough to climb into there for probably 15
years! This trip was particularly cool because we were able to combine all our favorite desert
adventuring modes...tower climbing, canyoneering, and finding cool archeology...most importantly the
little wild man had a great time! He particularly loved his new shades that Grandma Stone got him, and
absolutely had a blast practicing driving...even though he can't quite touch the pedals he's definitely got
the steering part down and is waaaaay psyched!!!
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