Two at a Time!!! There I was in Reno, waiting at the bus bench for a ride downtown. I had stashed my bags at the bell desk at one of the weirdest places I’ve ever been, the Peppermill Casino. The entire building smelled like an old lady smokers house, and I found myself back in Europe where people smoke cigars and walk their dogs through the grocery store. It was weird. I’ve lived and grown comfortable with not having to breathe smoke that I didn’t make while indoors. I spent about 5 hours in Reno. I cruised the riverwalk, and then ventured downtown. The town is a smaller and trashier incarnation of the Vegas syndrome, though walking down the strip there wasn’t anyone offering me porn as in Las Vegas, so perhaps I should have wrote that it’s trashier in that everyone looks like they’re on drugs. It’s so low-brow that some of my co-workers who were there for a Specialized gig at the same time decided that it would be a rad experiment to see if anyone would bat an eye at some random dude yelling at strangers on the street. Nobody even turned their head, and the strangers getting yelled at didn’t even break a stride or acknowledge the dude (Kurt from the Provo store). The story was hilarious and I wish I was around for that. After cruising the UNR campus, my brother Jon and friend BP picked me up and we were off to REI for some tech socks and then the east side. It was funny that we all decided spontaneously that the trek couldn’t be done without some expensive socks on. Once I was in the car, and darkness was upon us, it was phone call time. I was already finalizing plans for another climb before Temple Crag. “It’s all about workin two at once” BP and I agreed!!! “You’ve gotta keep your options open” I said. We met my pops at Tioga and geared up to meet BP’s cousin at Crowley Lake for a place to stay and waffles in the morning. After gearing up at the park in Bishop we headed up the big pine creek drainage toward lakes 1- 7. We stayed at second lake, with full views of Temple Crag. The hike was beautiful and not as hot as last year. Breezy, Aspen groves, Tiger Lilies, emerald green lakes, bouldering with the packs off for altitude breaks…the hike was awesome. We decided to forget 3rd lake and stay at second with a stash of gear etc about halfway up the approach. It turns out that there is a snowmelt source really close to the base that we could have slept at. Now I know. We were up at 4 A.M. for a shot at the Sun Ribbon. We had talked to a party in Wilson’s the day before who were also headed up, so we wanted to beat them to it after seeing 3 parties on the route last year. I was glad that we were on it first, but we were limited by one rope for the three of us. We wanted to do twin ropes and climb full pitches, but I couldn’t fit twins in my pack on the plane. So we climbed half pitches, and put two climbers on the followers end. We got to the top of the first tower with some fine leading by BP and the time came to cross it. We each filled in for each other. I didn’t want to lasso the horn across the way, so BP did it. Jon went first since I was a bit spooked. Nobody knew how to tension the Tyrolean line and tie the munter-mule, so I did that. I was a bit rusty, but I got it with a few tries. I clipped a tibloc onto the tensioning line with a munter hitch clipped to the anchor we were on. Tie the slack into a mule knot and pull it through when you’re done and untie the knot. It’s perfect because the mule is easy to untie after being loaded. I led a few pitches with some rappelling and traversing into the notch at the start of the crux pitch. I led around a corner, got onto a face, and clipped a knifeblade. The traverse away from it on dicey face climbing was a scary intro to the bomber crack system that went for about 50 feet. After that, it was dead vertical 5.7 loose rock with run-out pro. No kidding. I was about as scared on that as I was on the 5.5 X pitch at the top of Rainbow Wall in Red Rocks which I climbed in complete darkness. That was a long conversation with God on that pitch back in the day. After that, we were cruising up mixed 4th and 5th class and traversing the vertigo sidewalk. The ridge was about 4ft wide and the drop on each side was substantial. After a bit of that, and deciding that we had basically finished the route, we decided on pitch 14 or so to bail into the gulley and race up to the summit. Everything took longer than we thought, probably because of the short pitches. We topped out at about 7:00 P.M. It was a long day. I took the fattest dump of the past few months when we got in the gulley. I had been putting it off since 6 in the morning. I thought it would just go away. The summit provided some excellent views of the Palisades area, and if we had more time I would have walked a bit west and checked out Mt. Sill in more detail. We celebrated, and ditched. Everyone was worked, but I felt okay, and pretty fresh on the hike out. After walking to contact pass and rapping down the one tough section, we were in the snowfield glissading into good times. My skirt filled up with snow and I walked out with wet boxers, but it was fun. I felt like a weasel just sliding along in the snow on my way to a tasty treat. The water coming out of the snowfield was the cleanest sweetest water I’ve had in a long time. We made it down to a concerned basecamp manager, and everyone was alright despite dry heaving and eventual puke from Jon. We made it though!!! Getting back to Bishop and eating at Dennys felt like a deluxe meal. We ate well in the backcountry, but everyone was starving from the hike out by headlamp. Dad got a head start on us, and despite booking it we barely caught up to him about 10 minutes from the parking lot. Trekking poles were defiantly the answer. I was psyched to get Schats the next morning, and Fish Tacos at Tioga made the fiesta complete. The trip went down without a hitch…spectacular. On the way through Tuolumne, I was making plans for the next week in Southern Yosemite always thinking with my new motto in mind “two at a time”.