Joshua tree climbing and star watching

On Saturday November 10th 2007 me Lumme and Lary went to Joshua tree national park late in the evening. We arrived past 11PM. JT is about 170miles from my home in Playa Del Rey. In the evening we watched stars and comets through a 4.5 inch Newtonian telescope that LAry brought with him. We watched Holmes comet which just exploded - its honey comb like structure collapsed and exposed icy interior which evaporated quickly and created a huge ball of gas visible with naked eye. I have taken pictures which you can magnify to see the white blob. In the morning we started a bit late at around 10AM. Took us around an hour to find the rock to climb. Then Lary began to climb using traditional method. After another hour or so with slow progress I went around and found class 3/4 back route to the top. We setup an anchor system and repelled down. After lunch we went climbing again. Lumme went first and climbed to the top. I went second and since I am not as good could not finish before it was too dark. Climbing a crack is rather hard and I need to get over the idea of having a tiny foot hold to hold me on the rock. Maybe it will go away with more practice. On our return to LA we had a dinner at a Chinese restaurant courtesy of Lary - this was very nice of him to offer us dinner.

Click thumbnails to see larger image and more detailed explanation of what is shown on a given picture.

telescope we used to watch the sky	view on JT from the rock	my car and rock formations
starts are sometimes easy	lumme rappels down	many Joshua trees in the park
later on its a bit harder	lumme at the top	in the crack as nigh falls
lary in the crack leading	dark star over JT	happy Lumme on they way down
blue Jay drinking water 1	blue Jay drinking water 2	big JT in the park
Lumme	Lary climbing	Lumme on belay
JTs in the park	Larry and Lumme	Holmes Comet picture at 16sec exposure
JTs in the park 2

Album created on 2007-11-12 and last updated on 2007-11-12