First Trip With Chadwick

Our first trip with Chadwick School was a faculy trip to Joshua Tree National Park. Before heading out into the field, we had a 1.5 day training/prep to get gear and food ready for the weekend. There were 4 instructors for the trip plus Amy and myself and Deb (Chadwick OE Assistant director) and only 14 faculty... so needless to say we were pretty stacked! Two of the instructors Thunder and Jess are also working on the 7 day rafting trip we're going on at the end of March in Utah, making us pretty stoked.

The drive to J-Tree, as it's known to climbers, is about 3.5 hours our of LA, climbing nearly 4000 feet to our campsite. Along the drive was a huge wind farm... i mean huge, around 500 wind turbines in total. I had never seen a wind farm before so i was in awe to see them all going at once, as it was windy as hell in the valley. The instructors we were with decided to show us a true American burger joint called the "In and Out". The thing is they only have about 4 things on their menu but have a whole other secret menu which includes "animal style" which means you have sauteed onions and your hamburger cooked with mustard, sauteed onions, a hamburger with no patty or a veggie patty, all which they fail to tell you they make as they are 'secrets'. However one thing we found out on our own was why they call it "In and Out", it seems as though it goes in as fast as it goes out! Anywho, as you get closer to the park entrance the cactus' start appearing and the green fades to brown.


Entrance sign to Joshua Tree


The Joshua Tree... think U2 album.

We stayed at the Sheep's pass camp ground for two cold nights. The park is fairly windy and in true desert fashion gets pretty cold at night. On Saturday we went to a rock site down Geology Road, where the instructors set up 3 climbs. The climbs provided a good variety of challenge and allowed for a great view from the top! There are Joshua Trees all over the place as expected and the rough, scratchy landscape makes for an incredible view !


Me rock climbing



On Sunday, Amy and I took off for a few hours in the morning and went for a hike to get a better view of the park from a higher peak. We took down camp by lunch and with our sun and wind burnt faces we headed back to the smoggy city. After Chadwick trips it is common for the instructors to go out for dinner and "shoot the shit", so we didnt' want to ruin tradition so we headed to a nearby pub and grabbed a bite to eat and a pint. Not a bad way to end a weekend in J-Tree to me!