Reeve's Roadtrip Blog

Like all terrible ideas which seem good at the time, we had both had a drink. Not much, but I'm looking for an excuse for my optimism. Or naivety, perhaps. I saw online that a permit for the Whitney zone had become available, suggested it to Marie, booked it, then went to sleep, safe in the knowledge that we would have a fun time camping in the mountains then climbing an easy multipitch. To see how wrong I can be, read on... A week later is 'walk-in day'. I wake with a start, already apprehensive even before I've had chance to make sense of my unfamiliar surroundings. We treated ourselves to a motel so that we would be fresh and have time to prepare, but we had a lot to do so we didn't quite get the early night we got to sleep late and are bit stressed. Marie rustling up some motel cuisine I'm not quite sure what I've let myself in for. All I know for certain is that Marie definitely doesn't know either. Maybe that's for the best at this stage. Befor...

Alternative title: Mixed Emotions in The Needles I've written about The Needles not  once , but twice  before. It's one of my favourite places on Earth, blending incredible featured granite, adventure beyond their stature, and a mystical aura further evoked by the names of each formation, such as the Witch, the Warlock, the Magician... It's fair to say, I'm completely bewitched. So when I read that the KNP Complex Wild Fire in 2021 had wreaked devastation across that whole area my heart sank. The road to the camping at the trail head only reopened in May this year, so I was expecting it to look very raw still. Wildfires are actually a normal and healthy part of the forests' life cycle. Tall dense trees stop sunlight penetrating their canopy and reaching the ground, meaning low lying plants (and hence food for animals) don't get a look in. Following a wildfire, these shrubs and plants are usually the first to colonise the now nutrient-rich ground. All the same, a...