Texas Canyon

We wanted to squeeze in as much adventure into our short California stay as possible and what's more adventurous then rock climbing! Jeff did lots of research to find a place that was relatively close and that had some fun beginner routes. Boy did he find a gem! Texas Canyon, as it's known, is about an hour away from Monrovia up the 14 freeway. Everyone must have been caught up in the frenzy of Black Friday because we were the only ones there so we felt especially isolated and away from the hustle and bustle. After driving down a dirt road and hiking along a path overlooking miles and miles of landscape we found our climbing spot. We had to do some exploring to find our first route, but as soon as we did we hopped on the wall.  It was Mom and Dad's first time climbing and we were excited for them to experience the joy of finishing a route. And boy, did they! Despite the threat of substantial rain, it was quite the successful day, as all the pictures illustrate.

Jeff led all the routes, so myself, Mom and Dad hopped on the wall right after him. 

Mom and Dad were so adventurous and just went right up! Having a hard time finding the route we wanted and with the rain we decided to just hop on a random route.  It was a moderate climb with some tricky parts, but that didn't stop them. We don't even know what it was rated, but it was a challenging first route!

After we all climbed the first wall, we hiked around and finally found the original route we had planned to climb(rating: 5.4). Everyone made it to the top of the climb (and the men even went past the chains so they could get to the top of the "Tower of Babel").

We have to praise Dad for the awesome photos he took while we were climbing (obviously all the photos of Jeff and I climbing). It seems like great photography and climbing genes run in the family!

With the weather clearing up a bit, we hopped on one more route. Again not knowing the rating, Jeff sailed right up even with a bouldery start. I even took a shot and after a few tries at the beginning finally made it to the top.

We just had a great time climbing with our fun little group in this newly discovered area. It's looking like we'll have to come back during our next visit to explore more of Texas Canyon.

We just had to end our adventurous morning with a delicious lunch. Mom and Dad had taken us to this "build your own" pizza place in downtown Pasadena during the summer and we couldn't resist the chance to go again. It was delicious, as was expected, and the perfect way to end our adventurous, misty-rain rock climbing trip. What a great day it was!