Stoney Point, take 13 - the Continuum

Stoney Point

95F+ weather ended its second week of baking Los Angeles. We were desperate for our climbing fix, though, and headed out early to Stoney Point, hoping to find shade in one of the north canyons to get in a few hours of climbing.

Rusty skills and limited choices (as dictated by our skill) left us with Nabisco Canyon's east wall, where we did East Wall Crack (5.7) and its alternate start (5.8), flailed a little on Maggie's Traverse (V1), and a little more bouldering (at least Bill n' Dan did). A few other climbs looked good, but we didn't see anywhere to build a safe anchor. Even if we had had cams and nuts-- we just didn't see anything! o_0

Both climbs felt rated pretty soft, even to our atrophied skills. Maybe 5.4 and 5.5? The V1 did feel like a real V1, though, and had we tried the full thing instead of just little bits, I'm sure it would've kicked our butts. Annie, Bill, Dan, Carley, and myself, all ran up and down the wall a few times.

Got some good beta from some other guys there on the traverse, then as the sun approached zenith, we took down our rope and headed for The Counter.

The original Santa Monica location of The Counter seems to be the most delicious, and indeed it was. Serious nommage on beef, turkey, and veggie burgers, plus beer, onion strings, and sweet potato fries. Satiated, we headed home, avenged the previous night's defeats in Pandemic at long last (weekend record, I think one win and five losses?), and socialized til dinner.

Tara's Himalayan Cusine was the choice for dinner. They actually do an authentic hot food there. Bill, who absolutely loves spicy hot food, imbibed a specifically-ordered-hot-as-you-can-make-it-please version of a veggie dish, and man, the heat was good. Sort of a smooth, middle-of-the-tongue delayed hit that had a marvelous flavor and burned nicely, then faded away reasonably quickly. Damned good, even if it was too hot for more than a bite or so for me (I think three bites would've been easy to tolerate, but not very easy to actually enjoy).

Rest of the food, including lamb chili (I think?) and lamb vindaloo were quite good, and medium is a nice amount of heat there. Traditional Himalayan decor (I assume) inside and a server who knew his stuff, pretty good! Not a bad way to end the weekend!