Deep Sea Soloing!!!

We had an eventful few days at Ton Sai on the Railay Peninsula. We went deep water soloing on Tuesday with our 8 newly acquired friends. We all climbed aboard a longtail boat and drove out to an island about 20 minutes away, anchored the boat 50 feet from a huge overhanging wall with lots of holds, and then 2 by 2 they put us in a kayak and paddled us to the base. There was a little rope to help us get on the cliff. I traversed right and then climbed up to a big stalagtite, climbed onto it and then realized I was 30 feet above the water, so I jumped in. There was lots of routes to climb, all overhanging with big holds. They took us to another cliff where 3 of us ended up climbing about 5.10a up to 40 feet high, traversing 15 feet to a ledge, and then (after a lot of thought & encouragement) jumped off. I didn’t quite land right, and ended up having a sore neck the next day. We all climbed around 4 routes, then took the boat to a little secluded beach for lunch and to do some steep bouldering and snorkeling. It was quite an experience, especially for about $15/each.
The next day, we all decided to rent sea kayaks and explore the deep sea soloing nearby. We didn’t realize how hard it is to kayak, and also that the first storm in a week was about to start. The waves got big (3 feet tall) right as we got out to the island, and it was almost impossible to paddle back against the wind. We found a calm spot of water sheltered from the wind by the island, and waited for about 20 minutes for the storm to pass by holding onto the cliff. It was a little scary, but the storm passed and we found a big stalagtite hanging about 4 feet above the water with a rope hanging from it. The hardest move was from the kayak to the stalagtite, and then to get your feet onto it. Once you did that, you could climb as high as you wanted, even circling the stalagtite, and then jump off. We found a few other spots as well, but we mainly enjoyed kayaking around and fighting the wind and the waves. We realized how powerful the ocean is, even in the calm waters at Ton Sai.
We took it easy that night and ate and talked with our friends. They are from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and luckily they all speak some form of English. It was very interesting hearing all their stories. We even got to share a little what Christianity really is. Their view was really tainted by the Roman Catholic Church. They sounded really excited at the idea of a church like Flatirons and the gift of love and grace that Jesus gives us.
Today, we took a boat and then a bus back to Phuket (Nai Yang Beach), picked up Ashley’s bag (it showed up!!!) and will stay here tonight. In true ashley style, we now lost the camera so, no pictures for a while. Tomorrow we will take the bus to Bangkok (13 hour trip). We decided we’d try it since we have time and it’s a lot cheaper. We can take a plane from there or, if we like the bus, we can take another 10 hour bus to Chiang Rai.
Another good experience we didn’t mention yet was my foot. I sliced my pinky toe on some coral. We tried to clean it, but it was deep. By the next day it was swollen and red and my foot started getting red as well and I even started to feel pain in weird places on my leg. The cut was obviously infected, & I’d never had anything like this. We found a pharmacy and the girl spoke good English and said, “you take this pill 4 time a day for 5 day, clean the cut 2 time a day with betadine, and, don’t worry, it get better. I have seen this many time”. And, it worked. The antibiotic pills, bandaids, antibiotic cream, betadine, and ibuprofen cost $18. That’s a good deal.

Tonsai at Railay Thailand

Here we aer, at the ton sai bungalow resort just a 30 second walk from the beach, climbing, & restaurants. The climbing here is good and fun and steep and also very humid. It is fun to climb completely on a stalagtite or tufa, very different than the US. From our porch we can watch the waves crash, climbers climb, & monkeys fight in teh trees. Ton Sai is very relaxing and laid back. Very different from where we came, at Koh Phi Phi Don.
We arrived at the Phuket airport after 2 day of travelling, but our bags didn't make it. So, we stayed at Nai Yang beach near the airport for 2 days to wait for our bags. We watched kitesurfers, rented a motorbike for 6$ and rode all over teh place. We got our first ticket because we didn't know you neeeded a helmet. It cost $15 and a 6km ride to the police station. We also picked up some helmets. We met a man at dinner that night who just became a christian this week, and he told us his tsunami excperience. It was his day off from work at Khao Lak beach, but everyone he worked with died that day. Now, you don't see many effects of the tsunami, but I'm sure there are many stories like his.
Finally our bags showed up, well, almost, all but ashley's clothes, so we took off for the island of Kho Phi Phi Don, the most densely populated area we've ever been too. We climbed a little, sweated a lot, and played b. volleyball with Joy (a Thai "girl" who hit and jumped like a man) and some other thais. They were good. Even though the island was destroyed by the the tsunami it has been completely rebuilt with little shacks, waiting for the next wave. The busyness there encouraged us to move on to Ton Sai, a paradise for climbers.
We'll stay here in Ton Sai a few more days, hopefully climb and deep sea solo, and then head back to phuket to get our last bag and fly to Chiang Mai. Hope y'all are well. The computer here is kinda slow, so that's why there are some spelling mishtakes.

Missouri & Thailand

We've spent the last 2 weeks in Colorado, Kansas City, and mostly Missouri. We should have some cool pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/jowallac/ that would explain the story. We went to Justin & Krista's wedding, said our final goodbyes to all our friends, gave away the Silver Bullet (Jonathan's Car), then spent some time in Missouri with Ashley's family. We bouldered some in Kansas City at Swope Park with Ashley's Sister Katie (bouldering is fun in 100 degree heat), Floated down the Meramec River with Ashley's Mom, went to a Grape Stomping festival and a Reggae Festival at 2 different wineries, and ate lots of good food with lots of good friends and family. Jonathan even caught 7 fish, 1 was big enough to filet and eat for breakfast.

Now we're in Chicago, where we are not supposed to be. We're supposed to be in the air on the way to Tokyo, but, as fate would have it we're staying in the Westin Hotel tonight and we should make it to Phuket Thailand about 14hours late. That's not too bad. It could be worse. Here we have free internet, a pool, weights, TV, and $34 in vouchers for food from United Airlines. And, it's not like we have any appointments in Thailand that we're gonna miss. Really, Ashley's mad cause her Thai massage is getting delayed.

We're excited to be on our way to Thailand. We're very grateful to so many of you who have encouraged us and helped us in so many ways. The YWAM Discipleship Training School starts on Sept. 10 in Chiang Mai, and we hope you will keep us in your prayers. Also, please email us. We'd love to hear what is going on in your neck of the woods. It'll help keep us from getting too homesick.

We Climbed the Grand!!!!!

We’ve done a lot since we last blogged. We went hiking with Andy near Eureka, Montana and then drove to the Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks and climbed the Grand Teton. We also added some pictures to our Picasa photo album. If you don’t like to read, you can go straight there http://picasaweb.google.com/jowallac/NorthWestRoadTrip

A Day in the Life of a Fastpacker
Ashley’s friend Andy Skurka is in the middle of hiking “The Great Western Loop”. He started this April in the Grand Canyon, hiked the Pacific Crest Trail through California, Oregon, Washington, then linked up with the Pacific Northwest Trail from Washington toward Glacier National Park. He hopes to finish by hiking through Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and back to Arizona.
He showed up in Eureka at about 9:30pm after hiking 38 miles that day in 90 degree heat. His first order of business was to eat as much as possible, which included 2 big pieces of pizza and 3&1/4 PINTS OF BEN & JERRY’S ICE CREAM. It is his self proclaimed “Half Gallon Challenge”. He was disappointed that he failed, and I was happy to eat his unfinished ice cream. But, he did wake up in the morning and buy another quart and finish it quickly. After his ice cream, he also ate 2 pints of yogurt, a huge omelette, hash browns, and a bagel while at the post office resupplying with new maps and food.
We had camped next to a fun group of 6, 40ish year old friends who met annually to bike ride a section of the Great Divide Trail. They seemed to have a great time and said that it was crutial for them to have good beer at the end of each day so they carried a collapsable cooler with them. We hope that we’re able to continue enjoying the outdoors with our friends like this group!

We set off for our hike with Andy at about 10:45am. He felt rushed because he typically starts hiking around 6:30am. We hiked through town and then down a long road for about 6 miles before turning off onto a old logging road. The logging road was so overgrown that you could not tell where it went, so we got out the map & compass and bushwhacked uphill for about 2.5 miles until we finally hit a real road that led us to a real trail. We then hiked steadily uphill for another 5 miles when we finally made it to a nice stream. This is where we took our first break, after 13 miles of continuous hiking. We filled up our water bottles, took a few pictures and said goodbye to Andy. We had a good time talking with him and hearing about how he has hiked an average of 37 miles a day for the last 3½ months with only 1 rest day over the most rugged terrain in the U.S. It was also good for Ashley to smell someone much worse than Jonathan. His smell was unique, and we named it “FishBait”. After bushwhacking with him through the weeds we kind of smelled like FishBait as well.
We turned around at that creek 3:45, and made it our goal to make it to the famous milkshake shop before they closed at 7pm. We ran through all the sunny areas, bushwhacked through the woods, and ran down the road through 90+ heat into town to complete our marathon day just in time for the best huckleberry shake ever. It was a rough day for us, and we woke up sore everywhere the following morning. For Andy, that would have been a very easy day.


Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone is mostly known for it’s geysers and sulphur springs, but it’s also known for having a lot of wildlife. While driving to our campsite, we saw bison roaming everywhere. They were even walking down the road. We stopped at one pullout and watched a grizzly bear far off in the valley below. We borrowed people’s binoculars and watched him roll around in the sagebrush. A few minutes later, we stopped and watched a black bear cross the road right in front of the car in front of us. We also watched a coyote swim through a river. It was amazing the amount of wildlife that was roaming around. We camped 1 night in the park, went for a slow run in the morning (we were still recovering from the hike) and then drove to the Grand Teton National Park.

Grand Teton National Park
The Grand Teton’s are very inspiring to anybody that goes nearby. As we got closer, our aspirations went from going for a few short hikes and climbs to climbing the Grand Teton. We showed up on Saturday and went straight to the Ranger Station and got a permit to camp at the base of the Grand Teton on Sunday night.

Sunday
We packed our bags with camping gear and climbing gear and drove to the Trailhead. The elevation at the trailhead is 6,600’, more than 7,000’ below the summit of the Grand Teton (13,770’). We hiked 6 miles up to our base camp at the Moraine Campground at 10,500’. Ashley hiked so fast up some of the hills that it left Jonathan behind and hallucinating. We ate some food, set up camp, drank water straight from the melting glacier, and went to sleep (or tried to) at 8:30 pm.

Monday
We woke up and started hiking in the moonlight at 4:45am. The moon was so bright you almost didn’t need a headlamp. There was many other groups of climbers ahead of us.
5:15am We reach the Lower Saddle (11,500’), the sun starts to light the sky. The route gets steeper from here, but we still stay unroped and scramble up a gully.
6:30am We reach the Upper Saddle (12,800’). This is where Jonathan turned around 5 years ago because of a hail and lightning storm. We put our harness and climbing shoes on and rope up to climb the Owen-Spaulding route. This route is only 5.4 and most people climb it in 2 pitches and scramble unroped for the last 700’.
8:45am We reach the SUMMIT. At this elevation, each step takes your breath away. The view from the top is amazing. We can see the parking lot way down below. The summit is a 20’x20’ platform of small boulders. The weather is great as well, with not one cloud in the sky. It’s exciting to be on top, but also daunting to look way down at the parking lot and know that we are hiking there today. We started scrambling down the same way we came up. We did 2 rappels over the steep climbing sections.
11:45am We finally reach our base camp after scrambling and hiking downhill forever.
We eat some lunch, drink some water, and hide in the shade. We immediately start talking about celebrating with a burger & fries in town, which motivates us to pack up and start hiking. We eventually made it to the car at 3:30pm after 11 straight hours of hiking and climbing.
4:30pm Engulf 1 large pizza and then drive to a motel (our second of the trip). After not showering for more days than Ashley cares to think about, any private bath and bed would feel pretty classy. However, since we got the last available room which was the only one that hadn’t been remodeled so we got a 20% discount!!!