Special Edition Post - Tech Tips (+ weekend update)

In response to popular demand (or more specifically, a comment from our friend Toby on our last post) we have decided to write a post addressing the ins and outs of being crammed in a van.  We'd been meaning to write this for a while, actually, so thanks Toby for giving us some more motivation!

So, how DO we manage to avoid total chaos with two people living in a space the size of your bathroom?

Well, as most of you know, Juan's '98 Ford Windstar has been sporting a large wooden platform in place of the back two bench seats for a few years now.  We sleep on top of the platform, and store most all our gear under it.  The platform was designed and built by Juan's friend Adam, with Juan helping out of course.  It was based on the design he used in his now-wife Amanda's van a while before.  It is a really innovative design, made to suit the road-tripping climber.

The platform looks like this (sketch by Juan):

The leaf can be lifted up and moved or rested on the other side of the platform if a single bed is desired, or for full access to whatever's beneath it.  When in place, it rests on the cooler in front and on the edges of the supports of the rest of the platform.  The flap at the back of the platform folds up to give full access to whatever's beneath it, or to provide a backrest when we're sitting on the bed watching a movie, etc.

Now, as for the organization of the gear.  The pictures below were taken at Todd & Amelia's house back in February, when we stayed with them for a couple days after returning from Mexico and got our stuff ready to hit the road.  So the van doesn't look quite as orderly now, but it is definitely a testament to how well this system works that it's pretty much been unchanged since then!  Read on to learn the secrets.

The van has a sliding door on either side, so we have easy access to underneath the platform, except in the very center of it.  Thus, we put stuff we rarely need to reach under the middle of the platform.  This includes a tent, sleeping pads, and a "mechanic's box" with jumper cables, chains, an extra jack, oil pan, etc.

The left side of the floor space is devoted to climbing gear.  Once again, we have the gear we need less often in the back:  an extra 60m rope, a 70m rope, and a rope bucket filled with guidebooks, extra shoes, and trad gear.  By the door, we keep our packed climbing packs side-by-side, they fit in there perfectly.

Left side:  climbing gear

The right side of the floor space has a few different things:  the cooler, which holds up the platform; a jackstand, which we use to hold up the platform when we're using the cooler; and three Rubbermaid-type drawer boxes - one for my clothes, one for Juan's clothes, and one for towels and an extra sheet.

Right side:  cooler, clothes, towels, misc.

Lastly, the trunk of the van.  This is our "kitchen" - we keep both the Coleman camp grill and the small Snow Peak stove & their fuel canisters back here, along with our condiments box (condiments, utensils, cooking spray, lighter, etc), pot & pan, and so on.  The cardboard box you see is our toiletries box, though we keep toothbrushes, contact/glasses cases, and other stuff we need a couple times a day in the big pocket on the passenger side door.  Somewhere back there is the first aid kit (more of a hodgepodge bag of first aid things we've collected here and there).  We usually have the dirty laundry bag and a couple other miscellaneous items back there too.

Back:  kitchen, toiletries, first aid, etc

As you can see, we do use the top of the platform for storage during the day too.  We keep our two big bouldering crashpads up there - the big blue tri-fold one was generously loaned to us by our friend Josh in Portland for our trip, as he has not been using it much lately, and the black one is Juan's.  We also usually keep our laptops and a mesh sack with extra jackets and sweatshirts up top.  At night, all this stuff gets moved to the front seats so we can sleep!

Lastly, the "command center".  This is the area between the front two seats where we keep a cardboard box with all our electronics, and the two inverters we have (one a gift from Todd) which allow us to charge our electronics through the van's cigarette lighters.  We still have the pizza box (don't worry, it's clean) in which Amelia packed us homemade cookies the night we left Portland, it sits on top and conceals the command center from public view, plus we often keep maps and papers we don't want to lose in it.

The only other real modification we've made to the van is the curtains I made.  Juan was vehemently opposed to the use of velcro on his van, so I rigged strings of orange utility cord between various points on the ceiling of the van (like the "Oh shit! handle" and the top edges of the plastic molding) and threaded it through the curtains. 

Curtains.  This fabric, which we bought at Goodwill in Tucson, was described on the package as "a magnificent paisley".  We think it looks quite gypsy-ish, which is most fitting...

A more recent pic (from Chuckawalla in St. George) showing the back curtain and the slightly messier, but still organized, van.

So that's about it!  That's how we set up our mobile home.  I left "The Eggplant", my purple Plymouth Grand Voyager, back in the care of my good friend Brandy back home, but I hope to outfit it for road living in the future as well.  Since we've been on the road, we've seen all kinds of similar set-ups, in minivans, pick-up trucks, and larger cargo vans, and if you're creative and want to do something like this, you too can totally make it work.  Now get to it!

Marie




I love when you look back and see that some things are just meant to be.  A little over a month ago Marie and I were climbing with Dan Ancog and a whole crew of his Tahoe/Reno friends.  I remember we were climbing in the Dihedrals in the Upper Gorge in Bishop and just before they parted ways, two of Dan's friends, Bird and Mark, mentioned a little climbing spot in southern Idaho called Dierke's Lake.  They mentioned that if we were in the area during our trip, and could get past all the bird poop, that this was a really fun place to climb steep basalt.  At that time, we had no plans on going north to Idaho but we thanked them for the information anyway and left it at that. 

Just over a month later, during our first climbs at the Pipe Dream cave in Maple, we found ourselves talking about Dierke's Lake again with Chuck and Maggie (two Ogden, UT climbers).  They mentioned once again, that if we could get past the bird poop, it was fun place to climb and that they often visited there when the weather was too cold in Maple.  At this point we were still 2 days away from finding out that we had been selected for the Vibram shoot, but once we found out that job was ours, we knew we would be climbing in this mysterious bird poop-covered place after all.  And so after a brief but fun visit with my friend Jeremy, we hit the road north, bound for Twin Falls, ID to climb at Dierke's Lake and break up the 8-hour drive to the rendezvous point for the photo job.

After waking up in an elementary school parking lot Saturday morning, we drove out to Dierke's Lake which also happens to share its space with Shoshone Falls on the Snake River.  We parked the van and walked .5 mile to avoid the parking fee, and within about 20 minutes we found ourselves in a beautiful grassy field surrounded by a horseshoe of basalt.  On the left, a huge band of fragmented and overhung cliffs, on the right, a curious arrangement of boulders meeting up with the roped climbs perfectly in the middle.  Behind us, families were swimming, picnicking, and fishing in the lake.

The Alcove at Dierke's Lake

Marie had printed us a free online topo earlier that morning and so we headed up the very short approach to The Alcove.  There was a group of four climbers there, and after introductions, we came to find out that one of the guys in the group, Dave Bingham, was actually responsible for the majority of the bolting there.  Dave, a.k.a. The Godfather, was recently featured in a climbing magazine for a story about Idaho's secret crags. 

Though there was quite a bit of bird poop on the lower parts of the Alcove and on the occasional big block mid-route, the climbing was pretty spectacular.  The routes were really fun to decipher and though they consisted of big flat holds, there was also plenty of huecos and crescent-shaped sidepulls to get you through some really steep terrain.  It was super interesting to see some of the other shapes that basalt can take on, so different from the columnar variety we are used to seeing at Broughton's Bluff near Portland.

Juan onsighted Pink Slip (12b/c)

That evening, Marie and I treated ourselves to a night out on the town.  The objective:  drink beers and shoot pool.  We got directions to a neighborhood bar called Woody's.  We walked into an eclecticly decorated, dimly lit bar occupied by an equally eclectic variety of patrons.  There was the lesbian in a mohawk and cookie monster shirt, the robust biker in a leather vest and a kilt, girls in jeans and sneaker as well as some in glittery heels and mini-skirts, and a very cool bar band rocking out on the small stage at the end of the bar.  Marie and I had ourlselves a couple pints of New Belgium 1554, a pint of Dead Guy, and two Irish Car Bombs.  A side of chicken wings, an order of greek cheese and apples, and 3 pool games later, we headed off the Walmart parking lot to sleep it off and climb the next day.

"Shooting" Pool

 

Sunday we headed out to Dierke's Lake once again, this time to play on the boulders that made up the right half of the horseshoe.  This was where we got to really see the variety and shapes of basalt.  A lot of the boulders had a dark red color to them that made them look like the rusted-out hulls of shipwrecked boats.  Moderate problems dominate the area, with occasional hard problems sprinkled in for spice.  A great place for a chill day scrambling around ropeless.  My arm was hurting pretty bad from the last couple days of rope climbing and after a few completions, I was happy to follow Marie around and shoot pictures.

 

Dierke's Lake turned out to be a really pleasant addition to our trip.  Though probably not a destination unto itself, if you are passing through the area, or will be spending some time in Twin Falls, it's a fantastic place to come and get some climbing in.  You can sport climb, boulder, swim, fish, and marmot-watch to your heart's content for the price of $3 if you drive in, or free if you walk the .5 miles from the outer parking lot, and of course, if you don't mind the bird poop.
-Juan