Jonah rides again! This time fundraising for a rad environmental organization!

WHAT HAVE I BEEN UP TO AND WHY AM I CYCLING 100 MILES INTO NEW YORK CITY?

Since April I have been living in the beautiful Putnam Valley in New York, working with the Jewish Farm School. I have been serving as Director of the Teen Apprenticeship Program at Eden Village Camp.

At our Council of All Beings

The program combines a rigorous farm and kitchen apprenticeship with wilderness skills and leadership training for high school kids. Backpacking on the Appalachian Trail, building a sweat lodge and creating ceremonial space, harvesting eggplant and making curry for 100 people, learning about wild edibles and medicines, diy plays and improv games, primitive shelter building combined with a solo wilderness night, building herb spirals and snack gardens, learning about the permaculture design process and plant guilds, journaling, mapping, tracking, blobbing, dressing up as animals, seed saving, harvesting, winnowing, threshing wheat, and baking bread, making pesto in a bike powered blender and pita on a earthen oven. It’s been unreal, and the feedback from kids and parents has been wildly positive. This place transforms everyone it touches.

So the organization supporting this work is called Jewish Farm School, which receives major financial support from an organization called Hazon, who happens to be hosting the upcoming and quite literally named New York Environmental Jewish Bike Ride, in which I happen to be participating. That means riding 100 miles into Manhattan with 200 other riders to raise environmental awareness within Jewish communities, to provide financial support for innovative sustainable food projects, and bring more bicycle love to NYC. Hazon is the largest Jewish environmental organization in the country and supports an amazing cross section of projects: they have been partners in starting 40 new CSAs, they host a yearly national food conference in Monterey, they have designed curriculum for food systems education in a Jewish context, they have a green roof and learning garden initiative for synagogues, and they support a number of environmental education projects in Israel, including a program that partners Israeli and Palestinian communities in small scale sustainable development projects.

You can read more about where the money goes, or about the ride in general at hazon.org. Even people in their 20’s can give according to their ability! My goal is a sizable $1200. 100 friends donate $12 bucks. Easy.

Visit my wicked donation page to give online!

P.S. The ride is next week, so get the tzedakah while its hot!
So solid bro!

Harvest Day from Lasercave on Vimeo.

K Records, Helsing Junction Farm, and Lasercave are up to their old shenanigans once again: The Helsing Junction Sleepover. Its another perfect weekend of amazing food, amazing people, swimming, camping, and the best possible festival setting: a huge beautiful organic farm in rural Washington. You can see Helsing Junction Farm in the acclaimed Lasercave documentary Growing Awareness, now go on the ride! Delicious organic food will be available for sale at the Food Tent, all proceeds go to support the event and local non-profits. Come prepared to drink locally roasted gourmet coffees served by Olympia Coffee Roasting Co.

The price is $35 at the door for the whole weekend, including camping. Or you can go to K Records’ web store to buy your tickets ahead of time at a discount!

We encourage you to bring your own plate/bowl and utensils to minimize waste!

Couldn’t be a cooler time.

Check back regularly for updated schedule information. All performances are subject to change.

Schedule:

Friday 5pm – 1am
Gary May
Human Skab
The Maxines
Angelo Spencer
The Curious Mystery
Japanther
Arrington De Dionyso’s Malaikat dan Singa
… and late night DEEP//LEAP MICROCINEMA films to follow!

Saturday day 11am – 4pm:
Jared Snyder
Alan Alexander’s Real Time Band
Knot Pine Box
Why I Must Be Careful
Danny Kelly
LAKE
*break* (go swim/eat)

Saturday night 6pm – late:
SAFE
Razz M Tazz
Brainstorm
Joey Casio
Electric Sunset
Christmas
Tender Forever
Late Night Dance Party, hosted by the one and only Joey Casio!

Sunday 10am – 4pm:
The Hive Dwellers
The Happy Ending
The Blackberry Bushes
Polka Dot Dot Dot
Kimya Dawson

Need directions? Other information? All that and more can be found at K Records’ handy Helsing info page. Check it out!

and at our Sleepover page

***NO dogs/pets, guns or alcohol on the farm premises***

I recently went down to California for the dual purpose of retrieving Jade from the previously-posted summer in the Sierras, as well as hitting up Tuolomne for some classics. Time is always shorter than you’d hope, but we tried to make the best of it. Arriving mid-afternoon on Wednesday and miraculously finding an open site at Porcupine Flats($10/site a night!), we went out to Olmstead Canyon for a brief cragging session, the best we could hope for with a sky full of puffy clouds and a 18-hr-train-ride sore back for myself.

We looked for a good warmup climb, only finding a 10a hand-to-finger crack on the right side of the ivory tower, which we both sent cleanly and boosted our morale for the prospects of the next three days. We top-roped a 5.8 offwidth which proved to be a great bit of practice for our final day. After that, desiring true brutality and punishment, we went and top-roped the sinister Galen’s Crack (10c offwidth). We were both summarily spanked, and I left a modicum of flesh on the crack as a snack for the adventurous anoles about the area.

We had both (obviously) wanted to climb Fairview Dome’s Regular Route (5.9), but were slightly spooked by the prospects of thunderstorms and getting stuck behind slow parties (or both!), so we got a nice alpine-rock start (4 am vs. 1 am) the next day. First at the base of the climb by 6 am. Jade led the first pitch, and we swapped leads from there.




A truly wonderful climb. Puffy clouds remained in the sky, but we moved quickly and topped out by noon. After the very fun ledgy traverse, we simuled the final 300 feet of 4-5.6 climbing, and pitched the top out. 6 hrs up, first on top for the day, and beautiful views on all sides. Summit cigarette and photos, then a mellow walk-off and a large, carb-heavy dinner back at camp.

The next morning we woke up late, enjoyed a decadent breakfast with copious coffee, and headed out to DAFF Dome to do the West Crack (5.9 5 pitches). There was a bit of a line by that time, so we climbed the 5.9 Witch of the West sport route next to it, then got on the crack proper. What a fun climb! So many knobs and crystals that you can really vary your crack technique quite a bit. Great hands, great fingers, and mellow belay spots that eat up gear. Another 5-star climb…we’re getting spoiled. We hung out on the top, repeated the sundry summit rituals, then rapped off and headed back to camp.

Last day! We wanted our money’s worth, and the only two objectives that were screaming out at us (On the Lamb, Phobos, and Hobbit Book were the distant runners up) were Cathedral Peak and Eichorn’s Pinnacle. No better way to get at these two than right in a row: our first baby link up! Another 4 am wake up, and were the first people on the Southeast Buttress (5.6) by 6 am on a Saturday. Rare, but not unheard of. We cruised the route, simul-climbing the first bit, then pitching out to make for 5 pitches on 700′. We topped out and took in the views (amazing as they are) before down-climbing to the old John Muir route and heading down to the base of Eichorn’s Pinnacle West Pillar (5.9 700′). We climbed Cathedral in 3 hours, giving us ample time to laze in the sun, get more dehydrated, and kvetch as a slow and nervous team jumped in front of us, then bailed, then asked us to retrieve their gear for them.


Jade led the first strenuous 5.9 offwidth in great style, setting a fine belay above the crack system. I sent down the errant gear to our fellow climbers, followed the pitch, then was greeted by the much-different-than-advertised 2nd pitch. 5.9 awkward flare it says, but doesn’t mention the runout roof traverse and traverse on rotting (for Tuolomne) granite that brings you to the awkward flare. Anyhow, the pitch proved exhilarating and one of, if not my favorite lead pitches to date. The 5.9 flare was another strenuous offwidth that spit me out at a nice enough ledge for me to ditch shoes and take in the views. Jade came up, enjoying the gnar traverse before heading up for the next pitch. This pitch proved to be another fantastic lead on Jade’s part. Very exposed, varied climbing from cracks, to knbby face, to flakes, to chimney/stemming. This brought us a little lower than the suggested belay, but rope drag wasn’t to be argued with. I took the next “pitch”, a 4th class traverse with a 5.6 move to the base of the Rib-Wrestling gully.

Jade took the next pitch, traversing into the gully and making up to yet another 5.9 offwidth. Good god, why so many in so small a space. Jade burled through this final obstacle and brought me up. I climbed the final 50 feet to the summit, brought Jade up, and we basked in the piercing sun on the glassy granite. Chapped, bloody, and dehydrated, but a perfect day of climbing. Summit rituals and then a rap down. We picked up our gear, hit the JMT and got back to the road without having to turn headlamps on (9:30 pm). All the climbing that daylight and a tight schedule could afford!

Sick sends, great granite, lengthy link ups. Can’t wait for my hands to heal to get back on some gnar rock!

Actually one of the better and more informed articles about us so far.  Only a few and rather mellow factual errors.  Also, for fun, Natasha made it on an interview on Bad at Sports and the same one on Art Practical.  Good girl Tasha.

Our meadows

PLACE

Yosemite Valley

South Lake Tahoe, our home

Lake Tahoe chillers on a day off.

Yosemite Falls

A big tree

CLIMB

V0 highball at the Buttermilks. Bishop, CA

Adam on an unclimbed boulder.

Bouldering at Lover’s Leap.

Atop Manure Pile Buttress, Yosemite.

View of Royal Arches Route (16 pitches, 5.10b/5.7 A0) from Glacier Point.

Looking up at the blank 10b slab and the A0 pendulum on Royal Arches. Jade free climbed the slab, Adam did the hilariously fun pendulum.

Adam on a barefoot lead of the notorious waterfall pitch.

Top out.  God damn.

Jade leading the slabs of Pywiack Dome, Tuolumne.

Adam leads the final crack up the headwall.

Pywiack top-out. Tuolumne high country beyond.

Bouldering in Tuolumne.

Adam attempts the second ascent of Salacious Crimp (V4) at Round Meadow, Stanislaus National Forest.