This is The Shorts, and you're listening to The Dirtback Diaries.

It was 2001, about a month after 9-11, and my girlfriend Sophie and I were in California

for a few months.

I was working for a magazine in San Clemente, about an hour south of LA, while Sophie was spending

most of her time in Yosemite, climbing.

I was jealous, not just because she was getting to climb all the time, but because she was

a capable Australian climber living in Camp 4, long-term and looking for climbing partners.

So every Friday, I'd make the 6-hour drive and delve into the tourist bus chaos of the

valley to hang out with Sophie for the weekend and climb.

Anything to get Sophie away from Camp 4 is undersexed and over-zellous guys that gathered

like Thunderheads around her.

Twalamine in many ways is the anti-Yosemite, where the valley is crawling with climbers,

tourists and hangers on, Twalamine is a quiet refuge.

We decided to climb the Great White Book, a classic four-pitch romp, no harder than about

5'6".

It was the perfect introduction to the area before getting on harder and bigger things.

I was climbing hard at the time, well above the grade of this climb.

I'd grown up in the Canadian Rockies, where a compact limestone and explosive cracks meant

that running it out was part of climbing.

I took the sharp end for the first pitch.

It was a cruise, more of a ramble to get to the start of the real climbing.

I headed the rack to Sophie.

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