Katie Mayo

stoke is my strength

Tag: #vanlife

The most aesthetic choss factory: Temple Crag

In August, my friend got permits for Temple crag in the Sierras and we decided to go for Sun Ribbon Arete. Before heading up there, I thought I’d want to come back for Dark Star… but honestly, it sounded quite loose and I think I’m good for now.

I had just been dumped, and my mindset was shambolic. But I figured crying outside with friends was better than alone in the van, so I soldiered on. Don’t worry I told my climbing partner beforehand and he graciously gave me the crux… I guess it felt better having a “real” reason to cry.

The route appealed to my partner and I, not just for the aesthetic nature of the line, but also because it has a natural tyrolean traverse.

Third lake camping

The hike in was really nice, and there was water along the way for a lot of it. That was great because I really didn’t want to carry more extra weight.

After a little nudie dip to rinse off from the hike, we set up camp by third lake. I’d say that or second lake would be good places to camp. First lake would be a little extra commuting.

The route finding

We got started around 5am to give ourselves plenty of daylight, and were at the base of the route a little after sunrise. I am glad we started early becuase once we were on route I felt like we were moving slowly.

There were a couple of pitches with good crack climbing, but they were interspersed with crumbly scrambling, wandering pitches. It was still worth doing though. I took odds and we linked whatever we could. I do tend to lose track, but I figure we did it in around 16 pitches.

The route finding wasn’t as easy as I was expecting with it being an arete. I think that’s because the topos I found online were nearly useless on pitch lengths.

Both topos I downloaded were different and both sucked. Normally the more detailed a topo is, the more accurate I assume it is. But these must’ve been written from memory decades later. But I’m not going back to rewrite them now that I did the route – so I guess I don’t blame them.

Part of the adventure when I go alpine climbing is the route finding, and it was fun figuring it all out.

The tyrolean

It is always hard for me to tell altitude nausea from anxiety nausea. That day on Sun Ribbon was no different.

I was nervous for the tyrolean because I had never done one before. And I like to have something to cling to…! But it turned out completely fine. My partner lassoed the horn after a few attempts and rigged it up. We ended up belaying each other across as well because crossing air (with no rock to cling onto) is spooky as hell.

Looking back, I did a better job eating enough when I was getting tired. Plus I had forced down most of a dehydrated breakfast meal that morning.

My headspace for the send

I had just gotten dumped, but when we got to the base of the 10a pitch, it was my turn to lead. And instead of yeeting myself off the cliff because I was sad, I decided that the crux was a good distraction.

We went for the right variation and it had about 4 feet of actual rock climbing before easing up considerably. The shitty topo was accurate here in that it indicated 2 pitons close together at the start of the pitch. They were VERY (pointlessly) close, maybe less than 3 feet apart. The crux was very reasonable.

Some characters at the top

That day, there were parties on several routes. Sun Ribbon is right in the middle of everything, so we could look across either way and hear rockfall.

Our good friends were on Venusian Blind, a guided party was on Moon Goddess, and another party was on Dark Star. Most of the rockfall came from Dark Star and it was comically (terrifyingly) chaotic.

We heard so much rockfall that it felt like we were getting shot at. During the entire route, we pulled off ONE small rock. From the sound of it, Sun Ribbon must be the least chossy. Or maybe things just echo because Sun Ribbon is in the middle of everything else.

We listened to the Dark Star party having conflicts throughout the day and when we reached the top, we met that party. One of the guys was bragging that he had now done all the routes at Temple, and explaining to us where Mt. Sill was (he was, in fact, not pointing at Mt. Sill).

He was mansplaining to both me and my partner (a man), so I can’t chalk this one up to being a woman in the backcountry.

Going down

I am glad we had daylight for our descent. After the topout, we hiked down following cairns easily. Then we did the rappel, and hiked down the pass. Towards the bottom, as we got near the main trail, we ended up veering a bit left in the hallway (towards third lake) when we should’ve gone a bit right (towards second).

It was one of the more sketchy things I’ve ever done and looking back I would revise my decision making. I would have retreated to find a better way. Lots of big blocks were breaking loose upon weighting them…. and I did end up losing a #1 doing some questionable glissading. I lived and learned, gratefully. And luckily we still had daylight.

Our Venusian Blind friends were descending after nightfall, and they started radioing us for beta consistently because of how cryptic the descent was without light.

They kept waking me up, but there wasn’t much we could tell them since we didn’t have their location. My partner’s Rocky Talkie died conveniently when our friends started relying heavily on radioing us for beta LOL.

“Keep the big boulder to your right” doesn’t really help that much when I have no clue which big boulder they’re looking at.

It reminded me of the importance of having a Gaia map downloaded at the very least. And a bivy sack. There was some concern they might get benighted… and what a terrible place that would’ve been to hunker down (rockfall hazard). But they made it back around midnight.

Overall we spent ~15 hours camp to camp. That’s including a nice lunch lounge on route, some summit selfies, and a couple other leisurely rests at scenic spots.

The nice thing is that we had great views of the lakes and mountains the whole time. And there were some legendary ledges to chill on 🙂 A good time with my homie.

October 6, 2025
Full value, fancy, alpine climbing in the Bugaboos
The inspo

After climbing Mt. Whitney last year in a group of four, two of us hatched a plan to go even bigger this year.

Personally the Bugaboos has been on my mind since I saw Reel Rock’s Boys in the Bugs and got a lil celeb crush on Will Stanhope. My friend fell for the Bugs after leafing through pictures in the guidebook. So we agreed to make the trip.

We planned to spend a week in July at the Kain Hut. The target was some combo of 1) the NE Ridge of Bugaboo Spire, 2) Surf’s Up on Snowpatch, 3) the Snowpatch Route of Snowpatch Spire, and 4) the West Ridge of Pigeon Spire. We toyed with a few others, but weren’t sure how many climbing days we’d have because of weather and energy.

The appeal wasn’t just aesthetic. The challenge drew me in, because it was so big and I knew it would be challenging by using all of my skills (and require me to learn new skills). I had to learn to cross a glacier properly for starters. And many of the routes are notorious for benighting climbers new to the area, and it felt like a good test of my ability.

The prep

My bugs partner and I took a one day snow travel course locally, which was definitely not enough for me to feel comfortable. I had one other day of snow travel after that, when I attempted Shasta. I had bad weather, was alone, was unfamiliar with the weather there… and everyone else on the mountain was bailing, so I felt like it wasn’t worth it. It was also very spur of the moment. So I had extremely limited snow travel experience. And in the Bugaboos I ended up feeling like it was not enough for my comfort level.

The approach

We left our cars in the lot with chicken wire surrounding them to reduce the impact of curious porcupines.

Hiking in was a wet staircase straight up with a heavy (for me) pack. We quickly left the forest and arrived in a rocky alpine environment.

At the time I was unsure if I would get all the days in the hut or if I would have to hike back out to get a tent to link my disparate Kain hut nights. I ended up getting them all. That was stressful, but it worked out when I got there and the hut keeper let me stay. I am pretty sure he pocketed the cash and didn’t actually let anyone know I was still there. But either way, I got to stay, so I was happy.

Climbing

My Bugs partner and I hadn’t really roped up that much, let alone for anything this big. We did really well considering it was our first (ish) time roping up for something this big.

The first day we had very marginal weather so we decided to go for Pigeon, via the BS col. The rain and visibility worsened quite a bit as we made our way up the col. On top of that, there were a lot of rocks coming down. It was rather scary. We bailed due to weather, visibility, and safety. The BS col was already out, we would have to go around Snowpatch for the rest of our climbs, which meant longer days (and way more rappelling).

The second day it poured rain the entire day so we did not attempt to climb. We did, however, assist with a rescue. A climber had fallen on his hike out, and fell about 100 feet. He had to be long-lined out via helicopter, and we helped carry items to him. That was a pretty jarring experience to have right before our big send. We heard later that he ended up being alright.

The third day, we woke up at 2am for the NE Ridge of Bugaboo Spire. We left right before a guided party, but we got lost on the approach. But after losing the cairns and wading through choss, we saw their headlamps and got back on trail. We started had steep snow to the base of the BC col and then decided to solo the 4 pitches to the base of the route. Partway through that, my partner requested a rope, so we pitched out the last pitch. It was dark and perhaps we were off the optimal path, but I felt it was airy and more than 4th class.

When we got to the top of the col, we were a little jarred, so we rested and pitched out the rest of the approach. I think it was a good decision given how the 4 pitches went. But realistically, in retrospect, it was completely unnecessary.

At the base of the route, the guided party went first, and a pair of Colorado soloers, both called “Chris” went second. We were third, and two parties had lined up behind us. My partner kindly gave me P1 and I promptly whipped. I thought I was past the crux, and I was in a wet crack. I remember thinking my toe hurts from the jam. I took that as a sign my toe jam was secure. The next thing I knew I was falling. I was rattled, but my gear held. I think this happened because I didn’t eat enough and was shaky, and also because I felt rushed.

We continued up, and I felt shakier and shakier until finally my partner suggested I eat something. I did and I was pretty quickly cured of the shakiness. Note to self – eat enough….!

The climbing was all pretty friendly, exposed, beautiful, high quality rock. But the climbing was a very small percentage of our day.

Once we summited, we had to figure out how to descend. We never really felt we could take a break and eat or sit down, which was a change from the alpine routes I am accustomed to here in the Sierra.

We didn’t feel comfortable doing techy 4th class scrambling with a ton of exposure, so we pitched out or simuled all of the ridge scrambling. Looking back I think we could have simuled more but I am happy with our risk related decision making.

The way down was constant switching from rapping to simuling to rapping to pitching etc etc. It was lengthy but we could see the guided party off in the distance for part of it and that helped.

Then we walked back down to the BS col, and switched back to glacier travel to take the snowfall raps back to the Kain hut. It added another 8 raps, and 2 glacier crossings to our day, plus a ton of loose skree to descend, and the mental effort of route finding through all that.

But we made it back to the hut in 18:40, which was great considering that we had to go around and couldn’t use the BS col.

The fourth day, we rested. And the fifth day we went up Eastpost spire, a fourth class scramble, to get a nice angle on Bugaboo Spire. I was glad we didn’t have to leave too quickly. The sixth day we hiked out.

It made sense for us not to attempt another big route with iffy weather and lower energy than before. We snagged our big objective, learned a lot, and left with stoke to spare. I will be back for Snowpatch someday certainly.

Basking

At the top of Eastpost spire, we basked. And then back in Radium Hot Springs, we basked. Now that I’ve had a big trip with basking built in, I will never skip it! Basking is the best, and honestly I think it is what prevented a painful comedown from such a high-high, which usually debilitates me. Basking is the solution.

Lessons Learned
- Always bring extra food, especially PB.
- Eat MORE, fuel properly even if I’m not hungry. Count calories!
- Mind transitions. Don’t take off crampons when it’s not necessary or vice versa. I think this takeaway is amplified for me because of my glacier travel inexperience.
- Book the Kain hut far in advance for more than a few days to avoid getting rained out.
- Do more squats.
- Bring more layers.
- Always bask.
- Sexting on the inReach is fun, but if worst comes to worst, would be bleak and embarrassing to be found like that. It may not be worth it.
September 24, 2025
Entering my #vanlife era

It’s official… I’m a #vanlifer now. My time as a “real” dirtbag is done! After a year and a half living out of my CRV full time, I’m in a nice van now.

It’s super comfy by comparison, and I still most of the benefits of being a car-lifer, such as living in deeper connection with nature, a sleep schedule attuned to the sun, and a life organized around getting outdoors. Some things are different, like for example it’s more difficult to parallel park, and gas is more expensive, but I wouldn’t go back because the benefits outweigh the drawbacks for me.

In October, the temps at night started to drop and I was not excited about another winter of “roughing it” in sub-freezing temps without a proper heater.

I really wanted to be able to take better care of myself and have more energy for things besides just existing. I felt I had earned my stripes and it was time for an upgrade, so I started actually figuring out how to acquire a van.

There are two main options when you’re considering van life, and my friends all had opinions. The options are 1) DIY or 2) buy. Within the buy option, you can buy new or used, get one made bespoke, or buy one off the shelf.

It was going to be a trade up no matter what because the CRV life is so basic. My main wish list features for my van were: 1) heat, 2) being able to cook indoors when weather is bad, 3) being able to work and take private calls from my own space.

I did consider a DIY build first, because my bar was pretty low and i have many friends who thought I’d be able to do it no problem. But a big driver for getting a van was giving the ol’ nervous system a break finally… and trying to learn to build a van sounded stressful. After a bit of stress spiraling trying to decide whether to DIY or buy, I made up some math (versus renting) to justify an already built out van purchase.

I started looking for builders. And there are so, so many van builders. For me two big things drove the selection.

First, I was starting to freeze my forehead off in the cold nights, so this was urgent and that pushed me to search for off the shelf, rather than bespoke options. Most van builders had 3 month or longer wait times for custom builds, so it was off the table for me.

A second factor that narrowed conversion companies was that I wanted a brand new chassis for my off the shelf van. I don’t know how to evaluate a used car and it felt overwhelming. Again, a major goal was to relax a bit more and take care of myself… overwhelm was not a good option for me. So, I browsed companies that had new van builds off the shelf.

I was lucky to have found Dave & Matt vans, based out of Rifle, CO. They do quite a bit of volume, and were super helpful throughout the process. They’re used to climber builds, and had everything I needed.

The only thing I really wish I had is AWD for snowy days, but that’s for a future build. I could remove the AC and still be quite happy. I tend to go up to higher altitudes when it’s hot anyway.

Life has a funny way of teaching us things working itself out. I got interested in #vanlife back in 2018 and it was so far from anything I knew personally that it was hard to imagine actually pulling the trigger. I was still trying to fit myself into the box of expectations handed to me by society.

Despite the distance from my personal circumstances back in 2018, I somehow knew van life was for me, even then, from my comfy studio apartment in downtown DC. It turned out my self knowledge was accurate, I just didn’t have the gall to trust my gut and jump off that particular cliff back then. But I do now, and it turns out that van life suits me after all.

January 11, 2025