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iluvtoplayoutside
Oct 2, 2009, 11:37 PM
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Yep, live in the car, eat cheap and climb a lot. Lost my job, husband says go for it. So I am seriously thinking "why not?"
As a woman though, I'm slightly nervous about traveling about alone.
Anyone done this? Any hints? I'm not a complete noob to living for a sport, just the idea of wandering around crags looking for partners seems a bit wierd, but I suppose that's how it works.
Any personal experience, and/or tips, please share!
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wonderwoman
Oct 3, 2009, 11:43 AM
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Send a pm to RC.com user lwilson. She's doing this right now & her facebook reports are making me quite envious!
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iluvtoplayoutside
Oct 3, 2009, 2:21 PM
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Thanks! Hey I see your in Mass....I'll be at Farely tomorrow, say hi if you see a 30 yr old blonde named alicia climbing with an older local 
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granite_grrl
Oct 5, 2009, 1:22 AM
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I went on a road trip after university for a few months. I came out of the experience with a very serious boyfriend who had since become a very serious husband.
Beware of road tripping! You might bring home more than sick sends! It's obviously a very dangerous thing to do as a woman by yourself. 
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clausti
Oct 5, 2009, 12:05 PM
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smallclimber wrote: granite_grrl wrote: I went on a road trip after university for a few months. I came out of the experience with a very serious boyfriend who had since become a very serious husband. Beware of road tripping! You might bring home more than sick sends! It's obviously a very dangerous thing to do as a woman by yourself. Especially as she already has one husband!
haha, tru. it is a risk, though.
i went on a road trip by myself for about 7 months after college, swearing i would not have a boyfriend on the trip, and i also came home with a very serious boyfriend who then became my very serious husband.
as far as traveling alone, though, i would just say, use your common sense. don't stop at sketchy gas stations in the middle of the night, ect. though i'm not gonna lie, i slept with my knife sometimes.
as far as finding partners, i went out west, and (the boyfriend was not with me the whole time) when i was by myself, i didn't have any trouble finding partners at areas where there were people. it'd be a crapshoot to try and find a partner at, say, cochise stronghold AZ, but hueco tanks, indian creek, yosemite, i had no problem. if you're leaving notes on bulletin boards, represent your abilities conservatively. don't get in over your head for pride.
have your self-sufficient shit (rope and rack) pack up and ready to go at the beginning of the day and hang around in the most populous parking area or wander around at the crag. (i mostly did parking area) ask to join for a couple of climbs, and if you get sketched out leave. if you hit it off, climb all day. ideally, attach yourself to small groups so you can watch them belay before they catch you, but it's usually easy to spot the other dirt bags. i met some awesome guys in yosemite, indian creek, and jackson wy, in particular. oh and ladies in maple. don't climb with anyone who sketches you out.
have fun!!
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clausti
Oct 5, 2009, 12:07 PM
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except in rifle. people in rifle were mostly jerks. i had one party let me climb with them one day, and after two more days of people refusing to talk to me or make eye contact, i just left.
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kellie
Oct 5, 2009, 3:34 PM
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I did it for a year and a half solo except for one friend who was a fairly regular partner. He was not a boyfriend so we could meet up and climb for four to six weeks then go do our own thing and meet up again a few months later for another month or so without there being any drama about it. Finding partners for cragging is easy, finding partners for alpine is much harder, but that's the case whether you are road tripping or not.
Travelling alone was great for me -- of course I spent *some* time calculating my odds of being assaulted if I went into that bar alone, camped at the end of that dirt road in the middle of nowhere, or accepted the offer of that nice guy I just met in a parking lot an hour ago of a shower at his place. But exercise common sense and you will most likely be fine. You're more likely to run into creeps walking home from work than on a climbing road trip IMO.
I met and climbed with lots of great people and highly recommend the experience.
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iluvtoplayoutside
Oct 5, 2009, 11:51 PM
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Thanks Kellie for sharing your experience! I meet so many awesome people every time I go out, I am not used to hangin out at crags asking people to climb with me. I'm lucky to have a lot of friends in Colorado, but when winter comes Arizona sounds pretty good or Mexico, but I'd rather have a partner w/me there. Luckily I'm a psychotherapist (unemployed) so I can read people pretty well, but I worked in the Department of Corrections for many years so I'm a bit more paranoid than I probably should be, but I did learn some pretty awesome self defense skills 
Thanks again, any more input or ANYONE thinking of doing the same thing, PM me!
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tavs
Oct 6, 2009, 5:48 PM
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Haven't done it myself (did a 4 month trip about 7 years ago, but that was with my boyfriend/now-husband), but I know a female climber from SLC who spent much of the last year on the road mostly solo. Check out her blog at www.cragbaby.com--she's got lots of posts related to her trip, advice on solo trips (she's done some international non-climbing solo trips in the past as well as the most recent climbing one), destination beta, etc (look at the "categories" list on the right side to sort through, since there's lots of other stuff on the blog that's unrelated).
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mindaa
Oct 6, 2009, 11:26 PM
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I just returned from a 3-month trip (way too short) and couldn't imagine having gone without my husband!
Not only because it was handy to have a man around to say, trap the mice that infested our truck (ick!), but it was such a cool bonding experience that you just don't get in the business and routine of daily life. Both of us have enjoyed past solo travel, but we'll forever share the inside jokes and stories from this one.
Too bad your hubby can't negotiate a sabbatical or something? The company might actually be open to the $$ savings. :) I found this website that talks about it.
http://yoursabbatical.com/
But if not...since I'm now home in AZ and jobless, PM me if you make it down here and need a partner. :)
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iamthewallress
Oct 6, 2009, 11:53 PM
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I've never done a full-time mode solo trip like kellie, but I've traveled a bit on my own, and it's not too bad. I have a pick up that I sleep in when near the road and I try to park it where no one is paying attention, but where help is not so far away should I need some. When possible, I try to bivy where my cell phone comes in.
When considering a dessert bivy, I ask myself if it would seem like a good spot to bivy also if I was also a local tweeker. If yes, I try again. That might sound obvious, but I've had to move on from a couple of places before when I realized that someone else had dibs.
If you've got the $ to permit the occasional motel room when you're in the middle of sketchy no where, I find that makes the whole traveling part a little more fun.
AAA loses money on me every year. My transmission disintegrated on Easter Sunday 50 miles west of Winnemucca, NV. That's probably as bleak as you'd imagine. I was really glad to have the AAA on the hundred mile tow to Reno.
Last spring break, my bf had to back out of our Indian Creek plans at the last minute, so I decided to fully do the trip solo rather than try to make my interests mesh with new partners. I rope soloed my bad sizes at less popular crags. I ran into some folks that I know and like, but I was enjoying the calm and quiet so much that I didn't ever try to meet up with them.
I got my truck stuck in a sand wash on the same trip, and was really grateful when a retired couple with a giant Jeep w/ a winch got me out. (AAA doesn't do off-road.) One upside of the risk equation for the solo-traveling female is that if we do need a little help, people don't usually worry about us being the stranger danger.
A dilemma that I've faced when trying to visit places for extended times is that the more popular the place, the harder (and more expensive) it is to stay more than a week or two. However, if you need to find partners, going to more obscure places where the camping is easier has its own issues. One solution that I tried (during a summer when I was intending to be single) was to rent a room near my favorite climbing spot. Split 4 ways, it was a cheap flop house and a good alternative to hiding from rangers.
Have a great trip!
(This post was edited by iamthewallress on Oct 7, 2009, 12:07 AM)
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kiwiprincess
Oct 8, 2009, 8:46 PM
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I travel for work alot so end up going climbing or mountain biking myself quite a bit. The carpark hint is a good one. "Hi, I'm by myself can I tag along "works suprisingly. Also let people at the local climbers cafe know you are around and they'll Tell anyone else alone. I also Find "club Events" especially women's climbing stuff a good way to meet a few people.
Travelling by yourself is good, Dirt bagging is harder! Other people doing this are often young! I have been to climbers camps and felt like a grandma in my 30's. The key is to spark up conversations at the crag with other groups and maybe you'll get an invite for another day. I france i contacted all sorts of people i'd met climbing once before in another country to see if they wanted to climb, while I was in their area and many invited me to stay.
I never camp totally alone, I might in a lockable van though.
Follow your instincts.
Good luck
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iluvtoplayoutside
Oct 9, 2009, 9:32 PM
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clausti wrote: smallclimber[quote wrote: as far as traveling alone, though, i would just say, use your common sense. don't stop at sketchy gas stations in the middle of the night, ect. though i'm not gonna lie, i slept with my knife sometimes. have fun!! I was doing a winter camping trip to summit some 14'ers in CO and some wierd guys camped RIGHT next to me in the middle of no where. I got my ice axe and had it close all night long, lol! I think I'll bring that too, just in case the dessert turns into a Canadian Winter, LOL!
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