Here is the recipe from her blog:

Cheezy Spicy Kale Chips
vegan, makes about 4-5 cups baked chips
note: this sauce recipe is enough for 2 bunches of kale – but if you only want to make one bunch, you can halve recipe or store sauce in fridge to use later

2 bunches of organic kale, shredded, thick stems removed

1 large bell pepper (red, orange or yellow)
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 whole jalapeno with seeds, remove stem
1 serrano pepper, remove stem
3/4 cup nutritional yeast + extra for dusting
1/8 tsp cayenne
1/2 tsp garlic granules
1 Tbsp agave syrup
1 1/2 Tbsp tamari (or soy sauce)
1 cup soaked raw cashews (water drained)
2 Tbsp sunflower seeds
a few dashes of pepper
1/2 tsp sea salt (I used pink salt) – always salt carefully and to taste
optional: 1/4 cup veg oil (any variety oil will work – olive, grape seed or macadamia nut)

To make:

1. Heat oven to 250 degrees. Lay a piece of foil on a baking sheet and lightly grease. Set aside.

2. Prep your kale by washing and drying very well. Remove thick stems and shred into pieces. The kale will shrink significantly in the oven so your kale pieces should be a few inches in width at least.

3. Add all the sauce ingredients to a Vitamix or high speed blender. Blend on high until smooth. Add more salt/seasoning/heat as needed.

My "cheezy" sauce!

4. There are a few ways to coat your kale. I like to place it in a bowl and pour the sauce over top. Then lightly toss and transfer to baking sheet. Don’t coat the kale too heavily with sauce – the thinner the sauce, the lighter and crispier your chips will be. I think the perfect chips are super thin and light in some spots and heavily cheezy in others. Find the technique that works for you – this may take a few batches of chips! (They will all be yummy though).

My kale coating bowl. I do it in small batches. You can see how thick, creamy and vibrant redish-orange the sauce is…

5. Place kale baking sheet in oven. Turn heat down to 200. My max heat for chips is 250. Baking time for 250 is about an hour. While 200 take 1-2 hours. Maybe longer depending on how you coated your chips with sauce.

My kale chips ready to go into the oven.

6. Remove from oven and allow to cool for at least 20 minutes before removing. Some chips may be perfect and some may need a few more minutes in the oven. I usually remove the “done” chips then return the still soggy ones to the oven. Or I’ll simply eat them war and soggy because they just that tasty.

Kale chips all done!

 

Yummy!!!

Park Life - Yosemite Bouldering - OFFICIAL TRAILER from Louder Than 11 on Vimeo.

In November I posted about our trip with the rest of LT11 to Yosemite. Jon and Jordan have been hard at work with the footage from the trip. So here it is…

Louder Than 11 is proud to present “Park Life – Yosemite Bouldering” coming to the internet, for free, on Monday, January 16 at 9AM Mountain Standard time.

Mark your calendars, grab a snack and sit back for 27 action packed minutes from Yosemite Valley, January 16th.

Starring
Natasha Barnes
Rich Crowder
Sarah Fullerton
Jon Glassberg
Jordan Shipman
Ryan Silven
Ben Vernon
Anson Whitmer
Dave Wetmore
Max Zolotukhin

Directed by
Rich Crowder
Jon Glassberg
Jordan Shipman

Video by
Rich Crowder
Jon Glassberg
Jordan Shipman

Additional Camera Support by
Ben Vernon

Director of Photography
Rich Crowder

Edited by
Jon Glassberg
Jordan Shipman

Motion Graphics by
Jordan Shipman

Visual Effects by
Jordan Shipman

Music Supervision by
Jon Glassberg

Best Boy Grip
Ben Vernon

Special Thanks to
Urban Climber
Revolution Climbing
Ethan Pringle
Buck Hoover
Chad Wolak
Doug Hartman

Free. Whether you like it or not.
© 2012 Louder Than 11

The Happy Boulders.

Max on Heavenly Path.

Max topping out Kill On Sight.

Checking out the rail on Toxic Avenger.

Max sending Toxic Avenger.

The East rim.

Randy Hill sending Atari.

Max sending Atari.

The last sunset of 2011.

We drove out to Mammoth to the natural hot springs for the countdown to midnight with our friends Randy, Sarah, Sander and Caitlin. It was 15 degrees outside when we got into the hot spring but it was nice and hot! We spent the evening soaking and watching shooting stars.

The next morning we made the 5 hour drive to Las Vegas. I was so tired of the food in Bishop–which isn’t very vegan friendly–that the first thing we did when we got to Vegas was go to Whole Foods. I feasted on hot bar food, green juice and kale chips. I was very happy to finally eat some REAL food!

These are my favorite brand of kale chips.

GREEN JUICE!

There is no other place in the world like Las Vegas. We didn’t camp a single night but instead used the Kayak app on my iPhone. If you ever go climbing in Vegas this is the beta. We booked a new room everyday and we got rates at really nice hotels like Tuscany Suites and The Rio for $22-$50 a night. We split the room four ways with our friends Jason Candler and Sergey Maslov. It work’s out to be cheaper than camping in most cases. Word to the wise…DO NOT STAY AT CIRCUS CIRCUS. We made that mistake one night because we wanted to be closer to the strip but it is GHETTO, smells like cigarettes, has paper thin walls, not that cheap, and there are crime warning signs everywhere. Never again. Our best room was at Tuscany Suites. Huge room, kitchenette, newly built, nicely decorated, clean and very cheap at $22-$27 per night.

The view from our room at The Rio. The tint is due to the color of the glass.

The Red Rock Casino.

The trip turned out to be more about hanging out, being outside and being on vacation than a serious climbing trip. I didn’t send much, Monkey Bar Right (V6) and Mr. Moran (V7). Max sent Desert Rain (V10), Vigilante (V10), Progressive Guy (V10), Prune Tang (V10) and Tapatio (V9).  A pretty mellow trip.

Paul Robinson sending Prune Tang.

Paul Robinson sending Prune Tang.

Max sending Prune Tang.

Sandstone rail.

The Kraft.

Jason Candler crushing the warm up.

Jason enjoying the view.

The new guide book written by Tom Moulin. This could be a coffee table book. Beautifully done.

Enjoying cafe Bustelo at the crag.

We <3 Bustelo!

Me on Porkchop in Gateway Canyon.

Me and Sergey.

Max scoping out Desert Rain.

Rock layers.

Iron deposits in the sandstone.

Pockets.

Weird bubbly sandstone.

Iron bands and pockets.

The view from Gateway Canyon with Las Vegas in the background.

Paul Robinson sending Power Struggle (V12/13) put up by Pete Lowe in Gateway Canyon.

Cannibal Crag.

Red Rocks.

View from the Sanctuary near the Gallery.

Max at the Sanctuary. Perfect rocks up there! The left arete is a 5.13 TR and the right is a V2R called Stair Stepping.

Chimney!

Attempting Stair Stepping...had to bail. No spotters, no pads, bad consequences and a concerned boyfriend.

Moonrise. Looks like Mars or something.

Evening send.

Walking through a canyon.

Rock stack.

Black Velvet Canyon.

Alex Kahn sending Freedom Fighter (V6) in Black Velvet Canyon.

Max trying Wetdream (V12).

Paul sending Atlas Shrugged (V12).

Home away from home.

We had a pretty slow pace the whole trip. The routine pretty much went like this; get up around 9am, take a shower, get ready to go out by making some Bustelo in the hotel room, finally leave the hotel around 10 or 10:30 and drive to Whole Foods, buy breakfast from the hot bar, eat breakfast, sit around for about half an hour deciding where to climb before finally driving to the boulders. While our trip wasn’t very productive, it was a much needed and well deserved break from our usual pace.

For our last night in Las Vegas we had some big plans. We got a nicer and more expensive hotel room on the strip at the Monte Carlo. We dressed up and went gambling in the casino with Paul Robinson, Alex Kahn, Paul Dusatko, Emily Dudley, Jason and Sergey. P-Rob, Max and Sergey entered into a poker game that had a $100 buy-in (ugh). Max and Serg lost all their money in about an hour while Paul only lost about $10. After gambling we met with our friends Jonathan Siegrist and Marisa Aragon Ware at the Marquee to hear Dirty South DJ. We danced until 3am! It was amazing fun partying with JStar and Marisa! Afterwards we headed to a strip club called Crazy Horse 3 (what? it’s Vegas). I never knew this but apparently you can haggle with taxi drivers or limo drivers and find ways to get into strip clubs free or get a free ride there or some kind of discount. What a crazy and interesting place Vegas is. I won’t go into detail about what happened there. It was my first time to a strip club and it was a weird and interesting experience that turned out to be pretty fun, not only for obvious reasons but also because of the people watching and conversations to be had there. We didn’t leave until 6am when the sun was starting to come up. It was one of the craziest nights I’ve ever had! Las Vegas is a weird place. One minute you are out in the middle of nowhere in the desert on top of a rock and the next  you’re in a smoke filled casino or walking down the strip with hotels and lights surrounding you. I had a really good time  on this trip but like the saying goes…THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME.

Zen Flute at Dale's Camp.

Eliot on Jedi Mind Tricks.

Eliot sending!

Mark sending Return Jedi.

Rock stack.

Jedi Mind Tricks.

Ben trying Return Jedi.

Sarah sending Jedi Mind Tricks.

Mark sending Suspended in Silence.

Clouds at the Pollen Grains.

Sunset at the Pollen Grains.

Next stop…RED ROCKS!!!

Everything in the Gallery is made from scratch by me and is 100% vegan.

Click HERE to see the Gallery

Since my last post I sent my season project in Yosemite, Thong Cave (V10). It’s a steep and powerful climb at the Ahwahnee boulders  put up by Justin Alarcon. It starts in a cave and climbs into an arete which is a climb in itself called Silent Spotter (V6). I underestimated this one. I did pretty well on it the first day I tried it earlier this Summer and thought it would be a mini-project on the side. It turned out to be my main project this season! It was starting to get into my head a little towards the end. It’s probably harder if you are short because you can’t keep the toe hook for the crux. I was doing some heinous beta at first involving an imaginary foothold but switched to a crazy upside down drop knee for the send. Very psyched!

I still have quite a long list of projects left in Yosemite but I don’t know how much more I will accomplish this season. To everyone’s astonishment, Tioga pass is still OPEN and there is still NO SNOW in the Valley. It’s been an unbelievably dry season which is great for climbing but also a little disturbing on an environmental level.

Web cam shot of the Valley. NO SNOW!!!

School finally wrapped up (I graduate in March!!!) and I’m on VACATION!!! After visiting my family in SoCal for the holiday we headed to Bishop. We are here now for a few days and then we will move on to Red Rocks for the new year until the 8th. Looking forward to climbing and finally enjoying some time off.

MORE TO COME…

We got basketball for xmas!

Driving to Bishop.

The Buttermilks!

The Mandala.

Dusk at the Buttermilks.

photo by Pat Bagley http://bagleyheavybags.blogspot.com/

The most exciting part about the competition was that finals were to be held in the newly built addition to the gym. I hadn’t even seen the walls so I had no idea what to expect. Even though I’ve been climbing well outside, I haven’t been climbing as much I would like in the gym these days so I didn’t know how I would do in the competition. After climbing well and not getting too pumped in qualifiers I went into finals in first place. I have to say, I was pretty impressed with the youth climbers in this comp. So many of them are climbing really hard and I felt like I lucked out to have done so well in qualifiers (I was ten years older than the oldest female competitor in finals!). I also felt excited like I could win the competition this time.

Women's #2 stumped me and I fell over and over and over again on a reachy jump around a bulge wondering if iI was missing some beta. I wasn't, at 5'2" I just can't dunk. photo Pat Bagley http://bagleyheavybags.blogspot.com/

Problem #3. photo Pat Bagley http://bagleyheavybags.blogspot.com/

Problem #3. photo Pat Bagley http://bagleyheavybags.blogspot.com/

Problem #4. I was the only climber to figure out the right beta. The BAT HANG! photo Pat Bagley http://bagleyheavybags.blogspot.com/

The crowd went wild. It was super motivating but I was so pumped and fell at the end photo Pat Bagley http://bagleyheavybags.blogspot.com/

photo Pat Bagley http://bagleyheavybags.blogspot.com/

The competition wall. photo Pat Bagley http://bagleyheavybags.blogspot.com/

The crowd. photo Pat Bagley http://bagleyheavybags.blogspot.com/

I ended up in 5th place after finals. I did not perform as well as I should have and felt a little disappointed since I was flown all the way out there from San Francisco to compete. My mentality in finals was too relaxed. I needed to “want it” a little bit more. I won’t make excuses though. I had a lot of fun and I am excited to return with Max for the Finale in February.

CONGRATS to Andy and Katie Lamb for winning the competition!

Click HERE to see more photos from Pat Bagley .

The Diamond. photo Rich Crowder

We shot a lot of the Classics…

-Initial Friction (V1, slab test-piece)

-Blue Suede Shoes (V5, another slab test-piece)

-Bruce Lee (V8)

-Cocaine Corner (V5)

-The King (V7)

-Dominator (V12)

-King Cobra (V8)

-The Force (V9)

-Thriller (V10)

And some climbs you may or may not have seen on video before…

-The Seam (V11)

-Dogwood (V12)

-The Wizard (V10)

-Wall To Wall Carpet SDS (V11/12)

-Un-named climb at Bridalveil to the left of WTWC (V7)

-The Diamond (V8)

-Once Upon A Time (V3)

-Shadow Warrior  (V12)

-Changing Corners (V8)

-Thong Cave (V10)

-Ahwahnee Arete (V4)

-Across the Tracks (V10)

-Atlantis (V6)

-Cilley (V10)

-Conan (V9)

-Diesel Power (V10)

-Flatline (V8, my personal fav!)

-Good Vibrations (V10)

-Hammerhead (V5)

-Heart of Darkness (V9)

-James Memorial Problem (V3)

-Pride (V9)

-Silly Roof (V7/8)

-The Octagon (V6)

-Woodyard Arete (V6)

-Yabo Face (V11)

-Yabo Roof (V12)

SO MANY CLIMBS! GET PSYCHED!!! Many of these climbs have never been filmed or have never been filmed well and this is the first time climbers will be able to see how good the Valley really is.

Jon Glassberg sending Yabo Roof (V12).

LT11 filming sends and bro hugs!

Jon Glassberg filming Ryan Silven during an interview.

Jordan Shipman filming sick climbs! He can't even believe it.

Rich Crowder getting ready to do his thing!

Snow in Camp 4!

A little snow didn't stop our crew.

The crew reviewing some footage of Dave Wetmore jumping into the freezing cold Merced River.

El cap after the snow dusting.

The Cathedrals.

The guys shot some nice time lapses from El Cap Meadow.

One of the Cathedrals

El Cap.

Half Dome.

Half Dome.

I’m excited to see the finished product and all the amazing photos Rich took! What better place to share good times with good friends than Yosemite? It was one of most fun times I’ve had. I think everyone decided they need to make return trips to the Valley this Spring…YeSsSssssSss!!! Stay tuned for updates on the video and the article in Urban Climber soon!

Mark Heal climbing the Yosemite slab test-piece Initial Friction (V2).

Mark sending his four year project Phonebook (V8).

Steve and Corinne DeLuca.

Max just before sending Pride (V9), a classic Camp 4 problem that starts on a slab and ends with a huge dyno off a small crimp to the top. Mark, Jeremy and Steve sent too. I'm still working on the short person beta...

Mark on Pride.

Max on Stick It (V11), a hard campus problem in Camp 4.

Drive On.

Mark sending Drive On (V11).

This weekend we will return with the whole LT11 crew! More to come!!!

A group of concerned climbers and the Access Fund recently met at PG San Francisco to discuss the Planning Initiatives that Yosemite National Park has proposed.   Below is a summary by Jason Keith, Senior Policy Advisor at the Access Fund.  The Climbing Community has until November 30th to respond - please read the details below and speak up!

~~~

Over the past few years Yosemite National Park has been ramping up various management planning initiatives that either directly affect climbing access or the various ways that climbers visit the Valley such as camping. The latest of these has been the Merced Wild and Scenic River Plan (MRP) which concerns essentially everything climbers do in the park before they actually put their climbing shoes on: transportation, parking, camping, amenities, and site specific issues such as potential changes to El Cap Meadow and Camp 4. See AF’s MRP scoping comments here.

The MRP has been the subject of extensive litigation that resulted in a court ordering the park to determine and enforce a specific carrying capacity limits for visitors in the Merced River planning area (the Valley) which in turn will govern any new developments in Yosemite. Recently the Park hosted several MRP workshops where Yosemite staff presented various planning scenarios for Yosemite Valley which could eventually turn into planning alternatives. These workshops were designed to give the public a window into the status of the Park’s thinking on the MRP thus far, avoid any surprises, provide an opportunity for public comment, and foster relationships among various Yosemite interest groups including the litigants of the MRP. This workshop was greatly facilitated by the MRP workbook (get your copy here). The Park is also developing the Tuolumne River Plan (camping, parking, amenities at stake – see AF comments here).

Climbers interested in Yosemite issues should take of look at the MRP workbook and get your comments in by November 30. The Access Fund’s positions on appropriate MRP planning alternatives are as follows:

• Yosemite planners should work to reverse lodging/camping ratio (currently 60/40) to provide more camping and less emphasis on lodging (move lodging to the park boundaries). Providing more camping in the Park, and limiting lodging in the park to rustic/primitive accommodations, is consistent with the NPS’s own management policies that promote visitors having a direct relationship to Park resources. Adjusting this ratio would also be more consistent with a national park instead of the luxury resort or amusement park that Yosemite often resembles. AF’s Valley Plan comments are found here.
• Park planners should include in the MRP the several “improvements” for Camp 4 that were contemplated in Lodge Redevelopment Plan (which was stalled by the MRP litigation). These improvements include showers, fencing to encourage vegetation, limited loud bus noise, foul weather cooking pavilion and communal fire, and a nearby location for Ken Yager’s Yosemite climbing museum. In addition to focusing on more camping in the Park, planners should also improve the quality of the camping experience, especially at locations such as Camp 4 where climbers are forced into highly dense and low-quality campsites. Planners should recognize the historic importance of this campground and improve some of the basic amenities such as the bathrooms. See AF’s previous comments on Camp 4 planning here.

• Yosemite planners should restore as much camping as possible to sites that have already been disturbed such as the Pine and Oak lodging units and the Rivers Campground that were destroyed in the 1997 flood. These areas in particular could be engineered with the recognition that they will again be flooded. Plan maps should indicate flood plain areas where shallow flood depths and low water velocities make the development of campsites feasible. Planners should establish diversity of camping opportunities (including walk-in, walk-to, and a “drop-off” your gear but walk-in model) and not just limit opportunities to drive-in campgrounds (where RV generators, for example, impact the experience) or the ghetto at Camp 4. The Park should bring campsite numbers at least back to pre-flood totals as contemplated in Yosemite’s General Management Plan (there’s currently a shortfall of 300 campsites), but any new sites should be focused on placement in the East Valley so that the largely undisturbed areas west of Camp 4 don’t also suffer from campfire smoke and new infrastructure. The Access Fund has also long advocated for the addition of campingin the Park outside of Yosemite Valley.

• The Park should ensure climbing needs are addressed in the MRP, particularly parking locations throughout Valley and the Merced Gorge segment (Cookie Cliff, Arch Rock, etc.).

• Park planners should ensure that measures to restore or harden El Cap Meadow are not unsightly from above. The MRP should consider hybrid approach for boardwalk further west of typical climber use areas, and use fencing and other ways to focus people onto a few discrete paths into Meadow. The MRP should ensure that climbers can continue their traditional use of the Meadow.
• Park planners should ensure that there is adequate day use parking while pursuing a range of transit strategies to reduce auto use in the Valley.
• Non-resource based attractions and high-impact commercial amusements such as the swimming pool, skating rink, and horseback rides to Mirror Lake should be phased out.
• The Plan should include a noise control element that addresses noise sources such as idling tour buses, motorcycles, trash collection, RV generators, the Green Dragon touring flatbeds and others.

Please let us know what you think! If you have any questions, ideas, or comments, email Jason@accessfund.org.