Begin the Californication Maneuver

Alright. I know these posts are in reverse chronological order so that you've probably already read about how the trip ended. Just consider it a "memento" style trip report. The only real interesting thing I'd like to note about the beginning of the trip is that I think most of us expected a mostly class IV week with a few good V's thrown in. How could we have been so naive. So even though I'm obviously writing this on the memorial day after the week I'll try to at least remember things as they were such a long long long 10 days ago...