Kenny and Brian arrived last night, so we decided to introduce them to some easy Yosemite routes today. Remi and I climb ‘After Six’ (5.8) as Brian and Kenny do ‘Nutcracker’. 'After Six' is a beautiful route and the others enjoy 'Nutcracker' even though they find some parts of the route tough. We all meet up on top for lunch, and the weather is not too hot thank goodness!
In the afternoon Remi and I set up his portal edge up the top of ‘Church Bowl Tree’ while Brian and Kenny aid it. The ledge is easy enough to set up on the ground, but its a different story up on the wall! Two climbers and the whole ledge hanging from 2 bolts means that the whole jumble is drawn to the centre of gravilty below the bolts, so its very difficult to move around enough to set up the ledge. Better finding out that now than up on El Cap!
Tuesday 27 September 2011
Dave and Steve arrive in the morning, so after a late start we all go out to Glacier Point Apron to do some free climbing. I lead the 2 pitches of ‘The Cow Left’ 5.9 that Remi and I tried to do last time out here. The first pitch is nothing to write home about, but the second pitch is outstanding! The climbing is slabby with interesting undercling flake moves following a curving weakness up and left to a chossy platform. The moves are very tenuous and delicate, and the gear is infrequent enough to keep it spicy! The boys enjoy the routes Remi and I did earlier in the trip. We team up in 2 groups of three to do these routes together in the late evening. Both teams finish in the dark, which is good practice for the future big walls!
Wednesday 28 September 2011
Practice setting up Remi’s portaledge at the Le Conte boulder, and practice hauling because we want to be prepared for El Cap. The other lads practice on the Kor Roof bolt ladder (Kenny proves to be a natural on the reachy bolts!), and on a pin scarred 45 degree crack. Dave is new enough to trad not to be scared of C2 climbing, but watching and spotting his bulk hanging on bad gear makes me a little nervous. Luckily he never gets very far off the ground on the little boulder to potentially fall from a dangerous height.
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| We spent all afternoon up here! |
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| Me hanging from a bat hook; 1/4 inch diameter hole drilled 1/4 inches deep to accommodate a tiny hook |
North America Wall 1st pitch C2 aid. Long pitch with very small gear. Remi lead first and I jumarred, then we swapped over. Remi had to lower down to clean gear when he was about half way, because he ran out of small gear. Remi took an hour and 45 minutes and I took almost as long, which really put us in a downer about being able to climb Half Dome or El Cap in good time. Plus we are realizing that this aid climbing thing is no fun at all!
Saturday 1 October 2011
EPIC!! East Buttress of Middle Cathedral with all of us practicing in our Half Dome teams and processes. The plan is to climb in 3s, with one person leading, one following on jumar and cleaning, and the third jummaring. This way the 3rd can jumar while the leader sets off again, saving time and enabling the leader to lead in blocks of pitches. Swapping the roles around means that the leader can do all his leading in one block then ‘rest’ for the remainder of the time.
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| Doctor Steve needs a prescription of lead climbing to cure his jumar blues |
We got up super-early, but got a little lost on the approach. This meant that we lost our place in line and had to wait for another team to get far enough ahead before we could start. The second team of our 6 started 2 hours after arriving at the base, so we knew we were going to be in for a long day!
The system worked well, with some minor glitches that will be easily sorted out before we attempt Half Dome, but we were still too slow for the daylight we had available. We all topped out in the fading evening light, but then realized that the day was far from over. There was hundreds of feet of steep scrambling to the ledge system that was to lead us off the wall, then finding the descent gully in the dark was another difficult problem. We got down around 12.30, so weren’t back to the camp before 1am. Remi wouldn’t go to bed without a proper meal, so luckily we had a good dinner before we hit the sack. Thanks Remi!
Sunday 2 October 2011
Rest day (obviously!). Last night really tired us all out, so we’re putting off attempting Half Dome for a few days. The plan was to hike in today, but I think now we’ll go on Wednesday.
Monday 3 October 2011
‘Pulling Teeth’ 5.8 at 5 Open Books crag with Steve. Wide crack in a right facing corner, with some chimney on the second pitch and lots of gearless lay-backing higher up. Finish with a chossy loose exit through a roof that I was too afraid to place gear in, and pulling on flakes that were thin and barely attached. Scary stuff!
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| Steve following to awkward chimney section |
Tuesday 4 October 2011
‘Super Slide’ 5.9 with Dave and Brian. Cool easy route with some great crack climbing that Brian managed to face climb around at about 4 grades harder. We got a rope stuck on abseil, so I had to re-climb the best pitch in order to free it.
Wednesday 5 October 2011
Today we had planned to hike with all the gear up to Half Dome, but we awoke to cold temperatures, rain and a forcast of bad weather. The view of Half Dome showed us that it snowed the night before, and the top was a blanket of white. Doh! No Half Dome for at least a few days. Too bad for Steve and Dave, because they leave pretty soon.
Thursday 6 October 2011
Walk in the rain and snow up to Glacier Point with Steve and Dave. Beautiful scenery, even though it puts an end to our Half Dome aspirations.
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| Steve telling Dave how seracs are formed, and why Dave shouldn't stand on them |
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| Half Dome is somewhere in there! |
Friday 7 October 2011
Attempt South Face of Washington Column with Steve - his consolation prize after not being able to do Half Dome. We did the first 3 pitches up to Dinner Ledge in the afternoon, then settled in on the plush bivvy ledge for a good night’s sleep before trying the rest of the route tomorrow. Unfortunately there was another party already there who had fixed their rope a pitch above, so we’ll lose time wating for them to get ahead. They are planning on trying a variation, so we shouldn’t have to wait too long.
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| Steve setting up camp on Dinner Ledge, with Half Doe teasing us from the distance |
Saturday 8 October 2011
The other team had a really late lazy start, so we didn’t get climbing until about 9am. One of the guys had enough so he bailed and asked us if we wouldn’t mind taking his friend with us on our route. I lead a couple of time-consuming tricky aid pitches, and by the time we got to the top of pitch 7 we decided that; a) Steve and I didn’t really enjoy this aid climbing business, and b) we were running out of time to get down before dark. So we bailed off 3 pitches from the top, and made it back to camp after dark but in time for Steve to get ready to leave in the morning. Dave had already left to enjoy other facets of Californian life before he had to return to Perth.
Remi and Brian had spent their weekend fixing the first 7 pitches of the Nose, mostly at night because they had to line up to get on the route. Every climber and his haul bag had been waiting for the weather to clear in order to have a go at the route, so with the forecast looking sweet there were many teams getting on the Nose.
Sunday 9 October 2011
Kenny and I packed up his haul bag and portal edge and made for the Nose in the afternoon. We hiked in with our and the other’s haul bags and ledges, and ascended the first pitch ready to haul. Remi and Brian had set 5 lines for us to jug up and haul on, and they would meet us out there after they recovered from their long night fixing. I had no trouble leg hauling their bag, sans food, ledge and gear, but the bag Kenny and I packed was way too heavy for me to haul just by standing my weight onto the system. I had to ‘space haul’ the load, which entails putting my whole weight on the haul line and walking down the wall in order to lift the bag. I had to push hard with my legs above my head on the wall to budge it, then jumar back up to do it all over again. Slow hard work! Kenny joined me to help out, so I put his weight on the line and together we got the bag up.
We left Remi and Brian’s bag and ledge at the first belay point, ready for them to come up behind us, and Kenny and I set off up the next pitch. We went in this fashion for 4 pitches until it started to get dark and we had to stop and set up camp. We hung our bag and ledge off the 3 bolts of the anchor, one pitch below the other team’s high point, while Brian and Remi set up a pitch below. It was a pleasant night on the wall, about 200 metres off the deck, although the ledge was set at an uncomfortable angle for most of the night before I had enough, got up and reefed in a couple of support lines to straighten the camber. Peeing into a coke bottle so as not to rain down on the other team in the night was the highlight.
Monday 10 October 2011
First poo in the vertical world! Kenny went first in the early morning, with other climbers all around rising to get started for the day. The smell was pretty bad and there was no-where for me to escape to, but I got my own back when it was my turn. Apparently mine smelled worse, but I think under the circumstances it’s a moot point.
Kenny and I had to wait for Brian to join us at the top of the fixed ropes, because we didn’t have a rope to climb with above that point. I lead up a 5.8 hand crack, mostly free until I got too tired and scared to continue, then resorting to lowing down to get more gear and aiding to the top of the pitch. Then another team came up before Kenny, meaning that we had 2 teams trying to share the same pitch. Very confusing, and the guy was even slower than me leading the pitch. Meanwhile a 3rd team came into the pitch from the side, and we ended up having 3 team leaders sharing one bolt and a cluster of natural gear. Not far above and to the side was a 3 bolt rap anchor, so I decided to go for that and let both other teams pass us up the climbing line.
By the time I was set up there, had hauled our bag and ledge (with piss bottle dangling below), and got Kenny up to me, the storm clouds were rolling in and the temperature was dropping as fast as the rain. When Remi made it up to us we decided to bail, so Brian remained a pitch below at the next set of rappel anchors.
It took ages to rap down with 4 teams all bailing, meaning Brian had to spend 5 hours in one spot getting soaked and making mini-films about the worsening weather. By the time we hit base it was dark and cold and wet, and we still had the 20-odd litres of water to empty out, haul bags to pack, ropes to coil, and loads to ferry to the cars. It was a long and arduous trip, but we did it all in one set of loads. Remi had 6 wet ropes and Kenny had both ledges, while Brian and I took the heavy haul bags. My head torch was dying so I tried to follow the leading lights of Remi and Brian, while Kenny followed and tried to provide a little more light. I stumbled once under the top-heavy load, comically tripping over rocks as I fell to the left through the dark talus and trees. I miraculously ended up skidding to a halt on my side amongst the rocks without injury, and Kenny’s laughter eased the journey back to the cars.
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| Kenny happy before the storm |
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| Kenny not so happy any more! |
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| The view above obscured by the inclement weather |
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| Rapping into invisibility |
We checked into a Curry Village tent cabin for the night, had hot showers and pizza, and slept late. Tomorrow we have to dry everything out!
Tuesday 11 October 2011
Spent the whole day in El cap Meadow drying out all our gear. There were still teams on the Nose for us to watch, so obviously not everyone was scared off by the weather! We, however, are happy to be off the wall and leaving the Valley for other less demanding pastimes.
Wednesday 12 October 2011
Boulder with Brian and Remi at Camp 4 Boulders. Why I thought it would be a good idea to boulder with the type of injury I have is beyond me, but boulder I did. Perhaps it was the fact that I had not done any climbing that I really enjoyed this whole trip in the Valley; I mean climbing that involved purity of movement and disassociation from mental presence and reliance on gear. I manged to make the injury worse of course, but we also repeated some classic easy problems and had a great time before we all had to go our seperate ways.
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