Being a climber in NorCal in the summer is much better than being in SoCal, and this is because we have easier access to alpine climbing in the Sierra. The long days mean lots of daylight in which to climb and it’s great to get out in the cooler, high-elevation air of the Sierra during the hot Californian summer. Climbing in Tuolumne is awesome because you can get out and climb “alpine” routes without the commitment of having to backpack in.
Happy turtles!
Among the many awesome multipitch routes in the Meadows, I think three stand out as the most classic moderate, yet easily accessible alpine climbs in Tuolumne: the Northwest Buttress of Tenaya Peak, the Southeast Buttress of Cathedral Peak, and the Matthes Crest. We’ve both already done the first two (I climbed Tenaya with my friend Lauren, Luke soloed it; we simuled Cathedral together), but hadn’t gotten around to doing the Matthes Crest yet. After not climbing for 4 weeks straight, I thought that a long, fun, moderate day would be perfect for my first weekend of climbing after my South Africa trip.
Although we had originally planned on doing the Crest on Saturday, we got into Crane Flat late on Friday night, so we decided to push the Crest til Sunday (hoping it might be less crowded then, too). This allowed us to sleep in a little on Saturday morning before driving out to the Meadows, where we climbed Zee Tree on Pywiak Dome, South Crack on Stately Pleasure Dome, and a few single pitch routes to finish out the day at Low Profile Dome. I was pretty tired by the end of all of this, since I had made the questionable (but necessary) decision to run on Thursday and Friday to whip my butt back into triathlon shape (this also after not running for ~4 weeks straight).
On top of Pywiak Dome after climbing Zee Tree.
We headed to the always excellent Whoa Nellie Deli at the Mobil Station for delicious dinner, where we met up with a bunch of other climbers. We bivied for the night and got up at 6am the next morning to head back into the Meadows to start our Matthes Crest day.
We started hiking from the Cathedral Lakes trailhead at about 7:30am and made good time along the climbers’ trail to the Matthes/Cathedral split. This had us in good spirits, since we had forgotten to print the topo for the approach (we only had the written directions), we mistakenly thought this meant we were halfway (we were not). We reached Budd Lake and, after some brief discussions about interpretation of the written directions, set off again. Luke started to head uphill towards a saddle between some peaks, but I convinced him that we should stay lower and hike around the peaks (turns out, both ways work, but my way was the one intended by the SuperTopo directions).
Luke thinks about diving into Budd Lake on the approach in to Matthes Crest.
We had begun to be worried that we weren’t in the right place when we rounded a corner and saw the Crest! Then we saw that we still had a ways to walk before the start of the route (at the south end of the Crest). We kept chugging, and eventually made it to the base of the route at 10:15am or so, having taken a little less than 3 hours to do the approach. Not bad for thinking we might be lost for a good half of the hike.
We had tentatively planned on soloing much of the route, but looking up at the crazy features of the first “5.3″ pitch, I decided that I would be much more comfortable simuling. Just being tied in to the rope and having the option to place protection makes all the difference in the world for me. I lead us up the first vertical section, then stopped to retrieve the gear from Luke and shorten the rope. If you only have 20-30m of rope out (vs. 60-70m), you have way less rope drag and much easier communication with your partner, although you do have to be more careful about placing protection often enough that you don’t end up simul-soloing with a rope.
Lizzy about to do a cruxy 5.2 stem section.
Still having fun!
With our 7 cam rack, we had to stop fairly often to exchange gear, but we were also able to move quite fast, passing both roped parties in front of us well before the South Summit. In the interest of time, we decided not to tag the South Summit. I also made Luke lead the 5.7 pitch up to the North Summit (it looked a little intimidating for simuling). At this point, the 2 parties behind us had apparently decided they’d had enough and had both rapped off before the South Summit, so we basically had the whole ridge to ourselves.
After the North Summit, the climbing became more technical, with a number of 5.8 or 5.9 downclimbing sections and some tricky route-finding to get around vertical drops along the ridgecrest. There was also a crazy section of traversing along a wild knobby slab that was overhanging on the other side. This has just barely enough protection to simul – some pro at the beginning, a new-looking piton somewhere in the middle, and a green Camalot (I think) at the end.
North Summit of the Matthes Crest!
Crazy knobby slab section.
All the downclimbing meant we were moving slower than on the first half of the ridge, and as we neared the final 2 gendarmes on the ridge, we both had the same thought: traverse below the two small towers rather than going to the trouble to climb up and down each one. As the difficulty eased, the silliness increased, such as this incident of me forgetting to grab the red Camalot from Luke at our previous gear transfer:
When we finally made our way down to the ledge system we’d sighted, we found several sets of footprints, indicating that we weren’t the only ones to do this. We unroped and thankfully switched our climbing shoes for our approach shoes (this day involved a lot of time on our feet) and traversed our ledge system, which led us back up to the final bit of ridge crest, after the last 2 gendarmes. We decided to head for the saddle next to the Echo Peaks, which we were pretty sure would be a nice shortcut to get back over to Budd Lake. This was actually the saddle Luke had started heading for earlier in the morning, but as we went down the other side, we were glad we’d approached the other way – probably more distance, but a lot less elevation to gain on the way in, which was nice.
This is approximately how our feet felt at this point.
Back down at Budd Lake, we were psyched to be back on relatively flat, well-traveled trail again and set about marching our aching feet and sore legs back down to the car, which we reached at around 6:40pm, giving us an overall car-to-car time of just over 11 hours. While not super fast, I was still pretty proud of this, considering my legs were already tired from running at the end of the week, we were at elevation, and we probably covered ~10 miles (including the technical ridge traversing part) over the day.
Done with the technical part of the day!
After refueling with some nuun and snacks, we got in the car and started the drive back home, making it to our well-deserved burritos and chips and guac at the Chipotle in Manteca just 15 minutes before closing.
It was a long (especially with the 5-hour drive back home) but really good day. I’m really glad we finally did the Matthes Crest, and there’s something pretty cool about being in constant motion for so long (which is what happens when you simul the whole thing…). Although we had planned on soloing more of the easier first half of the ridge, I was happy about my decision to simul it. I think I would probably have been slower if I had been soloing, and the fact that we were simuling made the experience a lot more enjoyable and less stressful for me. There were definitely a couple of downclimbing sections on the 2nd half that I would have been extremely uncomfortable soloing, and I’m not sure I’ll ever want to solo the Crest. I’m also not sure I’d do the 2nd half of the ridge again, especially with a less-experienced partner, although I’m glad we got to experience it anyways.
Compare this with the next photo...
We didn't even notice we were matching this day: blue shirts, orange backpacks, tan pants...
Alright, people. If you have been waiting for the details of my trip, for answers to the really important questions like How long was the plane flight? or Were there elephants? or How many ticks did you remove from your pants? then THIS IS YOUR POST! There will also be more photos and minimal geologizing if you were bored to tears by my previous South Africa post.
My trip to South Africa was just over 3 weeks long. We left on a Wednesday morning and returned around noon on a Friday 3 weeks later. The travel to get there is looooooong. We first had a ~5 hour flight to Atlanta, followed by a 3 hour layover in Atlanta, then a ~15 hour nonstop flight to Johannesburg. In case you hadn’t been keeping track, this is 23 hours of travel from initial takeoff to final landing, which in reality ended up being >24 hours since we were delayed leaving Atlanta. Then we get our baggage, exchange some money (South African currency is the Rand, and $1~=R7.50), pick up the rental car, and set off on a 4 hour drive to our guest house in Barberton, South Africa. I left my apartment at 6am on Wednesday morning and arrived at the guest house around 11pm on Thursday night, for a grand total of 32 hours of travel door-to-door (Johannesburg is 9 hours ahead of Pacific Time).
Barberton Mountains scenery: rolling grassy hills
It didn’t take long for us to settle into a daily routine, which went something like this:
6:30am: wake up, get dressed, head to common room to call Luke on pay phone (I got about 10-15 minutes of talking per day with my phone card); 6:45am in SA = 9:45pm the night before in SF
7:00am: breakfast – granola and papaya; scrambled or fried egg; tea
7:45am: finish getting ready for the day – double check backpack, make lunch (PB&J and juice box), get in car
8:00am: set off to do geology
5:00pm: usually back at car by this time or earlier to drive back to guest house
6:00pm: back at guest house – shower, read books (I read 5 books on this trip), chillax
7:00pm: dinner (they cook for us, what a luxury!)
8:30pm: brush teeth, write Luke a letter, read more
9:30pm: bedtime. 9 hours of sleep!
Repeat for several weeks and you have my whole trip!
My room at the guest house. Home away from home.
But I suppose you may be interested in some more exciting details about my trip. In particular, I’ll share a few more things about what it was like to be in South Africa. Because I like to be organized, this will be organized into a couple categories: landscape, wildlife, and people.
Landscape
Before this trip, my main mental image of southern parts of Africa was savanna – fairly flat, grassy land with lots of wild life. This is probably influenced by the fact that this is what I saw on my only other visit to Africa, on Safari with my family. If you’re a climber, your vision of South Africa might be Rocklands. Well, as far as the Barberton Mountains are concerned, we’re both wrong. The “mountains” are a large area of big, fairly rounded hills, largely covered with long grass. There aren’t really any climbing opportunities here (really old rocks don’t really make for good climbing usually, but I promised not to talk about too much geology in this post).
Cool corkscrew-ended grass thingy.
The weird thing is that a lot of the mountain land (except for Songimvelo Nature Reserve) is owned by commercial forestry companies, which use it to grow trees. This is pretty weird for me, as someone who’s also grown up in a place where forestry is a pretty big industry (Washington), because the trees are only there because they were planted there by the foresters. The land is almost all grassland, naturally, so even though a tree-covered slope looks pretty to a Pacific Northwesterner like myself, it really doesn’t belong there. It’s also pretty strange to drive alongside the forest because if you look closely, you can actually tell that the trees are planted at regular intervals in rows. All this aside, however, the forestry companies are actually very friendly with us geologists and often their roads are what make access to a lot of our outcrops possible.
The last thing that is unusual about this area, landscape-wise, is the attitude towards fires. In the US, any fire is a big deal, and people are always rushing to put it out. Here, if some grassy hill is on fire, they just let it burn (unless it gets big and is threatening some commercial forest – it takes 20-25 years for the trees to grow to “harvestable” size). This is both a good and bad thing. Good: the grass is often quite tall and dense, so a burned slope is much easier to walk on and better to work on because often short outcrops are hard to find in tall grass. Bad: the smoke tends to get caught in valleys, so the air often had a “smoggy” appearance (like living in LA.)
Wildlife
Although we didn’t see a lot of big wildlife on the trip, we did see some. Mostly I saw baboons and vervet monkeys. The monkeys especially liked to hang out by the train tracks because trains carrying sugar cane tend to drop a fair amount of sugar cane on the ground as the go by.
Baboons. image from Wikipedia
Vervet monkeys. Image from Wikipedia.
We also saw a number of deer-like animals called Mountain Red Bucks. When we were working inside Songimvelo Nature Reserve, we saw a little family of 4 zebras. There were also a number of domesticated animals (we probably saw more of these than wild animals, if you don’t count monkeys) like cows, goats, chickens, and dogs.
Thankfully, we only encountered one snake (and it was only a garter snake). I also saw a number of lizards, including a couple gorgeous blue-tailed skinks. There were A LOT of grasshoppers in the grass, including one really gigantic kind (probably 2-3 inches long) that had red “wings” and only flew away when you were about to step on them (meaning they launch very loudly, right in your face, which is totally startling and terrifying when you’re already on edge about all the poisonous snakes that could be out there).
And finally, there were ticks. LOTS OF TICKS. We put on bug spray every day, but somehow the ticks still decided to hop onto my pants. Luckily, ticks move slow and my pants were light-colored, so I was able to remove them all. I also encountered several sizes of tick, including lots of Really Small Ticks, a good number of Just Plain Small Ticks, and at least one Fairly Large Tick-Like Bug That I Removed From My Pants Quickly Instead Of Waiting To See If It Was A Tick.
People
South Africa has a pretty complicated history. You could check out this Wikipedia article to learn a little more, but suffice it to say that it’s a country with a history of racial tension. While a lot of this tension still exists, I was lucky enough to spend my whole trip in the small town of Barberton and the surrounding mountains, where things seemed to be a lot less tense than in cities (like Johannesburg).
More scenery!
Everyone I met was friendly and helpful, and I never felt like I was in any sort of danger, although I also didn’t go out running along the road by myself (well, I didn’t run at all, but I think I would have if there had been a group).
At the same time, there was often a pretty stark divide between the “haves” and the “have-nots”. We visited the home of an Afrikaner family and, apart from the accent and the right-hand-drive cars, it was pretty similar to an American home. On the other hand, there were several local villages we would drive by where the people lived in falling-apart shacks (think tin roofs with rocks along the edges to keep them on the house), with no access to power, even though big powerlines are right next to the village.
But this is just my very brief and extremely limited outsider’s perspective. On a whole, the people were actually a very positive part of my experience on my trip. It was a little startling when I got on the plane to Atlanta with several large mission groups whose accents indicated they were from somewhere in the southern US. Although many of them were nice enough, one particular woman was extremely rude and pushy towards a flight attendant and an older South African gentleman while they were trying to put some luggage in the overhead bins (always a point of stress). I know travel gets on people’s nerves, but I think a lot of Americans could learn a lot about interacting with other human beings… Even as the southern “lady” was hurling insult after insult at him, the South African man just shrugged it off and was calm and polite with the flight attendant.
This was my grandmother's ring. I think she'd be happy that it came back to Africa with me, even though we didn't see any giraffes (her favorite).
So there you have it. Three weeks of new experiences, geology, some wildlife, lots of ticks, and even more grassy hillsides. Apart from the fact that geology is basically the best branch of science out there, it has this additional perk of needing to spend plenty of time outside on the outcrop, often in cool, exotic locations, just to do your job. It’s pretty fantastic. If you have any other burning questions about my trip, ask away in the comments!
Stay tuned for the part 3 of my South Africa posts, where I’ll talk about what gear really made my trip (when you use something for 3 weeks straight, you really find out what the good stuff really is).
I’ve decided to break my South Africa trip into three parts, to avoid having a really long, wandering blog. This first part will be a relatively non-technical (hopefully) explanation of the geology I went to South Africa to study and why it’s interesting. The next part I’ll write about the details of my trip with a bunch of photos. The last part I’ll write about what gear I relied on for my 3 solid weeks of bushwhacking, hammering, and carrying heavy loads of rocks.
Trusty geology notebook in South Africa
We traveled to the mountains above the town of Barberton, South Africa to study some of the oldest, relatively well-preserved rocks exposed on the Earth’s surface. To give you an idea of the scale of how old these rocks are, here is a brief history of Earth, with all times in units of millions of years ago (Ma):
4540Ma The Earth is formed.
3800Ma Thought to be the end of “Late Heavy Bombardment”, a period when the planet was constantly being bombarded by fairly large meteors
3400Ma Approximate age of the oldest sedimentary rocks in the Barberton Mountains, South Africa
2500Ma Approximate time when most of the Earth’s continental crust (thick crust, as opposed to thin “oceanic crust”) had formed, and when many think the world became oxygenated (previously there was practically no oxygen in the atmosphere or ocean)
635Ma Age of the oldest Ediacaran fossils, the first preserved examples of macroscopic life forms
542Ma Beginning of the Cambrian explosion, when macroscopic life forms go crazy
65.5Ma Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction, when the dinosaurs went extinct
0.000001Ma Last year (2009)
Ok, now that you’ve comprehended how incredibly long timescales we’re dealing with, I’ll move on.
I think sedimentology (the study of sedimentary rocks) is fascinating because sedimentary rocks provide a record of what the Earth’s surface was like. Clastic sediments (like sandstone) tell you about the energy of the particular environment – stronger currents can move larger grains and result in coarser sediment; “current structures” like ripples and dunes are often preserved in rock form and can tell you a lot about the environment they came from. Chemical sediments, like limestone, often preserve a signal of atmospheric and seawater chemistry from when they were formed, which in turn can be used to determine the “paleotemperature” and other interesting variables of the ancient Earth’s surface. Furthermore, if one is interesting in the geologic history of biology (e.g. fossils), their record is only preserved in sedimentary rocks.
The rocks I looked at are part of the Mendon Formation, a set of komatiites and black cherts that are about 3.3 billion years old. Komatiites are a type of volcanic rock with an unusual chemical composition, generally only found in rocks of Archean age (3.8 – 2.5 billion years ago). Chert is a type of sedimentary rock composed mostly of microcrystalline silica (it has the same chemical formula as the more familiar quartz, but is much finer grained). In younger (i.e. not Archean) rocks, chert occurs as small “nodules”. Archean cherts are unusual in that they occur in very thick sections (often >50m of just chert), which may partially reflect that the Archean ocean had much more silica than the modern ocean.
Part of what makes these cherts appear black is dark, carbon-rich material that many have suggested is associated with microbial life. One of the principle goals of my research will be to address whether all this carbon is indeed biological in origin. There are a number of chemical techniques that I can use: making sure the dark material is actually carbon and not just some iron-rich stuff; seeing if it has a “biological” isotopic signature, along with physical analysis (what environment is the material deposited in).
Still life with lichen.
It is becoming more accepted that life probably did exist by 3.3 billion years ago (although there still isn’t a whole lot of incontrovertible “proof”), but a subject of major debate concerns what kinds of microbes existed. The early ocean was probably a fairly extreme environment by modern standards – hot (~40 degrees C); enriched in silica and a variety of other elements; and notably lacking in oxygen. Hence the biological community might have looked pretty different from what we know today.
I think a lot of these questions are extremely interesting because in many ways they are very key to understanding the early evolution of life as well as the evolution of the environment of Earth’s surface (some people think that oxygen produced by cyanobacteria is associated with the oxygenation of the Earth at ~2.5 billion years ago).
Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, because there’s still so much opportunity to do meaningful and important science), these questions are particularly challenging to study, simply because the rocks that preserve evidence of what was going on 3.3 billion years ago are just SO old. Even though these rocks are remarkably unmetamorphosed for their age (heated to less than 300 degrees C), much of the original evidence has still been destroyed. Chemical signals in the rock have been altered, the original carbon-rich material has been degraded, and original textures (like “microfossils”, the fossils of original microbes) are not always particularly well-preserved either. Therefore, one has to be very patient and innovative to glean all the relevant preserved information from the rocks and interpolate everything that has been destroyed.
A lot of this kind of work takes place of a very small scale – looking at “thin sections” (thin slices of a rock glued to a glass slide) in a microscope to examine microscopic textures and choose candidates for chemical analysis. Mostly what I do in the field is “measure section” and collect samples, which means I make a record of the macroscopic variation of layers in the chert (there is some variation), along with how thick the whole unit is in that particular location, which will help me make large-scale interpretations, like depositional environment (e.g. deep vs. shallow water, high vs. low energy, proximity to nearest volcano, etc.). So this is what I did for my 3 weeks in Africa.
The hardest part is not, in fact, carrying a backpack full of rocks back to the car. No, it is getting your samples off the outcrop. If you took an intro geology class, you might remember the concept of hardness of minerals (you scratched things against one another to see which one is harder). As it turns out, pure silica (like quartz or chert) is quite hard, so it takes a lot of effort to break it. If you were a boy or girl scout (or you watch Survivor), you might also know that one primitive way of making fire is with flint and steel. Flint is actually another layman’s term for chert. And a geologist’s mini-sledge hammer is often made out of steel. Therefore, hitting the rocks actually makes some sparks. And smells like burning. And can literally burn you if you touch the rock too soon after hitting it (oops). So it’s pretty hard work. Next summer I’m hoping I can bring a field slave (i.e. undergrad) to do the hammering for me…
Ok, now that I’ve bored you enough with geology, stay tuned for the next post, which will have more photos as well as some description of the actually trip (minus the geology).
Cairns are useful for geologists, too. This one was so I could find my starting point again - all the outcrops in the long grass start looking the same after a while.
I’ve been in this situation before; I’m nervous and don’t really want to go through with it. The nagging of potential failure is pulling me down. I don’t know why I care so much. They say it is more important to try and fail then to never have tried at all (see Alfred Lord Tennyson). Off we go: another trip, another big plan, a real test of all my physical therapy and my mental fitness.
Snow crunches under my feet as I suck in the ever thinning air. The Sierra season is NOW and I’ve decided to go after it feet first. Fourth of July weekend often signals my first alpine climbing trip of the summer. I feel confident as I hike up the familiar trails to the Incredible Hulk. There are few places in the world that have captured my imagination as much as this piece of amazing alpine granite.
Time to escape the trailer park, aka campground, at the Mono Village
What is a wilderness? What makes something WILD? On the hike up Little Slide Canyon, the remote nature of the Hoover Wilderness is quite evident. I wonder how many people have been up here and how many of the crazy spires that line the canyon have been climbed. As the Hulk shows itself in the distance I get excited. It’s worth the crazy winds, the hours of hiking, the harassment of mosquitoes and the biting cold. We make no fire, store our food in a bear canister and try to make peace with this place. As I look up from our campsite, the angled face lures me in. I want to touch it, know it, be familiar with all of its routes and features.
We can see the Hulk. Wahoo!
Morning breaks, the day starts to heat up and we must go climbing. Remembering the mantra of the Sierra, I climb slowly, keeping my breathing in check. The anticipation of the crux instills fear into my movement. I make sure to climb relaxed, head calm, trying to shake the nerves. I reach a stance, like an island, well above my last gear. The crack has pinched out; my fingers will not fit in the corner. Out come the thin nuts, and I pepper the crack with them: my only solace from the thirty foot fall that awaits me. I crimp on a credit card edge, feet on golden granite dots. I pinch my way up the arete, marveling at the outrageous sequence.
Jamie ponders life, adventure and ass kicking elevation.
At a small stance I fumble in a nut. Shaking I make the clip. Pods appear back in the corner and I start laybacking. My fingers slide deep into the crack. I start to relax and clip a 1/4 bolt; I hope it is strong enough to catch me. Somehow I’ve transitioned from fear to excitement in a mere five feet. The opening of the crack grows and so does my confidence. I find a good stance below a roof and then jugs, glorious jugs! I’m grinning, convinced I’ve pulled the crux and shake out, getting the blood back into my arms.
I see some chalk, another crux it seems, leading up and right to easier terrain. I try to lock off and can’t reach the next hold. I don’t see the small sidepull that Jamie uses later while following. I put in a 00 C3 to help with my confidence and then I jump. My fingers wrap around the next hold, but it looked better in my head. Feet swinging in the air I frantically match, using opposing pressure to stay on. Stable, I put my foot a previous hand hold and in a swift motion have gained the easy terrain.
Luke enjoys live climber "TV" on the Hulk.
I let out a shout! My heart is beating fast, too fast for this altitude, but the climbing to the belay relaxes me and it is ok. On the ledge I marvel at the last 100 feet of rock. What a unique challenge, what a nice ledge, what a wonderful day on the Hulk.
It’s now mid-afternoon and we are only barely half way up Tradewinds. The first pitch, at super sustained 11a, was a tough warm-up and saw me almost give up. Now I’ve completed the second 5.11 pitch. It is Jamie turn on the sharp end as he embarks on the route finding crux. By using a different belay than suggested in the topo we have the advantage of sight for the next tricky pitch. A pinched out corner leads to a wild traverse and perhaps a 5.11 move to get established on the face. I lead this pitch in a T-Shirt, soaking in the afternoon sun. The typical winds that I have encountered on previous trips to the Hulk are somehow absent.
Looking over at the namesake pitch of Red Dihedral
Looking up at the first of the 5.11+ pitches I am anxious again. I didn’t plan on leading this pitch. The thin corner seems to extend forever. I force myself to believe it is doable. We brought four thin finger sized pieces for this pitch but one, a green alien, refused to cooperate and came apart earlier in the climb. (The trigger mesh came loose and you couldn’t retract the cam lobes). I start breathing heavy as I try to cram my fingers into the thin crack. I think of Lizzy and wish she was here leading this pitch. Climbing stupidly I jam straight in and quickly pump out, my fingers sliding out of a lock as my weight comes to rest on the cam below me.
With some stemming, french free, and numerous points of aid I make it up the pitch. The climbing has eased, with the crack offering a few full sized finger locks, but all of a sudden pinched out at a roof. The next sequence seems impossible and Jamie and I have no clue what to do. A sideways dyno to loose flake? Did I miss a series of face holds? How are you supposed to climb this blank section?
Luke finishes up a tricky 5.11 pitch.
My meltdown and aiding of pitch seven doesn’t give us much hope of climbing the harder 5.11+ pitch eight. Jamie points out the waning light and I figure out the fastest way to bail. We had planned on rapping The Venturi Effect with our two 70m ropes. Lizzy and I had done this the prior year with a single 70m rope so I knew the location of all the stations. I end up lowering Jamie 60+ meters off a bolt before tying the ropes together and rapping to him. With our two lines it only takes three more raps and we’re back on the ground in no time.
Back to Terra Firma at sunset and eating dinner by 9pm or so: a full day of climbing despite the late start and our final shenanigans. The difficulty of the day puts a question mark in my mind for Sunday. Can I lead more 5.11 pitches? Will the weather stay clear and warm? I seem to be plagued by these thoughts, my psych is draining. Back in the tent the fly flaps in the wind. Finally my eyes close and I am at peace, doubt and indecision left behind for the moment.
Jamie is all smiles with the warm weather!
The morning comes and we are up late (8am), in no rush to enter the crisp mountain air. As we shake off the soreness of the previous day I am committed to trying. Even if we fail, even if we don’t make it to the top we must try. I must put in a good effort; I must not give up even before taking the first step. As we rack up another party walks over. I had seen them the night before and had secretly hoped they were climbing Sunspot so we wouldn’t have to. I didn’t want the pressure, I wanted to relax.
Conversation shows that we do in fact share the same objective. Even more astounding is that Jamie and Ryan, of the other party, were friends from college, at Lehigh. We chat and they wander off. I have no problem letting them get on the route first since Jamie and I are still tired. Time passes by as we watch them approach the climb and start up the first pitch. Looking at the watch I get antsy and insist we leave. The leader has just finished linking the first two pitches when we arrive at the base. It’s now past 10 am but Jamie is courteous and waits for Ryan to finish following before starting up.
Climbers on the first pitches of Positive Vibes/Sunspot Dihedral
I’ve climbed these two pitches before as a leader with Konstantin, and a follower with Lizzy. I want Jamie to get some mileage today and insist he leads. Being on the sharp end, dealing with route finding and doubt is important. It is good to know how one fairs at altitude and how to find and follow your psyche. It seems much warmer than the day before as we sit on the nice ledge, often referred to as the terrace, after climbing the 70m first pitch. The team is 50 feet above, having climbed a mini pitch, and are now working on the 3rd pitch, a supposedly pumpy traverse to a thin corner with minimal protection, “spooky” says the topo . The ensuing lead takes over two hours and we are not interested in getting caught on the wall in the dark. Jamie is not so psyche on the protection-less corner on Sunspot and opts to lead the first crux pitch of Positive Vibrations.
Jamie styles this pitch, dispatching the face climbing crux with ease, despite the pro being well below his feet. The next pitch, while technically easier is much more strenuous. After an exciting moment with a broken hold, Jamie grunts his up the steep cracks for another onsight! With a single #2 and #3 we can’t really go any further. Back on the terrace we decided it would be better to climb these two pitches and rap instead of waiting around to climb Sunspot. Going down would allow us to take advantage of the soft snow and hike out a day early. Two raps and a very speedy 2 hours put us back at the car.
In the Tuolumne Meadows the climbing is less intimidating. We managed to rally the next morning and get to the base of Fairview Dome by 8am. As I expected there is a slowish party on the 2nd pitch of Lucky Streaks. We follow them up the climb, with Jamie leading the somewhat awkward and techy crux pitch. I found all the pitches after the crux to be much more fun than the first few and I am happy that we swap leads all the way to the top. After a celebratory dip in Tenaya Lake I must return home leaving Jamie to recover and enjoy the rest of the week climbing in the Meadows.
Looking back I had overestimated my fitness and the 5.11 pitches on Tradewinds were the hardest I had tried in many months. I am psyched with my two 5.11 onsights and it was good to be able to really push my body. My mind still believes I am stronger so I’ll be putting in some more time in the gym to return to my past fitness. My right shoulder was pain free all trip which is a huge step in the right direction! As always I can’t wait to spend some more time up on the Incredible Hulk.
If you have any questions or comments about the Hulk I’d love to hear it. I’m still trying to find topos for Blow Hard, Solar Flare, Sun Burn (aka Solar Burn), Eye of the Storm and Escape from Poland. Let me know if you have any information!
Some photos and the trip from Jamie’s perspective can be found here.
All the information that I have found on about the Incredible Hulk is here.
Luke and Lizzy are finally done laybacking up the Grand Wall
Lizzy covered most of the details of our recent trip to Squamish in an earlier post. I wanted to add some photos since Lizzy was awesome and took a lot of good shots!
During our trip to Squamish I was still a bit tired from my trip up Half Dome, the weekend before, but was psyched to climb my first four 5.11′s since dislocating my right shoulder. The Grand Wall was a ton of fun and it was really nice to have no parties above us for the whole day, a vast contrast to my last multi-pitch adventure. It was also nice to have waited so I could onsight all the pitches, minus a hang to clean a nut on Apron Strings. The Sword had one hard move, and the finish was not as pumpy as I expected. My foot slipped (due to skipping a foothold) but I managed to catch my self, jarring my left shoulder in the process. Perry’s layback was brutally sustained and I almost pumped out near the top. I had to grunt my way up and it seemed much harder than the Sword. As I noted on the Mountain Project page there is no need for aiders or ascenders and it is easy to link the traverse from Merci Me to the short bolt ladder and the Sword to the long bolt ladder.
Jackie works out beta on Super Fly
I also really enjoyed relaxing and hanging out and going bouldering on this trip. I had only bouldered once at Planet Granite since March and it was cool to try hard on the excellent Squamish granite. Jackie, Maddy and Arther were quite psyched and it was awesome to follow them around and not have to choose where we were climbing. I can see why Squamish is considered a world class bouldering destination and on our next trip I might set aside some time to hang out in the forest and do some pebble wrestling.
Luke focus hard on this super thin problem.
Arthur crimps hard on some micro holds.
With much encouragement Luke eeks out a flash of Easy in an Easy Chair
Maddy enjoys a killer heel hook on Easy in an Easy Chair
Maddy fights for friction on some classic Squamish slopers
Luke gets a full helping of Monkey's Lunch
Jackie works the heel hook on Monkey's Lunch
Lizzy remembered that we had stopped by the Animal Magnetism area once before so I could play on Jack’s Baby. This is a classic Squamish sloper traverse which goes right to the finish of Monkey Lunch (seen above). It was cool to send a problem that I had tried many years ago but had no recollection of!
Maddy sends an excellent V0 near Titanic
Jackie warms up up on our last day bouldering
Arthur works on the big reach on Titanic
Luke has the jug of Titanic in his sight.
It was really great to be able to squeeze in some problems on our last day despite a morning of rain. The temperature in the forest below the Grand Wall was often nice and cool in contrast to sunny hotness elsewhere. Finishing the trip on a mellow note hanging out with friends was a big plus. Lizzy and I had climbed the Grand Wall, which was our only big objective, and had a successful trip. Sometimes it is important not to stress out too much about doing something big and crazy every day. I often forget that it can be just as fun to have a relaxing climbing trip as a one full of sending and exhaustion.
Also be sure to check out some more photos from Arthur:
For me just about everything starts with a plan. I like figuring out logistics and taking all the steps to prepare for a big climb. Maybe it helps calm me down, which is really useful when thinking about climbing something as large as Half Dome. My goal was to free climb the Regular Northwest Face, with Roberto and I splitting the hard pitches. Training was going well until the end of March when I dislocated my shoulder. Hopes of onsighting 5.11 or 5.12 were gone. Roberto, however, was still keen to climb Half Dome at the beginning of the summer. He had been on a tear climbing in Red Rocks and Zion and we agreed that he would lead all the hard pitches and I would do the rest.
Hiking up the "Death Slabs"
Things did not go quite according to our plan, but we managed to get to the summit despite some obstacles in the way. Check out Roberto’s blog for a bit more details on the action. It was an interesting challenge since the climbing was never too hard, except for the Zig-Zags, but you had to climb very fast and make sure to keep enough energy for 2000+ feet of climbing. The following are some of my thoughts on the climb.
Roberto going up one of many fixed lines on the "Death Slabs" approach
I was on the sharp end. The rack was heavy and my waterbottle was full. It was crux of the first pitch and I had stopped moving. A quick tug on a fixed pin and I was past the crux, motoring along again. Much of the climb would go this way, using any and all advantages to move quickly against the ticking of the clock.
Five pitches later was one of the most memorable sections of the climb, not because of the striking line, or the amazing movement, but the gripping fear. We were off route, way lost, and a long traverse was necessary to get us back on track. I was going up a large flake that was filled with microwave sized loose blocks. I couldn’t commit to climbing past them and I would go up and down the first section trying to find a safer path. All at once a rock came loose, something I barely brushed with my pant leg. Roberto and I screamed ROCK as the granite bread loaf tumbled towards the base. I was terrified for the six people below us. The rock bounced far off to the side and whistled to the base, harming no one.
Three pitches of chossy climbing had really slowed us down and lost much of the progress we had made so far. When we had arrived the night before, there were many other parties at the base and on the route, making us last in line. Early in the day, a head injury, which resulted from a long fall without a helmet, had caused one party to bail. We had climbed neck and neck with Mike and Jay until they let us pass (around pitch seven).
Roberto gets ready to belay from the snow cave at the start of the route.
I had just reached the ledge after the Robbins Traverse (pitch 11) and I was shocked and depressed to see Mike belaying Jay up the first of the chimney pitches. How could they be so low, why was it so late in the day? I hit my low point on this ledge; Roberto had his doubts on the last belay. I was pretty sure at this point we would be climbing in the dark – the question was for how long.
One hundred and thirty feet higher, my mood had totally flipped around. We were back on route, the chimney had been totally mellow and I was enjoying the climbing. There was still a slow party above us stuck in the chimneys preventing M&J and us from climbing further. I kept up the psyched convinced it was going to be ok even though we weren’t moving.
Luke gets back into the groove on the chimneys
Linking the two main chimneys I started wiggling outwards for the easiest passage. My last piece of pro, an old fixed pin was well below me. The foot-and-back-sized fissure was the essence of old school climbing. As I got higher and plugged my micro C3’s it was hard to imagine doing this with practically no gear 50 years earlier. Robbins is such a badass.
The climbing had finally started speeding up. I was linking the last chimney into a 4th class pitch and saw Jay passing the aid party that had been moving slowly in the chimneys. A quick chat with Mike and I got into passing mode. Style was secondary as I chugged along pulling on fixed pins and cams to insure the pass. I made it right up next to Jay and we shared a belay and had a good chat as we brought up our partners.
A mess of people one pitch below Big Sandy Ledge
Darkness came gradually as I sat on Big Sandy Ledge. Roberto’s progress on the Zig-Zags could be seen by the steadily shrinking circle of light of thrown by his headlamp. We moved slowly on the remaining six pitches to the summit. The exposure of two thousand feet of air below our feet was swallowed by the night. With the moonlight we could see basic outlines, but were restricted to the bubble of light from our headlamps.
I walked and then crawled across Thank God Ledge. The last chimney took me a second before I could squirm my way up to the next ledge. I was happy that it was not as bad as the hype. A pitch later I was leading to the top, traversing, manteling, shooting for the summit. On a ledge, alone in the darkness, I struggled to understand the topo. Putting it back in my pocket, I fumbled and it slipped out of my hand. Floating away into the abyss, 2000 feet back to the base – I didn’t need it anymore.
Roberto racks up for the Zig Zags
Three in the morning – we are both at the summit, tired, happy and shocked to have been climbing for the last 20+ hours. We count the times we waited at the belay not moving, shudder at our escapades in the loose rock, and try to understand where the day has gone.
At the base of the cables I couldn’t remember the topography of the sub dome. Wandering around in the dark looking for the trail we wondered if we would have to stop moving and wait for dawn, which was only an hour or two away. After many circles we found some stairs, marking the trail, and followed them to the “lighting warning” sign. Here we turned left for our last route finding adventure.
3am at the summit!
Following the occasional cairn, we worked back towards the base stopping to rope up and cross a snow field. Not wanting to take a fatal slip on the hard snow at 4am, I “led” across the snow using a rock to scrape out steps while using my nut tool as an ice ax.
As we neared camp, the day was starting and we were shocked how long we had been on the move. The descent put us back at camp just before 5am, taking two hours from the summit. Our total time moving was 22 hours, just making it in under a “day”. A few hours of sleep, a very refreshing dip in the Merced River and Roberto and I were headed back to the Bay.
Sunset on Half Dome
After the climb I am excited to go back and figure out how to spend less time on the route. I think Roberto suffered too much with four liters of water and two pairs of shoes in the pack. Next time I think it would be better to have the leader have two liters of water in a small pack so that the follower can climb faster. Knowing the terrain will allow me to climb in bigger blocks without wondering about where to go. I’m still apprehensive about finding the correct free traverse around the Robbins bolt ladder, but hopefully some emails will solve that problem. It was quite the adventure and the longest day I’ve ever had.
First of all, if you don’t recognize the “Squamish is…” reference, then watch this classic Timmy O’Neill video. Or if it’s been too long since you last watched it, watch it again:
Although I spent my whole life before college in the Pacific Northwest, including my formative climbing years when I found my love of trad climbing, I didn’t visit Squamish for the first time until I’d moved to California. I don’t know why. We were willing to drive several hours more to climb chossier rock at Smith Rock, rather than the beautiful, sticky granite of Squamish. Sigh. However, I’ve been doing relatively well making up for lost time. I’ve visited Squamish ever summer since moving to California (I think) and this summer was no exception.
The trip was initially born as an idea for Luke’s Bucknell friends to have a climbing trip together, but life and distance meant that only Jackie and Arthur were able to come. We missed the rest of you! Keep it on your “Places I need to go to climb” list. Seriously. I think it is one of the most beautiful and awesome places I’ve ever climbed, and I’ve climbed in a lot of beautiful and awesome places.
Squamish is very green.
[Day 1]
Maddy and I got up early to catch a ferry and pick up Luke from the airport, before heading north to Canada. After a couple of brief stops, we made it to the border and breezed through the Pacific Highway crossing (I always prefer this one to Peace Arch). Before we knew it we were in Squamish – the widened Sea-to-Sky highway makes the drive go much faster.
We set up camp before heading out to do some cragging at the base of the Grand Wall. We hiked up to the base of Arrowroot and Rutabaga, which we’d heard a lot about. Since we were planning on getting on the Grand Wall the next day, we thought it would be good to get on some 5.10 and 5.11 to re-familiarize ourselves with Squamish granite.
Luke had just finished leading Arrowroot when we heard a scream from the woman who had been leading the 2nd (final) pitch of Rutabaga, the next route over. This was followed by a horrible thud as she fell onto a sloping ledge below the crux at the top of the route. Time seemed to slow down as her belay partner called her name and there was no response. Finally, she started responding (I couldn’t tell you if she was out for 20 seconds or a minute, but it seemed on the longer end of that range) and apologized to her partner for falling and offered to finish the pitch. We all (including her partner) thought that was a bad idea and told her so – we were able to convince her to stay put.
A guide had run over from the base of Exasperator and we let him use our rope to climb up to and past the anchor of Arrowroot to try to rap down to her from above and help her down to the ground. By now we learned that she was bleeding from the ear (if you don’t have wilderness first aid training, this is a potential sign of a head injury). She had also not been wearing a helmet (she told us all a couple times that she was so embarrassed because she had sold her helmet) and had clearly been passed out for at least some time. She flipped upside down when she fell and may have taken much of the impact of the fall on her head.
While the guide was on his way up, she started getting dizzy and nauseous and decided she really just wanted to get down sooner rather than later. Without telling her partner, she built an anchor where she was hanging, untied, pulled the rope, and tied back in. Then she asked her partner to take so she could lower her back to the belay. We were all very worried when she did this because you can’t really trust a potential head injury patient to have actually tied themselves in correctly. We had little control over the situation, however, and luckily her partner safely lowered her to the belay and then to the ground.
Squamish SAR showed up within minutes of the climber reaching the ground and, with the help of her partner, a nurse, stabilized the climber and set up for a helicopter lift (we were never sure why they didn’t just opt to carry her out – the trail is not that rugged, but that’s a whole other post). I haven’t been able to find updates on what happened on the internet (this was on Wednesday, June 23, 2010), but if anyone has read about this, we’d love if you’d share the information. We sincerely hope that the climber is ok. Falls happen and I hope that the major lesson that everyone can take away from this accident is to PLEASE WEAR YOUR HELMET!
This whole incident took a couple hours to play out and we were considerably less excited to get on Rutabaga after this had happened. After retrieving our gear from Arrowroot, we headed over to Seasoned in the Sun, which I had also heard was fun, to get in one more 5.10 pitch for the day. The route was really good, although maybe not quite so epic-ly classic as Exasperator. It was started to rain lightly when I got down from leading the route, so I packed up and headed back to the parking lot while Luke and Maddy climbed the route so I could get a head start on dinner.
When we welcomed Jackie and Arthur to the parking lot a little later that evening, the trip had already deviated from our expectations, but we still wanted to make the best of it. Given the light rain, Luke and I decided to tentatively plan for a late start on the Grand Wall (we were pretty tired and weren’t sure we were psyched for another super early morning) the next day if the weather held.
My rain jacket got some use on this trip...
[Day 2]
On Thursday, we woke up to rain, so it was good we hadn’t planned on an early start for the Grand Wall (we would’ve gotten rained on). We showed Jackie and Arthur some of the boulders in the forest below the Grand Wall, then decided to go check out the Upper Malamute while Maddy, Jackie, and Arthur went to find some dry boulders. This didn’t turn out to be as easy as we thought, and many of the routes we actually managed to find were featureless slab climbs, which weren’t too exciting given the still-moist air. We headed back to the car to meet up with the bouldering crew for lunch.
The weather was starting to look better, so we decided to head to the Smoke Bluffs, which also tend to dry out pretty quickly. I headed to Flying Circus, but Jasmin Caton was being filmed at the base, so we continued up to Penny Lane instead. Luke lead Popeye and the Raven to warm up, then hopped on Yorkshire Gripper, which I’d managed to onsight last summer (Wooo!). He found the low “crux” hard and misread the sequence(I guess I just managed to do it right first try), but sent on his second try, finding the top a little less scary than I did. We then headed over to Partners in Crime, which was the remaining classic Penny Lane 5.11 crack that we both needed to do.
I was pretty nervous because the route had felt pretty hard when I’d tried to onsight it in 2008, although it had also been very hot and humid. This resulted in me thinking the route would be much harder than it was, and I sent it pretty easily on my first try (2nd time on the route). This maybe shouldn’t have been so surprising, since I’d already done Crime of the Century and Yorkshire Gripper, which are both graded harder. Luke also sent the route first try and we’d officially completed the 5.11s of Penny Lane! I’m not really sure which is my favorite… Crime of the Century is definitely awesome, but I will not be sad if I never do the starting boulder problem ever again; Yorkshire Gripper was good, but the top was scary; Partners wasn’t as hard as I expected, but the crack is definitely a bit awkward. Clearly you just gotta do them all to enjoy the good parts of each one!
We had time and energy for one more pitch, so I recommended the also fun Climb and Punishment, which we both did (Luke lead, I followed, since I’d already sent it last summer). We’d done a good number of decently hard pitches, which was good preparation for the Grand Wall, which we were hoping to do the next day.
[Day 3]
The alarm went off on Friday morning and I was nervous, but ready to go. We ate, racked up, and hiked to the base of the Grand Wall, psyched to find it still deserted. I tried to calm my nerves, mostly unsuccessfully since the perspective from the base of the slabs below the Grand Wall makes it look overhanging (I think it’s only nearly vertical).
Looking up at the Grand Wall from the base of Apron Strings. It looks STEEP!
I started up the first pitch layback of Apron Strings, focusing on moving quickly and not placing too much gear (I knew the crux was near the top, when the pump has accumulated). The top was definitely challenging with my first-route-of-the-day pump, but I made it through, belaying Luke up and then sending the second pitch of Apron Strings to the base of Merci Me. It was then Luke’s turn to take over the sharp end, so he headed up the long runout to the first bolt on Merci Me, linking through to the belay before a traversing section that would get us onto the Grand Wall proper. There was one wet streak on the pitch that had to be stepped across and while following this move, I accidentally wiped my leg through the wet streak, getting mud, moss, and 3 worms on my pants. Gross!
We were psyched to see that the party that had followed us up Apron Strings was rapping back to the ground (we thought they would be following us up the Grand Wall, but I guess they were just getting an early start to their day). Another party was just starting Cruel Shoes (which looks hard!) and a third one was traversing the flake escape ledges to the base of Merci Me. But we were already well ahead of the other parties and had all the belays and pitches to ourselves, which was great.
Luke lead the traversing pitch and short bolt ladder to the base of the Split Pillar, the first of the classic Grand Wall crack pitches. After the first couple of tricky moves before he could get in hand jams, he cruised up the beautiful corner, handling the widening crack and short squeeze chimney with ease. We had brought a haul line for the pack, which was awesome because at this point it still had our approach shoes, 2.5 Liters of water, food, and some extra QDs for the second bolt ladder. I was definitely happy to follow the pitch without the pack. I pretty much got hand jams from the start, but once the crack widened to big #3 Camalots, I switched to laybacking. Laybacking would be a trend throughout this day.
Luke at the belay ledge at the top of the Split Pillar.
The Sword, the next pitch, was supposed to be mine, but I was not feeling very brave, especially after the accident the previous day, so I asked Luke to lead it instead and he did. I ended up doing the crux a little easier than he did (I found a foothold so I could stem), but I found the transition out to the short section on the face to the left of the corner system to be quite reachy and tricky. The upper section of the crack is pumpy, but pretty straightforward – just laybacking (yes, more laybacking) a grey Alien sized crack to chains, which you grab. Luke linked the Sword with the bolt ladder above, bringing us to the base of Perry’s Layback, the second 5.11 pitch. Both bolt ladders were very easy to do with quickdraws and a few slings, so definitely no need to haul aiders and jugs all the way up there.
Lizzy in the squeeze chimney on the upper part of the Split Pillar.
Perry’s Layback is a relatively short pitch involving very strenuous laybacking out a curving crack (too wide for gear, so the entire pitch is bolted). Luke used some grrr-power for the send, while I took once – my forearms were pretty tired from all the laybacking (and all in right-facing corner systems, too). There is a crazy “rest” at the top where, with your feet on a ledge, you can lean back onto a fin of rock that sticks out behind you. It probably wouldn’t work for anyone much shorter than me, though. While it looked like an actual rest for Luke, it was not very restful for me since I had to engage my legs and core (my shoulders only just reached up to the fin behind me).
The next pitch was also supposed to be mine, but I gave it to Luke again and I’m glad I did. It involved some traversing and face climbing, culminating in an extremely reachy move from a ledge. I really just could not reach the handhold you were supposed to use to pull the move, but luckily, there was a bolt right here, so I used the nylon jug and foothold… it’s not like there hadn’t already been lots of aiding on bolts that day, so…
We both looked up at the last pitch, the Sail Flake, and groaned… more laybacking??? This pitch involves climbing a tree off the belay ledge (typical Squamish tactics), then laybacking and underclinging out and around the Sail Flake. Luckily, this pitch actually felt like 5.10 – there were footholds and the flake is very positive. This found us at Bellygood Ledge, from which point one can either continue up via the Roman Chimneys, or traverse off. We were both too tired for the Roman Chimneys, so we stayed roped up and started simuling across Bellygood Ledge. There were actually bolts relatively often, including a fixed hand line, except for the very last part (which was the most exposed part), although this protects decently well with some slung trees and roots. We made it to the woods, changed into our approach shoes, and hiked down the well-marked trail (markers on trees, along with sections of fixed line) to the main Chief hikers’ trail.
We made it to Bellygood Ledge! Nine pitches, no crowds, no epics!
Maddy, Jackie, and Arthur were still at the cars having lunch when we got down (the route took us about 7 hours from the base to the end of Bellygood Ledge). Luke joined them for a bit of bouldering, while I retreated to the tent to read and nap. We treated ourselves to dinner at the Howe Sound Inn & Brewery that night, which was pretty excellent.
[Day 4]
I was still tired by Saturday morning, so we had a luxurious morning of sleeping in. Luke was still psyched to climb, so we decided to do Snake. A moderate multipitch would not challenge us too much, while still allowing us to stretch our sore muscles and get it some classic pitches.
The route definitely “snakes” its way up and around the Apron, linking features in surprising ways. I could definitely tell, however, that the Snake corner system is a major drainage down the Apron. Much of the rock had a black, shiny coating that was luckily much stickier than it looked. The cruxes were often face climbing next to the corner, rather than actually climbing any cracks. Overall, I didn’t feel it was as classic as Diedre, but I do love real crack climbing, so that may just be personal preference. It’s still a very worthy objective on the Apron and a logical next step in difficulty after Banana Peel (5.7) and Diedre (5.8).
Luke on a crimpy slab problem.
As usual, the boulderers were still at the car finishing lunch when we returned, and we joined them for some chilling. We all headed into the forest for the afternoon, although I decided just to take pictures. Even though they hadn’t all been full days of climbing, 4 days on is still a lot for me and I didn’t want to push my tired body and stressed mind too far.
Maddy on a crimpy slab problem.
Jackie on Easy in an Easy Chair
[Day 5]
Sunday was our last day and we woke up to more light rain. We decided to pack up our tents before they got too wet and head into town to find breakfast and showers. After a lot of driving around and a trip to the ATM to get more Canadian money, we were able to all shower. (The pool at Brennan Park Recreation Centre has showers but limited hours, the Gym suggested in the guide book, called Club Flex, no longer offers showers, we ended up at the Squamish Inn on the Water which has showers for $5 Canadian, cash only) We then headed to Chef Big D’s Deli for some excellent breakfast (I highly recommend the breakfast wrap – I’ve had it twice now and it is AWESOME). We also did a little browsing at Valhalla Pure, the local climbing shop.
We still had a little time to spare before we needed to get on the road to take Luke back to the airport, so we headed back into the forest to do some bouldering. And by “we”, I mean, Luke, Maddy, Jackie, and Arthur were bouldering and I was taking pictures. They played around on some fun problems, then we returned to the car, said our goodbyes, and headed south for a pretty uneventful drive back to Seattle. We did take a little detour east at the border to the Lynden crossing when we saw that the Pacific Hwy and Peace Arch wait times were both 90+ minutes. This is a good thing to know how to do, especially if you don’t really have the time to spare to wait around in line.
Hehe, just had to throw this one in!
[Epilogue]
As usual, this trip was not quite what I expected it to be. I don’t think I’ve ever been that close to a serious climbing accident before and it affected my psyche and my mental space pretty strongly. However, the trip was still great (I always love Squamish) and we accomplished some excellent goals. The Grand Wall was awesome, although it’s hard for the experience to live up to the expectations of waiting for years (literally) to be “ready” to climb it. I still need to work on this – not letting my expectations have so much control of my experience.
I had an amazing year for climbing last year – I sent my first two 5.12s (both trad!) and a bunch of 5.11s, so this year has been feeling a little lackluster so far in comparison. But I’m trying to be more realistic with myself… I still onsight 5.10 trad (even if I’m intimidated to do so, it’s not like I’ve fallen much this year… or at all(?)), which is not something I used to do. I’ve still sent two 5.11 trad projects that I would probably have been super proud of if I hadn’t had such an incredible sending year in 2009 (Crack-a-no-go at Smith Rock and Partners in Crime in Squamish). We climbed the Grand Wall, which is something we’ve wanted to do for a long time and reaching the point where it was actually pretty straightforward is still a major accomplishment.
Oh, and keep that accident in your mind. There are many variables contributing to climbing accidents, but wearing a helmet is one variable that is 100% in your control. There are so many options out there and I really think there’s never a good reason not to wear a helmet (unless you’re climbing a squeeze chimney that’s so narrow you can’t climb it without a helmet, but I doubt anyone is in that situation particularly often).
“Dude, turn around!” yells Chris from the belay. Looking back, a thick wall of mist obscures the other side of the valley. A flurry of snow blows past and I keep going, anxious to get to the next belay. Tucked under a tree, I stare out a the sheets of rain coming down.
Where is Half Dome?
It’s not too wet right now but the air is moist. A sane person wouldn’t have planned to go to Yosemite this weekend but I was psyched to lead some routes and introduce Chris to multipitching. As we top out on Munginella, he mentions it felt a bit stiff for 5.6. We both look out at the weather and laugh. I responded that climbing should feel harder when you are racing a storm to get to the end of a pitch.
The walk off was a little exciting with wet ledges made even more slippery by falling rain, but we made it down. In the morning we had climbed After Seven in a cold wind made worse by a poor decision to forgo jackets. The first pitch was so warm that I threw down my fleece leaving me only a t-shirt. When we arrived back at the base, we were greeted with a flurry of snow. On Munginella we expected the rain, brought jackets, and were prepared to suffer. Of course it was worth it!
Chris, with the rain jacket, happily atop Munginella
This has been the theme of Yosemite weekends this spring. A month or so earlier, in April, Keith and I had been climbing shirtless on two beautiful days. It was my first time climbing outside since dislocating my shoulder at the end March and we had a killer weekend. Keith lead his first Yosemite 10′s and I was psyched to be climbing at all.
Keith tunes his crack technique on Outer Limits
A few weekends later I met up with Stein for some recon for Freerider, which I’ll be writing in the next few weeks. After rappelling the Captain one day I met up with Keith for some cragging at the Cookie on Sunday. Sadly, a rain storm drove us home. However, in between the morning showers we were able to climb the classic Outer Limits. Seeing all the classic lines soggy with rain motivates me to come back to the Cookie in the future!
Outer limits features steep WIDE hands forever...
Similar to last year, I started out 2010 injury free and really psyched to get stronger and keep pushing my limits. After getting hurt I turned to running and really decided to focus on getting fit and pushing myself. I’ve been going to physical therapy for about 10 weeks and my shoulder is doing really well. I can’t climb too much on steep routes but my fitness works well for climbing in Yosemite.
While climbing is still a driving force I’ve been a lot more laid back and have really enjoyed some of the moderate classics in Yosemite. So far the first pitch of After Seven really stands out. I climbed it three times one day so that Chris could practice placing gear on top rope and I could critique his placements. It’s a much more fun start than After Six. Commitment was pretty enjoyable with a tricky short crux and I really like the upper pitch(s) of Munginella. We did it in two 60 meter pitches and the first one was quite forgettable. Jamcrack, however, is good from the ground to the anchor and even better when linked into a single mondo pitch. The two top ropes (or tricky leads), Lazy Bum and Bummer, below Jamcrack are also excellent with delicate laybacking, delicate face moves and sweet finger locks.
Having fun in crappy weather on Munginella
I also really enjoyed Hardly Pinnacle which can be accessed via Little John Left. This climb has splitter thin hands and fingers up to a tricky section of laybacking capped off with some face climbing. Lots of value in the ~90 foot pitch and oh so fun to be climbing on El Capitan. Moby Dick is another El Cap base classic and would be even better if you enjoy jamming in the #3 and #4 Camalot range (I had to use hand stacks).
With all the bad weather I’ve yet to get on any longer routes but I have some big plans for the end of this month. Next weekend Roberto is flying up from San Diego to climb Half Dome. I’m looking forward to the role reversal on this trip since he will be rope gunning all of the cruxes on Half Dome. This should allow me to lead the majority of the route but never have to lead anything over 5.10. I think this will get me in perfect shape for the following week where Lizzy and I are going up to Squamish to climb the Grand Wall.
With Tioga Pass opening this past weekend, I’m getting excited for the Sierra season and can’t wait for the 4th of July to get back on the Incredible Hulk!
When planning our Spring Break climbing trip to Trout Creek and Smith Rock in Oregon, we didn’t anticipate becoming Team Gimp + Lizzy. We also didn’t plan on repeatedly epic-ing on the ~48 hours surrounding our planned departure and initial climbing day in Oregon. But what climbing trip really goes exactly as it’s planned? So sit back, relax, and enjoy the many (mis)adventures of Team Gimp + Lizzy in Oregon.
Act 1 – The Extended Epic
The epic, as many epics are, was largely unexpected. Maybe we should have guessed what we were going to be in for when Sarah Kate hurt her knee back in February and embarked on a long, frustrating journey of PT and not being allowed to run. But we were optimistic about our trip, especially based on how well our Thanksgiving Indian Creek road trip had gone.
Sarah Kate's nose
Perhaps we should have known, when we got a call from Sarah Kate the night before our planned departure that she was in the hospital with a broken nose after a climbing accident at the gym. But we were still extremely optimistic as we drove to the hospital to provide moral support. We were still pretty optimistic even at 5am when Luke and I finally dropped off Sarah Kate and her car back and home before grabbing several much-needed hours of sleep. I thought we were doing pretty well when we did actually manage to leave Palo Alto at all, in the early afternoon, only a couple hours after we’d been planning on leaving.
But then there was traffic. There is always traffic. Instead of the google-promised 10 hours, the drive took us 12 hours, meaning we were pulling in to the Trout Creek campground at around 2:30am for another very late night/early morning.
The view looking towards the Main Wall at Trout Creek.
Nevertheless, after sleeping in til after 10 on Saturday morning, our spirits were pretty high and we were psyched to get on some cracks. We slogged up the long hill to the crag with John, Emily, and DJ, dropping our packs at the northern end of the Main Wall. DJ and I both roped up to lead a couple 5.10-/5.10 warm-up cracks, where I quickly discovered that the rock was not quite the Lower Gorge at Smith Rock basalt I was expecting (or hoping for) and more like the Grotto at Table Mountain (although much taller and more vertical), meaning the cracks were quite sharp. Luke lead another 5.10, which we toproped, before moving on to more difficult territory.
He decided to try California Weakender, a 5.11- with a tricky thin crack leading into a beautiful fingers-to-hands crack. With two pieces placed, he was trying to figure out a sequence to get through the thin crack section, when, while kind of un-manteling, he dislocated his shoulder, almost exactly 4 years after he’d done it the first time. We began to realize, that this was no ordinary epic. No, it was an Extended Epic.
Act 2 – Where We Become Team Gimp + Lizzy
We tried to make the most of the rest of the day – DJ lead Guillotine (5.10) and Sarah Kate toproped Gateway (5.11) thanks to some local dudes at the crag. Luke made himself a sling with some webbing and took some photos. He did a great job trying to keep having a good attitude despite this major setback to his climbing plans for the next week (and month…). We stashed the bags at the crag and headed down to the campground for some dinner.
Lizzy onsights Mr. Squiggles (5.10)
Sarah Kate sends JR Token (5.10)
Sunday began with more clouds and some wind, but we were lucky enough to mostly escape getting precipitated on at the crag during the day. We arrived at the Main Wall in the morning and I had to decide on which warm-up to do, which is not something I always do. I settled on Mr. Squiggles (5.10), which was fun, though sharp, after some initial tricky moves. Sarah Kate and I both lead JR Token (5.10), an awesome hand crack, then toproped Suzuki (5.10+) and The Space Between (5.10+), two stem-boxes very typical of Trout Creek. At this point, I was getting pretty tired and John and DJ were both done climbing, too, but Sarah Kate still wanted to get in another pitch. Luckily, her friend Jonathan had just lead Fun Soup (5.10), so she was able to take a cool-down lap on that.
DJ sends The Space Between (5.10+)
I was pretty ready for a rest day, because the routes at Trout Creek are decently long, and quite sustained, like an interesting combination of Indian Creek and the Grotto. But the gear is much more tricky than at Indian Creek because the cracks aren’t perfectly parallel. I was really missing Luke’s nearly limitless energy and ability to lead lots of routes a day, because after two days of climbing 4 or 5 routes a day, I was tired.
On our rest day, we moved our camp to the Smith Rock bivy, then headed into Bend for some soaking and beers/lunch at McMenamin’s, then a bit of shopping while Sarah Kate went to a check-up appointment for her nose. Then we headed back to the windy bivy to finish our chilling and cook some dinner.
Lizzy on 9 Gallon Buckets (5.9)
Lizzy on Karate Crack (5.10a)
Tuesday was our first day at Smith and we headed to the front side crags to hit the greatest hits of Smith Rock. With Joel and I leading routes, we climbed Gumby (5.10b), 9 Gallon Buckets to the first anchor (5.9), and Zebra Direct (5.11a) at the Morning Glory Wall. I thought Karate Crack (5.10a) might be a fun thing for SK to get on, so we headed over to the Dihedrals and I put up Karate Crack, while Joel went around the corner to set up Wedding Day (5.10b). Unfortunately, SK tweaked her knee on Wedding Day, so she didn’t get to do Karate Crack. I did, however, get to clean it, which I think is probably more tricky than leading it.
Lizzy onsights Irreverence (5.10a)
I’d mentioned to Joel that I’d be psyched to get to TR Heinous Cling to the first anchor (5.12a), so he ropegun-ed it up there. I really enjoyed TRing it – the moves weren’t that hard and I think the crux (other than the mental crux of the runout) would be overcoming the pump. We kept moving over left along the cliffside and I decided to put up Irreverence (5.10a) while Joel led Ring of Fire (5.11d). My tips were killing me on the sharp crimps of Ring of Fire (it didn’t help that it felt harder than Heinous Cling), and I definitely felt done for the day when I got down. It was great to have Joel around because with the two of us leading, we were actually able to climb a lot of routes.
Since no one was motivated for any particular sport climbs, I decided we should spend Wednesday in the Lower Gorge so I could place the widgets. It’s a weird position to be in when no one really has anywhere they want to go, even though they (probably) still want to climb.
Lizzy onsights Blood Clot (5.10b)
Anyways, the West Columns were great that morning because pretty much none of the Spring Break-ers have enough trad skills to climb down there, so it was a good escape from the mobs. We started at the Wildfire Wall, where I put up Badfinger (5.10b). Then I headed over to the Catwalk Cliff to get on Blood Clot (5.10b), which I found to be more fun than the neighboring Cruel Sister (5.10a), which has more wide crack at the top.
We decided to toprope Crack-a-no-go (5.11b PG13) from the Blood Clot anchor, since I knew I was maybe interested in trying to lead it this trip (I’d TRed it clean on my first try on my last trip to Smith, but the gear is all small and a little tricky, so I was too intimidated last time). I was able to toprope it while placing gear twice with no falls, so I felt ready to lead it, but not that day (I was pretty tired).
Joel on Pet Cemetery (5.11b)
I wanted to make sure that everyone got a few more pitches in, so I decided to lead Quasar (5.10a), which was deceptively tricky and challenging (maybe it would be easier if you had dude fingers). Finally, Joel took over the sharp end and put up Pet Cemetery (5.11b), which SK and I both toproped.
At this point, I was pretty exhausted and was pretty sure I couldn’t lead another route, and Joel wasn’t particularly interested in leading any of the other sport routes, so we decided to call it a day. I was definitely missing Luke’s energy and ropegunning abilities, and the pressure of having to lead most of the routes in the day was definitely wearing on me. Perhaps it was imagined pressure, but the combination of that and a little bit of pride and stubbornness that kept me from asking for more help.
However, both Luke and SK were keeping good attitudes despite their personal setbacks and Team Gimp + Lizzy was still pushing forward.
Act 3 – Snow, Sending, and Lessons Learned
Rest day 2 was another excellent break, with coffee/tea, beers, yummy food, and some shopping (I got a sweet pair of race running shoes for my triathlon, as well as some accessories for my tri bike). Time away from the Lower Gorge had me feeling psyched about going for it on Crack-a-no-go, although I seemed to be the only one with psych for a specific project or area, which made it kind of tricky to try to plan where to climb.
Snow on Friday morning
Friday morning awoke us with a snowstorm, where at least an inch of snow accumulated on and around our tents before we decided to drive into Redmond to wait out the storm in a coffee shop, where we enjoyed good coffee/tea and played several rounds of Scrabble and said goodbye to Joel, who was headed over to Eugene. We returned to Smith to find the snow completely gone and had a pow-wow about what to do next. Although the Morning Glory area seemed to be our best option for warm climbing, I was not particularly psyched to go there and re-climb routes that I’ve already climbed several times (they’re fun, but they’re not that fun), and no one else was particularly psyched to climb (well, Luke was psyched for us to climb, but that doesn’t really help). Instead, we hiked up to the Monkey via Misery Ridge, so SK could see it up close.
We returned to the campground with several remaining hours of daylight and nothing to do, so I decided to rally to the East Columns of the Lower Gorge, which are sunny in the afternoon. John was too tired to climb, but Sarah Kate was down for getting in some pitches. It was actually quite pleasant (surprisingly enough) at the East Columns because the rock had been baking in the sun all afternoon and being in the gorge sheltered us from the wind. SK and I managed to climb 4 pitches each on the Shakespeare Cliff, including Othello (5.9 – we didn’t like this one all that much), Azog (5.9 – this was way more fun than Othello), and the first part (~5.10a/b) of Much Ado About Nothing.
Lizzy onsights Othello (5.9)
Sarah Kate onsights Much Ado About Nothing to the first anchor (5.10a/b)
Saturday was our last day, and we had planned to not quite climb for a full day, since we wanted to drive part of the way back so SK could be home, showered, and unpacked in time for her parents to arrive for a visit on Sunday afternoon. There was only one thing on my agenda – Crack-a-no-go – and I wanted to get on it sooner, rather than later, so I headed over to the Lower Gorge with SK and Luke. I re-lead Blood Clot as my warm-up, since I had enjoyed it so much the first time. Sarah Kate’s knee started bothering her, so she only got a partial pitch in on Blood Clot. I wanted a little more warm-up, so I TRed it again and cleaned the directionals so we could pull the rope.
My stomach was a huge nervous knot as I racked up with the cams I had practiced placing on TR and mentally repeated the sequences. I think my nerves were especially bad what with this being my first “hard” climb of the season… not that unusual – I hadn’t lead any 5.11s before our Spring Break trip last year, either. However, the fact that I’d climbed the route three times already (on TR) with no falls gave me a little bit of confidence and the initial moves felt familiar.
Lizzy redpoints Crack-a-no-go (5.11b PG13)
In no time, I was at the first jug and the PG13 runout was over. I was able to focus on the route in short sections of moves, getting to a new section and recognizing “Oh, look, now I’m at this part, and I do this…” I placed the 000 C3 from slightly lower than I had on toprope, but then it actually protected the redpoint crux, a difficult foot-bump into a stem. I pulled off this crux successfully, then did some battle with the wide crack at the top (I used a #3 and a #4 Camalot – not my favorite pieces of gear…). So there it was – I sent my first 5.11 of 2010, and a route I hadn’t quite had the guts to try to lead on my last trip, so I think it was a pretty good accomplishment for this trip.
[For those interested, the rack I used was 1 each 000, 00 C3s (grey, purple), 3 x 0 C3s (green), 2 x 1 C3s (red), 1 offset nut, 1 red camalot, 2 yellow camalots, 1 blue camalot, and 1 grey (#4) camalot.]
Can you spot the climber? Lizzy high on Crack-a-no-go.
We hiked out of the Gorge and down to Cinnamon Slab, where SK spent a couple hours teaching Emily some key climbing skills, a good chill relaxing way to end our trip. So by early afternoon, we hiked back, packed up the car, showered, and headed out of the parking lot, apparently missing the climbergirl on our way out. With an overnight at a Motel 6 in Redding, we made it home with plenty of time for SK to prepare for her parents, and were welcomed back to Palo Alto by a beautiful (warm, non-snowy, non-windy) California day.
So, what did I learn? I learned that I need to prepare for a trip more by deciding on my own objectives that I’m excited about beforehand, so I don’t depend on other people to motivate the group to climb in a particular place. I need to somehow learn to feel less responsible for other people’s climbing experiences so I don’t continue to stress myself out so much. Because when I’m having fun, then that will help my trip-mates have fun, more so than me stressing out and exhausting myself by trying to put up “enough” routes. Luckily, I already have a good checklist created for Squamish in June
Friday morning I rolled out of bed and wandered over to the window. Streaks of rain glided down the glass like tears. Somehow it seems every weekend in 2010 has been filled with rain. I can remember some pretty days of bouldering back in January and February surrounded by weeks of fog, wind, and weather. The weather has had a mind of it’s own and would intentionally ruin our plans with five gorgeous weekdays followed by a rainy Saturday and Sunday. Luckily things were starting to change in the first weeks of March. Spring can not come too soon!
Spring break was quickly approaching and a bit of trad was in order. The closest bit of solid crack climbing can be found at the Grotto which is a crag at Table Mountain near Jamestown, CA. Lizzy had been there in the fall and despite having the climbed majority of the cracks, agreed to return since it was our best (and hopefully dry) option. A wet Friday caused us to push out our departure until Sunday.
Sonia enjoys the fun double cracks.
I’m always excited to check out new areas and hiking up the steep hill covered in dense green foliage was surreal. It seemed like we were making our way though a jungle a scene very far removed from the desert based experience of southern California. I was used to the open spaces of Bishop and the sandy ground of Joshua Tree. Mud and greenery had been forcing their way into my vocabulary for the last three months and I was happy to let them in. Along with the pleasantries of green fields and abundant trees comes the occasional danger of poison oak, which I saw on our hike in to the Grotto.
Luke starts up Rawhide
The Grotto looks like the meaning of the word, a pit, dark and quite mossy, but also covered in a brilliant layer of yellow-orange lichen. The scramble down was not too bad and we were on the heels of another party, some of whom we recognized from Planet Granite.
The first warmup went slowly and a few more parties showed up and the small area was quickly packed. I’m not known for my patience and decided to rack up for Rawhide, one of the most stellar looking straight in cracks at the Grotto. Lizzy had led the warmup and I hadn’t really placed gear since December. The climbing was superb with little flares for your feet in the crack which tightened quickly from .75 camalots to .5′s and then gray and yellow aliens.
Luke savors the last few moves of the crux on Rawhide
The size, which had proved a bit tricky for Lizzy, fit my fingers well as I cranked on the locks all the way to the top. I was psyched to avoid a flash pump and sent first try, a great start for the day. The crew, Lizzy, Sonia and I, alternated leading and top roping as we we worked our way left. I led Snake Bite, which felt a bit harder than Rawhide due to pump, Lizzy re-led Three Fingered Jack and Sonia onsighted a very fun 5.9 hand crack even further left.
Luke struggles with some thin cams on Snake Bite
Lizzy and I both checked out Digit’s Delight, an 11c thin fingers crack, which has 30 feet of sustained sharp finger locks capped by a bit of bolted sport climbing. I did not feel ready and Lizzy agreed that we would have to return to try it another time. I climbed a variation finish to Snake Bite on TR which was fun and earlier in the day had toproped Men’s Crisis Center. I had been psyched to try and lead MCC, but while climbing it I felt that the line was a bit too contrived. You could reach left or right at many points to an adjoining crack to make it less difficult.
In no time the day seemed to have reached afternoon and we had really tired ourselves out, so we decided to call it a day early. Leaving in the daylight and getting to the car by 5 would put us home in time to have a relaxing evening.
Sonia sends Granted which was our last climb of the day.
It was great to get a better grasp on placing gear since spring break was quickly approaching. The Grotto is fun but sadly only offers about a day of crack climbing. I think it would be a good place to take people for teaching crack technique since the climbs are short and pretty splitter.
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