A perfect day at the Pinnacles

Getting out off bed was pretty hard on Saturday, which lead to a rather late start for our day trip to the Pinnacles. Due to further delays (bank, breakfast, gas), Wendy and I didn't leave before 9am. It was no problem though...There was no traffic, the weather was nice, and we had a nice chat about a variety of subjects. In Hollister I looked over while passing another car and recognized Sam. I was aware of a SAC group heading to the Pinns as well, but communications were a little tricky on Friday.
We arrived in the Bear Gulch parking lot around 10:45, a little after Sam. A 10 minute hike took us to Discovery Wall, which seemed to resemble a climbing gym that morning. There was not only a rather large gathering of SAC peeps, but also plenty of guys and girls I recognized from PG.
Pretty much every route was busy...
Seeing the zoo, we decided to go and see what it was like at the Monolith. It was great! The morning shade had obviously kept most climbers away, so that we could hop on Monolith Regular (5.8) right away. I lead the 1st pitch to the anchors, w/ Wendy being tied in half way...The plan was for us to finish the route and for Sam to follow it in "one piece", being tied in at the end of the rope... Sounds good, except for the fact, that the second pitch is longer than the first, and we hadn't really checked for the middle of the rope...The result was that I ran out of rope 10 feet from the anchor...No drama though, since it was on (almost) horizontal terrain...
After belaying Sam up, we set up an anchor and top-roped the 10c direct version.
In the meantime Justin, Linnea and Co. had arrived at the East Face of the Monolith, and were setting up topropes over there. We joined up with them and TR'd P.O.D. and Subterranean Tango. P.O.D. was a hard piece of work, my forearms were pretty shot when I reached the top.
A long rest in the sun, chatting and joking, exchanging climbing quotes -The desperate lead climber: 'My nuts are too small and I don't have any friends!" or the advice on climbing a dihedral: ' Spread your legs and trust the rubber!'- made for a good time, so recovery was possible before doing ST. Wendy and I hung out a little more after Clint et al. arrived, but headed back North around 5PM. It was a an awesome day. A self-made pizza with salmon, spinach and garlic and a bottle of wine (almost) finished this great day...