As a preparation for our climbs on Washington Couloumn and Half Dome Ben and I had planned to do some aid climbing on Machete Ridge on the west side of the Pinnacles. There is one thing though, which makes climbing at the Pinns tricky in spring: Nesting closures. Machete Ridge was closed due to raptor nesting. The actual climbing options were pretty small, especially since we wanted to avoid Discovery Wall and The Monolith. We decided to check out Marmot Rock. The guide book promised 'clean and solid rock', so we were looking for a nice climbing experience.
It turned out that the approach was quite hideous...an hour (I don't have a clue how long it actually took...this is 'felt' time) uphill hiking and bushwaking brought us to a spot from where we could finally see the formation. A few minutes walk took us to the base of the climbs. We had gained quite some elevation and had a nice view of Discovery Wall.
We started out with me leading Dead on the Shoulder, a 5.8. While the lower part of the climb was fun and enjoyable, the upper part turned out to be pretty loose and scary. Following Ben blew the first foothold of the day, near the bottom. After rapping off, Ben led The Heretic (5.10b). This climb is pretty run out in the upper (traversing) part. The topo shows a bolt here, but neither of us could find it. Also, the second bolt does not look very solid...
Anyway, following up this route I blew the second foothold of the day, just below the first bolt.
My next lead was another 5.8, Marmot with a Hand Grenade. The distances between the bolts seemed to be pretty large, but it felt not too run out. While I was looking for the second bolt, shifting my weight around slightly, the next foothold broke... Well, we were getting used to it by now... Ben followed up, we did an other rappell of some slightly sketchy looking webbing, and started up Furry Marmot Substitude on the backside of the formation. Now this was choss heaven...every decent hold was wiggling, plenty of scars from broken off holds, lots of moss and lichen...pretty freaky. But with finishing this climb we had completed all climbs on Marmot Rock and we don't "have to" come back :-)
Moving over to the next formation, Upper Marmot Wall, Ben lead Making Puppies (5.10a). To our surprise he didn't find an anchor on top of the formation, but he found a gully which we could climb down. We had to skirt around the back of teh rock, and climb the next Pinnacle to rappell off from there. This sounded easier than it was, since it took us through some huge bushes of poison oak. At some point I found myself holding a branch of it in my left hand. Fortunately I did not come down with any rashes!
After getting back to the base we climbed Misty Mountain Hop and On a Pale Horse, and found solid rock for the first time this day...
We goofed around on top of the rock for a bit, before rappelling, walking back to the car (the descent still felt like an hour) and driving back.
With five miles to go, I had a cramp in my left leg. I have no idea what triggered it. I am pretty sure that I had enough liquid during the day... I have to get in a better shape for the planned trips up WC, Shasta, and HD!
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