Traveller's Buttress

Since I am catching up on Trip Reports here's the missing one form two weeks ago: Traveller's Buttress at Lover's Leap.

Friday night Ben and I couldn't decide what to do on Sunday. Either go to Stinson Beach for some bouldering, or go to Lover's Leap and climb some multi-pitch trad. Saturday night we decided on Lover's. So I pulled up in front of Ben's place at 6AM Sunday morning to start a pleasant drive up to Tahoe. There was hardly any traffic at all. We got there shortly after 9AM. The plan was to climb Surrealistic Pillar followed by Traveller's Buttress. Of course the only other party at the Leap had chosen Surrealistic Pillar too... Only they had gotten there 2 minutes before us. Instead of waiting for them we started on the Groove, where Ben lead the first pitch and I the second one.
From the top we went over to the base of Traveller's... The first pitch starts out with a little 'bouldery' problem, but is not too bad in the middle section. There's a part close to the top though, which features a deep, flaring crack...One can get decent handjams in, but they are way in the back of the crack. Following that section I tried to climb around the flare on the face and took a fall. Using the crack is definitely the way to go!

The second pitch is the tough part (at least physically). It features a 20 foot section of nasty off-width. I tried to lead that part, but had no chance to get actually into the crack, so I lowered off after placing some pieces of pro. Ben tried his luck and was more successful. He placed some pro pretty high, thrutched his way up a little further then moved out of the crack and used the finger crack, which is parallel to the OW on the left hand side. For me even following was HARD!

After reaching the anchors I set out to lead the third pitch. The start was pretty nice, although the strong wind was pretty nerve wrecking. That was even worse as soon as I reached the arrete, which I had to cross. If you look up 'exposure' in the dictionary you'll find a photo of that section. In combination with the wind I completly freaked and froze...Again I lowered off :-( By this time I was pretty unhappy with my leading skills, which are apparently non-exsitent...
Anyway, Ben finished pitch 3 as well, before I lead the final (easy) pitch to the summit. Both of us were at the top at 4:15PM. It took us another hour to get back to the car. Even the drive back was not bad compared to other weekend trips...I guess the gas prices show some effect on weekend trips.
I was back in Mountain View at 9PM.

Traveller's Buttress is definitely a Classic! It's a beautiful climb, with lot's of variety. Despite the painful off-width section both of us enjoyed the route. (We'd only find out about the bruises on our right shoulders a day later ;-))