48 hours: From the Warfield to Yosemite and back

Last weekend started, like many weekends, with me stuck in traffic... I was not trying to leave the Bay Area, but heading to San Francisco to see In Flames play at the Warfield. The show was well worth the drive and the traffic jam! In Flames entered the stage around 10:30 after the 36crazyfists, Gojira and All That Remains finished their sets. They played a good selections fof their songs with empasis on material from their latest album 'A Sense of Purpose'. The only downside was that they didn't play 'Only for the weak' :-/
I was back at my car at 12:30 and back at my place at 1:05... Gosh my alarm would go off at 5!

Fortunately I had packed already, so I only had to throw the bags into my car and could leave at 5:30 in the morning to pick up Clint in Palo Alto. One advantage of leaving the Bay Area in the early morning is the non-existent traffic: Palo Alto - Fern Spring in Yosemite Valley: 3 hrs 20 min.
On the way we had decided to climb the Regular Route on Higher Cathedral Spire, one of the first rock climbs in Yosemite, which had its first ascent in 1934. It was also one of the first former aid climbs which were free climbed later on. From the Cathedral Rocks pullout we hiked up the tallus field to the base of the spire in a little more than an hour. After eating a bite and zipping some water I started leading the first pitch. From there on we swung leads, until I got off route on the third pitch. I was following some chalk marks up a good looking dihedral with quite a few jugs left and right, until I hit a bulge. I remembered that the topo said something about a powerful 5.9 bulge somewhere, so I gave it a few shots, but I didn't know how to climb the section. To the right was an arette and an other dihedral, so I tried to traverese over, but the rope drag got pretty bad. After a while Clint lowered me to an intermediate belay. He climbed up to my highpoint, checked out the situation and said "That's not 5.9!"
He cleaned my gear, down climbed for a bit and found the traverse around an arette to the left to the chimney... Saved!
The 'powerful 5.9 bulge' was on the fourth pitch :-)
The last two pitched led us to a beautiful summit with amazing views of the Valley and the snow covered peaks of Tuolumne. Five rapells brought us back to the base of teh climb, from where we hiked back down the gully to the car, where we arrived around 6:15. After a quick dinner at Church Bowl we found a campsite and hit the sleeping bags.

Sunday morning we woke up to another amazing day... It was pretty cold though, and I had to scratch the ice from the windshield of my car. During breakfast at Church Bowl we were able to warm up in the sun though. The plan for the day was to climb Serenity Crack and Sons of Yesterday. We got to the base of Serenity, around 9AM, and there was no one there! Exciting!
Clint led all the pitches, except for the first one on Sons... By the time we reached the other pitches which were within my capabilities I was so spent, and my feet were hurting so badly, that I didn't feel particularly anxious to lead more. After 8 fantasic pitches we rapelled down to the base (one 70m rope is sufficient!) from where we hiked back to the car in the Awahnee parking lot. It was Sunday evening 5:45. Exactly 36 hours after we started our trip in Palo Alto :-)
The ride back was easy and eventless...

I am glad that I was able to do these routes before the winter! Thanks Clint!