A good training's weekend

Ugh! I am way behind on my postings... What a new, exciting job does!

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I went to Tuolumne Meadows (again!) with Linda. After our successful and quick trip up Cathedral Peak, we figured we'd give the West Ridge of Mount Conness a shot. We left from my place in kind of a rush on Friday night, only to get stuck in traffic on HW680. This was not the last delay of the weekend though: As we stopped at the Taqueria El Algave in Oakdale a couple of hours later, I look down at my feet and see flip-flops... I had forgotten my approach shoes! There goes the plan of an early start the next morning, since a 4-6 hour approach in sandals didn't seem very appealing.
Fortunately the climbing store/ gas station in Tuolumne Meadows had a good deal on 5.10 Tennies, so I wasn't set back too much... We moved the weekend's goal to Sunday, and decided to keep it easy on Saturday. (It was too late to start up Conness after the store opened).
The first objective was Golfer's Route, according to SuperTopo, a great introduction to TM runout climbing. I can only agree to this since it took me a few tries to lead the thing all the way to the top. But ever since I like to come back and enjoy the knobby climbing. This morning however, we found a long line of people at the base of the climb, some obviously intending to set up a TR. Black Widow, a few feet to the right was deserted though, so we hopped on that. Good thing, since I had never done this climb before... By the time we were done, the line at Golfer's had gotten even longer, so we left Low Profile Dome, and headed over to Daff Dome, where I wanted to give Wicked Witch of the West a try. It is a somewhat run-out 5.9, and a felt a bit squeezy at some points, but made it to the anchors alright. After Linda cleaned the anchors and rapped off we did the climb right of WWotW, which seemed a bit easier, and better protected. I don't know the name, though, it's neither in SuperTopo, nor in the Reid guide.
The rest of the day was spent at the beach and having a beer in the meadows before heading to the Mobil Station for dinner. Before hitting the bivy spot we made quick trip the the South Tufas of Mono Lake, where we saw a fantastic sunset. Too bad that the lightning we saw on the horizon caused wildfired in Inyo National Forest...
On Sunday the alarm went off at 4:30AM, in order to give us a good, early start on Conness. Just as I woke up I realized that I felt pretty shitty, but decided to give it a go anyway. By 6AM we were at the parking lot of Sawmill Campground and started hiking in. We were warned that it's a long, steep and confusing approach. All the warnings were correct, as we discovered about three hours later: We had missed a turn off from the trail and ended up in the wrong bowl... After hauling our gear over talus fields, scree slopes and swampy meadows for three hours... At this point we made the best of it, had lunch with a beautiful view and called the day a good workout.
We got back to the car exactly seven hours after we had left.
The West Ridge will have to wait for a bit, but I'll be back!