...in Yosemite. I spent the last weekend climbing in the Valley with Sam. We drove up Saturday morning, with the intend to have a mellow, relaxing weekend. I hadn't been to the Valley in almost a year, and hadn't climbed on gear since August. In fact between August and last week I only climbed outdoors once, at the Pinnacles. On the way we decided to check out the Five Open Books area and climb Committment, if the route seemed dry enough.
The conditions seemed well enough from the base of the climb, so Sam started off on the first pitch. I led the second pitch, and of course the slabby part in the beginning was wet and slippery. It took some navigation, but I managed to piece together a patchwork of dry spots... Sam finished the route leading the third pitch.
Back at the base we noticed that no one was on Munginella, so we figured we'd run up it real quick. Real quick it was! We climbed the route in two long pitches instead of three, me taking the first.
The next day we went to Pat & Jack Pinnacle, where we climbed Makayla's Climb, and the bolted line right of it, which was in neither of our guidebooks. Both of us led both routes. Neither of us had climbed Golden Needles before, so we decided to give it a shot. The first pitch follows a corner with perfect hand cracks, which I led to a huge belay ledge. From there the second pitch follows double cacks to a bulge, which was rather nasty. Sam did an awesome job leading this section. At the top we waited for the party behind us and shared the rappel with them.
A perfect mellow weekend in Yosemite! I can't believe that ithad been so long since I had been up there!
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