Good to be back...

...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!

Guest Post: Dan's view of the Matterhorn Peak trip

Ugh... I am lacking behind on posting again!
Until I whip up a report of the trip to Matterhorn Peak, Daniela and I made a few weeks ago here's Dan's report!

Thanks Dan!

July 27 2009

Matterhorn Peak – North Arete

Friday evening, Bjorn and I did the usual rush hour crawl out of the bay area and arrived at a campground just off of Twin Lakes Rd in Bridgeport just about midnight.

Before 6am, we hopped in the car for a short drive to the Twin Lakes trailhead. Our trek started out at 615am. The trail headed through another campground then followed the creek upstream. We passed rushing waterfalls, beautiful wildflowers and enjoyed the views of the mountains surrounding us. Soon we could see our destination in the far, far distance. The path was easy going until we headed away from the creek and up steep sections of rock and boulder field. The going got even harder about 3 hours into the approach when we reached the lake. I, having only a pair of trail runners, had very little grip on the glacier and scree sections which made this approach more difficult then it had to be. Bjorn made quick work of the difficult sections with his trekking poles and solid approach shoes, digging out steps for me to follow in the last steep glacier. I basically crawled the rest of the way up and reached the beginning of the climb at noon.

A pair of very happy climbers was descending the east side and verified we were in the correct place to start to the first pitch. Bjorn led the entire climb, combining the 2^nd and 3^rd pitches to speed things up. Rock quality on the 1^st and 2^nd was shotty but it became increasingly better as we made our way to the summit. We reached the top in good time and I couldn’t have been happier. Thanks to Bjorn, I was able to complete my first “successful” alpine climb. It was about 4p, storms were in the distance, and we made our way off the summit, back to the gear we left at the first belay and got ourselves geared up for the hike back. We knew it would be dark before we arrived at the car and wanted to be passed the lake and hopefully back on well-traveled trail before sundown.

We couldn’t help but create mini rock slides all the way down the scree section to the top of the glacier…that kind of terrain is very tricky and I haven’t mastered a good technique. The glaciers also proved themselves to be just as problematic down as they were going up. After some time of trying to make my way down as if I were descending a ladder (thank god I brought gloves), I said F-it and slid down the whole way on my ass. Oh and by the way, Prana pants are NOT waterproof. Bjorn was making good time above me with his poles and started making incredible time when he slipped, landed on his ass, and zoomed past me heading down to the rocks below. Thankfully we both made it to the boulder fields without injury...only very cold and wet backsides. Shortly after that, we could see the lake and knew the hardest parts of the day were behind us. We followed the trail back to the creek, picked up the pace and made it through most of the remaining boulder hopping before we broke out the headlamps. Arriving back at the car around 1015p, were too tired to do anything but head back to the campground. We were lucky enough to find the same little spot to lay down for a few hours before the alarm went off again for an early start back to the bay area.

Awesome trip and very excited for the next alpine adventure.

Too Hot!

Bailed out of the Valley one day early...
After Dan and I had finished our objectives of the weekend after only one day, we decided to head back and escape he 95F heat forecasted for Sunday. Also my ankle was not too happy after the approach and descent from Lower Cathedral Spire.
It's about time Tioga Pass is opens!

First Mosquito Bites, First Sunburn...

... A good weekend! :-)

I spent the weekend in the Valley with the SAC crowd. After driving up on Friday night we all met up at Swan Slab Saturday morning, where we placed several TRs... Oak Tree Flake, Grant's Crack, the line next to Grant's, the Aid Route, and Lena's Lieback. After TRing and just chilling for a while Paul came up with the idea of trying to free the 11b part of the aid route. Since the moves are well protected I was happy to give it a few goes... I guess that's what's called "working a project"... We both failed miserably... We'll have to come back and try with some aggressive shoes, since we identified that improper shoes were the only reason we couldn't make the crucial move ;-)
At the end of the day I jugged up the line to clean the TR. It has been a while since I last practiced aiding and I had forgotten how hard it is to jug... Good practice for an attempt on something big, which will hopefully come later this summer.

On Sunday I took Sam and Leo to Glacier Point Apron, where we climbed Harry Daley. Sam led the first pitch, Leo the second. We ran into two other parties from Stanford (well, the extended community) Linda and Heather and Mary and Ashley... It was quite cozy at some of the belays.
After rapping the route with TWO ropes we set a TR on 'Variation of a Theme', a 10b slab climb, before heading back to Yosemite Lodge to meet up the rest of the gang...

Yosemite: Knob Hill

Or: Never stop exploring!

Last weekend's trip definitely sparked the 'climbing outside bug' again, so I needed to get out again as soon as possible. During the week it seemed unlikely that I would be able to make it out due to a pretty big work load. But by the timeFriday came around things didn't look too bad. On Saturday Dan and I decided to drive out to Yosemite in the evening and climb on Sunday.
Our destination was Knob Hill, where I had never climbed before, but it seemed like a nice crag to get back into the groove of leading outside.

We wanted to start out on 'Just for Beginners' and scouted the rock to find the route. At some point I saw a few bolts higher up and figured it had to be the route... I racked up with a few draws ans started up. Just as I clipped the third bolt two guys show up and ask how things are...We chat for a while, when one of them asks: "You know that you need gear up there, right?" After what the following conversation starts: "Hm, the book says just 7 draws..." "Nope... that climb is not in the book" "huh, ok!" "I can bring you your rack!" "Cool, thanks!" "You need some tiny stuff ..." At this point the second guy whispers: "It's his route!" "Oh, you're Eric then!"

It was quite fun to bump into the guy who set up the route and get beta from him. We apparently climbed "Beanie Wienie" or something like that... Quite the nice climb... 4 bolts to a 5.6 flake, protectable with the orange Metolious and the blue Metolious TCU.

After topping out we made our way over to 'Just for Beginners'. Here I took my first Yosemite lead fall of the 10a crux down low. Dan caught me nice and soft though. No harm done. I was quite excited that I was able to get right back on to the climb and even face the runout sections high up without freaking out.

Next were 'Sloth Wall' and 'Anti Ego Crack' both fun climbs. To finish the day I led 'Pot Belly' via the undercling start.

The high temperatures took their toll: By 4PM we were pretty exhausted and decided to call it a day, although we would have had a few more hours of daylight. Back in the Bay Area at 7:15PM.

Yosemite: Reed's and Pat & Jack's

After a long break from climbing outdoors I went to Yosemite with Clint this weekend.
We carpooled with Vince and Eu-Jin on Saturday morning and got to Reed's around 10AM.



While Vince and Eu-Jin started on Eujesta, Clint and I eyed the Regular Route on Reed's Pinnacle. I led the first pitch, but freaked out two moves below the belay... Unbelievable!
After trying different options I lowered off. Clint led on the the chains at the end of the second pitch, on a huge ledge.


Here we had the option to either continue through the big chimney, or to lower off. (Continuing on Reed's Direct did not seem appealing.) Clint led the squeeze section as shown below... Unfortunately I got stuck following him. It was possible to get either my hips or my chest through the narrow section, but not both... We had to reverse our steps and lower off the chains after all.Back on the ground we went over to Ejesta, where I led the first pitch, and Clint the second.

Sunday's goal was Pat & Jack's Pinnacle.
Here I started out leading the bolted line left of Suds. It's a pretty new route, not featured in a guide book. Next was the semi bolted line right of Suds. I only took draws, since I did not realize that I'd need gear on the upper part. Reaching the last bolt I lowered off and Clint finished off the climb. Next was Makayla's Climb. Led it with a small hang at the 3rd bolt.
To finish off the day Clint led Boneheads with an alternate start avoiding the slippery face moves down low. I TR'ed afterwards.

Pretty cool trip! A nice way to get back into climbing outdoors... Last year around this time I had spent 3 days in J-Tree and a few days at the Pinnacles already... Hope things will pick up from here!

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!

Middle Cathedral Rock - East Buttress

Sunday saw an early start, waking up at 5:30, packing up, downing a cup of coffee and a quick breakfast, filling up the water bottles and driving to the Cathedral Rocks pull-out. Racking up took a bit but we left the car at shortly after 7AM. The approach trail brought us to the base of the climb pretty quickly and we started up the first pitch around 8AM. Ben took the first lead which didn't pose any problems. I faced a slight problem in the roof starting of the second pitch, but I managed to figure it out in relatively short time. From here on we swung leads, moving at a pretty good pace. Besides the climbs the day before this was the first climb I really fully enjoyed and was comfortable on at all times. This showed especially on my lead of the 6th pitch, a traversing face pitch. There are two pitons on the pitch, and not too many other places that take protection. The move off the second piton is a 5.8 friction move, where I took a while to figure out how it should be done. But I managed it... I guess on another day I would have wanted to bail...But Sunday it felt really good... On the 8th pitch I got slightly off route, as I traversed to the belay ledge too late. There were plenty of cracks to build an anchor though. It was quite amazing to see a flock of pigeons fly by below me as I belayed Ben up. Another few pitches brought us to the top, which we reached at 1:52. Just about 6 hours after we left the ground. It's a pity that such a great climb ends in an ugly gully! Next time we'll definitely try the 5.10 finger crack variation on the left of the original route.
Another downside of the climb is the rather nasty descent along exposed cliffs and down a nasty gully. At 3:45 we were back at the car, sorting gear, packing up and starting the drive back to the Bay Area. A dinner at Taqueria Algave in Oakdale concluded an amazing weekend of climbing. It really feels as if I got my mojo back. Too bad that I have to go the New Mexico for work again next week, and that I can't make it out to the Valley more often!

Sweeeeet!

Despite the Rock'n'Roll 1/2 marathon coming up next weekend I ditched my long run this past weekend and went back to Yosemite Valley for the first time in almost half a year. And what a trip it was! Ben and I took an early Saturday morning start from the Bay Area and got to the Valley around 9AM. Our plan was to spend Saturday on short routes in the 5.10 range and do something long on Sunday. So it came that the first stop on the way was Highway Star, a 5.10a close to the road, just after the intersection of HW 120 and HW 140. The approach is about 3 minutes, and despite its 4-star rating in Supertopo there was no one around. I took a look at the route and decided that I'd give it a shot on lead...My first attempt to lead a 5.10 ever! The route starts up a flake, continues in a finger lieback section, before a hand traverse leads to a finger traverse to nice hand jams to the anchors. The crux section is the change from the hand traverse to the finger traverse, since the rock is bulging out slightly. I managed to lead to this point, but was completely pumped after placing a BD .75 cam at the beginning of the finger crack. I lowered off at this point. Lowering down I unclipped the rope and Ben lead the climb. After he lowered off, unclipping but leaving the gear in place I gave it another shot. With the pre-placed protection I made it to the top with a few hangs. After Ben TR'ed a 10b variation and lead the 10a route a second time I cleaned the anchor and we moved on to Schultz's Ridge. We had been looking for this crag on a previous trip and didn't manage to find it. This time around it also took us some bushwhacking for the better part of an hour before we finally found it... Although it's about 2 minutes from the road if one starts in at the right spot...
Here Ben lead 'Second Thoughts' (5.10a) which I cleaned. Since an other party (Meg and Laura) were on the other 10a in the area Ben looked at the 10c in between and decided to give it a shot. One short hang in the 10c crux section was all it took to get him to the anchor bolts. I cleaned the route hanging at the 10b section and also in the 10c crux.
After this we swapped routes with Meg and Laura, and I lead 'Warm Up Crack' (5.10a). I managed to do it clean... I guess tightly spaced bolts in the lower part really helped. The climb was also not as pumpy as 'Highway Star' in the morning or 'Peruvian Flake' in the Royal Arches area, which we climbed afterwards. But hey! It's a start.
As mentioned we finished off the day with 'Peruvian Flake' a 5.10a finger crack between Serenity Crack and Royal Arches. Again Ben lead this one and I cleaned. Between 10AM and 6PM we had gotten five different climbs in the 5.10 range in three areas in...not bad. After this days effort we met my parents at the Curry Village pizza deck for beer and pizza...There's nothing better after a day of climbing!
By 9PM we were in our sleeping bags in the North Pine campground with the alarm set to 5:30 in order to get an early start to climb the East Buttress of Middle Cathedral Rock...

"This needs some love!"

That's a quote from Daniela, when she last saw my mountain bike.
I last used my bike about half a year ago, and the last time I worked on it, e.g. cleaned it was...
well, never.

So I devoted this afternoon to bike cleaning and tuning. I have to admit that I don't have a clue about bikes, but Wendy is a pro...She build up one of her bikes from scratch. She was willing to show me the tricks of the trade. It was quite fun to take the thing almost completely apart, clean the components and put it back together.

After we finished I wanted to go for a ride, but having an eye on the Diablo 25 in two weeks I decided to go for a run instead. It was just a quick 3 miles on the Stevens Creek Trail, but I am looking into logging a long run at Rancho San Antonio tomorrow afternoon. I am really looking forward to the race on Mt. Diablo! I just hope it won't be too toasty!

I was supposed to climb Washington Coloumn this weekend, but I didn't feel to great in the last couple of weeks, so I cancelled my plans. And looking at the weather in Yosemite yesterday that was a good choice. I hope that I/we will be able to try the South Face route later this year, perhaps in September, when the temperatures in the Valley are back to bearable...

Inspiration

I first saw this clip a few hours before I went to Yosemite a few weeks ago...
It definitely set the mood, and made packing a breeze :-)



by Ammon McNeely

El Cap Tree, or not...

or: spanked by the Captain, or a humbling day in the Valley, or Reality Check, or a good workout.

All these things describe past Saturdays trip to Yosemite Valley pretty well.
After a first aid climbing practice in Joshua Tree, Ben and I figured we could step it up a notch and try the El Cap Tree route on El Capitan. Rated at 5.7 C2 it didn't look too bad. It was also recommended as: "The first pitch is a brilliant aid lead for beginning leaders and cleaners (make sure to have pendulums and hooks understood before jumping on it)." (seen on SuperTopo.com).
Well, can't be too bad, right? Wrong!
After roughly half the pitch Ben bailed and I had no intention to try my luck on that one...
And, ok, I'll admit it...I don't really have the hooks down yet...
Well, the strenunous approach a short review an how to follow pendulums and climbing the beginning of the first pitch took up about 4 hours.

Being quite bummed we faced the question of what to with the rest of the day. The topos we carried showed that our options were rather limited. We decided to give it another shot on aiding and decided to do the first pitch of Pacific Ocean Wall.

My turn: I rack up, and start the free part at the bottom of the route. It's rather easy. BUT, in my opinion the rock was way more loose and scary than anything I climbed at the Pinnacles in the recent past. There are huge loose blocks, which just wait to be pulled off. Anyway...I made it to the beginng of the aid section and freeze. It's a tiny (well not that tiny, maybe slightly smaller than fingers) crack that eats nust...but all the loose stuff below had freaked me out pretty badly, so that the prospective to put my wait on gear was not too appealing to me...time to bail.

Ben TRed to my high point and aided the pitch to the end. A really nice effort! I jumared up after him and cleaned the route. I still have to work on my jumaring setup, because the separation between the upper and the lower ascender was too large...

After rapping off we packed up and started the descent...well, the walk back to the car, since we were only at the base of El Cap. After negotiating scree and boulders for about 20 minutes Ben turned around and said: "Let's not come back here, unless we have a very good reason!" That summed it up pretty well...We had been to the base of ElCap once before, and it was pretty much for no good reason as well. To make it short, the descent was no fun at all.

Back at the car at 5:30 we figured we had a good two hours of daylight left, so we decided to check out the bolt ladder on the LeConte boulder. There are actually two... One for each of us to lead...Ben gave me the choice: "Ridicilously overhung or rusty?" I choose ridiculously overhung.
I think it was a good choice, but gosh...it was a hard work! But fun! We still need to figure out how to clean roofs and such, we managed to clean it, but it didn't seem to be the most efficient way.

So yes, we were humbeled by El Cap. We re-thought our plans, which on the drive in on Friday night got a little out of hand ;-). We got a good workout in, between the approach, the descent and the fooling around on the LeConte Boulder. After all a nice day in the Valley. Last night I couldn't stop looking at the pics I took.