Rock Climbing --- 7/11/2007 - 7/19/2007 --- Yosemite

A week of climbing in Yosemite.

7/11  Fly from DC to San Francisco.  I have a seat with plenty of extra legroom and the plane departs on time.  I consider these things to be good omens.  Meet Jason and Morri.  We fill Morri's small car with all our gear and drive to Yosemite.  We stop at Hogdon Meadow -- the first car campground inside the park -- and crash for the night.  We see one fox roaming the area.

7/12  Wake and depart Hogdon early (combined with arriving late, that provides a substantial discount on the usual campground fee).  Drive to Tuolumne and go to the wilderness office to get a backcountry permit and a bear canister.  We then reserve one night at Tuolumne Meadows campground.  Finally time to climb.  We take a short hike to Lembert Dome and climb Northwest Books (5.6).  It is a good opportunity for the three of us to acclimate and get our systems dialed as a team of three on an easy climb.  I lead P1 which has a fun undercling traverse.  Morri leads the 5.9 finger crack variation of P2, which he does as a short pitch to an intermediate belay.  Then Morri leads a final pitch to the top.

7/13  Hike to our bivy site near the base of Mt. Conness.  There is a trailhead outside the park, northeast of Conness, which allows the climb to be done in a day.  But we are looking forward to some backpacking and taking three full days to enjoy the climb.  At around 45lbs. our packs are heavier than I would like, but not too bad.  We hike marked trails to Young Lakes, then go cross country to find a nice bivy site.  Note that Supertopo shows the approach joining the northeast approach on the plateau near Conness' summit.  That would be crazy.  We stay around the 10,000'  contour leaving Young Lakes and this takes us to a great bivy site.  From the top of Conness, we see a clearcut (fire related?) which is an even easier way back to Young Lakes.

7/14  Awake at 5:30am to climb.  We are a little slow getting started because we don't feel rushed.  By 6:30am we are hiking.  At 8:30am, and definitely feeling the affects of altitude, we reach the base of the West Ridge of Mt. Conness (5.6).  We solo up 4th class terrain for about 50', then decide to rope up, which is a real hassle with no good ledge.  Just rope up at the base.  I lead P1 for a full 200'.  I'm a bit too far left and end up making some awkward 5.7ish moves to get back on route.  Morri leads P2 which goes about 150' to a nice belay.  I lead P3 until I run out of rope at 200' which gets us just to the 4th class section.  Morri leads P4 which we all simulclimb.  He goes for at least 300' before building a belay.  Morri keeps his position at the head and leads an even longer simul pitch for 400' or 500'.  These two simul pitches traverse the knife edge ridge which runs right along the top of the 1000'+ dead vertical, southeast face.  The exposure is amazing!  I take the lead for P6, which we had intended to simul, but there are some clearly 5th class moves and we had agreed to belay anything above 4th class.  So I climb a full 200' and belay up Jason and Morri.  Then Morri leads another long simul pitch with more fantastic exposure as we step around the false summit to the final summit ridge.  I take P8 which quickly becomes 3rd class as we simul the final 400' to the summit at 12,590' elevation.

It is a fantastic, moderate alpine climb.  It can be climbed without any sustained sections of 5th class by starting about 50' left of the standard start.  This is what the three soloists who passed us were doing (including the one who almost toppled off the knife edge ridge when he lost his balance).  There is not a single bolt in the entire climb, but a light rack is sufficient if you are comfortable running it out on terrain up to 5.6.

We reach the summit around 4:40pm and hang out for 30 minutes before starting down.  The descent back to our bivy looks easy at first, but turns nasty after the plateau.  It is the same as the approach for those who do Conness in a day.  We spend lots of time picking our way down sandy and occasionally wet 3rd and 4th class slabs to reach an unstable talus field.  Finally finishing that, we hobble back to camp, arriving around 8:20pm to a dazzling sunset.  We are all nursing at least one injury.  My ankle is hurting like crazy even though I had been taking ibuprofen throughout the climb.  Exhausted, we eat dinner and collapse into our bivy sacks.

7/15  We take a well earned opportunity to sleep late and enjoy a leisurely morning.  Then pack our gear for the easy hike out.  Many thanks to Jason and Morri who carry more than their share of the gear so as to spare my ankle.  Chris and Aaron had arrived while we were climbing Conness and have a site for us to share with them at Tuolumne Meadows.

7/16  We start the day with Chris assuring us of the integrity of his climbing gear.  Then the five of us head to Medlicott Dome.  Jason and I climb Excellent Smithers (5.10a).  The first pitch is 5.7 trad and goes easily, though the crack in the back of the left facing corner has far too many mandatory right foot jams.  I claim that I deserve one ibuprofen for each jam.  Jason comes up and I dump all the trad gear on his harness so I can lead P2 which is a 5.10a sport climb.  This is a fantastic face climb and is tons of fun.  I'm very happy to get the onsight... my first 5.10 onsight lead in Yosemite.  Jason does a great job of following the pitch cleanly with a camelback and all of the gear on his harness.  I start up P3, this time with trad gear.  I lead up the first four bolts cleanly, though I nearly come off after throwing to a jug that turns out to be rounded and polished.  Where the bolts end, the climb follows a left facing corner.  There are supposed to be two pitons in this corner, but I don't see them.  I assume I can get aliens in the pin scars, but there doesn't appear to be any other gear here.  The climbing is supposed to be just as hard and sustained as the previous pitch and a half.  I'm exhausted and not looking forward to taking a long fall, so I leave a biner and lower back to Jason.  We bail off the climb.  I'm kinda pissed to leave the biner -- a 9 year old, $5 omega locking D -- because I had a brand new quicklink which I just bootied at The Bihedrals in Boulder Canyon, but had left it (and a dozen other bail biners) on the ground so I wouldn't be tempted to bail.  Oh well.

Morri, Chris and Aaron had been climbing the first two pitches of Shagadellic.  They come over and climb the first two pitches of Excellent Smithers on the top rope we leave for them.  After that we all hike out and drive to the Mobil station in Lee Vining.  This Mobil station is famous for having a world class restaurant next to the gas pumps.  It doesn't disappoint.

7/17  5am start for all of us.  We hike two hours to the base of Cathedral Peak.  We climb the classic Southeast Buttress (5.6) which is wide enough that multiple parties can climb simultaneously without interference.  Jason, Chris and I start near the middle while Morri and Aaron start near the left.  In retrospect, my choice of lines really sucked.  P1 is annoying, filled with choss and poor gear.  At 200' I cobble together an anchor and bring up Jason and Chris.  P2 gets us on to the more commonly climbed line.  P3 is awesome.  P4 is an awkward chimney which is still plenty fun.  Midway through the pitch, I have to take off my helmet and clip it to my harness so that my head can fit through the chimney.  P5 has lots of fun moves -- including a 5.6 finger crack through a bulge -- and by stretching it for a full 200' I am able to reach the summit.  We hang out on top taking pictures while waiting for Morri and Aaron.  Then the five of us head down and back to camp.

7/18  Morri and I wake at 5:30am to climb the Regular Route on Fairview Dome (5.9).  We are both exhausted from having climbed a full week without a rest day, but it is Fairview :-)   We get to the base of the climb nice and early only to find three parties ahead of us.  It is Fairview :-(  We chill and watch the puffy clouds which mean never, ever start a big climb because thunderstorms are likely in the afternoon.  We rationalize our decision to start a big climb.  After all, it is Fairview.  We start climbing exactly at 9am.  I have the pleasure of leading the first pitch.  The 5.9 crux isn't too bad, though as much time as I spend looking at it you might think it is a 5.11 move with no gear above a jagged ledge.  Actually it is well protected.  Mostly just slippery.  As Morri says, "Just step up and hope your feet don't slip.  They probably won't."  He is right, I pull the move no problem.  Then I enjoy 40' of flared, wet, 3" crack to the belay.  The #1 is my biggest cam at this point (we didn't bring anything larger than a #2) so I'm much less happy with this section than the crux.  Morri and I swing leads the rest of the way.  He gets P2 which has fun, sustained 5.8 climbing.  I take P3 and miss the Crescent Ledge not seeing it until I'm a few irreversible 5.8 moves above the step right. This works out, as my direct variation rejoins the route about 30' above the Crescent Ledge.  From here the climbing is no harder than 5.7.  We continue to swing leads until Morri reaches the 6th belay (which is the 8th belay in Supertopo).  From here it is 4th class and easy 5th class the rest of the way, so I lead one long simul pitch to the summit.  We reach the summit at 4:15pm and are back to Tuolumne Meadows by 5:30pm.  Ignoring the puffy clouds turned out to be a good idea since we had clear skies all day.  And we got to climb Fairview.

Back at camp, Jason and I pack our gear and drive Morri's car to San Francisco.  Morri is staying one more day to boulder with Chris and Aaron.  Somehow, I always manage to leave Yosemite in a state of total exhaustion.  I'm very grateful to Jason who drives while I sleep.

7/19  An uneventful flight back to DC where I spend two weeks waiting for my niece to be born.

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