Birthday Weekend, Yosemite Edition (27-29 Sept 2013)

Ticklist:
Munginella (5.6) - 3 pitches, linked to 2
The Caverns (5.8) - 2nd pitch is the money, 4th pitch a little funky, still fun all-around.
Bishop's Terrace (5.8) - 2 pitches, linked to 1. Definitely do this in one pitch, lives up to its reputation as one of the best 5.8s around. Both OW and lieback variations are enjoyable. So nice we did it twice!
Super Slide (5.9) - 5 pitches, each better than the last. The 5.9 section is probably only 10 feet long, just at the end of the pitch, though there is a bit of loose rock/mud in places. Per the SuperTopo guide, linking 3 and 4 is very doable, but it's almost nicer to split up the fun leads.
Trial By Fire (5.8) - One full pitch of flaring wide crack, from fists to squeeze with plenty of chock stones. Thank god it eases off at the top. Careful with "overgripping" or you'll end up with roadrash all over like me.

Trip Highlight: Kat's fantastic birthday planning! I had more friends in the Valley than in San Francisco (almost), we communally drained a bottle of Bulleit and feasted on Kat's wonderful single-serving cakes.

Photosynth of Bennett coming up the fourth pitch of Super Slide (zoom in, he's there).

As usual, we rolled into the Pines campsite pretty late. Unlike usual, it was Thursday night...three days in the Valley! Between waking up a little late, and moving campsites, Bennett and I didn't start climbing until about noon. Still, we made quick work of Munginella, had a quick snack and went for The Caverns. We climbed well and psyche was high. It felt really good to have my lead-head on straight. We considered another pitch or two, but instead headed down to the Facelift evening activities: slideshows highlighted by Shawn White's coach (surprisingly interesting), Mayan Smith-Gobat (Kiwi climber extraordinaire), and Tommy Caldwell (interesting stories, but nothing new).

An earlier start on Saturday let us get up Bishop's Terrace (second in line) before getting over to Super Slide (PM shift, no lines or waiting), and finishing on Trial By Fire. Bennett was psyched for the wide crack, which turned out to be really fun: a proud lead for him, which I felt like I could have gotten done, too, though I definitely came out worse for wear afterwards. Not enough time for another one of the open books, but we did find Kat back at the campsite with Luke et al, basking in the glory of one of her more ambitious hikes to date (up to Glacier Point, woohoo!).

Saturday night drifted into Sunday morning, which meant a late start and taking it easy. Bennett wanted to lead Bishop's Terrace, and it was a perfect chance for Kat to get on the wall, too. After that, a nice walk to Mirror Lake and basking in El Cap meadow rounded out the day nicely.

Mantel practice on the way to Mirror Lake (photo: Kat Wong)

Overall, an awesome weekend: great food/drink, great climbing, great friends. Too bad the park is closed now, I just want to get back for Rocktober!

Moonbows and Yosemite Sport Climbing (27-28 April 2013)

Spark Notes:
Saturday - hiking, napping, lunar rainbow photography
Sunday - cragging at Shultz's Ridge Base

We rolled into the Valley after midnight on Friday night with a major goal of moonbow photography, and a minor goal of climbing. The full moon lit El Cap spectacularly, and we stopped at four different pullouts to ogle and photograph before sneaking into Luke's campsite and rolling out a tarp.

I woke early in an effort to fight jet lag, but that only caught up with me in the afternoon. After a hike to scope photo locations for later that evening, I passed out for a couple hours. Whoops.

Not wanting to miss a whole day of climbing, we headed up to the Endless Summer wall on Shultz's Ridge, just beneath the massive Southeast Face of El Capitan. If heading there, beware that the first bolts on Gidget Goes to Yosemite (5.9) are missing (per Supertopo and Clint Cummins) I did at least start by climbing up 20 feet before retreating. I would like to head back for Crystalline Passage though, even better to continue the line all the way up to the base of El Cap.

Regular Rainbow, Bridalveil Falls

We headed down to catch Bridalveil Falls before it lost good light before cooking dinner and staking out Cook's Meadow for moonrise. We didn't really do our homework, so we arrived a couple hours before the moon made its appearance, but that did make for some awesome stargazing. If you do ever decide to visit Yosemite in the spring to spy moonbows, definitely make the visit to the lower falls (more spray, more reliably than the upper falls). You can find the best times for viewing at this forecast.

Lunar Rainbow and the Big Dipper, Lower Yosemite Falls 

Saturday was for photography, and Sunday was for climbing. Since we only finished with Saturday at 2:30am, we didn't get back to Schultz's Ridge (Dan and Jerry's Playground) until noon. I was still feeling apprehensive from the previous day, but all the psyche in the air from James and Luke, and another friendly crew at the crag, made it easy to just have fun. After a couple topropes, I wanted to lead the crag's other warm-up route. The 5.10a label made that intimidating, and made leading New Suede Shoes (10c) even scarier. Kat asked why not lead, and I said I was scared. Luke asked why was I scared, and I had no good reason. The result: I led the route (almost peeled, but didn't) with Luke's calm coaching. Then sent the two harder climbs on TR.

Conclusion: I've got to do more of what Luke was able to do, just ask a rational question and evaluate whether my fears are justified or not. If I don't want to lead, that's fine, but understand why that's the case and make sure it's justified. Thanks to Luke for getting me to try hard. It would be nice if I could stop limiting myself, and get out of my own way in the future and be as psyched at the base as I am when reading the guidebook at home.

Tick List:
Second Thoughts (10a) - TR - a better warm up than the route of that name
New Suede Shoes (10c) - bolts - TR, lead
Warm Up Crack (10a) - bolts + gear - lead - lives up to its name
Just Do Me (10d) - TR - sustained and pumpy at the top
Are You Hard Enough? (10d) - TR - definitely the easier 10d at the crag

Back to Yosemite (06-07 April 2013)

Spark Notes:
First climbing and visit to the Valley since last fall. Saturday at Knob Hill, stayed at Camp 4, and climbed at Glacier Point and Sunnyside Bench on Sunday.
Crags, route descriptions and history can be found in the Yosemite Valley Free Climbs Supertopo.

Overall a good climbing weekend. Since it's been a few weeks since this trip, I'll keep it to the highlights...
- My second trip to Knob Hill: warm crag with good intro cracks and bolt protected climbing, with a short approach.

Descending soon, Monday Morning Slab. (Credit: Katherine Wong)

- Camped at the famous Camp 4 for the first time. It's always intimidated me a bit. The history is just as impressive, but the place is now a bit friendlier. A little like the Valley overall, I suppose.

- Monday Morning Slab is not a bad intro climb, though a little dirty, with excellent ledges and views. A beautiful place for lunch in the sun, but chilly in the shade with a breeze. Head to the very top of the formation for rap chains. You can stop at the big ledge shown in the SuperTopo, but that requires downclimbing a little bit: probably not what you're looking for if climbing this route.

- Jamcrack lives up to its reputation as a good first 5.7 lead. Vertical and fun. Toproping Lazy Bum right next to it was the highlight of the visit though. I held it together until the end of the 10c lieback but couldn't quite make it through. Very, very fun climbing to return to, though.

Refreshingly cool water, all alone at the Lower Falls. (Credit: Katherine Wong)

Tick List:
Knob Hill
Unnamed (5.9) - TR 3x
Pot Belly (5.8) - Lead 3x, TR 1x
Anti-Ego Crack (5.7) - Lead
Just for Starters (5.10a) - Lead
Sloth Wall (5.7) - Lead
Glacier Point
Monday Morning Slab, Right (5.4) - Lead
Sunnyside Bench
Jamcrack (p1, 5.7) - Lead 2x
Lazy Bum (p1, 5.10d) - TR

Open Books (27-28 Oct 2012)

Ticklist:
Munginella (5.6) - crowded, but great fun! 3 pitches, linked to 2
Hanging Teeth (5.8) - Fun lay backing with a sustained and runout 2nd pitch. 3rd pitch wasn't terrible, but the loose, overhanging blocks up top do require some care.
Highway Star (5.10a+) - variations offer several very fun options. great for toprope laps, look forward to going back on lead

Trip Highlight: camping in Tommy Caldwell's site while he slept in his van

Once again upon returning from China, I decided to push my luck against jetlag and head for a Yosemite climbing weekend.  This trip went a bit better than last time around, but still "the mind is primary, and today the mind was weak." But I'm getting ahead of myself, and being negative: there was good climbing this weekend!

Kat, Nina, and I all climbed Munginella (in the Five Open Books area to the west of Yosemite Falls). I led the first pitch, Nina took the second, and Kat floated the whole climb.  We came down and had a leisurely lunch. At 3:30, Nina and I hurried back for a second Book.  We were aiming for the Caverns. After making it up two pitches, and looking at the time, we determined we didn't have enough time to make it to the top of the climb by sunset. Nina had stopped at the first tree (our topo said the pitch ended after two), and there were still two pitches to go.  Too far! But wait...something wasn't sitting right. It should've been easy to make it to the second tree before running out of rope.  Another look at the topo revealed that we were actually two pitches up Hanging Teeth.  On the plus side, only one pitch to go! Unfortunately it was labeled "loose, dirty, overhanging 5.8 blocks" of "rapidly decreasing quality." Tempted as we were to back off, I was happy that I made the decision to take the rack and head up.  Some good steps of liebacking, and a finish of the promised poor quality, and we were at the top and heading down the by now familiar descent in the twilight.

Sunday morning we determined we wanted some good crack practice, and so we headed over to Highway Star. On toprope, we each got in several good runs on each of the many variations of 5.9 hands and off-hands, and 10a and 10b fingers.  Really fun climbing and definitely recommended for what it is!

Kat heading up .10a fingers. A tough intro to liebacking!

Alltogether not a bad weekend for climbing (I was able to step up and lead some relatively easy trad pitches), I guess I'm disappointed that I didn't push harder. Why not go for it and get moving from camp earlier in the morning? Try to do 3 Books instead of just two? Couldn't I have tried to lead Highway Star? Or we could've climbed in an area with more options? Like I said, not a bad weekend (really, no weekend in the Valley is bad), but excellence is a habit and serious jetlag or not, I wasn't practicing that this weekend.

Royal Arches and Starr King (16-17 June 2012)

Spark Notes:
Saturday: Royal Arches
Sunday: Star King

Song of the Weekend: Peaches - The Presidents of the United States of America (Spotify)

Maybe there are more fans of the Presidents of the United States of America than I think, but those seem to be the unifying songs this year. I've belted out verses about the little boll weevil while winding over Carson Pass and sang along to Peaches (which I guess everyone knows) while swerving past Hardin Flat towards the valley.  I guess those will be some of my memories this year.

I once again managed to get myself along on a trip with Luke, Chris and Manit.  This time they were three and Luke was trying to figure out the most efficient way to get them up the long Royal Arches route.  I offered that maybe two teams of two would work well, which I guess everyone was okay with, so I was in.

We headed out of camp very early, parked at the Ahwahnee, and were the first folks on the route.  In fact, the only people we saw all day were hauling bags up the 5th pitch at 3pm. I have absolutely no idea what they were doing. Luke grabbed the rack and headed up the first pitch, a very slippery chimney.  After that, he let me lead the way and he followed as we simul-climbed.  Every gear exchange or two, we waited for Chris and Manit to catch up.  Overall, it was really quite a relaxing experience.  I felt pretty good climbing the whole day, except that I wasn't sure where to find the beginning of the rap route and stopped a bit early.

Luke enjoying the valley view before the sun hit.

The climb was pretty uneventful, just good fun.  Highly recommended, especially with an early start to beat the crowds and as much sun as possible.

Luke had plans for a long run on Sunday, Chris was in the valley with his in-laws, wife and little girl (chillest family ever, by the way, but they're Hawaiian so not exactly a surprise), and Manit wasn't psyched on climbing. So, after checking out Hans and Honnold in the meadow, I took another trip to Mt. Starr King (though I haven't written about the first one yet...oops).

While this I had my head together a bit better, I still wasn't really interested in soloing the slab without really knowing where to go.  So, I down climbed after climbing half the first pitch.  It's funny, with a belayer, even without pro, I would have been fine, but there's a time and place for soloing, and that wasn't for me that day.  Was I disappointed in myself? Yes, but it was still the right choice. Another time perhaps, or maybe not, time will tell.  In any case, still a great hike to a beautiful part of Yosemite with plenty of wildlife (7 deer and plenty of birds and marmots).

Ticklist:
Royal Arches (5.7 A0) - 17 guidebook pitches, climbed in a short chimney pitch and 5 simul-ed pitches

Snake Dike (21 April 2012)

Spark Notes: Snake Dike (Guide: Yosemite Valley Free Climbs by SuperTopo)

Song of the Weekend: Easy - Deer Tick (Spotify)

Whoops, this one's been sitting in drafts for a while.  Anyway...when the chance to climb Snake Dike with a strong crew came up (gotta do something when the skiing isn't great and Tioga's still closed!) I really couldn't say no.   Two of Luke and Lizzy's friends were training to do a long day on the Eastside, and Snake Dike would be a good chance to put in plenty of miles and climb some moderate pitches.  Originally, I was to be one of four, which then evolved to five so I was on the chopping block.  Fortunately, one more joined us, so we became a party of six (three rope teams) heading up the Mist trail at 5am.

The day went smoothly, we were the first party on the route and only saw a couple other folks all day.  My partner led most of the pitches, but I did take the first dike pitch.  Despite having only a single bolt in the whole rope length, I felt more comfortable leading than following the other pitches.  That might have had something to do with the large loops of slack I was getting (teaches me to be more vocal next time).

Runout (more like fun-out!)

Awesome day, and Lizzy posted a great report with more photos on Dream in Vertical here.

Ticklist:
Snake Dike (5.7R) - few bolts and less gear - 8 pitches, linked to 6