Previously, on The Climbing Obscurist: 'Murica Part 2: The Crowded Superhighway to The Nose on El Capitan
[...]So, how do you bookend a tale of success on the most famous Big Wall route in the world[...]? With 2 major Big Walls in Yosemite Valley knocked-over, a swath of classic free climbs completed in fine style, and just under a week remaining before we needed to head out, how do you finalise this chapter of your climbing career?
Do you postulate some great epiphany, wax philosophical and speak about how you've achieved a new spiritual breakthrough as a result of these adventures? Hell no, as climbers, you go and do more climbing. And with this nice little resume of Valley climbs to our collective names, Stephen and I needed to tackle something hard. A real Valley free-climbing test piece...
And on that note:The Climbing Obscurist concludes with: 'Murica Part 3: The Final Valley Assessment, Bishop Bouldering and Other Epics...
The Nose was done and dusted, and -if I'm honest-, if I'd been forced to leave Yosemite at this point in time never to return, I'd have been happy to do so. Not because there wasn't a million other magnificent routes to tackle, but because all of the objectives had been met, the success had been satisfying, and anything beyond this point would only be icing on the cake.
Inevitably, though, as a climber you don't walk away, you dream of something more challenging and intimidating, something just that little bit bigger than you are, something like this:
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| Any questions? |
After some vital time to rest and revitalise, Stephen and I did a day of climbing at The Cookie Cliff to get our collective free-climbing head back in gear and massage our egos after the intensity of free-climbing on The Nose (and I was pretty stoked to onsight an extremely technical bolted 5.11b slab/face climb). But with only a week remaining, it was time to tackle The Regular North Face Route of the Rostrum (8-Pitches, 240m, 5.11c).
The Final Valley Assessment
On the morning of Monday 12th October, Stephen and I drove to the carpark atop The Rostrum and began our descent. For the most part it's a somewhat loose walk down a steep gully, with 2 abseils right at the end to bring you to the base of the climb, but upon arriving it turned out that -even at 7am- we weren't the first ones on the route: a team of two Poms were just starting up the first pitch, and not long after two Czech climbers arrived, chasing our heels. After patiently waiting our turn to tackle the first pitch (a bloody hard 5.9 steep layback and chimney), Stephen started up the climb.
Stepping off from a small pyramid of rock, it begins with some insecure laybacking up a wide-ish flake. Encountering no gear smaller than a #4 Camelot (which he wanted to save for the chimney), and seeing good gear (and an antique piton) another move above, Stephen opted to continue stemming and laybacking up the crack to the superior placement. With his feet 3 or 4 metres above the ground, his left foot slipped off the polished granite, and catapulted him awkwardly off the climb, falling back first towards the pyramid of rock. I'd been spotting him since he left the ground, and as he fell towards me I managed to turn him so that he didn't land spine-first on the rock, instead depositing him face-first in the dirt and pine needles, managing to land atop him for my efforts.
At first, considering the "soft splat" sound of the landing, rather than a solid thump (or the even more terrifying: crunch), I thought that Stephen was likely just winded (as he was groaning audibly from the impact), but as he rolled over it became clear that we wouldn't be doing The Rostrum today, because wrists aren't meant to bend at stepped-right-angles to the forearm they're attached to. The Czech climbers rushed over to help, with one of them giving Stephen the once-over to check for other injuries (we were concerned for his collarbone) while I attempted to evaluate my partners' state through communication, and the other Czech climber helped to prop him up. When the full scale of the injury became clear, a sling was improvised with the use of my thermal shirt and a spare carabiner. With Stephen still refusing a "rescue" on the grounds that he was "walking wounded" (though, nauseated, unbalanced and clammy-white), and because neither of us wanted this accident to become "another climbing statistic", the two Czech climbers and myself assisted Stephen down the steep, wall-of-tree vegetated descent below The Rostrum, and across the Merced river to the nearest road. One of the Pommy climbers- half-way up Pitch 2 by this point-, called an ambulance for us, and it arrived at precisely the same time that we did.
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| "Um, dude... I'm pretty sure wrists aren't meant to look like that." |
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| Cue Terminator Soundtrack. |
After returning to Australia a week later, it took 9 screws and 2 plates to put Stephen's shattered wrist back together. Even now, just under 2 months later, he still isn't able to climb, and is only just starting to be able to use it again for simple tasks.
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| "Is there anybody out there?" |
As it turned out, though, it was the ever benevolent Dave of the Catholic Church in The Valley who managed to find me a partner among his colleagues at the Awahnee Hotel, and so it was that the next day I teamed up with Mike (who advised me he'd ticked most of the Valley Classics in the 5.10a-d range to this point, but was happy to follow me up The Rostrum, provided that I lead all the pitches) and headed out to the Five Open Books for some moderate-grade classic multipitches. Managing to get completely lost on one climb (ending up on a 30m R-rated line on hideously fragile rock), we finished up the day with some steep crack climbing on a boulder near Pat and Jack Pinnacle, and locked in The Return to The Rostrum for the next day.
The Final Valley Assessment - Take 2
A word of forewarning: I chose not to bring a camera on this climb in order to minimise weight and increase my chances of success. All of the photos I've posted below are taken from other online sources, with the original uploader credited in the appropriate photo caption.
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| Looking up at Pitch 1, and all the way to the Alien Roof at the top of The Rostrum. Photo by: Darren in Vegas - https://www.mountainproject.com/v/106517971 |
Pitch 2 starts with an 5.11a boulder-problem up a slab to get past an overlap in a seam-crack, which then becomes a finger crack (and much easier). With the rain still falling I couldn't even come close to doing the moves in the seam crack, and the variant (a steep and almost unprotectable wide-layback) didn't look much better in the conditions. In a moment of inspiration, I channeled my inner Steve Monks and managed to invent my own extreme-stemming variation, using the minuscule offset of the seam crack and a vague groove feature to the right to insecurely stem my way through the crux, and up the sustained crack that followed. Despite having made it through the crux, the rest of this pitch was no giveaway.
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| Photo by: Krister - http://mountainpassion.blogspot.com.au/2015/11/ rostrum-north-face-classy-classic-climb.html |
Mike followed me, being unable to duplicate my stemming
start (and with the initial seam a veritable waterfall, he was forced to pull
through on gear), and cursing my name as the pitch continued, as all of my gear
was placed in positions that necessitated a stemming stance (also
unduplicatable) to remove. After he joined me on the improvised semi-hanging belay
(pleased to be out of the rain), I continued up the remaining half of Pitch 3,
which commenced with a run-out 5.10b layback around the roof, and was followed
immediately by some spectacular sustained steep handcrack climbing to a stance.
The last moves of the pitch consisted of technical 5.10a stemming up an open
book corner with a fused seam on either side as the only useful features (and
the only real protection), which was quiet exciting
when trusting entirely in the friction of the wet rock to pull the moves.
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| A shot of the crux 5.11c section of The Rostrum. Photo by: lstefurak - http://www.dreaminvertical.com/2010/10/ rostrum-pillar-of-awesome/olympus-digital-camera-22/ |
I launched myself up it, stopping at the start of the crack
in an effort to dry my wet shoes, before launching up it with gusto. In
reality, the crux is about 5m of slightly overhanging thin fingercrack, with
stonker locks, but utterly no footers. Anyone who has climbed a steep
fingercrack knows that -assuming you have the fingerlocking technique dialed-
the real crux is trying to keep your
feet pasted to the wall, as very little rubber is ever in contact with the rock
or the crack. If you've ever seen the footage of Alex Honnold free-soloing this
pitch, he climbs it with delicacy and poise, rarely placing his feet in the
crack, but rather smearing confidently on invisible footers and calmly moving
upwards. If you'd have seen me
climbing this section, you'd have seen a demonstration of primal brutality, as
I had absolutely no trust in my feet,
and instead relied almost entirely on my sheer strength to propel myself
upwards, road-runnering at one point as my feet gave out from under me while my
vice-like fingerlocks stayed in. But regardless of my lack of finesse, I made
it clean to the halfway "stance" (the sort of "active rest"
on a steep face that a Blueys climber is used to), and then tackled the last 5m
of the crux: a section of 5.11b technical stemming, with two seam-cracks that
are offset by a centimeter or less. This section is described in the guide as
"tricky liebacking", but I sure as hell wasn't going to layback it
cleanly (it's definitely not one of my strong points), so once again the family
jewels went on display as I tenuously broke out the extreme stemming (thanks
Pythagoras Theorem at Eureka Wall in the Grampians for the practice!), and slowly
edged my way up to the ledge that ends the crux. Right as the rain resumed
falling I mantled out on the ledge and was done and dusted with the crux of
the Rostrum.
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| Another photo of the crux section of Pitch 4. Photo by: zwang - https://www.mountainproject.com/v/106740695 |
I'm not going to deny that what followed was soft, especially considering that so far
we'd overcome prolonged rain and dealing with having seen my partner break
himself on this climb, but I will attempt to explain our rationale. It was
quite wet, I was getting mentally and physically tired from leading every
pitch; Mike was struggling just to follow me by now even pulling on gear,
resting and taking falls; and -most terrifyingly- the next pitch was a 5.10a
offwidth... A 5.10a OFFWIDTH!!!
Sure, grade-wise it's not even close
to the crux, but the very real fact was that it was likely to be the crux for me, especially considering the rain
and all the pitches I'd led back to back so far. So, in short, I rapped back to
the halfway ledge, we climbed the 5.6 traverse to escape back to the gully, and
we went home.
What is there to say? I felt like I'd passed my final Valley assessment -Onsighting all pitches of The Rostrum up until the Wide Pitches (with the arguable ethical exception of the gear I pre-placed at the start of Pitch 3)-, even if we didn't summit The Rostrum. But in the conditions, would you have kept going? I'm not proud of copping out, but I'm not going to deny that it happened. In some ways, though, I felt vindicated, as the rain turned torrential for about half an hour after we arrived back at the car.
What is there to say? I felt like I'd passed my final Valley assessment -Onsighting all pitches of The Rostrum up until the Wide Pitches (with the arguable ethical exception of the gear I pre-placed at the start of Pitch 3)-, even if we didn't summit The Rostrum. But in the conditions, would you have kept going? I'm not proud of copping out, but I'm not going to deny that it happened. In some ways, though, I felt vindicated, as the rain turned torrential for about half an hour after we arrived back at the car.
The Bachar-Yerian
The following day I dragged the semi-crippled Stephen back
up to Tuolumne to investigate the infamous Bachar-Yerian route (4-pitch 5.11c + X) described in the Tuolumne guide as
"The most famous Psychological Test Piece in the U.S". The climb has a
somewhat contentious history, with John Bachar establishing it ground-up
(placing bolts while hanging off skyhooks placed on fragile granite knobs), and
using it as a figurehead through which to make a statement against what he
perceived as the overbolted
sport-climbing scene that was rapidly gaining popularity. Aside from the
"X" making it sound cool, the X-rating is earned by some extremely runout climbing (with 2 bolts
on the first 30m pitch, 4 on the second, 4 on the third, and with a
ridiculously runout all-gear easier final pitch). But the fact is, that despite
its somewhat deathy nature, the line itself is bloody beautiful, consisting of knob-features forming a wandery
line up a vibrant black-streak,
flanked on either side by sunset-orange rock. I was intrigued at the idea of
working it in relative safety, then -if I felt confident enough- giving
it a proper lashing for the tick. Let's face it, that would be a pretty epic
feather to have in your cap.
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| Starting up the 5.7 "access pitch", with the ominous black streak of the Bachar-Yerian looming above me. |
It starts with a 30m 5.7
"access pitch" which helpfully isn't included as a part of the
"official route", and was actually quite enjoyable (though sparsely
protected) low-angle climbing up a groove-feature. The first real pitch of the route kicks of with
15m completely unprotected 5.9 slabbing up somewhat fragile knobs to reach a
bolt at a small overlap and the crux of the route: a V4/V5 boulder problem
(yes, on a 5.11c climb) to the next bolt above. It took me quite a few goes to
put together the sequence for the crux, and eventually stick it in its
entirety, but when I did I continued on in an attempt to link what I could,
falling off halfway between the previous bolt and the anchor on grade 23 moves.
You see, the problem with this
route when considered as an X-rated route, is that the knobs are fragile (I broke off a few smaller
ones which I was using as footholds), and the route finding is difficult
because it wanders back and forth over about 5m of horizontal terrain for the
entire length of the climb. Despite Bachar's staunch "Ground-Up"
mentality, it pretty much requires pre-inspection on repeat attempts even by
the boldest of the bold (and hell, despite bolting it ground-up, Bachar had it
thoroughly sussed when he went for the true free
ascent). Where I fell off on the 1st actual
pitch of the route was entirely due to climbing myself into a corner and
running out of holds. If I'd fallen off at this point without my rope being
above me, I'd have falling 10m (or more) onto the very featured slab below
(hitting the knobs would be as devastating as hitting the ground itself), and
be starting up a comedy troupe with Stephen entitled The Two Crippled Climbers. When I pulled back on I climbed clean to
the end of the pitch and was fairly sure I could do so again consistently (the
only move I was likely to fall off was the boulder problem, which was bolt
protected anyway), but simply couldn't justify the risk due to the very real
possibility of falling off Grade 23 technical steep-face climbing on fragile
knobs amidst a Braille-trail of confusing options.
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| Just past the V4/V5 crux of Pitch 1. |
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| Part-way up the immaculate Pitch 2, this time wandering to the left of the black-streak. |
Reaching the belay at the end of Pitch 2, the weather began to turn again, so I rapped back to the ground, stripped my gear off it, and retreated back to the car as the rain turned torrential once again, and the remainder of the day was written off.
Reflecting on this climb is a
frustrating experience. For want of ONE bolt (between the 2nd bolt and the
belay) on Pitch 1, I cannot justify leading it. If that bolt existed I would
have stayed in Yosemite solely for the tick,
and would happily throw myself at it despite the risk. That lack of a single bolt is
the difference between an R and an X rating, and is also the difference between giving the ground-up onsight "a
shot", or sussing it top-down before you go for the tick. Ironically, in
his attempt to make an anti-bolt statement, Bachar ultimately compromised
another of his ideals, and -though I may be crucified for saying it-, I think
that the danger-element of this route has the distinct aura of being artificial for this very reason. On the slate routes in Wales this premise is called "Designer Danger", where the first bolt is placed ludicrously high to introduce an contrived unnecessary danger through the initial splat-factor, though the remainder of the route is usually well-protected.
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| Spot the stupified Aussie up there... It's a lot bigger than you might think. |
Sojourn in Bishop
It was clear by this point that the weather was turning as winter approached, and so I decided to make the Bachar-Yerian day my last day in The Valley. The following day I bade farewell to Stephen and made my way back through Tuolumne Meadows via Tioga Pass, and down into the Mountain Desert environment of Bishop, surrounded on all sides by the snow-capped High Sierras.
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| Rest day activities... Nothing Suss! Also, the closest I'd come to a shower in the last 8 days or so. Isaac (L), me (C) and Gabe (R) in a hot spring outside of Bishop. |
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| I swear that there was an audible "pop" sound as these guys exploded out the back of their PeopleMover and into my campsite in The Pit, Bishop. James (L), Bulti (C), Pez (R). Rene: MIA. |
Over the course of these 3 weeks, the ever-changing group of unaccompanied climbers that formed our posse kept at its core Isaac from Indiana, Gabriel from Quebec, Rory from Washington, Jeff from Orange County (his accent was heaps of fun to imitate: "duuuude, it's like, you knoooow"), Brendan from Washington, and Peter from Santa Barbara (CA). We were also joined for the first week by Michael Garrahy from Queensland (who knows a lot of my own Queensland climbing buddies), and briefly by my friend James Bultitude and his disorganised rabble (Rene Provis, Matt Perrett and James Peet) who arrived at my campsite, and exploded out the back of their rented PeopleMover along with a mountain of gear.
The climbing over the 3 weeks was focused mainly on the ludicrously high granite boulders of The Buttermilks, often on the coarse volcanic rock of The Happy Boulders (and sometimes The Sad Boulders), and occasionally the stunning endurance-climbing of the routes in Owens River Gorge. As the granite destroyed your fingertips (and your headspace), the volcanic bouldering trashed your palms, and the route-climbing in The Gorge obliterated your muscles, the trick was to alternate between the three destinations in order to climb somewhere almost every day.
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| This would make a great ad for La Sportiva shoes, right? La Sportiva, are you reading this? |
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| My first foray at The Happy Boulders didn't get off to a great start.. |
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| "The upper section requires great confidence..." |
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| The Southwest Arete of the Grandma Peabody Boulder. Michael abandons spotting to take photos... Not that he could do much anyway at this point. |
Actually, I really, really couldn't afford to fall off the boulder, as my insurance definitely didn't cover anything even remotely close to this, and the healthcare system in America is -as you probably already know- utterly ridiculous. Fortunately, we had a plan in case the worst should happen, involving Michael (a paramedic), an improvised sled in the form of a bouldering mat, and the notoriously dusty and well-trafficked Buttermilks Rd nearby.
But, aside from being tonnes of fun, highball bouldering (and the associated headgames) and granite friction-slabs weren't something I really needed to work on (in fact... that's about all I'm really good at), so most of my time was spent on the more bouldery boulders. I focused on a list of V4 to V6 classics in styles that are usually my antithesis, and was lucky enough that amongst our Posse of The Pit, others were psyched on the same.
I won't go into prolonged detail (after all, it's bouldering, who really cares, right? hehe), but some of the more significant sends of the trip for me were: Iron-Man Traverse (V4), Serengetti (V5), Rail Problem on Ranger Rock (V5); Unknown V5 on Ranger Rock (V5); Leary/Bard Arete (V5); Fly Boy Arete (V5); The Solarium (V4); Lululator (V4); Whiskey, Beer and Spliff Hits for Breakfast (V4); Bleached Bones - SDS (V4); Ketron Classic (V4); and Beef Tumour Right (V4).
Of the awesome easier stuff (and there were tonnes of classic easy lines), the most memorable were: Sheepherder (V2); The Prow (V2); Birthday Direct (V3); Buttermilks Stem (V1); Robinson's Rubber Tester (V0); The Hunk (V2); East Rib (V3 R); and Green Wall Essential (V2).
And of the super-rad boulders that I didn't manage to tick, only two particularly stand out: Atari (V6 R) and Professional Widow (V4 R).
So, in the interest of letting images speak louder than words (or a bunch of tedious boulder-descriptions) , I'm gonna leave you with a brief photo montage to sum up this stage of the trip. When watching this section, I suggest you play the embedded video below to set the appropriate theme. Also, if you don't care about bouldering, there will be more rad epics below the photo montage.
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| Me sending Serengeti (V5). |
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| Jeff finally sends Sheepherder (V2). It took both of us multiple days to send this V2... no, seriously. |
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| Isaac, Peter and Gabe hiding from the rain beneath "Son of Claudius Rufus (V5). Oh, we also all Sent the problem as well. |
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| Jeff on Atari (V6 R). One of the proudest lines at the Happy Boulders, and one of the boldest. Jeff sent this a few days later. |
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| Me on Fly Boy Arete (V5). |
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| And another one on Fly Boy Arete (V5). |
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| How to know when bouldering really has gone mainstream. |
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| Gabe also working Akira (V6 R). |
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| Brendan on the immaculate: Whiskey, Beer and Spliff Hits for Breakfast (V4) |
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| The line of Santana (5.11c). Starting on the thin wooden plank below the rooflet, any fall until you turn the roof will leave you swimming in the river. Fun (and snowy)! |
So, the final component of the climbing Mecca that is Bishop is Owens River Gorge. The Gorge climbs like a weird cross between Nowra and Spanish limestone (despite being volcanic like the Happy Boulders), featuring long routes (a short route is 25m in length), and with every hold being some form of sloper that requires power to move off. From a distance it looks like choss (though the Gorge itself is spectacular in its aesthetic beauty), but up close you realise that after 30+ years of people climbing there, the rock/holds that remain are bombproof (and polished to a point of being kind to your skin).
Of the 20-odd routes that I climbed there only 2 were not worth climbing, and some were truly spectacular. Among some utterly mega mainstream routes (Black Hole (5.12b), Darshan/Rip-Off (5.12b), Venom (5.11c), and pretty much everything on the Great Wall of China wall), there were a few obscure routes that required a multipitch mentality to climb, and were sandbagged and unchalked when I jumped on them. There was also plenty of opportunity to link pitches and create megapitches that required multiple abseils to get off. My final climb in Owens River Gorge was Santana (5.11c), and the epic that was this climb is best summed up by my "logged" ascent on TheCrag.com:
"What an amazing last climb in Owens River Gorge... On the precipice of darkness, with snow blowing around and proper arctic conditions, and I decide to get on the rarely climbed thin arete/face directly over the river (you belay off a small plank of wood bolted to the wall, after traversing on other planks above the waterline to get there) where a fall at the 1st 3 bolts will put you in the river... a desperately cold insecure techy battle up a proud unchalked line, out of sight of my belayer."I would readily recommend The Gorge to any climbers who happen to visit Bishop during their time in the US.
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| About 1/4 of the majesty that is Owens River Gorge (and with only the unpopular walls visible). |
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| The line to get into the Reel Rock screening at the festival. It went right around the block. |
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| Any questions? |
The Mount Whitney Epic
Ah, yes, the Mount Whitney Epic. I almost didn't want to retell this misadventure, if only because it was so fucking stupid, and because it crossed the fine line between "Strategically Bold Climbing", and "Dangerous climbing", a line I've always prided myself of staying on the more rational side of. In short: this epic, though somewhat macho in retrospect, doesn't paint me in the best light as a safe climber. But I believe that admitting to my mistake is an important factor in recognising and learning from it.
And so, with this foreword, I take you back to a time halfway through my sojourn in Bishop, when I left the arid pebble-fields for something grander...
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| Approaching Mount Whitney from Upper Boy Scout Lake. The Day Needle is the spire on the left; the Keeler Needle is in the middle, and Mount Whitney is the broad peak on the right. |
Mount Whitney is the "highest mountain the lower 48 states of the USA", and at 4421m it makes anything we have in Australia look pretty pathetic. Having said that, though, via it's easiest route its a walk up a hill in Summer, and a crampon up a hill in winter, so it's hardly what one can call "technical". It's blessed with several moderate-grade climbing routes, and one "easy" climbing route which is a popular solo: The Mountaineers Route (3rd Class).
In summer or early-spring/late-autumn The Mountaineers Route is a 3rd Class gully scramble. After a snow dump or in the middle of winter it's snow-plow territory as you wade waist-deep in the stuff. However, for a small portion of the year it consists of refrozen ice, the sort that is a doddle with an ice-axe and crampons, but is akin to ice-skating when wearing conventional boots. Despite knowing that I would be attempting it at the worst possible time of year, and having heard from other prospective summiters that it was covered in refrozen and consolidated ice, I figured that I might as well have a crack at it while I was here.
I arrived at the start of the Mountaineers Route at about 11am (at approx 3800m elevation), and found that even the approach to the gully was almost un-climbable as the refrozen ice was too tough to kick steps in with my boots, and I didn't have crampons or ice-axes to make it more manageable. Gaining height above Iceberg Lake via the 1cm deep steps I managed to kick, and feeling the ice getting tougher as I entered into the "no falls" height above the terrain below, I chose to traverse across the couloir and onto the northern side of the gully, which featured some relatively tame scrambling/climbing and paralleled the couloir I wanted to follow.
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| Looking down at Iceberg lake from the very start of the Mountaineers Route. A moment of calm before the impending storm. |
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| The initial stages of my off-route scrambling. Nothing too exciting, but don't let the perspective of the photo fool you: it was realclimbing. |
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| An old phototopo (from a very out-of-date copy of the climbing guide to the High Sierras) showing the routes on the East Face of Mount Whitney. The Red Line shows the route that I climbed. |
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| The terrifying view of the sheer North face of Mount Whitney that greeted me as I arrived on the North-East Ridge: It's brown-trousers time! Photo: Neil Monteith |
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| Looking up the North-East ridge, with the branch-couloir to the left. Don't let the perspective fool you: there's a reason why this is 5.10+ A1. Photo: Neil Monteith |
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| In the col between the North-East Ridge and the Summit Couloir to the top of Mount Whitney. |
Talking later to Alex about our first encounter, he told me that his first impression was that I was "A bit of a weirdo", because I was visibly shaken, distracted, and vague to talk to. While he might be right about my being a weirdo, what he said about my arrival at the Summit of Mount Whitney echoes my own memories of the event: I couldn't consolidate my thoughts and didn't feel like I was existing in that place and time. I was seriously upset. I like to climb bold (in fact I pride myself on my ability to do so), I like to take risks, but this crossed my threshold, and I was genuinely struggling to deal with the schizophrenic thoughts doing battle within my own mind.
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| Me on the unimpressive summit of Mount Whitney. Hooray! |
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| Alex during the long, long, so very long descent. |
The forecast storm moved in about 4pm, and the dump was so massive (reportedly up to 2m in areas) that it ended the "regular" climbing season in the High Sierras, and resulted in the closure of Tioga Rd through Tuolumne for the year. I'd been planning to solo Cathedral Peak in Tuolumne before my Mount Whitney epic, but -even before access was denied to me by the snowfall- I'd changed my mind about prospective adventurous soloing before I even got back to my car.
Live and learn, right? Fortunately, in this instance, I got to live, and thus a chance to learn.
Into the Desert
With only a week to go before I had to depart America, I was reunited with James Bultitude in LA, and we undertook an audacious whirlwind tour across the deserts to Boulder, Colorado where he was due to commence an internship on the same day I was due to fly home.
First up was a trip to Red Rocks in Nevada, which inevitably meant a trip to Las Vegas, due to the climbing area being scarcely 30min drive from The Strip. We checked into a ridiculously cheap room at the Stratosphere, then spent the evening trolling The Strip with gallons of cheap beer in hand, investigating the cacophony of elaborate clubs that so define this apoplexy of tacky hedonism.
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| Bulti, Beer and Ridiculously unsubtle hedonism. It's Vegas Baby! |
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| Yes, I am walking through the casino carrying my milk and cereal... I'm not paying for a Hotel Breakfast! |
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| Bulti approaches Mescalito. |
After rapping back down the route (and inevitably dropping our rope into the creek), we raced back out of Vegas and started the long haul to Moab, crossing from Nevada into Arizona, and eventually into Utah. We arrived at Moab quite late, but started early the next day in order to make the most of our time here.
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| The corkscrew summit of Ancient Art. I'm not sure a funny comment can do justice to this. |
But the real reason for doing this climb is in the next two pitches (which are best to link), that take you over an extremely narrow fin of rock with all the void on either side, past a funky mantle, and up an improbable corkscrew spire. You rarely get such an obvious, clear-cut summit on rock climbs, and even on the Desert Towers this one is unique. With the ridiculous wind we encountered, the summit (and especially standing on the narrow summit) was an exciting proposition, but we both took turns to lead the pitch and score about 1000 photos a piece, then rapped our way back to the ground.
We had plans to hit up a single-pitch crack-climbing area nearby, but these were thrown into ruin as it began to rain. Before long the rain turned torrential, then into sleet, and eventually into snow. Then the snow became quite thick, and our prospects for camping were also ruined. We spent the night bivouacking in the only dry place we could find: atop picnic tables in a random picnic shelter, and still the snow kept falling. By the next morning it was clear that our plans for Castleton Tower and Fine Jade (on The Rectory) were a write-off, and we soon came to the conclusion that the followed planned days at Indian Creek were also out of the question. Frustrated, we left Utah that day, morphing our Rental car into a snow-plow and visiting Rifle Canyon to knock over a 5.11a and some 20m 5.12a steep crack before heading out.
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| You know you've made it as a true dirtbag climber when thisisn't anything out-of-the-ordinary. |
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| Um... It's snowing... in the desert, dude. |
With our time to climb rapidly running out, we made out way to Boulder and hit up El Dorado Canyon. If ever you visit this place don't rely on the "Mountain Project" website for route beta... it's rubbish. We'd hoped to do the amazing multipitch trad-arete of The Naked Edge (6-pitch, 5.11b), but with our lack of a guide, limited daylight, and the rumours that getting off the top of Redgarden Wall was something of an epic, we set our sights a little lower: Yellow Spur (6-pitch 5.10c).Though it's possible to climb this at as tame a grade as 5.9, I opted to take all the harder variations as we progressed up it.
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| Two climbers high on Yellow Spur, with the leader just entering the 5.9+ technical shield that is the crux of the normal version of the route. Below the climbers you can see the enormous roof you're required to traverse under. Photo: Aeon Aki - https://www.mountainproject.com/v/106112390 |
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| Toyota Yaris turns Snow Plow in Rifle Canyon. |
Some locals had tipped us off about a good free camping area in Upper Boulder Canyon, but after investigating the site and finding it deep in snow, we attempted to head back down towards Boulder only to find that the car couldn't get back up the ice-covered slope we'd driven down. Nothing that we did could get this accursed front wheel drive car up the hill, and our attempts to "tackle the hill with gusto" were further thwarted by the Traction Control button being mashed into the dashboard and stuck permanently "on", throttling the power we could put down on the ground. Eventually Bulti took one for the team and traipsed off into the wilderness towards a house he'd spotted in the distance, while I took apart the dashboard and eventually managed to free the Traction Control button (and promptly turned it off). Our salvation came in the form of a semi-drunken local who lived at the bottom of the road I was now blocking, and was willing to have a shot at getting the Yaris back up the hill. Riding as a passenger, I almost shit myself as he backed up as far as he could, and hit the hill (complete with a slight dog-leg at half height) at more than 65 Miles Per Hour, skating it around the corner and bouncing off the snow bank, but somehow managing to get us back to the top in once piece. It was at this precise moment that Bulti returned, accompanied by an elderly local with an industrial winch on the back of his pickup truck. No one can say that the locals aren't hospitable... or entertaining.
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| Despite my best efforts to kill it, somehow the Yaris just kept on going. |
So, what happens now? Well, I've been back home for about 3 weeks and in the meantime I've managed to do some pretty rad adventurous routes that I'll write about in my next blog. I've also managed to get utterly spanked by pretty much every steep route I've gotten on, and willingly relapsed into my usual addition by bolting a 40m rap-in, climb-out route over much air (in the gr26/27 range).
But as to what happens next... The answer is that I leave on the 12th December for yet another trip to Tassie. So, I'll be gone again before the dust can settle, with just enough time to sort out all my unfinished business here, do some extra work on "comfortising" my van, and do some training so that I might have a chance at ticking my Project in Tassie.
What can I say... It's a tough life I lead.
