The new Yosemite Free Climbs guidebook finally arrived the Friday before our departure, a good omen. It had been back-ordered since last September. I ran down to the copier and made copies of all the topos on my hit list, anticipation building.
Months of planning had Bill, Sean, Paul, and me heading for Yosemite during the spring/summer semester break. Paul was going to be on the left coast for his research anyway and could swing a week, and Sean decided to join us on his way to a family reunion in Minnesota (somewhat out of his way, but what the heck).
We met irregularly to discuss plans, what gear to bring, how to consolidate racks, etc., then all brought every piece we owned anyway. I even brought my nascent aid-climbing rack, with the secret dream that some big-wall guru would run into the Mountain Room Bar at closing time and announce that his partner had run off with a 16 year-old, and was there anyone there who wanted to second Mondo Big Wall Doom, VI 5.10 A4+. Hey, I'm your man. I even have a brand-new BWH (Big Wall Hammer), as yet unsullied by a piton.
We arrived at the SF Airport about noon on a Wednesday in the middle of May. I lugged my duffel bags off the carousel (somehow, Bill managed to get all his stuff into two carry-on bags. Must have something to do with not having any gear.) and went to wait in line for a car. And wait. Joe and Linda Dieyuppiescum, with even more luggage than me, monopolized one of the two clerks for a half-hour while we waited. Next to us in line, a woman in the Air Force talked with Bill. When Bill and I speculated on the nature of the yuppie couple's problem rather loudly, he apparently said "fuck" too loudly, and the AF woman's dad asked us to watch our language around the lady. Imagine that. A soldier in our armed forces who has never heard a profanity before. Alert the presses. I restrained myself from hollering "She's in the AIR FORCE, for chrissake! Do you think she's never heard a dirty word before?" Properly chastened for our rudeness, we reached the head of the line, and got stuck with a two-door Grand Prix. "Oh, sure," the lady assured us, "it's bigger than the Corsica. And only two dollars more per day." The first of many spankings we were to take on this trip. At least it had a tape deck. We could jam to NIN and Ministry on the way to the Valley.
We stopped at REI in Berkeley for various non-essentials, the Cheeseboard for veggie pizza, Safeway for food, which Sean and I randomly grabbed off shelves and lobbed into the cart. Apples, oranges, instant rice, instant noodles, instant coffee, tinned chicken, a box of instant mashed potatoes (which I ended up leaving for itinerant C4 bums). Sean made sure we got a bottle of Tennessee Mare. Bill and Paul, having real jobs, planned on eating at the cafeteria every night, and looked on us with a mixture of amusement and amazement. Sean, though he also has a real job, decided to dine with me out of some misguided sense of solidarity (later he told me "Actually it wasn't a sense of solidarity, I just like groveling. One of my favorite things about the trip was never changing my shirt."). Then the road. The temperature in Berkeley was perfect, sunny and just a bit cool, and I hoped it would be just like that in Yosemite. It wasn't.
Things started looking dark around the foothills, where we stopped for refreshments after the Old Priest Grade Road. A few miles further, and the rain began in earnest. Our spirits lowered with the cloud cover as we gained elevation and hit heavy snow at 5000 feet. "What's the valley floor elevation, Bill?" "About 3000 feet." Lessee, El Cap is about 3000 feet high, so that means anybody on the upper third is pretty unhappy right now. Not that we had a chance of getting that high on this trip. (Foreshadowing: a sign of quality literature.)
It rained through the night, and looked threatening in the morning. By the time we were done waiting in line for a campsite, the sun was breaking through the clouds, and I was thinking about Jamcrack (5.9). A great way to start the trip, easy approach so nothing lost if the rock was wet, and two classic hard 10s next to it to toprope. This plan was met with approval, so we headed over to the Falls.
The rain had thinned out the tourons, so we didn't have to deal with stares, questions, and pictures, the usual drawbacks of easy-access climbing around the Falls. I was disappointed that the new guidebook didn't include any of the climbs in the Falls area proper now, due to "environmental impact." How can climbers have an environmental impact on an area that is scoured by a raging waterfall several months of the year? There are several classic routes there.
There was no one at Jamcrack when we arrived. Sean and Bill went first, no problems, and informed us as we reached the top that they were headed to Church Bowl. I had wanted to TR the 10s, but it was beginning to zoo out at the bottom, so Paul and I finished and followed. Paul didn't want to lead until he got a feel for the Yosemite granite, quite unlike our home-town granite, so I got to lead both classic pitches.
Church Bowl was fine with me, because I had seconded Church Bowl Tree (5.10b) on my last trip, and wanted to tick it on lead. Well protected, cool moves in pin scars. Someone was practice-aiding it when we arrived, so we went to Bishop's Terrace (5.8). Amazingly, there was only one party ahead of us. Bill led the first pitch to a slight overhang ("Fuck."), figured that was too hard for a 5.7 (Bill _really_ doesn't like roofs, "roof" being anything approaching vertical), looked around for the horn to belay off, but he thought it was loose ("Fuck!"), and then tried the thin crack to the right (no roof, though), then set a belay in the middle of the crack ("I hate this fucking roof."). I climbed up to the tree, and he lowered off to join me. Paul and Sean were right behind us, so they clipped Bill's placements, belayed off the horn and did the second pitch.
I prepared to lead the 160' variation off the tree, a little nervous, since if Bill was freaked, and he used to climb here all the time, what was I in for? Another party had started up too soon after us, and had to hang out on a ledge for a long time waiting for me to start the second pitch. My doubts soon disappeared. Bishop's Terrace had the sweetest 5.8 hand crack I had ever climbed. It would take pro anywhere, the jams were great and painless, and higher, it turned into two cracks, stem, jam, pro, all excellent. I stopped for pro only because I was 20 feet runout, instead of my more usual method of placing gear every 10 feet because I was gripped. My teeth were going to get sunburned, I was loving this pitch so much. It was a great feeling to belay Bill up, remembering the climb. Worth every star.
By this time, the sun was off the rock, and it was getting cool, but Church Bowl Tree was free, I was feeling good, and I wanted to lead it. After slipping around on the first moves ('greasiest climb in the valley'), I got up about ten feet and got some reasonable pro, then into the fun section. Fingerlocks in pin scars, pro wherever I wanted it, I was feeling solid. I got a bomber nut into the section below the crux, stood up into the crux moves, got a decent nut in, and attempted the moves. Damn, my right shoe greased off. There goes the redpoint. No problem, the nut's at my waist, and this is the very last move. Move left, nope, move back right, it's just a matter of keeping in balance while I extend for the finger lock, then smear and high-step. Another grease.
I slipped about four times before I gave it up to bad rubber (though I'm sure the FFA was in EBs, if not CTs), and Sean finished it on my placements. He pulled the crux first try but was kind enough to say that he thought it was hard. Bill ran up it on TR, and I sat around thinking that I should have had my brand-new shoes resoled before I came here. Too cheap. Here I am with two pairs of shoes, one that I can't keep on for more than one pitch, the other with rubber that feels like what I imagine EBs felt like.
But not a bad day for all the talk about bailing the Valley that morning.
Bill is a mathematics lecturer at UT, the moral equivalent of a post-doc, with a wife in Berkeley and a long-distance marriage. About 5'5", 31, he had climbed in his college days, but sold his rack when he married. He had kept his rope, harness, and shoes, though. We had managed to seduce him into sport-climbing the limestone crags in Austin (though he preferred the runout slabs at Enchanted Rock), but had not yet gotten him into the climbing gym ("Come on Bill, be one of us. It's okay to hangdog. Stick-clipping the first bolt isn't really aid. The lycra pods aren't painful.").
Paul is is an astronomy professor at UT, in his late 40s, about 6', and a strong climber, regularly cranking the 11s on the Greenbelt limestone, though he is a conservative climber.
Sean is a tenure-track algebraic geometrist at UT. Sean is about 6', 160 pounds, 31 or so, and a strong climber. Verging on the 12s, if his shoulders stay healthy.
Me, I'm a lowly physics gradual student, at 32 disappointingly older than many of the tenure-track people I know, and not as strong (or light) as I'd like to be. At 6' and 180, I feel like I'm in good shape when I redpoint a bolted 11. I'm something of a leper among the high-energy experimentalists because of my inclination to have a life outside of physics. And I wasn't motivated to do much physics these days, even though I was within six months of graduating (if I worked at it). I had just had the final break-up with a woman I was seriously involved with, and I was looking forward to the distraction of climbing every day and being exhausted every night.
Above all, we are all Texas craggers. The tallest thing we get on with any regularity are the 120' granite slabs at Enchanted Rock. Hard and runout though they can be, we don't get much practice at multi-pitch crack climbs, rope management, and speed in the face of storms and fading daylight. Does this sound like a disclaimer? Perhaps it is.
Sean had his heart set on doing Braille Book at some point, mainly because of the route description. "Steep crack climbing among abundant knobs rewards a trudge approach." 5.8, four pitches, three stars. Actually, I don't think Sean saw anything but the last three words of the description before he locked onto that climb. He had a perverted lust for long grungy approaches. If we had told him about Crest Jewell, we would have been hiking up the North Dome gully. With 50 pound backpacks. Bill and I made a pact to not mention it.
So we started off for Braille Book, chanting a mantra I had learned on my last trip, "If it ain't a highway, it ain't a trail." Sound advice in Yosemite, so we ignored it time and time again.
Sean disappeared in front of us, as we were to learn was his wont, and while I could keep up with him, I preferred to stop regularly and drink in the view of El Cap behind us. Bill and Paul had no interest in going fast. We would holler up to Sean occasionally, and though we could not see him, he assured us there was indeed a trail and cairns up there, so after about an hour and forty-five minutes, we arrived at the bottom of Braille Book. To find two other parties in front of us. With all the easy-access climbing in Yosemite, who would have thought anybody else would hike for two hours to climb a four-pitch 5.8, three stars or no?
So, because of our late start and the other parties, we didn't get on the rock until 1:30. Paul and I went first, due to my luck at calling a coin toss at breakfast. He did the first pitch. I followed, impressed by the stiffness of the 5.7 crux moves. This was a recurrent theme for me. I would get more gripped seconding than I would have leading something harder. Too much imagination, too much time to think.
I re-racked and started up the 5.8 second pitch. Wow, this thing is offwidth! My fist rattled around in the crack. I managed to get a kneejam (read: my knee got stuck in the crack with my foot dangling uselessly) and an armbar, and got a semi-blind nut placement in the incipient right-hand crack. I thrashed about a bit more, trying to get my knee loose without falling out completely. Unsuccessful at this, I decided a deliberate hang was better than a real fall on this nut. I called for tension and hung out. Damn. My sport-climbing habits had betrayed me. There were two good hand holds on the rock where my back had been chimneyed. I should have surveyed this a bit more before I got jammed up into the offwidth. After I used them to avoid the kneejam, the rest of the pitch, though strenuous, was not nearly as much of a grunt.
Clouds had been piling up on the rim of the valley. As we looked at them balefully, I said, in a hopeful tone, "I saw this last September. The clouds roll up to the rim, then stay there and don't come over the valley." Spring weather patterns apparently aren't the same as summer, and as I noticed, we were close to the rim. By the time I reached the third belay, rain was falling on the other side of the Braille Book canyon and, with a shouted consultation up and down the pitch, we decided to bail. I arranged a bomber hex and nut. Paul wanted to go down first, so I sat on a comfy ledge in the overhanging alcove as the storm broke. As I started rapping, the last drops fell, and I didn't get wet at all. The rest of the Brigade did, and they were all shivering and _really_ ready to get down now.
We pulled Paul's 100m 9mm rope (we were using it as double nines), and as the loose end came down, the tail hung up at the top of the 5.8 offwidth. None of us wanted to climb back up and do the crux move on wet rock. What to do? Though the sky wasn't clear, there was blue sky peeking over the rim. I suggested waiting a bit to see if the rock would dry, but Paul pointed out there could be another storm coming that we couldn't see. Sean and I wanted to wait and see if we could rescue the rope, or even continue the climb, but Paul emphatically stated that he was more interested in descending safely than in losing a rope. And Bill was cold.
So we cut the rope. By the time we reached the bottom, the rock was getting dry. We arrived the same time as the Canadians in front of us, who had topped out right as the storm began. They informed us that the 5.8 flare/chimney top pitch would have been nasty work in the wet, so we were probably right to have bailed. I wish we had waited and rescued the rope, though.
The Spank Brigade marched down.
Sean and I decided to climb together the next day, since we hadn't yet been on the same rope, while Bill and Paul went to Manure Pile Buttress. I suggested Arrowhead Arete, but I think Sean telepathically put that thought in my head. The guidebook doesn't explicitly mention a trudge, but it should have been obvious. That's the sort of detail the mind glosses over. Yes, it looks pretty broken up at the bottom, and it's only six pitches, and the top is way up there, but I never managed to put these facts together into 'long approach hike.'
We "gained the trail that traverses the north side of the Valley at the Church Bowl", and ended up hiking up a talus slope in Indian Canyon. We immediately broke the highway rule again. After bushwhacking, steep contouring, and confusion, we hit something that resembled a trail and followed it.
After more confusion, we arrived at the base of something that matched the topo of the climb. Around 11:00am, Sean started up the first pitch chimney, and finding it wet, spent some more time working out a way around it. Not hard moves, but bad landings, manky pro, and a long way to carry someone with a broken ankle. We were to regret all this time later, especially our 8am start (remember, foreshadowing: a sign of quality literature).
Sean eventually set a belay, and I followed up. Damn, that second pitch looked wide. Why me? I don't particularly enjoy offwidths, though my climbing partners think I am physically pre-disposed to them. Just because I'm not an anorexic sport-climbing weenie.
I racked the big gear up front and started up. I burned my #3 camalot and #3.5 friend getting up to the really wide part of the pitch. After some time well-spent whimpering about the width, or rather, off-width of the crack, I managed to get my knee stuck again, and found that the #4 Camalot was the only thing that would work in this crack. I set it above me, unstuck my knee, rattled my fist around for luck, and stemmed out to a loose block in the dihedral to my right. I got a nut behind the block, then a better placement with a #0 Quadcam. I had been sorry I had bought this tiny piece -- mail-order, sight-unseen -- but was happy to have it now, and blessed it several times on this trip. I walked Mr. #4 up the pitch above me for what seemed forty feet, but was probably less. Finally the big crack ran out, and I abandoned the #4 gladly, reasoning God wouldn't do that to me twice on one pitch. The crack got hand-sized and sweet, then traversed onto the arete for some airy 5.7 face-climbing. Nice stances where I wanted them, old fixed pins that I backed up with gear of more recent vintage. After the offwidth, this felt great. I drank in the view of the spire and valley as I brought Sean up.
I had spent far too long moaning on the off-width, though, and Sean took a long time on the next pitch, moving around loose blocks, missing a couple of fixed pins, and just generally having a hard time route-finding. Lost in his route-finding, he went past the obvious belay, and had to downclimb without pro. More time. I fell victim to my seconding syndrome again, and Sean was upset at himself for missing the belay, so we agreed that he should lead the next pitch. Another airy one. My belay looked down at the top of the detached spire, and at most of the valley. We were pretty high here, and the top of the rim looked close. This pitch has an exposed face move to a big jug which is out of sight until you commit to the move, with the right side of the arete dropping off below for a long way.
A classic pitch, with good moves, and good exposure. We traversed from the west side of the Arete to the east. Sean belayed me from a big tree growing horizontally out of a crack, and I racked up quickly for the Great White Flake. We were hurrying now.
There were two ways to approach this flake. I could have done it cleanly, with my body outside the flake, using it for hands and pro. I opted for the more secure, if less elegant, method of straddling the flake and keeping as much of my body stuffed in it as possible. Lots of exposure and a rope-stretching pitch. Sean followed me, and we moved the belay up 4th class ledges. He lead the next pitch, a combination of 5.7 and 4th class.
We got a bit confused as to how to get off the arete. The guide says follow the crest to third class ledges, down the gully. Sean was on top, and he didn't think (at first), that the third class was up there. It looked fourth class to him. I reconnoitered at the lower level, and it looked like 3rd class, though way-exposed, but I couldn't see how far they went before I ran out of rope. Sean downclimbed from the top, and scouted farther, and came back with the news that there was no descent that way. It was getting late, 6pm. He lead back up to the top, and brought me up. The top of the Arete turned out to be suburb-sidewalk sized, with big air on either side. There are also some broken-up bits requiring airy down climbing. I tried to get through this as quickly as possible, with just a couple of pieces to protect my second. It wasn't hard, but a fall would leave him in a bad position. After some wandering, we found a tree with rap slings on it, leading into the gully. The light was quickly waning.
We hurried down the loose, steep gully in our rock shoes, looking for the "rappels past huge chockstones." It was getting dark, and we reached a big drop-off where there had to be a rap. With our mini-flashlight we didn't see any slings, though. There was a notch on the left side of the gully, and we wondered if we were sufficiently bold, could we climb down into this and find the rap? We start to set up a belay off a big rock to try this, when I pointed out to Sean that even if we succeeded, we had at least two more raps to the ground, and it was getting dark, and we could end up someplace less hospitable than here. At least here there was plenty of wood for a fire. At this point I didn't see how we could safely avoid a bivy.
This seemed more reasonable than rapping in the dark, so we abandoned the blind raps, and tried to find a level spot in the steep gully to build a fire. We ended up on a small flat rock with barely enough room for both of us, but a log nearby to keep some of the wind off. We gathered wood, and started a fire (at least we had a lighter). It got cold, and neither of us had anything heavier than a light pile shirt. Sean had a cheap Sears rain poncho that turned out to be surprisingly warm, reflecting heat and keeping the breeze off. We had brought only one quart of water, and had about half left.
I think I set the record for longest continual nap, about two hours, curled away from the fire in the poncho before the cold woke me and I had to rejoin the fire. Sean and I huddled beneath the poncho, endured the smoke, and were thankful that it was a beautiful, if cold night. I shivered all night, more than Sean. We spent some time discussing quite rationally whether eating food would warm us up, or cause more heat to be sucked away from our extremities for digestion. In the end, I didn't eat because I didn't want to get any thirstier, and Sean ate a granola bar. Our sample was too small for me to draw any conclusions about the effects of eating on warmth.
The full moon traversed the entrance of our narrow canyon, lighting it for a time, then disappeared, leaving brilliant stars in a milky wash of moonglow reflected off granite walls. Morning approached in jumps of quarter-and half-hours, with the talk that accompanies late-night wakefulness. In the morning light, I was reluctant to leave the warmth of the fire, but Sean started us down not long after first light, and movement warmed us.
And there were the rap slings at the base of a manzanita. We rapped into the notch and found more slings. Someone bold enough could have climbed into the notch, but not us. Rapping at night (without headlamps) would have been a bad idea. We would have missed at least one crucial intermediate rappel, and been left dangling at the end of the rope with another twenty feet to hit bottom. The guide says three eighty foot raps: we did at least five one-rope raps, a couple just 15-20 feet to the next set of slings.
As we hustled down the trail, promoting ourselves within ranks of the Spank Brigade, we met Bill and Paul coming up to find us. They were worried about us, though not enough to call for a rescue yet. My witticism about "Dr. Livingston , I presume," was lost in the general hubbub.
After we returned to C4 (on a much better trail than we found on the way up), I suggested the Ahwanee Sunday brunch. An unplanned bivy seemed to deserve some compensation. Since I'd nothing but two Powerbars in 24 hours, I planned to make a pig of myself. The staff would talk. The guests would be offended. I would be quietly asked to leave, then noisily frog-marched out. It would be legendary.
We told bunches of lies about climbing, rehashed the day (and night), and did a fair amount of damage to the buffet and our diets. Even though they ran out of chocolate for dessert, it was a good spread. The staff took it in stride, apparently having seen climbing bums before.
After Sean slept all afternoon, and I did laundry, we made plans to do something simple the next day. He wanted to get the feel of some 5.9 on lead, so we went up to find Commitment, 5.9, three pitches. I've done Munginella before, so I should have been able to find Commitment, but nothing seemed familiar. We passed the base of the climb once, and had to come back. I was due for a spanking.
The first two pitches are 5.8 and 5.7, and I would lead both of them so Sean would be fresh for the 5.9 roof. There are two variations of the first pitch, a 5.8 layback, and a 5.8 handcrack. I chose the handcrack variation, not liking laybacks on lead. There was a nest of ants on the higher tree, so Sean moved down to the lower tree to belay me. The day was lovely as I started up. The hardest technical move was right off the ground with no pro in. I nailed it and got pro in. But what's this? Ants are pouring out of the crack, all over my hands, arms, up my legs, on my face. Goddamn! I hustled up the crack, reasoning that they were nesting in the tree, and if I just got higher, I'd get away from them. I went a long way without pausing to place pro, then finally stopped because I realized sooner or later, one of these ants might bite something crucial, and I'd take a whipper. Of course, stopping just made it easier for them to swarm the intruder. They seemed to only bite when squeezed, but this was a crack. There were quite a few getting unavoidably squeezed. At least they weren't Texas fire ants. Those don't need a reason to bite, just pure oneriness.
I kept looking up, and thinking that if I just get _there_, there wouldn't be any more ants, but as I moved up, they just kept swarming out, like a red wave pushed up by my ascent.
"How badly do you want to do this climb, Sean?" I hollered down and explained my situation. I had found a fixed stopper that I was willing to bail on, no doubt left by some other fool. I was about 50' up.
"Get up there, you wimp!" he yelled back.
Okay, you bastard. I gritted my teeth, brushed off all the ants I could, and took it up, the smell of formic acid strong in my nostrils. Eventually, the crack ran out of ants, and I ran out of crack. At least they weren't on the belay ledge. I set the belay, brushed off the dead bodies, and brought Sean up. Somewhere in the back of my mind, there was a vague memory of someone warning me about this, and I could hear laughter echoing in my head.
Sean was more appreciative of my fine lead when he reached the belay. Apparently I had just roiled up the ants for him. Aside from the Hitchcockian aspect, it was an aesthetic hand crack.
I ran up the next pitch. Manky pro for the face moves, then easy laybacks and good pro to the next belay.
Sean kindly took a piss off the belay ledge, ensuring that the smell would occasionally waft up to me while he lead the pitch. A long time, it turned out. The crux was easier than he thought, one of those climbs where you keep pro-ing up because you expect it to get hard, and it never does. He spent quite a bit of time equalizing a pin and a #2 Camalot below the roof, but finished the climb with no problems, other than not being able to hear me tell him he was out of rope at the top.
I spent about 30 minutes getting this Camalot out, because he overcammed it severely. Several times, I was about to give up on it and let him buy me a new one, when the thought of getting spanked again made me try something else, or the cams would move just a bit, and I would attack it with new frenzy. My distaste for leaving a piece warred with my lust for one of the new BD Camalots (especially if someone else bought it). Finally native West Texan frugality won out over grad-student greed, and I worked it out.
So no spanking for us on this climb, but it didn't make us more confident that we could do a long route. We were flirting with the thought of doing the East Buttress of Middle Cathedral, but climbing forty-foot limestone sport routes and one-pitch granite slabs had not prepared us to be fast in Yosemite. There are cracks at Enchanted Rock, but none get very far off the ground. Given our epic on Arrowhead Arete, we shouldn't even have considered something 11 pitches long, but we sat in the shade, ate Powerbars and spoke rationally about it. The rationality of prisoners of war planning an escape. Lessee, we just averaged an hour per pitch, and the days are about 14 hours; with an early start, and we should be able to make the descent with headlamps. It almost sounds feasible.
Yeah, right.
Had Sean's flight not been the day after, we might have attempted it. But while in theory, he was willing to risk bivying in order to make the climb, in practice he couldn't afford to miss his plane, and we didn't have any more days.
So Sean and I spent a frustrating afternoon in C4 arguing about tobacco and advertising and first amendment rights versus good of the people. He thought I was being illogical; possibly so. I thought he was being impossibly idealistic, not to mention fascistic. Among aspiring big-wall parties with piles of gear and water bottles spread on tarps for sorting, we discussed social policy. The afternoon thundershower was appropriate background for our discussion.
That evening, shortly after I had settled down to bed, I was awakened from my slumber by a sharp, long cracking sound. Bolt upright, I thought it was thunder, but the sky was clear, and as my head cleared I realized it was rockfall. For what seemed an eternity, the sound of _big_ stones falling down the wall. Then clatter as smaller stones followed their brothers. It was close enough, loud enough, and lasted long enough for me to have time to wonder if any would tumble into C4. The Columbia boulder had come from that wall, had it not? After the last stone had chattered to silence, there was quiet for a moment, then a chorus of shouts and cheers, and someone (not me, though I wish it were), querulously shouted, "Rock?" which sent the camp into nervous, raucous laughter.
The evenings in C4 were consistently perfect after the first rainy evening, the whole valley bathed in the glow of the waxing moon, so that even the sky seemed to be washed in the faint light, but the stars still bright. It was just cool enough to sleep comfortably with a bag as a blanket. The birds and the sun woke us reliably at 5am. I had my Petzl headlamp so I would not look out of place in the C4 restroom after dark (though I failed to bring it the one time it would have been useful).
The next day was Sean and Paul's last, and Bill and I were following them into Berkeley to take some rest days, and so he could spend some time with his wife. Sean and I decided to finish with Central Pillar of Frenzy. I had done it before, leading the even pitches, so we decided I would do the odd ones this time.
CPF went well, though we were slow again. I had bet Sean a pitcher of beer that we would be off by 2pm, and he won handily. We hit the top about 1:30, and given the three parties below us, it was 3:30pm (and about to storm) when we hit the ground. The new, stiff 8.8mm got stuck twice pulling it, and we were lucky that someone was following us, or we would have been spanked yet again.
When we arrived back at camp, we found that Paul and Bill had gotten their spanking on Nutcracker. Paul had decided to downclimb at the bulge on the next-to-last pitch, yarded on his camming device as he went down past it, and it pulled, sending him into a long, awkward fall. He had some spectacular bruises. His helmet probably saved him from a head injury. Bill also fell on a different pitch, getting a nasty bruise on his hip. Not a good day for them.
I bought the pitcher at The Loft. Sean, nice guy that he is, bought my dinner in honor of the fun climbs we had together.
Sean and Paul left the next morning for the airport, and Bill and I followed, to Berkeley. We spent a couple of days around the Bay, doing the tourist gig and relaxing.
Bill was hesitant to return to Yosemite. His head had not been in his climbing so far, and he wanted to spend more time with his wife. This would leave me at the mercy of the C4 bulletin board. We had met a few climbers in camp, and I probably could have hooked up with one of them, but they all climbed at higher grades than I.
But Bill's wife had made plans on the assumption that Bill was going back to the valley, and while Bill considered staying with friends in the Bay, he eventually decided to return and climb. I was reluctant, because if his head wasn't good, I would just as soon have climbed with a stranger.
Before we had left we had talked to Jeff Perrin about climbing together, and he had mentioned that he might like to do Serenity Crack (three pitches, (10d) and Sons of Yesterday (five pitches, 10a). These were far above what we would attempt on our own, but with a certified Big Wall God, well, we had proved we were willing to take a spanking. Talk of this drove us much of the way back to the Valley.
Bill knew Jeff from their undergraduate days, and in fact, had introduced him to climbing before their paths diverged, Bill to academe, Jeff to hard climbing.
We got back into C4 on a sunny Friday afternoon, and strolled back over to Jamcrack and to toprope the two 10s next to it. Bill led the first pitch, and we set up a TR and worked on these climbs until the mosquitoes drove us away. I felt solid, and got the notion that I could lead either or both of those climbs, and tick my lead numbers up to 10c/d. At least easy 10c/d, if not exactly Outer Limits, and not exactly onsight.
Next day, Bill wanted to do some friction on Glacier Point Apron, and I was up for giving it a try, even though I didn't trust either pair of my shoes. My comfy all-day shoes had the lousy original rubber, and my sport-climbing shoes were too uncomfortable to wear for very long. I decided to go with the latter, and just loosen them at belays. This turned out to be a mistake. Black shoes, Glacier Point Apron, sunny day, miserable feet.
I got baited on the way over. We took the shuttle because we didn't want to lose our easy-access C4 parking space, so we were forced to endure the stares of tourists on the bus. A couple of grungy older guys got on and started asking stupid questions about climbing. Bill, showing no mercy, fed them an increasingly preposterous line about climbing El Cap with oxygen, crampons, Sherpas, etc. in response to their questions about our ropes and gear. They took Bill's abuse for so long that I finally relented and gave a polite answer to a gear question, which they followed with more inane questions. Having been polite, I had no choice but to remain so until I had wriggled myself well and truly onto the hook. After they could contain themselves no longer, they burst out laughing, and I sat in shame, knowing I had been sandbagged. We found out they had just done some extremely hard route and were taking a rest day.
Great. The English couple sharing our C4 site are doing the Rostrum as warm-up ("Well, it's a bit overrated, innit?"), these guys are taking a break from Astroman by gigging us, and here we are looking for classic 5.8s to epic on. Nothing like an ego dive to get you ready to climb.
After two pitches of Chouinard Crack, I was ready to bail. The thought of climbing three or four more pitches in the baking sun fried my enthusiasm. Bill wanted to continue up Point Beyond (he likes friction, and excels at it), but I wanted out of the sun. There is a special place in climbers' hell for manufacturers who make black shoes. Probably next to Texas climbers who should know better.
Back on the ground, we discussed what to do for the next few days, and the Regular Route on Fairview was something on both of our tick lists. We hadn't been to Tuolumne on this trip, either. The Tioga Pass Road had just opened, and we decided to drive up and take a look, see where the snow level was, then if it looked good, drive back up early the next morning and fire it.
When we got there, though, the first pitch of the climb still had snow piled up at the base. We trekked into the backcountry a ways. The ground was still snowy and wet, with boggy little streams running everywhere. Given that we'd have to posthole up to the second pitch of the climb, we decided to pass.
Since we were up there, and it was still early afternoon, I suggested sport-climbing on East Cottage Dome. Clipping bolts on a vertical knobby wall at 9000 feet sounded like fun. Good pump, relatively grip free.
That evening, we went to the Mountain Room Bar to find Jeff and see when he wanted to drag us up Serenity Crack. We found him sitting by the fireplace with several Big Wall Gods. Jeff and Pete Takeda were discussing walls. Pete was naming off possibilities, and Jeff was nixing them, saying "Too long", "I have be back at work on the weekend", or "Naw, too hard." Pete went through his list until he hit something which quieted Jeff. A few minutes later, they disappeared, ostensibly for dinner, but hadn't come back after a couple of hours. Racking up, no doubt. There went our free pass up Serenity Crack.
We stayed for a while, talking to the remaining BWGs, who turned out to be Alan Lester and Greg Epperson. They told us that they were in the process of freeing the Muir Wall with some others, even as they sat there and drank beer, and offered to let us jumar loads. They didn't push too hard on that when they found out we were complete wall gumbies. We asked all the usual touron questions about walls (everyone's a touron to someone), and found out that Alan's brother worked with Paul. Bill and Alan had met in a previous climbing life, so they caught each other up on their lives.
Not long after we got back we found that Scott Cosgrove, Kurt Smith, and Greg Epperson got busted at the top of their ascent because they used a power drill to place bolts, and talked about it to some plain-clothes rangers. During my previous trip, Lynn Hill had freed the Nose. Big things happen when I'm around. Of course, I don't find out until I read about them three months later in the mags.
Back at C4 and on our own again, Bill and I debated a couple of different climbs. I wanted to do Absolutely Free, four pitches, 5.9, but Bill didn't like the fourth class approach. He was more interested in Positively Fourth Street, two pitches, 5.9. We decided to do this first, then if we felt up to it, AF. An easy day, then next day, maybe Snake Hike.
Next morning, Bill led the first pitch, and wasn't happy. His head wasn't into climbing. He wasn't shy about letting me know this. He wanted to be someplace else, understandable for someone who rarely gets to see his wife.
I fell twice seconding, cursing my shoes. I started up the second pitch, then stood below the crux for a long time, wondering what was I doing with someone who didn't want to be here? That's no reflection on Bill; everyone has times when they don't want to be climbing. I suspected that Bill had returned from the Bay less because he wanted to climb than because he didn't want to strand me without a partner. My head had been really good for this whole trip, but my enthusiasm was sapped. Eventually it wasn't enough to carry both of us. I saw no graceful way to find a new climbing partner. I backed off to the belay ledge and suggested changing our plane tickets; we had only three days left anyway. It had been a good trip, and I had had enough. So had Bill. He unhesitatingly agreed.
We changed our flight to the next morning. I wanted to lead Lazy Bum and Bummer before we left, a success to end the trip. We walked over to the falls, and I gave them a shot, but my lead head was gone, and I just wasn't up to leading my limit on small nuts. I backed down, and left the valley, appropriately enough, spanked at the end. I know I can do those climbs, and will next time.
So the Spank Brigade returned to their 40 foot crags, with 3000 foot white stones towering in their dreams, plotting their return.