Life is pretty excellent right now. Michelle and I just returned from an amazing week in gorgeous Yosemite Valley, best climbing location in the world (many would say). The weather was perfect all week, lovely blue skies with bright stars at night. The plants and animals are all a bit unfamiliar out here on the west coast, distant cousins of their eastern kin. The valley is heavenly, all pines and meadow, tumbling brooks, waterfalls, woodpeckers, cawing crows and soaring hawks. And the rock... the granite is perfect, immaculate, sparkling in the sun. There are 3,000 foot high monoliths... in every direction!! We are surrounded. By comparison, the ubiquitous 500 foot walls seem tiny.
We arrived on Friday with Dan and Tess from San Francisco. We practiced a bit on some small cliffs at the Swan Slab, where we top-roped some slabs and cracks. I led Grant's Crack (5.9) and Michelle set up Penelope's Problem (5.7). The next day, Michelle took Tess up a long multi-pitch route, while Dan and I practiced some jam cracks. Later, Dan and I raced up to meet Tess and Michelle at the top of the route. We spent a whole exhausting afternoon trying to find the elusive "swimming hole" at the top and the descent trail. Eventually, after running out of drinking water, we gave up and rappelled down next to Lower Yosemite Falls. This picture shows where we climbed, just right of the falls:
Dan and Tess are software engineers at Goggle. I met Dan while I was doing bat surveys in Honduras; he was originally in charge of computers and communications, or something like that, but eventually he was promoted to Base Camp Manager despite his young age. Dan has graciously let us stay at his apartment in the middle of San Francisco.
On Sunday, Dan and Tess left the valley, on the way dropping us off at Glacier Point Apron, a 1,000 foot high and 1/4 mile wide slab of smooth granite. The bottom of the slab was still encrusted in snow. We had to cut our own steps in the snowy slope. We climbed Harry Daley (5.8). The first pitch involved a great finger crack and walking across a one-inch wide crack in the rock. Michelle lead the second pitch including a hand crack straight over a roof. We top-roped Variations on a Theme (5.10b) and then headed down for ice cream and some climbing on small crags near camp, such as Jam Crack (5.9). The bats came out while we were packing up. The echolocation calls of some of the local species are audible to the human ear. There's nothing better than seeing bats on the way down from a climb.
Monday was the best birthday I've ever had. We decided to climb the famous Nutcracker, a relatively small (600 foot high) route next to El Capitan. There are many variations and we took the hardest line for every pitch (5.9+). The last pitch involves some wild moves, where people often break their ankles apparently. In fact, Michelle busted her ankle on this climb a few years ago, albeit not on the infamous "ankle-breaking section". This part involves a long reach up an overhanging corner. You grab a hold way above your head and have to hoist your body up and over a slanting ledge. The move is only dangerous for the leader, and it's not too difficult. We both did it by swinging our heel on to the ledge first.
After the Nutcracker, we climbed a 5.7 corner, a 5.10 slab/arete, and a 5.9 face. We were really, really hungry; that evening we went to the only restaurant in the park that was open- some fancy place with a corny name- and ate: bread and LOTS of butter, then salmon gravlax, a 10 oz steak, potatoes and gravy, vegetables, shittake strudel, then stuffed trout, rice, chocolate cake, and apple crisp. We were the last customers to leave and the bill was a ridiculous 90 dollars.
Tuesday, we took a rest day and hiked around and went to the visitors center to learn what the tourists do here. Yosemite is very developed, which is sad (but also convenient). On the one hand, all the shopping and dining centers detract from the wilderness feel and the natural beauty, but on the other hand, it is kind of nice to come down off a huge buttress of rock and get a slice of pizza in five minutes. For most of the tourists here, the valley is a bit like disneyland but with amazing natural scenery instead of crazy rides. Luckily, we get to do more than just look at the cliffs.
On Wednesday, we did one of the coolest climbs of my life, Serenity Crack (5.10d). Standing at the base, the climb looks pretty intimidating. The route consists of a continuous 400 foot long crack up a perfect clean granite face. The route was originally an aid route, unclimbable except with the help of steel pitons that were bashed into the tiny crack. However, all through the 50's, 60's and 70's so many people bashed pitons into the thin seam that it's now possible to stick your fingers into the piton scars and climb the crack! The crux involved a series of fingertip jams over a bulge with no footholds. It was awesome!
We were originally planning to continue up a 5.10 handcrack called Sons Of Yesterday, which is supposedly the best in the valley, but unfortunately it was just too windy and cold that high up, and I was wearing only a thin t-shirt. So we rappelled back down, put on warm clothes and did another climb called Super Slide (5.9), which was 500 feet of easier climbing.
The next day we returned to the same area, called Royal Arches, to climb a 5.8 offwidth called Trial by Fire. An "offwidth" refers to an awkwardly wide crack that is too big to jam with your fist and too small too crawl inside of, like a squeeze chimney. Imagine trying to climb a vertical crack that is 6 inches wide. You have to wedge your knee or a bent arm (called a chicken wing) or maybe shove both your hands in at once, jamming them against each other. Thankfully, Michelle got me a huge 5 inch camming device for my birthday allowing me to protect myself on this climb. We also went to a lovely little crag called the Church Bowl, where we climbed a beautiful two pitch 5.8 handcrack called Bishop's Terrace, Church Bowl Tree 5.10b, and Church Bowl Layback 5.8. I also backed off a scary 5.10 face climb because it was protected by bolts that were spaced far apart. If I fell before the second bolt I would land in a nasty tree, so I just came down rather than risk it. (Just to make you guys feel less nervous, we never took any lead falls, and didn't do any climbs that were pushing our limits.) We also ran into two people we knew from Cornell, Natalie and Taki.
Friday, the last day, we took another "rest day", which turned into an afternoon of bouldering for me. We made some friends who had crash pads and followed them around to climb some hard boulder problems. "Problems" are difficult little bits of climbing, usually on an overhanging boulder; they often require many tries. Crash pads are huge pieces of tough foam that you can fall on without getting hurt. I did a problem called Bachar Cracker (v4), which was maybe the coolest boulder problem I've ever done. It's named after the famous climber John Bachar, but the name also refers to the possibility of it being a back- cracker: if you fall you could land on some pointed granite boulders. Fortunately though, we had TWO crash pads and 3 spotters to make the fall totally safe. The problem starts down in a crevice cave, and climbs out the roof using a crack that gets progressively smaller. The last move involves a dynamic leap from a tiny fingerlock (your index finger and thumb pressed into a tiny flaring crack). Here's a picture I took of a guy we met named Ethan trying it:
A photographer also took some pictures of me on it. He said he would post them here: http://www.luxdomo.com.
Our last night, we also had the amazing opportunity to meet and talk awhile with the legendary climber Ron Kauk. He's climbed in the valley over 30 years and put up some of the hardest climbs in Yosemite and even the world. Learn more here. Heres a video of him climbing something crazy. Now he's a full time environmental advocate for the park. He invited us to visit his camp in Tuolumne Meadows when we get there on the PCT.
The wildlife is spectacular here. We saw a mother bear and two cubs (who walked basically through camp), deer, ground squirrels, raccoons, and many interesting bird species. The "wild"life here is not afraid of people and will snatch food right out of your hands given a chance.
We stayed at the world famous Camp 4, which is actually listed as a national historic site for its importance in the history of rock climbing. Here, you meet great climbers, old and new, from all over the world. There is quite a strong community of climbers, a "brotherhood" as one old Spanish climber put it. It's easy to get rides from people, and teams always help each other out if something goes wrong up on the walls. In the evening, Camp 4 is bustling with activity; there are people bouldering (there are several boulders strewn about camp), cooking, pantomiming climbing moves, and telling stories about climbs they did. Three years ago, when I first came here, I wrote that Yosemite valley was "the greatest single place to be on earth", and it still feels that way, although I wasn't sad to
leave this time. The valley is so crowded with tourists during the summer months. The traffic jams are endless getting into and out of the park. On the way out, our bus waited in construction traffic for about an hour or so. But luckily we were able to sit outside in the warm sun. Michelle looks sad or frustrated in this photo, but she wasn't...We felt we had gotten a lot of climbing out of our systems. Yet interestingly, we headed to the climbing gym on our first day back in San Francisco to meet up with Kristin's college friend Eric.
In some ways, I feel old already, because I guess I'm probably in my prime for climbing. I'll surely never be able to climb 5.13 and probably will never get much stronger than I am now. At the same time, I feel excited to be able to be doing all the things I've ever dreamed, like doing Serenity Crack (and having it feel easy) and thru-hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. Now is such a great opportunity to soak up the pure bliss of the best of what life has to offer. Life on the trail will be simple, even more simple than climbing. Traditional climbing requires a lot of constant thinking and planning. You're always building anchors (that you trust your life to), checking each other, double-checking, keeping the ropes sorted, and sometimes racing to beat the setting sun. But hiking the PCT will be a different sort of challenge, just staying motivated and putting one foot in front of the other for a very long way. I think it will be ok; we are good about supporting each other.
We have many more photos to share from the valley, but we'll have to do that when we get a more stable internet connection....
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