What?
Seems their early departure wasn’t early enough. We they arrived at the rope up point at first light there were already four euros ahead of them, and in the short time they waited for the route to clear a bit, six other euros came up behind them. Rather than join in the euro conga-line cluster, they opted to regroup and head to another less-crowded climb.
They chose the Rostrum which necessitated getting some gear I had in the car. It was really fortuitous they found me at the hotel. They grabbed the gear and headed off to do the Rostrum.
I headed to the Yosemite Lodge to treat myself to a breakfast. There I ran into some additional Tacos (posters on supertopo are called tacos). In this conversation, they noted that the Rostrum is the new Nutcracker. Gack. In other words, the Rostrum was likely to be very crowded.
Turns out that Dave and Blaine decided the Rostrum was going to be terribly crowded so they headed to a more obscure, yet good climb called Hotline. Hotline is a shorter but more difficult climb than Astroman (5.12a). They felt it would provide quality entertainment for the day without the crowds that plague so many other Yosemite climbs.
The climb was very good quality and on the crux second pitch they managed to retrieve two almost new Metolius cams (a value of $100) which really brightened their day. Six pitches of very cool and sustained crack climbing led to the top of a huge pillar.
After stopping for a snack and drink on the top, they inspected the “recommended” rappel route on the right side of the pillar. The anchors were truly some of the worst Dave had ever seen. They looked like they’d not been touched in years. Rotten water ski rope tied around loose blocks was not confidence inspiring. So they opted to rappel directly down the face of the route they had climbed instead.
Blaine and Dave make very good partners. Dave commented that it was fun to climb with someone as eager and strong as Blaine who was eager to lead the crux pitch as Dave cheered him on.
While Dave and Blaine were good about taking photos on this day, I was not. So, no exciting photos of my toodling around the Valley. After seeing the two of them off, I headed to Camp 4 to visit with some friends. While there, Mr. E asked if I was climbing that day. I said if he was, we were climbing. After some discussion, we decided to climb Commitment. I’d done Commitment last year, but was happy to do it again. It was quite fun and Mr. E hadn’t done it before. So we started hiking to the climb.
En route, we found a climb called Lena’s Lieback. A 5.9. If there is one thing I’ve learned in Yosemite, it is to avoid easily accessed 5.9s. Yet, here we were doing this thing. They never look bad, but because they have about a zillion ascents a year, they are slick, greasy and polished horror shows. This climb lived up to this billing. We both squealed our way up this route. Though we made it clean, we agreed to stick to 5.10s or greater from there on.
So, off we went to Commitment (a 5.9 – we are slow learners). We hiked up. And up. And up. And over. And down. And up. After some time, we were back were we started and had managed to miss the entire wall where commitment was located. It’s friggin’ giant, yet we couldn’t find it. Arg.
Instead of more aimless hiking, we opted to head back. En route, we found an even greasier and slimier 5.9, so we got on it. This route, called Grant’s Crack was knarly. Again, we squealed our way up in swearing to never do another 5.9.
We decided to head to the auditorium to help with some facelift preparations. We arrived and all was prepared so JStan (aka John Stannard), Mr. E, Mighty Hiker and I went to the Museum again.
We headed back to camp and hung around the camp fire. Dave and Blaine showed up a bit later. Blaine took off back to Fresno and Dave and I had some dinner. They were eager for their planned Friday ascent of the Crucifix.
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