9/22/08 - Dave and Blaine in the Valley

Dave and Blaine took off at about 5:15 am to head to Astroman which is an ultra classic 1500’ sustained top-quality crack climb. I’d not secured a climbing partner for the day so I headed to the Ahwahnee Hotel to swipe some free wifi and checked out the news and emails. On my way out of the hotel, I ran into none other than Dave and Blaine.



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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9/21/08 - Rest day, a new Cougar and the crew starts arriving...

Dave has plans to climb with a friend – Blaine – tomorrow. Their goal is Astroman and possibly the Rostrum. Dave’s climbed both before, but not in a day. (I’ve climbed the Rostrum - see http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=255575&msg=255575#msg255575 - but never even seen Astroman.) Because of Dave’s planned this big day, we decided to spend today resting.



Before we headed out of camp to goof off, we had a big of work to do. As I’d mentioned, Dave has RV fever. And as a result, we’ve looked at A LOT of fifth wheels. Days ago, we’d made an offer on the fiver we wanted as we were leaving Durango. Well, it turns out that when we were in Tuolumne a couple of days ago, Dave received a message from the RV dealer in Durango. They'd pretty much agreed to the offer we’d made on the Cougar. The price was too good to pass up. So, after some additional discussion about the bleak state of the economy, investments and our future, we decided that buying a depreciating land yacht would certainly yield greater return than keeping the same money in mutual funds (or my bank which belly-upped during the trip – way to go WAMU). They choice was clear, we were destined to become fifth wheelers.



Of course there was some rational thinking behind this decision. For example, now we could take the parrots with us on trips saving $ on pet sitters. Plus instead of making many little trips and wasting gas, we could take fewer trips that last longer. Finally, with the Cougar, we’d have no reason to eat out with such a deluxe kitchen trailing the truck. The cost savings were clear. And besides, we figured purchasing the trailer was the least we could do to help our collapsing economy. We are altruistic for sure.



We’ll be picking up the trailer in a week or so. From Durango, we’ll take it on its maiden voyage to the Canyon Lands. Look for that fun blog entry in the near future.

After dealing with the RV business, we hiked into Yosemite Village to go to the new Climbing Museum - officially called "Granite Frontiers: A Century of Yosemite Climbing,". The mastermind behind the museum is Ken Yager, aka Chicken Skinner. He is also the mastermind behind the Facelift. The museum's collection has about 10,000 items, however, only the most important pieces are in the 1,800 sf exhibit now.



This exhibit was everything and more than we expected. Anyone going to Yosemite should try to see it. It will be touring the world after its time in Yosemite.



After a lunch and a bit of casual hiking, we headed back to camp. Blaine would be showing up in the evening and we didn’t want to be too late. When we returned to camp, we found several people had arrived. Nature, Chicken Skinner, Jingy, PaganMonkeyBoy, Buggs, Mr. E, Mighty Hiker, JStan, Fake Blinny, Lynn L, Happiegrrrl, A Crowley and several other climbing friends had arrived.

There was a lot of visiting going on. For some of those with tired backs, the squat-and-talk position was taken.

And Blaine was there are well. Dave and Blaine spent the evening sorting gear and getting set for their big day. I visited with others. It was great seeing everyone! The night ended around the campfire with some chatting and music - including of course a kazoo. It was the first of many nights where several people stayed up very late playing music, singing and having so much fun the rangers were compelled to stop by for a visit. Ha!

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9/20/08 - Finally in Yosemite Valley - Serenity Crack and Sons of Yesterday

The morning after arriving, we climbed two classic Valley climbs: Serenity Crack and Sons of Yesterday.



Serenity Crack is three pitches of thin cracks. The first pitch is an exercise of pin-scar pinching (with marginal protection – the bolt has been chopped). The main thing to remember on this pitch is not to fall. The second and third pitches offer some excellent quality climbing. I especially love the third pitch – it is exact the size of my fingers offering some secure finger locking fun for me.



I climbed Serenity Crack last year during a trip to Yosemite about ten days before the facelift (see http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=451091&msg=451091#msg451091) and it was really nice. Last year, Karl Baba and I stopped at the top of Serenity Crack since we got a late start. This year, Dave and I continued up on Sons of Yesterday.



Sons of Yesterday is 600 feet of varied and interesting crack climbing to the top of a prominent buttress. (One has to climb Serenity Crack to access Sons of Yesterday.) The route includes a couple of tree-climbing maneuvers making for extra fun. The climb was really fun – especially a pitch near the top that is a zig-zag finger crack.



After rapping down on a single 70 meter rope (doable, but not recommended due to high probability of rope snagging), we headed back to camp and had some dinner. It was remarkable how quiet the camp was. I wondered when the other Supertopoians would arrive and the quiet would be a thing of the past.

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9/19/08 - Mono Lake and the Regular Route en route to Yosemite Valley

The next morning, we headed toward the park. Instead of going directly there, we stopped at the Mono Lake Tufas.



Dave has driven by these for decades as well but had never stopped. This lake is big as it covers about 65 square miles. It is unusual because it has all these wild tufas sticking up out of the water. They form when fresh water springs flow into the lake from below. The tufas are made of calcium-carbonate.



From the official website for the Tufa Reserve is a description:

"It is an ancient lake, over 1 million years old -- one of the oldest lakes in North America. It has no outlet. Throughout its long existence, salts and minerals have washed into the lake from Eastern Sierra streams. Freshwater evaporating from the lake each year has left the salts and minerals behind so that the lake is now about 2 1/2 times as salty and 80 times as alkaline as the ocean.”



Pretty cool. One thing that was wild was the flies. There were zillions of them. I’d look down and see a black strip on the sand only to find they were flies. One step and they’d fly away making a loud sound. Happily they didn’t bother people – they were interested in feeding on the ground.



Our next stop was the Regular Route on Fairview Dome in Tuolumne Meadows. The Regular Route is composed of around 1,000 feet of classic thin cracks and corners on a beautiful granite dome.



The top of this route sits at about 10,000 feet in elevation. The climb was quite fun though the whipping wind made for some *real* hair raising moments.



We topped out on the dome to find an oddly attractive group of cairns. Very pretty for sure. We took some summit shots. Inspired to look like a cairn, we struck some poses. The wind was blasting so hard it was actually difficult to keep our balance in these poses.

We hiked off the top of the dome, hopped in the car and drove into the Valley to our final destination - Yellow Pines.







Our purpose for going to Yosemite on this trip was to participate in the annual Yosemite Facelift. During this event, climbers (and others) come from all over the world to pick up trash in the park. While the park doesn’t appear dirty, there is trash everywhere. Fields of toilet paper flowers abound. (Contrary to popular belief, toilet paper doesn’t disintegrate when it rains). See that bank in the road up there? Just off that turn are many poopy diapers that have been hucked from cars. And for some reason, many smokers don’t think their cigarette butts are trash. They are! Nasty. Aside from this “normal” trash lots of other unusual trash can be found. Last year, I found a 32” television, someone else found a car. Yes, a car. There is concrete, metal, thermos, beer bottles, rebar, wire, magnets, wallets, beer cans, backpacks, etc. Last year, the load of trash collected off of Half Dome was so immense that a helicopter had to be used to remove it.



This would be Dave’s first time and my second time at the Facelift. For some photos and verbiage about my trip last year, see my trip report on supertopo:



http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=458965



For those volunteering at the facelift, free camping in the Valley is provided. This is no small treat since it would have cost us about 200$ to get similar camping in the Valley. Yellow Pines campground may be the most ideally located campground there. One can walk to many climbs as well as easily hop on the shuttle bus and get to any Valley destination. Dave was psyched that the campground was as nice as it was. We were the first to arrive so we got to enjoy amazing quietness there. The quietness would not last.

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9/17 to 18/08 - Durango Co and Sagehen Summit en route to Yosemite

We’ve been quiet on the blog-front lately only because we’ve been on the road out of internet range. That is changing now though! We spent nearly the last two weeks on our way to Yosemite. Lots of fun happened while we were out.



We took off and headed to Yosemite…via Durango, Colorado. Not exactly the most direct route, but we wanted to swing through Durango to see a used Cougar fifth wheel.



It turned out that the trailer wasn’t what we wanted mostly because it was completely saturated with cigarette smoke – bleck. Too bad.



We looked again at our favorite trailer – a 2008 244 RLS that was on the dealer’s lot. On our way out, there was a discussion of what we’d pay for the new Cougar. They countered and we took off for Yosemite without a trailer.



After a car-bivy in central Utah, we continued on our trip. We stopped at a climbing area on the highway that Dave has been driving past and looking at for decades. This time, we stopped to climb. The area is called Sagehen Summit and is located a bit east of Lee Vining, California.



After four-wheeling the Matrix until the road was not passable, we got out and geared up. We climbed a three pitch 5.9 called “Hair Raiser Buttress” in Granite Basin.



The crux was (of course) before the first bolt. A screw up here likely meant someone would be in a cast for some time. Happily that didn’t happen. After this hair-raising section the rest of the climb was a fun plate pulling extravaganza.



We topped out, got a photo of ourselves and the surrounding area, then started the hike down the gully. Part of the gully had the coolest dike in it. It looked like a row of huge teeth or something. Very cool.



We hiked back to the car then drove a bit further toward Lee Vining, pulled off into the forest and set up camp for the night. After luxurious camping in the Great White as well as looking at really sweet fifth wheels, car camping seemed extra harsh. We had to actually sit on the ground! The horror.



We cooked some dinner and went to bed. It was very quiet here and after much driving and some climbing, we were happy to get some rest.

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