Adventures on October 7th, 2006

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Saturday, October 7th, 2006

9:45 AM Jason and I started the cold morning on Wisecrack (5.6). After not climbing in three weeks, the crux off the ground was a bit overwhelming for me. I was able to sling a rock before entering the crux but it probably wouldn't have stopped me from landing on Jason. Fortunately once you get a move into the crux, you can load it up with a #2 C4, green alien and small nut, as long as you don't mind hanging off of a crimper to do so. The crux is a fun and committing sequence. You do a few face moves on crimpers left of a flake, then gain the flake and lay it back to the right. The flake is short and the top of it is bomber, so you just need to commit to reaching for it. The next section of the climb was easy crack with descent face features for your feet but there was another crux right before topping out. You get a bomber blue C4 in a horizontal a little above your waist. The face above the horizontal is really, really thin and you need to work your feet up. After stalling for a minute or too, I gripped the tiny crimpers on the face for dear life and carefully moved my feet up. Apparently, Jason found a much easier way to do this. 12:00 PM We were lucky to find Andrew (5.4) open. This is a popular climb that was on the cover of Climbing magazine in 1984. Jason cruised up the largely uninteresting first pitch to the GT ledge. The next two pitches make this climb a classic. The guidebook gives a really complicated route description but you basically trend up and right - a lot of traversing. With some clue of where to go, Jason easily lead up the right facing corner and started the first traverse. That traverse takes balls! To gain the first foothold is a long, exposed step right. Then the gear along the traverse wouldn't hold bodyweight. Jason kept his head on and worked through it. He couldn't figure out where the next belay was so he linked both pitches together and entered yet another, even more exposed traverse. This hand traverse was spectacular. It reminds me of CCK or Disneyland. And it finished with a fun mantel move. 4:00 PM To finish the day, we went to the uberfall area which was a cirrus. There must have been 100 people there. So we climbed Short Job (5.4) instead. This is a two pitch climb but I decided to lead it as one pitch since it was only 130 feet total. P1 had an interesting crux were you exit and outside corner an mantel onto a ledge. I didn't get any style points for this one. P2 also had some descent climbing that was largely spoiled by all the rope drag and the fact that it felt like you were climbing through a jungle. After toping out, Jason and I agreed the route had some good climbing but a bad atmosphere. 6:30 PM We called it a day and stopped and My Hero before leaving town.