– Finish work, fight through normal traffic, pick up Tyler, grab gear from home, wish I had actually packed the night before like I planned, futz about, start driving for the Valley. Hit the 140 gate at 1am, park, sleep, set alarm for 5am.
Friday March 29th
– Wake up, notice the cold, sleep some more, head into the valley and spend way too long sorting gear into bags at the Grand Majestic Hotel. Begin hiking,
– Get to base of Tora Bora, tie rope to yourself and wander over the wet 5th and 4th class slabs in boots to try to find the two bolts on the topo to fix the line to. Intent is to shuttle or haul gear to there and start belaying from that point. Bolts are not found, later Tyler will find the rivets higher up than I thought they would be and higher up than I would have been comfortable climbing without a harness of free shoes or gear.
– Not willing to reverse the traverse, I tie off the rope in a crack with a jammed knot and loop it around a horn. Bomber. Back to the base.
– Send up Tyler who finds the rivets only to see second rivet is sheared off. Work on placement with smallest rivet hangers, nailing beak tip into space between shaft and rock for rivet, a few falls and Tyler is done with this mess. Back to the base.
– Decide that we’ve taken too long and now even if we go up we’re looking at pushing deep into the night on multiple days to top out on time to get back to work. Bail is the order of the day. What to do now? how about Ten Days After?
– Gather gear and hike it down to the base of the 5th class approach to the start of Ten Days. Yard sale on the path and sort out what gear stays in a cache and what gear comes. Head up and get to the base of Ten Days After
– Realize our friend Dane is climbing the prow with some friends, shoot the shit, decide that the wet stream of water coming out of the very lush foliage on the 2nd pitch of Ten Days will make it better to just do the first two of Prow. Wait for Dane’s party to finish first pitch then head up and fix first pitch. Sun sets and Dane is still o Pitch 2 so we decide to finish for the night and go setup the new Ledge we got for a nice night’s sleep
– It was not a nice night. Ledge decided to give up on ledge life and fell apart like a men’s rights argument, tacoing around me like I was carne asada. I curl into a ball and start crying because I can’t deal with this right now. Tyler realizes that they are the only adult in this team right now and sorts the ledge. We realize the ledge is permanently bent now and will not work at all. Leave it against the wall and lay down on the rocks, what follows is a night of never sleeping, just passing out slowly and then immediately being awoken by screaming pain from various parts of my body.
– Good times
Saturday March 30th
– Wake up (or at least get up) and decide no Ten Days After if we have no ledge so now it’s off to Southern Man. Sort gear, move gear, start pitch, everything goes smoothly to Dinner Ledge and Brunch Ledge
– Setup Brunch Ledge and Tyler heads up to fix the first pitch. I decide I’m not going to fix the second pitch because I haven’t had a good amount of rest since Wednesday night.
– Bolt ladder timelapse
– Eat and sleep for tomorrow we climb.
Sunday March 31st
– Wake up and head up the lines. Later would realize that the second bottle of water I had ready for myself to bring was not brought along with us.
– A few bolts, a few hooks moves and a few hand placed beaks and we’re at the belay that bisects South Face’s route. Luckily there’s no one climbing South Face, wait, I hear voices, yes there is. Weeeeeeee
– Tyler comes up and starts the A1 pitch
– After a bit of time, Tyler reaches a natural belay. Later we realize this is halfway up the pitch. No worries, tack it onto my pitch and off we go. and go and go.
– The sun is setting as I’m finishing the Pharaoh pitch. Not good that the water lack is starting to become an issue as this pitch was a bit burly in terms of the energy I had to put out to penji to the bolt to start the pitch and the wide crack movement. Worked for a while to find a weird totem placement into a boxy blown out rock scar only to realize that there was a bathook hole right next to the placement, oh well, use em both
– At this point I’m becoming delirious and no happy with the state of my life choices. Pitches went by in a blur until I clipped anchors or made anchors and then passed out while Tyler cleaned. Missed the gear anchor at the end of the pitch after the pharaoh stopping too early. Then missing the next gear anchor and just pushing through up and up. Seems like the ends of pitches can often be wherever you want. starting with the Pharaoh pitch, the C2 gets harder because the rock quality starts to deteriorate. No matter, I’m too tired to worry anyways, just move like a robot doing the same thing over and over and ignoring the sandy lump in my mouth and throat screaming for liquids.
– Get to the top and pass out and wait for Tyler to clean the pitch. Tyler will be out leader for the raps tonight because it’s 3am and I’m not able to think on all cylinders.
– We start rapping at 3:30am and get back to the ledge at 5:30am, just early enough to realize that as we go to sleep the sun is already beginning to light up the horizon.
Monday April 1st
– I wake up a few hours later and Tyler stays asleep because that’s how they roll. Wake up and eat some soup with a piton and we begin to sort to descend.
– Get to base and load up bags. It doesn’t all fit. It never all fits, Strap it onto the top and stumble down the path. This is the second heaviest load I’ve carried all at once. I hate you Zion Haul Bag. I love you Zion Haul Bag.
– Get to car, drive to yosemite village, buy soda and ice cream, drive to mariposa, buy pizza, drive to bay area, sleep.
I guess you can share this or something, I mean, if you want...Share this content
