hollyclimber

How do you know what rack to recommend if you didn't go the tippy top?

Well, you know, it should have been obvious, but I haven't been on this board lately, so now I know...too bad, as pink is my favorite color.

Everyone has to live somewhere.... I made my choice.

Yeah, actually Yosemite sucks all the time and my dog and I really hate living there. It especially sucks during the times that we live in dog-friendly park housing right beneath Yosemite Falls- probably the worst view in the world to wake up to. Thursday nights after Sal's going home to my own bed, no stay limit, free entrance into the park, its all really lame. Boy am I glad that I am not there this week...my friends have only been doing lame climbs like Serenity to Sons, cragging at the Cookie. Luckily I'll arrive in April, so maybe it won't be so bad...

Bump...and pretty sure that I am leaving Thursday am. Non-stop to Chinese Camp. Layover in Chinese Camp for arrival sometime on Friday. (Rudy- I sent you a message on Facebook...)

I am leaving the Seattle area and heading down to Yosemite on Wednesday (ish) and would like to offer a ride to anyone willing to do a little driving. Dog lovers only. Room for your gear, bike, etc. email me at hollyclimber@aol.com

Looking for someone who wants to get in about 2 nights a week to Redmond VW, month of September. I want to do some roped climbing. Should be able to team up even if we are climbing different grades. I'll be climbing 5.9s for a few more sessions before I move up to mostly 5.10s, as I want to make sure I ease my tendons into the plastic climbing. PM me if interested. Also, if you read this and aren't interested/available for "every week" but want to go THIS WEEK, please still PM me! I want to get going on getting my fingers in better shape for face climbing. Also, I am more than happy to help along a beginner, as long as you can manage the gri gri in the gym and can climb for at least two hours.

Nice report! Great pics on the rock!

Changing in the parking lot

Lost on Sunday August 10th, grey patagonia climbing pants. Reward offered for these much loved pants. Holly hollyclimber at aol dot com

Nice pics. Wish there was a bit of a narrative too!

Trip: Cutthroat Peak SW Buttress (aka S Buttress) - Date: 8/3/2008 Trip Report: After our excellent day on the E Face of Lexington Tower, I wanted to climb a Peak but have at least a little technical moving on Rock, along with some training with a pack as part of my Seattle “get into shape to come home and climb harder” program. (See E Face report here… http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/824431#Post824431) So, we chose the moderate Cutthroat Peak, SW Buttress (also known as the S Buttress). I have to admit, while I had a great day climbing, the wildflowers really made the day for me. I spent a fair amount of time geeking out on taking pictures of the wildflowers. I even stopped in the middle of the mud to take a picture of the first pink Indian Paintbrush I have ever noticed. Don’t these only come in orange in Yosemite??!! And, given that my camera was shutting off at the first picture of the day due to “no batteries”, I got a ton of pictures before it shut down about 40 min before the day was done. Anyway, the approach was steep and strenuous. I was working hard. It was nice that we had started early (7:20 am) as the cooler weather made for much more comfortable hiking. I had offered to carry the rope while Stewart carried our 6-7 cam rack (ok with slings and some nuts), as I wanted the training weight. Of course, I was slower than Stewart anyway, so I was always lagging behind, but I did my best to keep up. The scenary on the way in was truly gorgeous. The mosquitos were as viscious as the scene was beautiful! Here is a view of the Peak as we saw it on the approach (although this was taken in the afternoon on the way down). By my calculations we did 1 hour to Camp and 1 hour to the start of the route. At any rate, after two hours of hiking and scrambling, we were ready to rope up. Here is me simul-following the first pitch. We did the route in two leads, although we moved the belay twice during my leads on the second block. Stewart started his lead with the 5.7 “traverse” up a steep face. No traverse in sight, and really no 5.7 either, but he did put in two pieces of pro, and I did ask him to stop simuling while I removed one of them, so it was 5th class for sure. Then, lots of third and fourth class, but quite a few nice sections of thoughtful 5th class climbing. Near the beginning of the first block, Simul-ing Stewart not in view Stewart about ½ in his block on one of the interesting moves. Looking down on the route so far… At this section here, right where the pro is located, I seriously had a hard time moving right! Of course, trying to jam with my watch on was part of the problem, but hey, aren’t we simul-climbing with approach shoes on (and in my case, my oldest loosest pair). So, I had a bit of a struggle here. It turns out, at some point during this section, Stewart reached the end of his block and put me on belay. Good thing! Then, as this cool feature comes into closer, view, I took over the lead, with the goal of moving past this feature to the left and reaching the “two humps” of the false summit. I never got too close to this feature, but it was neat to look at. Lots of blocky terrain, but there was a couple of cool 5th class sections, including a short, 4 foot or so bomber hand crack. We reached the sandy walking of the humps, without ever noting the pitch that only the Mountaineers pick out and seem to call the Tarzan Jump. No jumping or Tarzan-ing for me. We did note lots of rappel anchors all the way up. Then, its down the first notch, out of which I climbed the “unprotected 5.8 face” (aka 5.2 of happiness), and then down the second notch, where we both came down and moved the belay again. Here's me after the 5.2 face of happiness. Here’s Stewart coming into the second notch (I think!) . And, somewhere in the last bit of leading, but before the OW section. Now, its up to the top and OW of ease! Here is a picture of the OW! It turns out that this is two moves or so, with the first hands being pretty good and once you get your feet in, you are in! Perfect size for my feet with my approach shoes on. Here is Stewart topping out. And great views from the top. Lots of single rope rappels to get down, which makes sense since the route is blocky and double rope rappels would probably be hard to pull. My shoes were a little worse for wear…time to get out more barge cement since 5.10 re-designed (aka ruined) the 5.10 insight and the current version (Gen 3) are not worth buying!! Got to keep the Gen 1s running before I have to switch to my half-way decent Gen 2 pairs. Again, more of the best part of my day… 3.75 hours roped up to the Summit, 7 hours car-to-car. Great day in the mountains and home way before dark with a stop at “Good Food”.

Trip: E Face Lexington Tower - Date: 8/2/2008 Trip Report: I had done some cragging with Stewart in the past, so we teamed up for a Washington Pass weekend. Getting out of bed at 4 am on Saturday to avoid the bad I-5 N traffic on Friday night was not feeling so good on Saturday morning. We toughed it out and headed straight up to the Pass. Along the way, there was intermittent misting and even some rain. Wasn’t looking Bluebird at all. We got to the pass, after both thinking more than once that we were doomed to Sport Climb in Mazama. But, we got out of the car to look at our objective… The East Face of Lexington Tower, which is the second tower to the left of the huge Liberty Bell on the far right. At 8:30 at the pass, while the sky wasn’t clear, we really couldn’t see weather bad enough to stop us. So, we both agreed that “there was no reason not to go”. So, in we went. It’s a fast hike to the base of Liberty Bell, and a party above the roof on Liberty Crack provided a diversion from the hiking exertion. They however were not reachable by monkey call, in spite of me being able to hear every word they said. (Neither were the masses of people that we saw later on N Early winter spire. I guess unlike the California Monkeys, the Northern Monkeys have lost their ability to communicate between traveling groups). We found the base of the route (for us that day) as a small rock pedestal in an island of snow, reached by using our trusty rock-axes. I noticed a hangerless bolt on the low end of the pedestal after Stewart started leading. We only carried one camera that day, so photos are limited. The first pitch was easy going, and the only question was how to do the linking we were trying to do to line up our pitches the way we intended. Stewart ending up leading most of the 5.7 weird face on our “third” pitch. Neither of us really liked this strange face pitch with little pro. I did the easier 5.7 up to a stance. If we did it again, I would surely have to lead the 5.7 as a penalty pitch. Stewart led up the fun dihedral and stopped again at a tree. Now it was time for me to link 4 & 5. Pitch 4 was really fun, with some fun jamming, pretty easy climbing, and secure enough to save most of the pro for the later part of the pitches. In spite of my best intentions, I rope dragged myself just in time for the 5.9. Apparently, the rope got jammed in somehow next to a #3 cam, and then I left a piece with just a bit too short of a sling in the dihedral down below the hand traverse. The hand traverse was wild and fun, with the main difficult being careful protection for no drag (which ended up being pointless as the damage was already done). By the time I got to the 5.9 crack to go up to the alcove, the drag was pretty hopeless. Even though I know the mistakes I made in linking this, and could supposedly correct them in the future, I think it would be more fun to just separate the pitches. Why not, the route is short anyway. So, after much laboring to slowly crawl up the final bit of 5.9, I got to the alcove. Stewart’s OW to chimney to super fun OW was about to begin. The chunka wood is still in the crack and there are two new bolts above that. The chunka wood isn’t really in a place where it provides meaningful protection, but could be used. With the bolts and our overall experience on the climb, we believe that you really only need two pieces of big gear instead of three. We had a new #4 (not really counting that as big gear), a Friend 5 (which is like a BD 4.5) and an old #5, plus a big bro. I think we could have left the Friend 5 at home. Stewart cruised the initial OW (not really an OW at all) finding some handholds to climb it facing left. I had to chimney it with back to the left, then turn around at the second bolt (awkward). Then it was a real move of OW and up into the chimney. I love chimney’s but this was a skinny, frog style chimney, ala top of Generator crack size or a touch wider. Not my favorite size but secure. I prefer a bit wider, but whatever. After this, the best part of the route emerged…the longest coolest pitch of 4 inch-ish and bigger OW I have ever climbed. The solid kitty litter style rock made the OW a lot easier than if it had been smooth granite. While I was definitely grunting all the way up, it was the good exhertion. No desperation, a little knee knocking (they are both bruised now) and lots of good feet! A little narrower than the hard part of Generator Crack, this was perfect for my feet in rock shoes. For bigger people, the feet would almost be crack feeling feet. I was having so much fun following this pitch, and whooped out some yea-haws a couple of times. Stewart and I were just raving and raving about the pitch at the belay. After the OW, the slightly balancey face moves to the ledge and tree that Stewart belayed at (easily linking 6/7 with rope leftover) were scary! I preferred the OW! From the belay it was easy 5th to the first “topout”. Then we did belay again to the top of the feature. I have already forgotten but I believe that we spent 5 hours on route? 9:30 to 2:30? Sounds right. Fun day. We hiked out and got a ride to our car from some guys looking casual, clean and having just cruised the 5.11 on N Early Winter. Some relaxing car camping and a good dinner (Hot dogs, sardines, black beans and more) led to a good night sleep and a not so early 5:30 am wakeup. It actually gets light at Wa Pass earlier than Seattle, so it was pretty easy for me to wakeup at 5:30. We headed off for an easier day, one that we thought might take longer, and would take us to the top of a peak…Cutthroat Peak, via the SW Buttress (also known as the S Buttress). (See the SW Buttress trip report here… http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=824434#Post824434)

Used to call it Friday night losers club in Redmond....(of course it was us in the gym on Friday nights calling ourselves that). Anyeay, just got back to the area and want to do a little climbing in the gym on a Friday night after a long first week back at work. Anyone interested? Strongly prefer Redmond Vertical World. Holly

I am back in Seattle for another work project. I am interested in doing weekend climbing - trad cragging at Index and especially (preferably) Squamish and also alpine rock climbing. This year's tick list includes Rebel Yell on Chianti. I would love to reconnect with old partners from this area and open to climbing with some new people too. I am climbing 5.9 trad off the El Cap aid couch right now and probably 5.10 and harder as soon as I get out there and make sure that all that aid climbing didn't remove all my free climbing skills. Send me a PM to contact me. For more about my climbing, you can check out my photo trip reports from this spring on supertopo.com, posted under hollyclimber Thanks! Holly