[TR] Hyperbole practice: Castle Dome E.Face-almost

[layton]

Climb: Castle Dome East Face-Dike Route...almost

 

Date of Climb: 11/20/2005

 

Trip Report:

Marcus and I headed down to visit some old friends saturday afternoon.

 

The Retardedly steep and spice east face of castle dome

Our usual pizza was pipin' hot and f'in disgusting once again, but it was alright cuz the BIG GAME was playing. Green team and yellow team couldn't share the ball and a jailbird with a whistle terrorized the field. We didn't know what to think! Maybe they should get 2 balls so both teams can enjoy holding it. I don't know why they want the gosh darn thing if they keep throwing it away! And why would the jailbirds blow whistles to attract attention to themselves? I'll never understand this game.

Scraps wasn't there to toss the dough, so we never got to say goodbye to her. Awwwww Scraps, are you reading this? Miss ya hun!

 

We then watched a fantastic film all along in the theater. Human beings walked around and sat and talked to each other for two hours. They were upset about something, but luckily they resolved whatever that was about in a short time.

 

Then to Castle Crags S.P. under the shadow of Mt. Sody Pop!

 

Mt Sody Pop!

 

We went a'camping that night. We pulled in, lay in a prone position for 8 hours, and then returned to the car. Hot dog, I love campin'!!

 

Dipshit forgot the propane so our x-tra choice coffee we got comped from our sponsors, the good folks at stumptown coffee, sat in the f'in bag. We stared at the windshield for a short time while we fulfilled the requirement of supplying carbohydrate molecules to our liver for processing.

 

The on to the CASTLE DOME TRAIL! Whooo-weee, i tell ya boy! I don't know about marcus, but i was chompin at the bit to hike that trail again. Old moss bearded friends still stood watch over the forest. Marcus gave one a big ole' hug, but then started to make out with it. I planted pine cones to renew the circle of life once again. The trail sweeped had the day off and it was littered with pine needles. I was surprised a few times too! it seemed i didn't remember every single inch of trail on the way! "Hey, where did that root come from???"

 

I whipped out my brand new rope so we could do 3 raps to the base of the route and it was a good thing the entire rope splooshed into a giant puddle at the base b/c it was getting kinda dirty from the time out of the bag.

 

Now this was the last route the both of us planned on ever doing here as we felt we had climbed pretty much every established big face in the place and didn't really care about other routes on the same faces, or have any desire to manzanita schwack for umpteen hours to some of the more remote 4-6 pitch not-so-big walls in the place. Sound cocky? Well....yeah, but we were "loving" this area to death.

 

So Marcus starts up and gets to the 1st anchor after 165' and an hour of leading. "hmmmmmm" i thought! "That took a while???" I asked him how it was, "Uhhhhhh...it was, er... interesting"

It was indeed interesting that in 165 feet someone could only get a handfull of pieces of gear, all of them RP's and blue and black aliens. I didn't even bother to look at the anchor, and according to Marcus, it was a good thing I didn't.

 

My turn! Hooooray! It sure was fun placing my 1st hybrid blue/black alien as my "bomber" piece after a good 30 foot run-out on greasy slick polished quartz holds. After another good 20-30' runout after that, I was pleased as punch to clip a super rusted old pound-in button head bolt. The "run-out" traverse after that was ridicously easy compare to the last two pitches.

 

The relatively easy and not scary traverse

 

Marcus ro-sham-bo'd poorly and got the odd pitches that entailed two 10d's so I offered to take the 2nd if things got rough. I have no f'in clue how my sub-7 foot tall climbing friendly giant pulled that "10d" roof follow by an enormous run-out on verticle nubs for like 30-40 feet. I think both of us kept climbing above the run-out cuz we thought, "Hey maybe there's coffee up a little higher"

 

"Boy howdy! I shore am glad I didn't get that pitch" I thought, "that was spooky!" My "10b" pitch turned out to be a total horrow show "I should have died and killed us both" kinda pitch. I doubt I can describe how fucking terrified I was on that. I came close to throwing up, and closer to breakign down in tears near the top...no shit. 1st there was the if I fall I'm going to take a 50 footer and deck and probably rip out the shitty belay traverse. It took me forever to commit to the crux moves to the future safety of the bolt on the horizon. I was shaking with fear when i clipped that fucker, and guess what? It was a friggin rusted bent piece of shit button head and my last "good" piece was a blue/black tipped out alien hybrid. Then the angle kicked up to dead verticle. When I finally lifted my cowering head from fear and looked up I nearly shat myself. It was a good 20-30 feet to the next gear on vertical greasy nubs and it was another old fucked up button head. I clipped it and was offered no relief. I couldn't even see the next available piece of gear and wasn't even sure where to go. If I went the wrong way I would be off route, fall, rip out ALL the gear, and probably the belay.

 

After I finished hyperventilating and chose the correct way I could see the bolt...another 20 feet of ever GREASIER slabby polished slopers I had to slap and mantle on w/no feet to the next bolt, all told probably a 40' runout on dead vertical terrain. It was another shitty buttonhead. I could see the anchor! Another 25' run-out on the same type of climbing! Yeah! I'm gonna fucking die! I'm going to kill us BOTH! This is sweet! I almost fucking fell just before the anchors (actually a couple times on the whole pitch too) and my heart came out of my chest when I saw it was a two bolt bent buttonhead fuck-show of an anchor! Awesome!

 

Looking straight down on Marcus at the anchor on the mega runout button heads of death pitch with a worthless blue alien to add add a splash of color to the pitch, pitch. (note: marcus is already past the next piece of gear visible in this shot....fuck)

 

Marcus re-itterated what went through my head in that last verbose description of that lead at the anchor. I grabbed the rack and said, "Here ya go brah!" Marcus just stared at me. Then he reminded me of my promise to take the other 10d pitch. "No f'in way!" I said. I'd rather rap with our one rope off shitty button heads and leave gear than lead that next pitch. It looked just like my lead before, but without the buttonheads. At least I could see pretty colors of the runners in my vision before, now there would be nothing. Almost vertical 10a nub pinching for about 80 feet with zero gear and a fall onto a VERY shitty suspect anchor that may not hold a fall. At least the roof above the slab looked like it offered pro, but this? Fuck that! So we bailed after I climbed less than three feet to give the pitch a whirl.

 

Your Lead!

 

Luckily we didn't leave any gear, but we did do some awesome sideways tension traverse rapping off one button head bolt on.

 

We hiked out root creek instead on the way out and had a grand time driving home!

 

I should point out that once again we saw NO ONE, and the weather was perfect T-shirt, but not hot enough to sweat. PERFECT!

 

Gear Notes:

more balls

 

Approach Notes:

I hear you can traverse over to the east face from the castle dome trail at the obvious look out corner.

Otherwise Schwack up root creek or rap down below the good book like we did in 2-3 raps.

 

I think if you add up the run-out #'s I gave this route is 3000' tall! Kudo's to the hardmen who've climbed this even if there was less rust when you did it. You've got bigger balls than us

Edited November 22, 2005 by michael_layton

[Cobra_Commander]

great read, thanks. live long and prosper.

[chucK]

Send that bitch into the mags n' shit.

[Chriznitch]

sounds like a nice leisurely climb

[marcus]

Aside from the good-time runouts...Mike failed to note that the real scariest part of trip was that we watched "The Weatherman"!

 

AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!

[layton]

Marcus, I mentioned that film in my review

"We then watched a fantastic film all alone in the theater. Human beings walked around and sat and talked to each other for two hours. They were upset about something, but luckily they resolved whatever that was about in a short time."

[tomtom]

Brought to you by MAD ROCK SHOES!

[wimsey]

You were through the scariest bits when you rapped. The next pitch actually has a fair amount of gear compared to the two previous pitches and the bolt in the roof is new, as are the bolts in the next anchor. The two 5.9 pitches to the top are kinda runout but REALLY fun (best pitches on the climb, or at least you can relax and enjoy them ) and no worries compared to what you made it through.

 

You make me feel good about myself as I climbed it off the couch this spring after nearly a year off learning to be a dad.

 

I also drew the odd pitches and was thinking of asking my buddy to take the second roof pitch but didn't even consider asking after seconding the 10b pitch between the two. He was pretty strung out when he got to the anchor. I think that pitch is the crux, though I still contend all the 5.10 moves on the climb are well protected and I don't remember any 40 runouts after the first 2 pitches.

 

Thanks for the write up.

[AFIVE]

Thanks for the compliment on firing that bad ride off back in 90! See Mike I am not the only one who agrees that it gets better from there on up. "Wimsey" also made the same comment about the upper pitches. My beta on traversing over to the base is just slightly quicker and easier than rapping in. What did you think of the "good book"? That is deffinately worth sending the next time you are down there. Buck up and give that thing another go....you will be psyched you did. That route is great, and you really were through the hard scary part.

[Cobra_Commander]

Thanks for the compliment on firing that bad ride off back in 90!

 

extreeeeeeeeeeeemmme

[AFIVE]

You're the commander.....if you say so.

[gosolo]

sounds like a great adventure, thanks for sharing. Also sounds like a good route for those sport climbers who think 5.10 is easy!

[EWolfe]

Great TR guys! Nice Effort.