catbirdseat Posted June 9, 2008 Posted June 9, 2008 Trip: Tahquitz Rock - The Uneventful, 5.5 8-pitches (900 ft) Date: 6/7/2008 Trip Report: For Jimbabwe and I this was our first trip ever to Tahquitz. For our third climber, Dylan, it was his first multipitch trad climb and his third time climbing outdoors. We arrived at the Humber Park trailhead at Idyllwild at 9:30 with nice weather. There was a huge group of backpackers from the Outdoors Club getting ready to head out. There must have been at least 25 of them. The approach took about 30 min. and upon arriving at the toe of the NW Buttress we met a friendly Spaniard gearing up to solo some routes. We saw him a couple of times throughout the day. Once we were quite certain we were in the right place, I led off under belay by Dylan, while Jim finished fashioning a new pair of tape gloves. The first 5 pitches were quite easy, with some fun climbing, particularly on pitches 2 and 4. We learned that Tahquitz pitches tend to be quite long. We thought we were stretching out the 60 meter rope, but in reality we were pretty much matching the pitches in the topo. From our belay we watched some climbers off to the right do some things I wouldn't do. For example, reaching the tiniest of ledges and immediately calling off belay before building an anchor. One time I saw a guy on lead, standing 50 feet above his last piece of pro holding a big coil of rope and yelling down, "Is that all the rope!?", again unanchored. The crux pitch of Uneventful starts near an unusual J-shaped tree. The guide calls it a "chimney" but it really is a left-facing dihedral. The climbing on this pitch was really quality and protected well, but I wouldn't call it 5.5. It's at least 5.7, as long as you don't count the 5.8 move it takes to get established in the corner. I found a bail biner on an old angle piton. This was after the crux move, but before the intimidating roofs. These are not as hard as they look, as there are nice features for your feet. The Uneventful is the longest route at Tahquitz and finished at the very summit. Nice views up there! Dylan thought the area was reminiscent of Austria. The descent was via the North Gully and was straightforward third class. There were two places with a couple of fourth class moves. Tahquitz is easier to get off of than Snow Creek Wall. Our time from start of climb to summit was a very slow 6 hours, which I'd counted on with our early start, so we were back in town in time for supper. Gear Notes: Standard Rack to 4", double 8.6 mm ropes. Quote
Alex Posted June 9, 2008 Posted June 9, 2008 Yeah if you thought Index or JTree were rated "stiff" Tahquitz is definitely up there too. I love the place though! Quote
Off_White Posted June 9, 2008 Posted June 9, 2008 How can Tahquitz be rated stiff, since that's where the YDS rating system was first developed, isn't it by default the gold standard? Quote
catbirdseat Posted June 9, 2008 Author Posted June 9, 2008 Time will tell. After I've climbed several routes, I may get an attitude adjustment. A lot of the same crowd that put up the JTree routes put up the ones at Tahquitz. I think their attitude was sometimes that a single hard move on an otherwise easy route shouldn't cause the rating to go up. Oh, and don't call it the YDS. Call it the Decimal System. Quote
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