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Driving to Yosemite 5/8-- Want to Come?


Matt

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I was climbing Snake Dike and we forgot a headlamp and ended coming down about 20 minutes after it was completely dark. We missed the bridge and just decided to make a fire and wait it out until the next morning. When we walked out we noticed YO.S.A.R. was everywhere. We also notices yellow tape wrapped around the area. Come to find out, Glacier Point had a rockfall that was fatal. It destroyed a bunch of tents and caused some pretty bad ruckus. We didn't even hear it. Talk about EPIC! The next day we just decided to be dayhikers and catch up on sleep. After that it was gripped climbing on D.N.B. which every pitch felt like 5.10+. I guess I was a little rattled from the day before but made it without any falls. By the way guys, good luck getting a camping spot. What a crowder mess! I would much rather park and head straight for the wall and bivy away from the valley. I just hate the CHAOS.

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I have a deep and abiding affection for Hoppy's Favorite on the Apron. I have no idea if thats in the current death zone, but there is just something so sweet about granite so clean it squeaks under your shoes as you foont about, hunting for bolts in all that vastness.

I've never been much of a wall guy, but had a great time on Lost Arrow Direct late one October in the early 80's. As I recall, we chose the route based on the quality of the ledges, and since it was cold, we slowly ambled up the route, sleeping in and never stirring until the sun warmed us up. One morning, two more ambitious types were racing up the Lost Arrow Chimney, about 30 feet to the side of our spacious 2nd bivy ledge. They looked over at the three of us in our sleeping bags passing the bong back and forth, and incredulously burst forth in the most horrified tones, "WHAT are you doing?" I'm afraid it reduced us to incoherent giggles, which only caused them to increase their pace. When we finally returned to the rim, we had a long hunk of rope that was partially severed during our sluggish ascent, so we fuzzed up and abraded the end, and left it tied around the rap tree where you head down into the notch. The end was just visible where the angle dropped off, and we fervently hoped that some poor souls would find it, blanch, and bail out assuming there was a body in the notch from a jumaring accident. This was only a few years after a body HAD been found there, but a suicide jumper rather than a climbing fatality.

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quote:

Originally posted by Matt:

(snip)

So please stop your nonsense spray fest and tell me your favorite story about Yosemite.

My friend Rob and I got crowded off the Regular route on Half Dome a few years back. For him the route became a Sysiphean obsession. He learned a lot from our experience and went back, taking on a decidedly french attitude about passing slower parties: “Ask politely once and then start clipping their gear”. Having heard of a friends experience with bears eating the food of Half Dome aspirants, Rob and his partner, Dave, hung their food forty feet up the first pitch. In the middle of the night Rob was awakened by noises. Shining his headlamp at the foodbag, he found it was being swiped at by a full grown bear that had liebacked the first forty feet and was hanging by a side-pull while trying to get the bag with the other paw. I know Rob pretty well, and what he did next cemented my understanding of just how much he coveted this route; he got out of his bag, put on his shoes, walked over and plugged the bear in the back of the head with a baseball-sized rock. The bear lost it’s grip and took a sliding forty footer to the ground. Rob says that at that point he just knew that bear was going to rip him to shreds. It didn’t though. It merely shook its head, looked at Rob and walked off. Rob went back to bed and lay there very much awake. Every few minutes he would sit up and shine his light on the food bag. On one of these occasions, he noticed the food bag doing a jig and shining his light on the ground below it saw the bear yarding on the fixed rope in it’s teeth with all of it’s weight. Rob got up, put on his shoes and plugged the bear with another rock. This time the bear looked at Rob for a while. Rob was sure the bear was deciding whether or not it was worth it to eat him alive. Apparently deciding it wasn’t, the bear left again.

 

Eventually drifting off to sleep, Rob and Dave got up just before dawn. Jugging up to get the food bag for breakfast, Rob was nailed square in the forehead by a can of tuna. Apparently the bear’s first attempt had ripped open the food bag. Upon inspection, Rob and Dave found that most of their food, including more than thirty Power Bars was gone. Without food, the climb was knackered. At that point Rob decided that the Regular-Route-on-Half-Dome-chips were stacked against him. Dave, already suffering from scale-induced “stomach problems”, agreed that it was not to be. They packed up and for the second, and last time, Rob walked away from the base of Half Dome.

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