[TR] Middle Cathedral - East Buttress 5.9 A0 9/20/2009

[chimbo]

Trip: Middle Cathedral - East Buttress 5.9 A0

 

Date: 9/20/2009

 

Trip Report:

Last weekend, before climbing Mt. Conness on Sunday, I sent spent Saturday craging in the Valley. We did a couple multi-pitch climbs and I persistently nagged anyone around me about whether or not they were looking for partners in the weeks ahead. It paid off and I went up again this weekend and climbed the East Buttress as a long day trip.

 

It's definitely not a bad place to spend a day with great views of El Cap and the Valley below. It wasn't crowded with only two other groups on route but we did end up spending some time waiting. Overall not too bad for one of the "50 NA Classics" that starts 15 minutes from the road.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[billcoe]

Hey! Nice intro but where are the rest of the pics and the full story?!! WTH?

[chimbo]

I didn't take a ton of pictures on this one since it was pushing my grade a bit and I spent more time wining about the heat. Solid climbing on the entire route. We linked up first four pitches so did the whole route in 10. Some fun hand and finger cracks with some nice liebacks. The bolt ladder went smoothly which was a relief since I'm as green as they come on aid routes. The crux was a 5.9 roof that was excellent.

 

I figured I'd take some shots of the group ahead of us since we spent an hour waiting for them to get off a tiny belay ledge. This was an awesome climb and I still can't get over how easy it is to access great multi-pitch routes down here. No wonder that it's not easy to find alpine partners.

 

I checked out the 50 classics of NA after my partner told me that the route we just climbed was on there. That's a pretty interesting list considering it has everything from a short aid route in the valley to the Cassin Ridge. I saw it was put together in '79 and wonder if someone has put together an update since then or if most of these routes still hold up.