[TR] Yosemite Valley - 10/8/2009

[Plaidman]

Trip: Yosemite Valley -

 

Date: 10/8/2009

 

Trip Report:

Big Valley

 

Oct. 8th – 13th 2009

 

The trip to Yosemite had been planned for months. We decided to move it up a week and now I am glad we did. Rick made his van available for the trip and provided all the gas. Rick is the best. I talked him into the trip by selling him on the idea of summiting on Half Dome by way of the Snake Dike route. I sold it like a snake oil salesman from the old west. I played it up as the greatest summit in the world and that it would cure all his ills.

 

We rolled out of Portland Oregon a little after 8 am on Thursday morning. We took turns driving and we had no issues with the van, it drove great. It was chocked full of all our gear. 5 ropes, every piece of gear I owned and several I had borrowed, and two stoves. I had two sleeping bags just in case it got really cold. We each brought a tent. And to top it all off we brought a wheel barrow. That was so we could get all that crap into our camp site.

 

We crossed the border into California and stopped at the Agriculture Produce check point. The officer asked if we had any fruit or vegetables. I said “No but he and I are a pear”. She didn’t even miss a beet and said a pear of what?

Well they didn’t arrest us for the bad joke.

 

We arrived in the Yosemite Valley after midnight. Camp 4 was full and we had to wait till the morning to find out if we could get in. So off we went to find other digs for the night. Rick rented a tent cabin. I tried to sleep and couldn’t. It could have been the four 24 ounce cups of coffee I drank, with the 6 shots of espresso. Ya think?

I lay in bed for 2 hours and got up at 4 am to stand in line for Camp 4 camping.

I got in line at 4:45 and waited until the ranger showed up at 8:30 am.

We paid our fee and got our site. Wahoooo.

 

Camp 4 is such an awesome place. It’s like the United Nations of climbing. There are climbers from all over the world. It was really worth it getting up so early to get in to that camp ground. I wanted to give Rick the whole experience.

 

We set up camp and got ready to go climbing. I was really moving slow with no sleep.

To The Grack we went. It is a 5 star route that had been suggested by a friend of ours.

The approach was short. We needed to save our energy for Snake Dike the next day.

We got to the base of the climb and found no line. It was late in the afternoon and everyone was leaving. We had the place to ourselves. I set off on the on sight attempt on this route. I briefly looked at the guide book and started climbing. I got to the crux of the route and was stymied by the awkward bulging feature in front of me. To the left looked too easy. 5.5 at most, but the bulge looked harder than 5.6 like the guide book said. I moved up and placed a ridiculous amount of gear and after committing to the move up past the bulge realized it was not necessary. That is why the on sight is so much fun. Guide books can be so vague and objective.

Made it to the anchor and brought Rick up. The next pitch was the most fun hand crack that I have ever climbed. I ran up it. I didn’t even want to stop to place gear. It was truly a dream pitch. Rick had fun too. Then for the money pitch. The reason we were climbing this route was to introduce Rick to Yosemite Valley friction slab climbing. I wanted him to have this technique dialed in before he got slapped up side the side of the head on the 3rd pitch of Snake Dike. Rick jumped on the last pitch and commented that friction slab climbing is like ice climbing. “Great then you won’t have any problems tomorrow” I said. We were having a great time. We had the crag all to ourselves and what a spot. The sun was setting and the colors were incredible. No wind at all and 60 degrees. What an awesome day. We rapped off and made our way back to Camp 4. We needed to get some sleep for our next day of adventure.

 

I set the alarm for 3:00 a.m. I normally don’t have a problem getting up for a big climb. But this morning I thought we could sleep in another hour. Rick was having no of it. He was up and knocking on my tent. I got up and we were in the van and at the trailhead by 4:00 a.m. The hike up was not difficult. The plan was to stash water where we took off from the trail. We stashed the pack and Rick took pictures of the area so we could find it later. After hiking for a bit more we gained the south face of Liberty Cap and skirted the base to the left. We found the correct trail and moved up to some exposed 3rd class scrambling. The exposure was a bit unnerving and Rick got to a spot were the trail ended.

It looked like we would have to down climb about 20 feet. The problem with this was that if we slipped or fell we would bounce down onto a ledge and fall 400 feet into the abyss. I looked back about ten feet and spotted a cairn in a tree. Someone had just saved our ass. Normally I take cairns with a grain of salt. All they really prove is that someone was there and their next act could have been to fall to their death. In this case someone knew what they were doing. We made our way up the cut between Mt. Broderick and Liberty Cap. This is an awesome spot in the Valley to be. I started having leg cramps. The muscles on top of my legs in the quads and into my inner thigh started cramping so bad that I had to stop and sit down several times. The muscles were literally jumping and squirming. I kept moving forward and drank more water. When we made it out of the cleft I was still having problems with cramps. So we stopped and ate. Rick had some really good jerky that had a lot of salt in it and also some flattened dry banana. The salt and the potassium seemed to help and I drank more water. It seemed to alleviate the cramps. We made it up onto the slabs just under Half Dome. The wall of granite above us was very intimidating as it lorded itself above us. It dominated ¾ of our field of vision. Our sense of perspective was askew. Everything in the Big Valley does that to you. Everything is so large and we were so small. We were in the Valley of Giants and we were the little people. We found the slabs and moved up until we found the ledges to traverse to our left. We met some other climbers that got lost in the manzanita maze. The woman was not happy as it had caught her pack, rope, hair and ripped her clothing.

Rick wanted to rope up over the ledges as they were strewn with marble sized rocks and the exposure was intense. It looked like one hundred feet of steep slab below us. But by this time we knew that it was very likely much further.

So rope up we did. Two rope lengths later we walked up to the base of Snake Dike. We were greeted by a long line of folks. They explained to us the circus that was going on above us on the first pitch. It really was a circus with clowns, jugglers, and midgets. WOW! You don’t often see a cluster fuck of that magnitude. We were told there was a point when 8 ropes were headed to the same anchor. Leaders out of control. Rick and I waited for 3 ½ hours to start climbing. Two parties bailed and started the dismal hike back down to the trailhead. We were determined to finish this climb.

We started up Snake Dike at 3:30 p.m.

All the pitches went well. When I led the first pitch I did a friction traverse to the slab below the eyebrow and did not even try the slippery traverse under the eyebrow. I lowered off my first piece and swung across. I led the second and third pitch better than I did when I climbed it 2 years before. When I led the 3 third pitch crux I went high instead of low after the bolt. When I led it before I went low and it was much harder. There were only little teaspoons to try to smear my shoes into. When I went high it was only one move that really that got my full attention. I had to commit to a high step smear similar to one that I had come across earlier this summer in Colorado. That day I would not commit, but this day it was on and I made the move. Success. Thank God! It was a run out move but I would not have hit anything if I had fallen. After I gained the dike I did not clip the rap anchor that was there. It was two hangers and bolts and I skipped it to make it easier for Rick. I went up another 20 feet to the next hanger and clipped that with a 48” runner so that his fall and pendulum potential would be negated to a high degree. I could give him tension without pulling him off, so that he could top rope the traverse. I saw a guy come back to Camp 4 that looked like he had be run over and dragged by a truck. I asked him what happened. He explained that he had been following the 3rd pitch friction traverse on Snake Dike and had fallen and pendulumed. He was in really bad shape and I didn’t want Rick to get the same present. I think it would have been the end of our trip. Any time you don’t fall when climbing that is good. That is why they call it climbing and not falling.

 

We were fully on the dike now. The dike is an odd formation. It is pink to white in color and protrudes out of the glacier polished granite face. I have likened the dike to climbing the back of a stegosaurus or a ladder. There are knobs, chicken heads, scoops and holes. It is really a menagerie of beautiful sculptured rock. There are no cracks to speak of so the bolts were added here and there.

 

I found a description of how the feature was formed at:

http://www.nps.gov/grte/planyourvisit/upload/geology.pdf

magma (molten rock) forced its way up through cracks and zones of weakness in the gneiss. This igneous (formed by heat) rock slowly cooled, forming light-colored intrusions called dikes of granite, inches to hundreds of feet thick.

 

The wind died down after the 4th pitch and it warmed up a bit. We were concerned about getting the climb done as the sun was starting to set.

By this time we were fully committed to the climb. We had one rope, I had two headlamps and Rick had battery back up. Up we went. Soon it would get dark. So we got the headlamps out.

I led the 5th pitch which has a hole in the rock at the belay. There was water in it. It smelled terrible. We tried to keep the rope out of it. The sun was setting as Rick climbed up to me at the belay. I set off in the dark on the 6th pitch and found the single bolt on the pitch by using my headlamp like a search light. Hangers and bolts are hard to see with a headlamp. I didn’t realize how dim my headlamp was until the next evening when comparing it with Rick’s. I was exasperated to find that my headlamp compared to his was like a 5 watt bulb to his 200 watt bulb. It could have been easier to climb using his headlamp. But not as much adventure. I found the next two bolt anchor by Braille. Not easy to do on a polished granite friction slab. The next pitch I knew I was supposed to go straight up and not follow the dike any more. I was not sure if there were any bolts or protection. Thus I set off on my next treasure hunt blindfolded. I went up on the 5.2 friction slab and wished for a bolt. I was coaching myself. “You are doing great. Just keep moving. You are doing great”

Then there must have been an invisible line after I got 50 feet from the anchor. The thought of a factor two fall on the anchor after sliding an tumbling and maybe getting roughed up by the dike must have reach critical mass. Because instantly I went from being fine to terror. I have yet to experience such alarm so fast. Rick must have heard me swallow my heart and yelled up “Hang in there buddy”. It was the perfect thing for him to say. I sucked it up and moved up and right 15 more feet grabbed a flake and slammed in a #1 Camalot. Then I almost puked on my shoes. I was shaking so bad I just breathed deep to calm down before continuing up. I built an anchor and brought Rick up to me.

I told him that I was not sure where to go now. My instinct told me to go left but the guide book had told me not to go left at the beginning of the pitch. We could have referred to the guide book if we had brought it. But we had left it with the water that we had stashed. I had made copies of the route and was going to have them laminated. But they were in Portland 800 miles away. We felt like we were on the dark side of the Moon. Out came the cell phone. I called several climbers to ask if they had their guide book to Yosemite Valley handy. Bill Coe told me to call Ben because Bill was driving. Finally I got a hold of Ben and he asked why we needed it. I told him we were lost in the dark on Snake Dike and after he had finished laughing his ass off he walked us through the last pitches of the climb. I also had my wife call YOSAR to tell them that we were fine just in case someone had told them we were up there. I didn’t want someone wasting any effort checking on us.

We continued and my memory of the route came back a little brighter than the headlamp I was using. We made it to the top of the 8th pitch and my instincts were correct. We stayed on route. As I was climbing some kind of rat like animal kept running up to me to check me out. Then it would run away. I started yelling at it to stay away because I was busy. It was a strange animal with large eyes and a tuft of fur on the end of a long tail. It really looked like a large rat. It sure was curious about us.

We stayed roped up and pitched it out for two more belays. Just to be safe. Then we started simil climbing with a running belay. The rope drag was horrendous so I had Rick tie in short so we were not dragging the rope across the slabs. We were really starting to suffer from attitude sickness. Not altitude sickness. We were not high enough for that. We finally took the rope off. It was starting to brush up on rocks and I was concerned with knocking them off and having them start to pitch off and roll down the route. We stayed roped up for a couple of reasons. It was dark, I was fried mentally and we were just pain tired. We made it to the summit at midnight and were greeted my no wind and the moon rise. We could have used that earlier. We wandered over to The Visor. This is a feature on the Half Dome.

When I had climbed it last time my partner and I slid out on our bellies to look over the edge. It is fully a 2000 foot sheer cliff face. We decided that it may not be a good idea considering how tired we were and that it was pitch black and we wouldn’t see anything anyway. I knew the general direction of the Cable Route so we could use that to get off Half Dome. We did not commit to anything and stayed away from the edge. We were just about to give up when Rick flipped on his search light feature on his headlamp (something that I could have used earlier). And there they were the cables. We ran over and I used my daisy chain on my harness and two carabineers to attach my self to the cable. I would slide one biner down until it came to the post holding up the cable and then grabbed the other biner attach it. After it was clipped in I would remove the other biner. So I was always attached to the cable. The route between the cables is polished and slick. Rick fell a few times going down. Most tourists go up it with no protection. It’s hard to believe that it is allowed by the Park Service. One slip and you are tumbling down the side of Half Dome.

We got off the cables. Out of water we started the 9 mile hike out. At times I was barely moving shuffling my feet along the trail. But we kept moving. We ran into other hikers in the dark and they shared their water with us. We had food but they offered that also. I went into autopilot. My energy level would go up and down all the way down the trail. At times I was able to almost run down and then I would be back to scuffling. I was moving and that was all that counted. Rick and I got separated at one point but we had radios to communicate with. He looked for the pack with the water while I continued to move down the trail. I was concerned that the cramps would come back to debilitate me. I just wanted to get back to camp. It took Rick an hour to find the pack. Even with pictures of our stash spot at the bottom of Nevada Falls. He could not find it right away.

I had the vitamin I (ibuprofen). I stashed it for him on the trail and talked him to it over the radio. I was stopping for nothing. We made it back to the van at 8:30 a.m. We had been hiking, waiting to climb or climbing for 28 ½ hours. We started calling ourselves team epic. We may not climb fast but we will sure get there last. Or we don’t climb fast but we climb long.

 

I was able to talk Rick into going to the all you can eat breakfast buffet at Curry Village. He almost did a face plant in his eggs. He had the bright idea of taking a shower since we were right there. He even carried my towel for me. I have to say that was the coldest shower I have ever taken. I was almost hypothermic. There was no heat in the building and a very cold breeze with the door open. The water couldn’t have been more that lukewarm. It was the worst part of the ordeal. Now I was really smoked. Rick started driving over to Yosemite Village so I could go to the store to buy celery. I was told by Jim Opdycke that it is the cure for muscle cramps after climbing. It seems to work. My other option I figured was to go to the Valley clinic and get an IV to deal with the dehydration. Driving to the store Rick almost fell asleep twice. So I insisted on driving. After getting the celery we rolled into Camp 4 and our tents. At this point we had been up from 3:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. the next day. 32 hours total.

 

Following a three hour nap I talked Ricky into going to look at Sacherer Cracker.

We drove down to take a look. Walking up to El Capitan Rick was overwhelmed by the massiveness of the face. He said and you want to climb that. My response damn right I do. We took pictures and walked up and looked at Sacherer Cracker. I reasoned that today in the state I was in. I think it was California. There was no way I was going even to attempt it. Down we went back to the car. We figured it was good to get out and hike so the lactic acid would not just ferment in our muscles. I told Rick to pick something out on the Manure Pile Buttress. We were suffering from approachitis and the 5 minute approach was very appealing. I figured that I owed him some fun after putting him trough the meat grinder. We went back to Camp 4 to rest up for the next day.

 

We woke up late and took our time getting started. After racking up we headed to the Manure Pile Buttress. I told Rick you pick. It’s your day.

We will climb anything that you want to. And if it has people on it we will climb what ever is open. We got on the road and at the bus stop we saw some climbers. So we offered them a ride. It turned out they were from the Czech Republic. We enjoyed talking with them about some of the climbing areas in Europe. Like Dresden and others. They had climbed a lot in Dresden and had many stories to tell.

We dropped them off and continued to get on over to our climb.

The After 6 route was open and it was something I had led before.

We started up and in the crux section the audience that had gathered to watch another party on the next climb over started to get unruly and disruptive. They had small children running around falling over and smacking their heads on the ground. When one of them split their lip and started screaming while I was trying to pull the crux I lost it and fell.

I was not really feeling it before. But I thought whatever that kid wants give them two.

The guy next to us would not stop talking to Rick. So I barked at Rick “it’s me and you and no one else here. Watch me!”and the guy shut up. No that I had un-sighted my previous on sight of After 6. I started pulling on gear and struggled up. That 1st pitch is really greasy and even more so after the hoards have climbed it all summer.

When we got to the top of the 2nd pitch the wild started howling and the clouds started building. I knew that we could bail on the 4th pitch so I wasn’t too concerned.

We got to the 4th pitch and I thought I felt a pellet of hail. I screamed into the radio to Rick “You had better move your ass cause I felt some hail. I can climb in the dark and the rain but I am not sure I can climb in a hail storm. And hail means lighting.”

I led the last pitch really fast and got under the tree at the belay. No he could take all the time he wanted. The weather held and we made it off the climb and down to the trail. No rain this trip and thankfully no hail.

Back to Camp 4 for some dinner.

 

After making dinner I decided to go look for the Camp 4 Wall. I told Rick I would be right back. The light was fading so on with the headlamp. I was hiking in the dark again. I kept running out of sunlight. After stumbling around for a while I found the Wall and looked at a few wide cracks and some stuff that was not in the guide book. I stayed well away from any ledges and worked my way in the drainage that leads to the Wall from Camp 4. Somehow I had missed the drainage on the way up. In the guide book it seemed to me that the drainage would contain fist sized rocks and be kind of gravely. Wrong, the rocks in the drainage were the size of apartment buildings with drops of over 20 and 30 feet. In the dark it was not easy finding my way down. I had to keep skirting my way into the woods. Eventually I heard the laughter and camaraderie of Camp 4 and walked back to camp. I told Rick what I had done. He said “You’re nuts”. Well I had to go just look. Now I know where it is. Later that night I heard the sound of guitar and singing. Wandering over I found the Czeck’s that we had given a ride singing Czech folk songs. I joined in and had a great time faking singing in Czech. Then to bed as we were leaving in the morning.

 

We woke up to a slight drizzle and I thought if we hurried we could get all our stuff in the van before it really let loose. I sent Rick after the van. I packed the rest of the stuff and checked the bear boxes for our food loaded it all in the wheel barrow. Rick drove up and parked in the woods and I ran over with a load, handed it to him and ran back for another.

We had the van packed in 10 minutes and hit the road. We made it before the rain really came down. On the way out to the park we stopped to see Generator Crack and vowed to come back and tackle it. The storm hit as we were leaving and it rained most of the way back to Oregon.

 

We certainly hit the best weather window and had an incredible trip. The trip of a lifetime in the Big Valley. We climbed as near as we can figure about 23 pitches of roped climbing including simil climbing with running belays and over 20 miles of hiking in four days. We were happy to have had such a great trip in the bag.

 

Plaidman

 

 

Gear Notes:

Too much gear always. Wide stuff I never used.

 

Approach Notes:

We climbed as near as we can figure about 23 pitches of roped climbing including simil climbing with running belays and over 20 miles of hiking in four days.

Edited October 20, 2009 by Plaidman

[olyclimber]

nice! did you happen to take any pictures? i would love to perv out on them.

[NateF]

Enjoyed yer write-up, thanks!

[denalidave]

Nice!

 

FYI - Cell phone beta is AID!!!

[billcoe]

Cell phone beta is amazing!

 

Bill Coe told me to call Ben as he'd just dropped him off at home and Ben had the topo nearby and because Bill was driving and despite having done this very route probably 10-15 times as recently as 2-3 years ago, he was totally worthless as tits on a Boar since he couldn't remember shit about the 7th pitch direction... he was all like..."uhhhhh.....oaaahhhh , doesn't the route go like straight up man?....uhhh ...". knowing I was stuck out in the frikkan pitch dark half way up half dome with no way down at like 8:30PM at night right at that moment only made him feel even dumber...

 

Fixed that part of it.

 

BTW, nice story. This might get moved to spray real soon, but I have to add that I think (you know what they say about Opinions) that the best route on the Apron isn't Grack center. Center is great, no doubt, probably the best 5.6 in the world. The best route on the Apron (if you like cracks) is Mr Natural. I've accessed that route via 3 ways, and the best is via Dr Feelgood. The Yellow Meyers listed Feelgood as 5.11C, but they've dropped it to 10c now with an 11a move to get on the route that can be bypassed if you are feeling old. However, Grack Center is certainly the best route NOT in the middle of the current rockfall death zone. Some buddies did it last trip down, but I don't have those kinds of stones knowing that not long ago rockfall, which is still coming down on occasion, killed a guy right there.

[willstrickland]

Feelgood had some pretty shitty looking hardware when we looked at it years ago (or was that Green Dragon?). I've done both the Apron Jam and the 4th class corner to the left to get to Mr Nat. Both have their merits (Apron Jam is scary as hell with only one 4" piece but fun if you take enough gear and aren't effectively soloing). However you get there, Mr. Natural is probably the best fingercrack of the grade I've done anywhere. Bony Fingers at the Portal is close though.

[geoff]

And, after you hit up the Grack you could walk (quickly) through the DZ to Harry Daley. You get to climb two or so pitches to get to the start (and also back down) and then the anchor is like one cam a bit off the deck (ledge) but it is similar grade to Grack and fun and close to pizza and beer.

 

 

[Plaidman]

nice! did you happen to take any pictures? i would love to perv out on them.

 

Here are some pics Jake

 

Plaidman will NEVER be benighted again

 

Delirious Plaidman. So happy to be in the Big Valley

 

Plaidman at third belay on Snake Dike

 

 

 

Plaidman leading the first pitch of The Grack

Plaidman still getting it done on The Grack

Plaidman firing off on the Second pitch

Posing for the camera

Washington Column and North Dome

Plaidman leading second pitch of Snake Dike

Plaidman at the top of the 3rd pitch

Rick at the top of the third pitch

The raging storm on the second pitch of After 6 looking toward Middle Cathedral

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 21, 2009 by Plaidman

[billcoe]

Harry Daley was the other one I did with both knees gimped up in June Geoff. This trip was right after your brother destroyed me as the pic below indicates - LOL

I'd had the bad idea of stretching out my ONE good leg, and popped a tendon in the knee. OMG - now I'm old, out of shape and injured! I was seriously hobbling down there this trip. Such pain. Adam showed up @mid day, after riding the bus in, without a partner, and as everyone was out climbing and it was his very first trip to the ditch I took pity on him and took him up Harry Daley. Thinking it was close. And easy. Of course, I'd forgot about the step up on the second pitch, and as both knees were tweaked, it was excruciating. Last route of the trip. As you know since you were sometimes in our campsite watching this show weren't you?

Geoff and Miker at an obvious gear sale.

 

 

Yeah Will, you must be thinking Green Dragon (friction/bolts), Dr Feelgood is a gear route. I did Apron Jam ONE time. This was one of those, work in a cubical had head down trips and figure you get in shape down there (bad idea!) That was with a single 4" friend just like you mention as well. I later read a John Long story where he shows up in the valley, after having climbed the Green Arch and Valhalla at Taquitz, routes that may have been as hard as about anything in the country then, and he gets on the Apron Jam thinking "OH, it's ONLY 5.9"... (you know where this is going LOL) feels like he's gonna die as he thrashes his way up it, not having worked on his thin chimney/strange sized stuff before and only having a single #4 piece. I didn't have it as bad as him, but I have felt no need to go back and do the route again either:-) Galen Rowell was once up this way, wish I asked him if he was using Pitons on the FA of that one...never thought to ask and now he's gone. Could you imagine trying to nail in that thing? Holy crap, that would be insane. Dudes were amazing back then, probably wearing those Blue Robbins boots too.

[stevetimetravlr]

Man it looked like you guys were having so much fun. Staying stoked and staying on it. I'm envious.