ivan Posted April 3, 2010 Posted April 3, 2010 Trip: yosylum - warshington’s harry coloumn – s farce Date: 4/2/2010 Trip Report: every frak’n year the same fawk’n thing – spring break and the storm gods walking the beat along the whole of the wet coast – what’s a latte-nigga 2 do? wing n’ a prayer planning – a meth-powered surge to the valley on a late friday night, a quick jaunt up royal arches n’ 2 days on the most popular wall-route in the valley ‘fore the frost-giants bring the smack-down and the whole damned 24 hr drive redeemed! man plans, dog laughs – no doubt why i’ve always been in the habit of kicking sleeping dogs the arches plan, tenous at best, by the wayside when the seattle-based member of the 2-man mind-show needed to actually rest after raping altar-boys all day – 5 a.m. launch from stump-towne still, and w/ the chances of sun in the ‘simite gone for that day, a decision to make the needed visit to sonoma that evening instead of at the end of the trip sweet jesus, if you’re a hater of the tvastarkatena life-form, swoon in sorrow as there sure are a fuck-ton of those fuckers in the greater bay-region – a nuetron bomb alone would be needed to stem that savage breed, it’s matriarch in particuliar! up at 3 a.m. in a time-stupor in sonoma, passed out cold in the back of tvash’s ride for a few hours after, then waked to bake in the glowing ember of soul-enhancing sun on sunday – the mtn stage to oaks flat pounded out at high speeds, we made our amends w/ the gate keepers n’ roared into the valley, pat playing the part of a google-eyed goddamn camera-equipped tourist as i lead-footed us up the road to get the Strange Tripe off the ground a refresher, perhaps – washington’s proud litho-tacular leering hardon from the shoulder of halfdome (last summer) – mideast crisis, my only other experience on this wall, the main route in the center, but the s side somewhere on the left (dinner ledge out of site though i reckon?) the walk up the base of the column just keeps getting easier – stay the fuck off the talus and make-ready for the tree-aid-step – did i mention the soul-joy that leeched into me as we managed this maligned approach in kalifornia-kit, white shorts, kap n’ t-shirt?! i did the 1st 2 pitches off the ground, after buzzing about the smallish step-off platform in an adrenaline frenzy, promptly leaving my aid-shoes n’ haul-straps behind, the appearance of another party below, predicatable on a girlfriend wall-route, no doubt a contributor depsite the warnings, i found hauling to p1 top not too bad, and an easy lugging of the pig across the small ledge to the base of 2 the artist as a young man on p2 – dmm offsets rawwwwk here! tvash needed to earn his keep, and for his sins he was given p3, which made him penitent enough once at dinner ledge our sleep-mates from the night turned out to be 2 valley-cops (fawwwwwwwwwwwwwwk!) – they were kewl enough for being haters of the high-life though – husband-cop was a valley hardman for sure, and as fast as he was, it made sense to let him pass – we’d planned on fixing to the top of 5, as had they, and i set out behind wife-cop as she cleaned – this was her 1st aid-wall sorta expereince though, and she had the predicatable epic at the lip of the kor roof as i sat perpetually a bolt below her, trying not to laugh at the oddity of having foreign booty at eye-level, many hundreds of feet above terra firma due to the understandable delay of a newbie’s nightmare, both our teams had to settle for fixing from the top of p4 - the scene at dinner ledge wasn’t quite what i was hoping as all the meat-puppets on the ledge were passed out by moon-up as i was just starting to tie the thing on tight, but what can ya do? i settled for swooning at the luna-brightened brilliance of glacier point by my lonesome, then later the seismic-snooring of tvash and the ring-tailed pole-cat ramblings over the sleeping rangers monday mornign and it was on, albeit more slowly for us as we needed to wait for the ranger-couple to reach the p4 anchor on our fixed line ‘fore we chased after them – tvash started early though as he still had to clean the fixed climb line and i searched for some privacy round the corner, where i was rewarded by the discovery of booty gear, a nut and a sky-hook soon enough it was time for me, and off i went – holy shit, my first trip w/ a 11 mil static line!!! better than sex!!! the sun was out and it was a joy to dangle in the still air in so alien a location and wait for the traffic to clear doesn’t this kinda shit make you feel like an astronaut? me waiting for the p4 anchor to clear while tvash takes pix of the far-off capitan eventually the ranger folk cleared out of p5 and i set out, sitting for a good long while at the pendy-point – pat followed [video:youtube] pat on the lower-out didn’t leave enough memory for the full lower off [video:youtube] at the end of the roof traverse on p6 p6 went smooth enough, though the 5.7 bit left me a bit ruffled at the end – tvash grumbled about our hammer-less cleaning plan as i short-fixed up p7 at the p7 top it was obvious the jig was up – we’d been slowed by the numerous issues attending a popular route and the wind had returned with a vengeance – every stitch of clothing i had was on, and the promised evening storm was clearly in the process of proving itself – we’d planned on rapping from dinner ledge, and the time had come to get back there, lest poor pat be once more forced to contend with a valley “awkward 5.8” that tears apart the timorous, given my own fatigue and desire to sit n’ chain-smoke for a spell nice view of the gloaming half-dome on the way down a comedy of errors on the ensuing retreat – avoid the temptation to double rap from dinner ledge to the top of p1 as a rope-thin crack eats the bottom rope and makes for a disastrous pull – luckily we could wait for the america-fuck-yeah team to fix our fuck-up while we marveled at a million ants and felt nervous about the upcoming brawl – we’d have had to jug the stuck line come night if they’ed dissappeared down on the ground the good lord made his light shine, shine, shine! – wine n’ laughs n’ lurching back to the ‘lot – the round-world rudely raped w/ burgundy n’ camels n’ catcalls at tourists bus-bound n’ blocking the way to dump the plastic-cased turds – tvash defers the women-folk calls to me – the shift to camp 4 (my first!) – the pass-out of pat on the stony ground – the midnight roar of rain and tumult and the end of our valley dreams for now packing in the pouring rain and the end, so sad, after only 2 days – in the grip of the grim nw again though, 2 days of triumph, of sun, of sweet life, who can complain? we salved our wounded souls w/ a trip to san francisco, w/ cathedral-climbing n’ petty larceny n’ family relations, n’ finally a clockwork-orange raging drive back home through the bay-area w/ its warm sunshine, glorious green mtn-sides n’ endless vistas of windmills! we shall return Quote
jcp Posted April 3, 2010 Posted April 3, 2010 Damn, I really wanna do a roadtrip now. Great pics, fun to read report. Quote
Sherri Posted April 3, 2010 Posted April 3, 2010 Sounds like it was a great adventure. Great pics and write up! Quote
miker Posted April 3, 2010 Posted April 3, 2010 As always an adventure, although more climbing and less driving should be the goal. Fun times for it sounds like. Quote
corvallisclimb Posted April 3, 2010 Posted April 3, 2010 swell! sucks about the cops i woulda flipped my shit if they hinderd my "big all experince"... next time from dinner do skull queen or souther man, youll enjoy them alot more, the aid being a bit more enetertaining. and less of a chance of having a female cops ass in your face. Quote
ivan Posted April 3, 2010 Author Posted April 3, 2010 swell! sucks about the cops i woulda flipped my shit if they hinderd my "big all experince"... next time from dinner do skull queen or souther man, youll enjoy them alot more, the aid being a bit more enetertaining. and less of a chance of having a female cops ass in your face. word. was my boy's first bigwall though so thought we should do the famous moderate since i hadn't done it and it sure seeeeeemed off-season. i wanna do something on the capitan next time i go back - actually i just wanna live down there for a spring/summer Quote
tvashtarkatena Posted April 3, 2010 Posted April 3, 2010 (edited) 1st?! What about the fever dream and phlem ascent and retreat of lower TRL? Edited April 3, 2010 by tvashtarkatena Quote
stevetimetravlr Posted April 3, 2010 Posted April 3, 2010 Surprise you boys didn't get arrested for "Aiding and Abetting" hahahaho Quote
ivan Posted April 3, 2010 Author Posted April 3, 2010 1st?! What about the fever dream and phlem ascent and retreat of lower TRL? guess if you have to trudge through snow on the ascent it stops qualifying as a wall? Quote
denalidave Posted April 4, 2010 Posted April 4, 2010 Nice pics Ivan, but where are Trashie's spiftacular shots? I guess he keeps those on another thread, to keep up with the TR count? You know he's got a gozilgigamegabyte of keepers in that camera... Good to see some folks are getting out. Quote
denalidave Posted April 4, 2010 Posted April 4, 2010 Uh, on second thought, the last shot is pretty spiftacular... Quote
tvashtarkatena Posted April 4, 2010 Posted April 4, 2010 That fully autonomous jug mounted cam worked great. Quote
corvallisclimb Posted April 4, 2010 Posted April 4, 2010 Did you guys do the new direct start to the 1st pitch that was recently cleaned? Still only 5.8 just eliminates traversing accross the slab for your second. Quote
corvallisclimb Posted April 4, 2010 Posted April 4, 2010 No it's just like 30ft to the left of the normal starting corner, not a major variation. Supposedly fun climbing though for all 40' of it. Quote
ivan Posted April 4, 2010 Author Posted April 4, 2010 naw - that mighta been better - as it was, i didn't cut left across the slab till i was much higher - let pat get a fun pendy kinda run across a slab right at the beginning Quote
corvallisclimb Posted April 4, 2010 Posted April 4, 2010 Ya, the traverse in that picture is drawn in a bit to low. The variation eliminates the pendi, though its only 5.4ish so if your having difficultys at that point you might as well bail. Quote
powderhound Posted April 5, 2010 Posted April 5, 2010 nice write up Eric. If you ever need a place to crash on your drives, i am in the bay area. Quote
LostCamKenny Posted April 6, 2010 Posted April 6, 2010 man plans, dog laughs – no doubt why i’ve always been in the habit of kicking sleeping dogs oh, is that it... i thought you just tripped that time Quote
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