[TR] Red Rock and Yosemite - Various. 10/23/2012

[mtep]

Trip: Red Rock and Yosemite - Various.

 

Date: 10/23/2012

 

Trip Report:

Just wrapped up a quick trip to milk the last of summer before the cold came. Highlights were climbing The Warrior in Vegas and The Rostrum in the Valley. (see reflections/beta below)

 

The Warrior:

The Warrior's "crux" pitch.

 

This line follows the obvious right-facing corner up the east face of Cactus Flower Tower and is easily one of the most classic routes in Vegas.

 

Approach: The Handren guide says to bushwhack up the drainage up until it funnels you into a gully that you scramble up to the base of the route. As anybody who's spent time trying to bushwhack up a wash before can tell you, this is bad beta.

 

Get on a small spur/ridge climber's left of the gully/wash (hard to see from below, but basically stay on the high ground) and follow a faint trail and infrequent cairns through a short, orange cliff band until you side-hill into the base of the gully. 4th class up the gully (up some low 5th class steps that can be rapped with a single rope on the way down) generally staying to the right side of things. Eventually step left into a final steep scramble up a water-groove that takes you to the base of the route. The approach is long and time-consuming, but surprisingly quick to reverse. (if it's light)

 

Gear: We brought a single rack through a BD #6, 5 #3s, a rack of stoppers, and two ropes. (to rap the route) This was perfect and each pitch was well protected. (or at least as well protected as it was going to be) We brought the wide gear on pitches 1, 3, and 4 and didn't need it anywhere else. The only thing I would have done differently gear/tactics wise would be to bring knee-pads as is recommended by Handren. Pitch 3 (the 10d hand crack chimney) is burly and and it would definitely feel good to have some padding/protection on the knees.

 

 

Route: It's worth noting that the technical 11a crux is short and comparatively easy beside the 10d burl-fest below it. Come prepared for a battle.

 

More classic climbing high on The Warrior.

 

The Rostrum:

Obviously this is a classic route. This was my first real route in Yosemite and take-home points are that, in the valley, the thin climbing is easy and the wide climbing is hard. (but maybe that's just my strenths and weakness talking...)

 

The crux pitch.

 

Approach: we didn't have a guidebook and were fully mountainprojecting it. The beta there is great and all I would add is that you could probably bare-foot the approach. This would slow you down marginally, but it's a short enough route that the time spent would be well rewarded by not having to carry your shoes with you while you climbed. Flip flops might work too. (you'd likely be barefoot anyway on the steeper bits with flops)

 

Dave being birthed by pitch 1.

 

Gear: Single rope, stoppers, (we brought brass and didn't need it) double rack blue TCU to #2, single grey TCU to #5. Perfect.

 

Route: Pitch two has options. Left: 11a face to splitter, straight: 10-(?) flake lieback with hollowish gear, and right: 10- flaring awkwardness. The party in front of us went right and it looked awkward and less fun, so we went left. (straight up looks fine too) It looks like people downclimb 10', traverse, and then reclimb to access the crack. That all seemed complicated at the time, and there are holds if you want to just punch it straight left, so we did.

 

The wide pitch.

 

The only other point of note was that on MP.com the beta says to back clean your #5 and run it out on the last pitch to keep the rope from pushing the gear irretrievably into the crack. Later in the post, someone says that you can solve this problem by extending your anchor to the lip. Our experience found this to be false to due the relationship between the tree's location, the run/angle of the crack, and the amount of roll-over in the top of the formation. Maybe it works for some, but my #5's still there.

 

There were two parties of two from Washington in front of us who we did some anchor sharing with at the cave belay before the last pitch. We ended up with a sling and carabiner of yours, so if you read this, get in touch with me and I'll send it to where ever's convenient!

 

Dinner.

[Eric T]

Hell Yes! The Warrior looks sick. We are mustering our energy to give it a try while we're down here. Did you guys consider the link up?

[mtep]

Link-up=Topping out CFT and continuing up S. Face of Wilson? No, we didn't consider it as we were looking for a more casual day/I'm kind of lazy. It looks from the summit of CFT like a couple pitches of quality climbing followed by some Vegas ledge-hopping. Probably worth-while if you're psyched to carry over.