This weekend, I finally got a chance to climb with Matt outside. Here’s Matt pictured at the top of pitch 5 or 6 of Royal Arches:
Matt and I have been climbing weekly in the gym for a 2-3 months now. I met him on Mountain Project when I made a post about looking for partners to tackle the Eastern Sierras with. We met in great western power company(GWPC) to climb.
This weekend, we tackled royal arches. its a 15 pitch 5.7 A0(or can be freed at 5.10-). The A0 part consists of grabbing onto a sling and swinging over to a ledge. Here’s a pic of it on MP:
Friday
It was an Inday for me, so we left Friday at around 8am. We got to the valley a bit after noon. We decided to start with a 2 pitch trad climb called CS Concerto. It was technically a 4 pitch climb, but we only did 2 pitches which I’ll explain in a second.
I led the first pitch without a problem. its a 5.6R I believe, for a small runout of about 10-15 feet. Wasn’t too bad since it was on slab.
Matt led the second pitch. That was 5.8 with a mantle move that was pretty tough. All-in-all, a fun climb!
We then were going to do the 3rd and fourth pitch that met up with another climb. Since someone was already on the regular 3rd pitch, we decided to take an alternative pitch with some 5.6R on it. Since I had just done some 5.6R, I was feeling pretty good…
The fall
While leading the first pitch of this, I was struggling to get my first piece in. I placed one, and then the next part is fuzzy. I believe I clipped an alpine draw to one end, and was holding it to re-position or maybe to test it. In any case, I fellback off the route, and onto Matt. Matt fell into the bushes. It was maybe a 5-6 foot fall, nothing too big. We were completely uninjured. But if Matt hadn’t been there, I probably would have fallen onto some spikey rocks which would have been very, very unpleasant.
Irregardless of that, was why did I fall at all? The cam was still snug in the crack I put it in, so it was obvious something had gone wrong with the clipping, or the piece had unclipped. After thinking about it a bunch, I’m of the belief that I pressed on the gate and it had opened, and had popped out of the cam I had placed. This was disconcerting. I shouldn’t have pieces coming undone like that. Like, wtf.
Anyways, after this incident we bailed on that route by down-climbing some 4th class terrain.
We continued on to do a 5.9 on top rope that I struggled on. Then we did a 5.8. Matt led it and I followed. I legitimately fell on it during a lieback part. Yosemite 5.8 is much, much harder then I thought. And still I’m not very good at the types of features you see in trad climbing: liebacks, cracks, etc.
Bandit Camping
We had dinner, and while eating we chatted a good 20ish minutes with some couple that was visiting from Germany. There were really cool and Matt gave them some advice on some cool Sequoias they could see.
After that we called it a night.
Matt was taught from a generation of dirtbags. He’s more old school Yosemite, and I love him for it. We didn’t have a campsite, and being too lazy to bum with some Camp 4 people, we did what Matt terms “bandit camping”. We basically stashed our food in a bear box, and hiked out to some not-so-visited part of Yosemite to camp for the night. Obviously I won’t disclose the location, but it was nicely only a 10 min walk from the car. We ended up camping there both nights; I had forgotten my tent poles, so I ended up sleeping just in my bag on my sleeping pad. The last time I had done this when we had done North Dome on a much warmer night, I had caught a cold or something in my throat. I was worried that would happen again, but luckily it did not. Matt camped the same, just in his sleeping bag on a mattress pad.
The Climb
The next day we woke up at 6 am. We had some breakfast at some nice benches, and began our day. We arrived at the base of the climb around 8 am and got on our way.
I led the first pitch, which was a 5.6 chimney. It was super polished, and I struggled getting up; half way up I dropped a #3 cam(what the fuck Kevin). We also decided to haul the bags up after I finished the chimney part, which went without incident.
I continued on past another slightly hard bouldery move, then onto some third class.
I lead the next 2 pitches which were pretty uneventful. They were 3rd and fourth class, with some 5.5-5.6 in them. There was one part I remember of 5.6 that I found difficult that I ended up sewing up with pieces. I was moving slow at this section and at one point Matt called up to me “Is your piece secure? if so pull on it and lets get going!” That was the motivation I needed to get moving lol.
Next matt lead 2-3 5.6-5.7 pitches. They were pretty fun. There was one point of 5.6 that I thought was pretty runout. I now realize any face climbing on trad climbs scare the shit out of me for being runout. Even if there is a piece right below it. Anyways it was slabby and not fun to climb following, and I’m sure it was terrifying to lead. I was just not feeling confident on it at all. With a backpack and some trad gear in front of me swinging around and getting in the way, anything balance-y and delicate on the toes feel unsafe.
While we were climbing we ran into a group of 4: A dad, his two kids, and his friend Jeff. They were moving awfully slow. I got to chat with the Dad a bit and he expressed his concerns that they wouldn’t get down in time. They honestly seemed to keep up with us for the next few pitches, so I don’t think they would descend in the dark, but more on that later.
The next pitch was the pendulum pitch! I lead this. I placed a piece of gear in the rope, hung onto the rope, and swuuuuuuung over to the other part. I quickly grabbed it, mantled up, and was on my way! Super fun. It was too bad we couldn’t get a picture/video of it.
I traversed over for a bit, and then we had lunch under a tree.
The scary pitch
This next pitch I lead was the scary pitch for me. It is described in the book as “sustained 5.6”. It was basically a 5.6 layback, followed by another section of awkward 5.7 layback/stemming. I basically pulled gear the whole time on the pitch, inching my way up. The 5.6/5.7 layback/stemming I turned into A0 aid by just pulling on all my placed gear lol.
I would place a piece, clip in with my PAC, move up 2-3 feet, place another piece of gear, unclip from my first piece, and then clip into my next one. That pitch probably took me a good 20-30ish minutes to lead for a 40 ft section. Lots of calling and Matt even inquired at one point “you all right?”
I need to learn to not use my PAC like that because it’s a bad habit. I’m okay with pulling on pieces, but I should try and do it less.
The rest
Anyways, after that Matt lead 2 pitches of 5.7. They were scary, but not that hard. I would have been a little freaked out leading them, but I felt like I could have done them okay.
Then we had some low class 5 that I lead. Here’s Matt coming over one of those easy class 5 pitches:
One more mini-pitch, and we were at the top! There was a couple in front of us that simil-rappelled down, which I thought was awesome:
Kinda hard to see them both since they’re basically one behind the other.
Here’s a video of them descending you’re interested:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/kF9kB8AKF6ZfrLzW7
After that we hopped on the rappel ourselves. It was about 2:30. It had taken us about 6 hours to do the whole route. Not bad!!
Here’s me on one of the rappels:
The next 2ish hours were just us doing rappel after rappel. We had a double rope, but even then it took foreeeever. At one point we saw a guy descending by himself. All he had was his rappel rope. Obviously he had free-solo’d the whole route. Quite impressive. “There are some free cookies at one of the restaurants if you get there before 5pm”, he told me as we briefly chatted. Maybe that’s why he was free soloing and moving so fast — so he could get back in time for the cookies!
I think we finally touched down at around 5. After taking a moment to find the rope bag we had left on the ground, we were done! What a day.
We ended up getting some pizza and beer, and calling it a night. What an amazing experience.
One last climb
The next day we did one last climb. It was the 5.8 “Bishops Terrace”. It was something like 150-180 feet. It has 860 votes on MP(oh my god, that’s so many!). But it was a beauty of a route. Beautiful hand and foot jamming. I think I got some foot jams in, some fist jams in, a few hand jams — all in all a beautiful climb. I lead it cleanly without falling which was great too! I did, however, drop my nut tool about 100 feet up. Freaking embarrassing. But more importantly, really troubling — I wasn’t even clipping/unclipping that piece of gear, I was clipping a cam. It came undone again I think because of the same wire-gate issue. I think it’s safe to say I need to either not use those biners, or be more careful on how I clip/unclip them. More thoughts on this is needed.
Anyways there’s a pic of me coming over the top of this climb with me double hand-jamming and foot jamming:
Reflections
This was an amazing trip and I enjoyed every second of it. I’m concerned that I unclipped from my gear somehow without me knowing. I’m really going to have to think on that.
I also think I really need to slow down on my leading — I shouldn’t be leading at the limit of my ability on trad. It’s just too dangerous. I know some people are okay with leading at their ability and falling on their gear, and that might be fine for harder grades were the falls are cleaner. But on this stuff, the falls are just too dangerous.
I’m happy with following on this stuff, it’s plenty of fun and challenging. However these are the problems I have with it:
- Don’t want to get complacent with following all the time
- Don’t want to be a burden for those climbing with me.
2 is the bigger issue. I think I should follow on hard stuff to practice and get better, but I also don’t want to be a burden for those who have to lead everything. I’m willing to go on super-long trad routes, but I need to find someone who’s willing to basically lead all the hard pitches.
It’s a tough balance, but if I don’t slow down on the leading I think I might get seriously injured. Certain things — accidentally unclipping gear, dropping gear, my friend dropping me a couple months ago — are indications that I’m trying to jump into this stuff to fast. I need to slow down. I’m okay with following hard stuff, I just need to make sure I can find people who want to climb with me.
Besides, I still don’t have much experience with crack climbing, or dealing with liebacks — I want to practice these things more. And I also want to practice how I carry my gear — right now I feel like I don’t have a system down that I like, and need to practice that more. If I can hone these skills, I can worry more about the actual climbing, and I think that’ll make me a better climber that can climb at that level.
Slow and steady.
Also, here’s a pic of what climbing this weekend did to my hands:
Anyways, 10/10 great trip. Looking forward to climbing with you again Matt!!