Here’s an overview of my trip for the next year.

Where are you going?

The general itinerary is:

-1 month skiing around Utah and Colorado

-Ultra Music Festival in Miami In mid march

-3 months in europe

-3 months in America, some time in eastern europe

-Another 3 months in europe

-3 months in South America.

The reason I am splitting Europe into 2 parts is because of Schengen visa. It basically only allows you to visit Europe for 90 days out of 180 day period. There’s no way around it(trust me, I looked for days and days).

Other countries that I may/may not go to:

-India

-South Korea

-Australia

Egypt(and other african countries)

-Morroco

 

Here’s a general timeline. I mainly made this timeline to figure out how to get 6 months in Europe with the best weather months.

Jan and Feb are reserved for South America.

What are you doing?

TL;DR: climbing, backpacking, hiking, drinking, eating, EDM,  history, meeting people

I like the outdoors a lot, so naturally there will be a lot of that. Most of my hard technical climbing I’ll leave to when I’m in the US(since that’s where my gear is and it’s hard to travel with lots of rock climbing gear). However, I still plan on trekking up some big peaks, such as Mount Elbrus(Russia, 18.5k, highest peak in Europe), The matterhorn(guided 5.4 trip in Switzerland), and plenty of 20+ peaks in Ecuador and south america(both guided and unguided).

I also plan on doing my fair share of backpacking and hiking. Tour du Mont Blanc and the Gokyo lakes trail are two that I’m excited about.

Of course, as every traveller does I’ll be eating and drinking. I’m excited to take tours of various famous wine country in Spain and Italy. I’m also very excited to try out the food in various countries. I’m hoping to take lots of cooking classes along the way to learn more about the cuisine.

I’m excited to learn about the different types of alcohols that came from a region — when I went to Mexico, it was really cool to learn about Mezcal. I’d love to do that for other countries and their drinks of choice.

I’ll be going to a few festivals here and there — starting with Ultra in Miami, and Tomorrowland in belgium. I’ll go to other festivals and they come up and I get more into the scene.

Where will you be staying?

A combo of everything — hostels, hotels, airBnBs, couch surfing. Tents ahah. Whatever works best for my budget.

Come join!

If you’re travelling anywhere in the world, and you want a travel buddy, let me know! Especially if it’s an outdoor adventure. If I’m on that side of the globe wherever you are, I’ll try and meet up with you!

What else?

I still have to talk about budget, where I’ll be staying, etc. That’ll be another post.

Ice climbing during Ouray Ice Festival. Right before I accidentally knocked off that thin spire of ice ?: @minhchaumein

So it’s happening! I’m travelling! If you’re reading this, I probably sent you to this blog one way or another. Here’s what you can expect from this blog:

I’m going to try and post updates as I travel. In the past, I’ve tried blogging a few times in the past and writing about every single day, but that was exhausting. When I do that I end up only making it a few days into the trip before giving up. Instead, what I’m going to aim for is writing a short blog post at least once a week. That’ll keep things a little bit lighter on the workload, but still be enough to be consistent and engaging.

If you want to subscribe to updates, feel free to add your email to the subscription box on the write and you’ll be emailed when you I write something new. Be sure to check your spam. It appeared in my spam when I did this, so it’ll probably appear there for you too. Or, you can be like Darren and just subscribe to my rss feed(however that works…)

Other things:

1. This blog will be updated with a interactive map that shows you where I’ve been, connecting all the places with a line. It will have an attached blog post for each location.
2. I’ll try to integrate my Instagram with the blog so new instagram posts show up in the feed, as well as on the map

 

For now, you can follow me on various things:

follow on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevin117007/

chat with me on facebook:https://www.messenger.com/t/kevinjonaitis117

 

Looking forward to writing on this blog!

Or should I say,  Mt.Coldness!

 

Some notes: This trip took place November 9th-10th. Unfortunately I forgot my camera, so I only had my phone camera to take pictures.

This trip, my climbing partner was Susan. Here’s a picture of her:

Susan and I met on mountain project. After meeting up a couple times at LinkedIn in sunnyvale, we discussed planes on different trips we could do. We had first settled on doing north peak + conness combo, but that seemed like a big undertaking. Then we decided on Mt. Conness West Ridge. We again originally wanted to do the approach from Young lakes, camping overnight one night at the lakes. But that had closed 120 to overnight camping at this time. So, we were stuck doing the approach from Saddlebag lake/campground.

These Friday evening drives out to the Sierras are draining on me, and don’t work too swell when you have to wake up early(think 4 or 5 am) the next morning. So we did something different this time: We decided to leave Friday *morning*, work from Oakdale(specifically a starbucks), and then do the rest of of drive around 4pm.

This worked out really well. We found a nice starbucks with wifi and tables. Here’s the location:

For future trips I think I’ll split up the drive like this. It makes the drive a bit easier by both splitting it up and missing the bay area friday evening traffic.

That night, we opted to sleep in my car. It was a bit cramped, and honestly, I think two people is pushing it when sleeping in the back of the car. The thing that makes it so hard is that we usually have big bags of stuff, and there’s really nowhere to put them when the seats and pushed all the way forward. I was going to get a roof top box for my car to solve that problem, but the garage I park in couldn’t fit it.

But I digress.

In the parking lot, we frustratingly untangled some rope:

Susan is a big fan of olive bread, so we got some of that as well:

And I got a burrito that was bigger than my face:

We then drove down to saddlebag lake and camped. That evening there were a bunch of people…partying? outside of our car. They kept me up for a couple hours just laughing their asses off. Who was laughing and at what and in the middle of the winter in a parking lot…beats me.

That morning, we woke up at I think around 4ish am. We were out on the trail by 5.

It was. FUCK. ING. COLD. I had my small mitts on and my snow pants and two layers of jackets. I had to keep my hands in my pocket for the first hour of the hike because it was so cold. I think Susan had long johns on as she was cold in.

We took lots of pictures on the hike. This one was my favorite one. Thanks Susan!

Here’s Susan:

Approach to conness:

A cool picture of me Susan took:

More hiking and hiking, and we reached the ridge of Mt Conness. A little below the ridge, three was a small wind-break shelter that we hung out in for a bit:

Now, this route is weird, because you get to a ridge/plateau near the top of mt conness. You can see the summit and it’s about a 20 minute walk to the top. However, instead of going to the top, you walk across the plateau, go down the the other side of the mountain, and the climb back up the west ridge.

 

Here’s a picture of the plateau(not from me). You can see the summit on the right, and we walked down on the left side to the west approach of the summit:

It’s a bit contrived I know(which is why we originally wanted to do the approach from young lakes), but hey, climbers always make contrived routes!

After walking across the plateu and going down a bit, I took a picture of the harding route:

The Harding route is interesting. According to Susan, a guy tried to solo it many years ago and died on it. Because it was during the summer, the blood stains stained the rock and could be found by the climbers the next season around. Also, Peter Croft onsight solo’d it, which is insane.

It’s a 5.10c trad route, so I have no plans on doing it anytime soon.

After that, we continued on our way down. It was lots of rock scrambling. Susan berated me for going ahead of her, rightfully so. I was anxious to get to the bottom of the route so I was scouting ahead. I was only about100-200 yards ahead of her, however I should really stuck with her the whole time. At one point she fell and hurt her hip a bit and I felt bad not being there to help.

 

Finally, have going too far down, and getting confused where the route starts (“at the base of the toe, right where all the scree is”, or something along those lines is what the guidebook said), we finally found the start.

Here’s a picture of Susan near the start:

The route started out low class 5. It looked pretty easy, so Susan and I started soloing up. A bit of the way up, I reached some harder level 5 stuff. Susan was off to my right. I couldn’t get over to her, so I was forced to down climb. This shit was really fucking unpleasant. I was cursing the whole way down, pissed at myself for overestimating my abilities. I was in my approach shoes which made it really hard. Eventually I reached susan and we setup a belay.

I used a bunch of nuts for the anchor. Susan lead the first pitch. By this time, another party had joined us. They were starting from below us, but we were a bit slow getting setup and changed into our climbing shoes, so they quickly passed us on the left.

Now here’s the scary part.

As the leader of the other group was climbing up, he was making good progress. He was trying to find the route, and tried one way, backtracked a bit, then tried another way.

Then he fell.

I sorta saw it in slow motion. He fell what looked like 5 feet, and then slowed down, and then bounched slowly off his back on a ledge. Luckily he was going slowly and was wearing a backpack, so that absorbed most of the impact. He gear held.

“Thank god for good gear placements!” or something along those lines he said. “You should buy your belayer a beer!” I yelled out to him.

But seriously, WHAT THE FUCK. We were on low class 5 stuff, with ledges and shit all over. NOT a good place to fall. And REALLY EASY terrian regardless. Probably low class 5 stuff That guy had no business being up here taking falls. I had no business being up here etiher probably.

So that was freaking scary.

Anyways Susan continued leading the first pitch. There was a point or two were I thought she would fall, but she made it through just fine. We got to a ledge.

And then I lead the next pitch.

I racked up, said “on belay”, “climbing” and I was off.

And I fucking flew up that route.

I had never felt so good leading something in my life. I was literally running up the route. Stemming this, Lie-backing that, a jam or two sprinkled in. Susan said something like “you were a rope gun” on that route. And I felt amazing.

Near the top of the pitch, I got stuck on this section with face holds and not much pro. I tried placing a cam and it just pulled right out when I tugged on it. I tried pacing a nut, which was marginal at best as well. I put the cam back in in a position that didn’t pull out(but I wasn’t confident in), and I was about to head up. Luckily Susan and I had radios on so I think I asked her where I was supposed to go. She said there was a ledge to my left. When I looked down and to my left, I saw the ledge she was talking about. So I downclimbed the 5 feet or so to get to that ledge and moved over.

After that, a bit more easy climbing, and we got to the top of that pitch.

After looking back on the top, I think I might have combined pitches 2 and 3 in my super pitch. It was so good though I didn’t want to stop. I feel a bit bad for stealing Susan’s pitch, but there really weren’t any great places to stop before the place I stopped at.

After that Susan followed me up. I think I climbed it faster than she followed it; more of a testament to the speed I went up than anything.

And that was the only two technical pitches we did. Everything else was basically solo’d or roped. Susan showed me a cool way to coil the rope so we could walk with it between us. I forgot what it was called but it’s basically what you use when you simul climb.

After that it was a lot of low class 5 soloing to the top. At this point, Susan was really feeling the altitude and slowing down a bit. But honestly I have never seen someone persevere through pain as much as she did. We slowly worked our way up the easy 5th class stuff, taking pictures along the way:

Note you can see how smokey it looks; this is when the Camp fires were going on, and I guess the smoke made it all the way to the valley. I thought we’d be clear of the smoke, but noppppe.

There were a few class 5 moves sprinkled in on the soloing. It kept it interesting.

Here’s a  video of us on the knife ridge.

This ridge was amazing because it truly was a “knife ridge”. Off to our right was the harding route, which basically is a straight drop to the ground. Again, apologize for not having any pictures.

Around this time we see a free soloer passing us. He seems like he’s having a blast, and we exchange pleasantries.

Finally we make it to the top. It’s around 4 pm at this point, so we’ve been up for a good 12 hours. Susan’s feeling like crap, we’r both cold, so we spend a few minutes on the peak and make our way down. Here’s a pano from the top:

We make our way down. We stop again at the wind shelter on the other side of the plateu, and Susan and I change into better clothes. Susan pulls out her handwarmers which I’m extremely jealous of.

At around this point it basically goes completely dark. We turn on our headlamps.

At this point I also remark that the group we had been climbing with, we still hadn’t seem them up to this point. I was a bit worried from them; we never saw them coming up, or coming down in our headlamps.

Susan and I spend the next few hours navigating in the dark. Patience is running thin and we’re both uncomfortable and just want to be done. Finally at around 9pm, we roll back into our camp, done with the adventure. Yippie! Susan and I both agree to get a hotel for the night rather than spending another night in the cold of my car.

The next day we wake up, sort gear, get a delicious breakfast, talk a bit about future plans, and drive home. We weren’t really feeling climbing that day, both of us exhausted and satisfied with the adventure the day before.

Susan I had a great time on this trip, and I’m looking forward to tackling many more sierra peaks this coming season!

Summary

Route: Mt Conness, West Ridge, 5.6 Grade IV

Pitches: 2-3, many pitches low 5 solo

Distance: 8ish miles

Time: 5 am to 9 pm, 16 hours

Fun type: Type 2+ fun

Coldness level: ExTrEmE

 

To see the full album of pictures(because this blog post doesn’t do it justice), go here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/4o4BjkHLCmi7ZoZK7

Also shout out to Teddi Tostanoski for editing all of my camera photos. You did a fanstatic job!

And now for the blog

Back in July of this year, I took a trip from one end of the sierras to the other. It was called the Sierra High Trail(Not to be confused with the High Sierra Trail).

Its an 80 mile trip that starts in Sequioa and finishes in the eastern sierras. Normally it finished through whitney portal, but since I had climbed Whitney a few years earlier, I decided to finish by going through Langley.

My GPX for the trip looked like this:

You can see the interactive map here:

https://caltopo.com/m/MQFH

Full trip it was about 80 miles. I was planning on doing it in 7 nights/8 days. I ended up combining a few days and doing it in 6 nights.

Here’s the food I packed. Yes I ate all that nutella:

The trip started out pretty rough. I was planning on leaving on Friday, since I had the first week of July off(due to a company shutdown). The plan was to drop my car off at the end, and then take a series of buses around to the beginning side. This was going to take me a full day.

The day before I was supposed to leave(Thursday morning), I realized that they didn’t run buses on the weekend!! So I had to scramble and pack everything THAT DAY, and ended up leaving Thursday night at midnight. I ended up arriving at around 7 am on friday, having gotten NO sleep whatsoever. 🙁 Very dangerous drive.

I got some good views on the drive though:

Anyways, I was able to get someone to pick me up on the east side and drive me down to lone pine, where I could catch a series of buses around the eastern sierras(through bakersfield) to get to the west side. That shuttle alone cost $80, what a rip off! But you do what you have to do….

Anyways, I eventually end up in Vasalia, which is the launching point into Sequioa national park. I had met another couple on the bus that was doing the same trail. I was excited to hike with them, and that evening we planned on getting dinner together in the city before we strated off tomorrow. Everything seemed to be going to plan except…

I FORGOT MY FREAKING TENT.

Like, holy shit. How does someone even do that.

What entailed was probably the closet I came to a panic attack: I tried to find if there was an REI nearby, nope. I went to Big 5 sporting goods to try and get a temporary tent. That obviously sucked as seen here:

Then I tried to rent a car and just drive back to SF to get my tent. It was only a 3 hour drive each way. Being the 4th of july weekend though, every car place was sold out from here to kingdom come. Nobody had any rentals.

The closet REI was in Fresno, about an hour drive away. But with no way to get there(the public transist didn’t run between those two cities), I was out of ideas…

I ended up just getting an uber to drive me there and back. It cost around $100. And I got my 1 person tent, whew. So a day late, and a brand new tent later, I *actually* start my trip!

Here are the reports from the different days. I wrote them all on my mobile phone while I was out there. Some were combined, because I was lazy. Anyways, without further ado…

Day 1 HST

Thought of two new playlist names: “bring pain, silence thoughts” and “female vocal orgasms”. The latter being all my female heavy vocal edm music.

Came blasting out of the gate with 14 miles. I was worrying most of the day that I wouldn’t have enough food. What I mean is, that I won’t fell full. I have plenty of food to keep me nourished and/or maybe lose a pound. But hey, I’m trying to lose weight anyways right?

I was a little worried about the side dishes I brought not cooking properly if I didn’t give them a 7 min boil. But basically, if I bring something to a boil, and let it sit for 20 minutes, it’s golden. That goes for both the Mountain meals and the side dishes.

And hey, the side dishes arnt that bad! Kinda bland that you’re just eating rice, but I can’t complain when I’m so hungry.

The landscapes after bear meadow where insane. I had to stop my music for a second just to fully take in the scenery. Even with my nice camera it doesn’t do the landscapes justice.

I started listening to into the void. It’s pretty good so far! Interesting how some people evaluate risk. Aka they’re way too risky.

I came blasting out of the gate with 14 miles clocked in. I want to compress at least one day so I can come home early. Tomorrow I’ll be doing 13 miles. It’ll have 4k elevatiom gain which will be tough. I’ll try to get an early start.

Today was pretty brutal, I’m not going to lie. The last 3 miles we’re just anguish lol. I’ll give myself lots of time tomorrow for breaks.

Off to read. Might do some star photography at midnight, we’ll see how it goes

Day 2/3 HST

 

Fuck mosquitoes!!! They make everything so much worse. I must have upwards of 50 bites on me. Everything iches.

What’s worse is I didn’t really bring that much/that good of bug spray. A 3/4th empty can of some no name brand. I didn’t think it’d be a problem.

Luckily, I think once I get to higher elevation they’ll go away(I’ll be at 11k tomorrow). That’s the hope anyway.

Speaking of tomorrow, I’m a bit nervous. It’ll be the hardest day thus far. Yesterday was grueling. I just wanted it to end. It was 12.7 miles with 4k elevation. Tomorrow will be 10.7 miles with 4.1k elevation. I’ll have less food which might make things a tad easier, but it’ll still suck.

Also, my thighs in the outside have been numb for two days. The part with the muscle I’ve been using excessively. I’m not sure if it’s something with my spinal injury, which would be worry some, or if it’s just me overworking the muscles. Nothing else is dumb except that part.

I also worry that it might be because of how tight I’ve had the pack on my waist. Have I been pintching a nerve? The most painful part of the trip hasn’t been the soreness in my legs, but the unbearable pain on my waist from the pack. I haven’t cut into my skin at all, but it’s really really painful each day I hike. Probably not sitting right or something. Well hopefully as I eat dinner tonight/food tomorrow it’ll get lighter.

I was so exhausted from yesterday and the day before that I didn’t take any pics! Today I’ll try and do some night photography. It’d be a waste for me to carry that 3lb tripod 80 miles for nothing lol…
According to the schedule of the people I met on the bus, they should be at this campsite tonight. I cut down a day in the trail from my fast hiking. I didn’t see them when I came in, but it’s a large area. I also didn’t pass them….maybe they went on ahead, or are still hiking in. Tbh, I haven’t seen anyone at this campsite yet.

Yesterday I saw a group of NPS workers working on the trail. It was something out of a movie how diverse they were: the beared outdoorsman, the girl who looked like she could be on a “we need YOU for the army” poster, the token black guy with long dreads, and the skinny white dude covered in tatoooes. I thaked them for their work as I went by.

Also yesterday I briefly chatted with a girl from a group that was doing a big loop that included parts of the HST. She lived in sf, originally from Oakland. We talked for a bit and went on our way. After I had hiked past them to continue on my way, I realized she had initiated the Convo, and she was from SF! Why hadnt I at least gotten her contact info? I need more friends in this space. I beat myself up for the next hour about this as I continued on…

After tomorrow, itll be an easy 8mi day, followed by another somewhat challenging 8 mile day summiting langly. Then one more day to hike out to the car.

I find it ironic that the summitng day will be one of the easier ones. Tomorrow being the hardest.

I’ll try and take it slow tomorrow. I’ve got all day, and I can get in late. For now it’s time to get some reading in! 🙂

HST 4/5

Day 4 was supposed to be the hardest day. By the start of day 4 I hadn’t seen anyone for 24 hours. I had failed to find the couple that I had met on the bus in Visalia. In fact, nobody was camping at junction meadow at all!

The day started with me fight mostioes. Fuck mosquitoes. After hiking a bit, I joined the JMT. Then for the next 2 hours, about every 10 minutes I would see people. It was like a highway of people! Absolutely crazy.

I got down to Crabtree meadow, and I will say it’s one of the most beautiful places I had seen up to this point. It’s also a junction point for the pct, jmt, and hst, so it was swarming with people. I chatted with a guy who did 22 miles in one day, finishing at 9pm. He started at horseshoe (where I’m finishing) and hiked to Crabtree. I’m doing the same itenerary but in 3 days, and summitng Langley as well.

I was a bit remise that I wasn’t going to camp at Crabtree, because the views looked steller for night photography. I told myself if where I was camping wasn’t great, I’d hike back the 2 miles in the dark with the camera equipment and do it in Crabtree. That….was never going to happen. Once I started from Crabtree meadow to Crabtree lakes, the offtrail had started, and it was slow going. 2 miles took me 2 hours.

 

But it was okay, because once I got to Crabtree lake, I was blessed with amazing views. I setup my camera for night photography; I was initially stoked that I was going to be able to get the moonrise; but after watching it rise and taking a pic or two, it became apparent that the moonlight washed out all the stars. I still ended up getting some good shots before dawn came around.

Crabtree lake was my favorite campsite by far. I had it all to myself, and it had stunning views. And of course, no mosquitos.

 

The next day(today) was completely off trail. I started hiking late, 10:30am, as I was sleepy from the night photography the night before. That was all well and good, as planned.

Today was exciting and a bit scary. It was fun to finally do some “off trail” stuff. Technically caltopo has a trail, but you’re really on your own because it’s impossible to find. Every once in a while I’d run across it, or a Carin. But in general I just followed the spirit of the trail.

 

The best part of this whole hike was Crabtree pass. It was scary. First you had to circle around this lake about 20 feet above on this 35-40 degree scree slope. Luckily there was a path there already otherwise that would have been really slow going.

Then you had to scramble up the pass. Mind you this is scrambling, with a 20-30 pound pack, at 12k feet. It’s fucking exhausting. But when you get to the top, you get the most magnificent views. Multiple Alpine lakes, multiple peaks, Newman/sawtooth peak peaking out from a window. It was magnificent. And the whole way down from the pass getting to pass different alpine lakes was awesome.

Here’s a video at the pass:

 

Sometime after the pass

The final part of today, taking the “rangers” path down towards soilders lake was steep/sucky. I slipped and fell in mud at one point. I should have just taken the desginaited trail lol. It was only like, 0.5 miles longer.

Also, a note on the book “into the void”: absolutely AMAZING book. The fact that I was suffering doing these long miles while listening to it made it all that much better. One of my top 10 books for sure. It’s crazy that in some situations I’d think, “I’d use this technique”, and then immediately after the author would say they used said technique. It made me feel like an almost mountaineer. I also realted emotional to a lot of the things he said, or how he dealth with stress. It’s interesting to see people deal with hardship in the outdoors much the same way.

Tomorrow I do langly, and the day after I hike out. I feel a bit empty: I expected to feel…idk… something more? I guess I’m a bit upset that I didn’t get some amazing night photography. It was only OK. But I learned stuff about the moon, my equipment, timing, etc. So maybe next go out it’ll be a bit better.

Honestly langly will probably be pretty easy, considering I’ll be leaving my pack at the junction. It’ll be a 4 mile 2k hike to the peak, and then a 4 mile hike down to cottonwood through old army pass. Old army is “unmaintained” but still in most maps, so should be easy to find.

HST 5/6

Written 11/3/2018

Unfortunately I don’t have anything written for these two days. But I basically hiked up to the top of Langley, camped at an awesome lake. I ended up doing one of my best time lapses here which I am super proud of.  Read more for it below.

Here are the Langley photos:

 

 

I remember coming down from langley, people were saying the path was icey and slippery. I was a bit worried…but after looking at it, what they considered “slippery” or “dangerous” was nothing of the sort. Maybe it was a bit icy earlier in the day, but at this point it was completely slushy snow. Not a problem.

I camped what I thought was away from anyone else on the far side of a lake. But just 50 feet from me another couple decided to camp as well. You have the whole wilderness, why camp there!??!

 

Here’s the timelapse:

 

Anyways, on the final day I hiked out, and ran into a group of older gentleman. Having a pack that was much lighter, and having hiked the last 6 days, I was feeling pretty light on my feet. “You make that look so easy!” one of them said to my giant pack. Thanks dude, but after 5 days and 10k+ feet for most of them, it kinda is!

I had a bit of trouble locating the correct exit for the trail. I guess I didn’t pin *exactly* where I put my car on the trail map, so I had to try 2-3 loops before I found the correct one. But eventually I did! And my worry about not locking my car was relived when I tried the door and realize I did, in fact lock the door.

After that, I went into town and had my first burger in a long time which was delicious!! And proceeded home.

 

All in all, a great trip. I liked the time alone, and hope to do it again!

 

 

 

Once again I headed out with Cory on another rock climbing adventure. This time we had our eye on doing a FA on the 10k Dogtooth peak. While the route ended up being really easy low 5th class terrain, I was still very happy to have done a FA. It had always been a dream of mine when I first started considering to do trad to do such a climb. It was a bit disappointing how easy it was, but still a lot of easy, relaxed fun! I hope to do a lot more easy and fun FA in the future. It’s the best way to climb IMO!

In any case, Cory wrote a trip report on the whole thing. You can read it on his blog here.

Thanks for another awesome trip Cory!

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:

1. Don’t want to get complacent with following all the time
2. 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.

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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!!

 

 

 

 

all the time i hurt

climbing rock with sweaty palms

then i fall oof ow

A couple of weeks ago(the weekend of 9/8) I had the pleasure of meeting Cory off of MountainProject and joining him on a trip to the Eastern Sierras for a 11 pitch 5.8 grade IIIclimb . It was the longest trad climb I had done, and it was an amazing experience. For me, it marked the start of a new era in my climbing career. Never had I climbed something so high, so long, and which required such a range of technical skills. I had done all the things individually, but never combined them like this before. Safe to say, I was #stoked.

I was going to write a trip report, but turns out Cory wrote one already, so I’ll just link that here. It’s well written. For your reading pleasure:

Cory’s Trip report

 

Can’t wait to join you on two more trips later this month Cory!