Climbing: Yosemite and Sonora, April 2012

My buddy Kyle and I travelled to Yosemite to inaugurate this year's climbing season.  Getting there wasn't pretty.  I had stayed up until 5AM the night before to prepare my lab data presentation, a wholly avoidable tragedy created by my unwillingness to stop collecting data and start making a presentation.  I mention this because the sleep deprivation caused me to miss several turns on the way to Yosemite, and we were therefore unable to crash until well after 1AM Friday night.

Kyle volunteers with Bay Area Mountain Rescue Unit.  One his buddies who volunteers for the NPS, Blake, was already set up at Camp 4 and kindly let us split the site with him.  So we were able to roll in late and get our tents set up without too much trouble.  I slept very well!

Saturday morning I roll out of the tent, slap on some shoes and take care of the only thing that matters: COFFEE.  We then hook up with several other NPS friends of Blake's (Sebastian, Val and ...?), then all head out to Reed's pinnacle.  The more experienced climbers are looking to get some trad crack climbing in there, so Kyle and I bail out to Five and Dime for easy 5.8 warmup sport leads.  Here's me trying to do justice to the view from the top of that wall.

After that we headed over to Pat and Jack's to meet up with Blake and friends.  Kyle and I tackled the first pitch of this 5.9 - at least I think that was the route:

That's Kyle at the top.  Beyond him is a technically beautiful - I mean really stunning - trad 5.10b that I got to climb with a top belay, following Sebastian after those guys arrived.  Surprising moves, everything you needed but none of it obvious.  Really nice climb.

When Sebastian led the route we had just done, he took two 9.8-ish mm ropes with him in order to top-belay me.  Once I was up there, he set up a rappel and went to take off.  I stopped him, looking at the "excuse-me-is-that-a-granny-knot?" overhand knot he had used to tether the ropes to one another.

Me: "uh...so, yeah.  How sure are you that this knot is safe?"

Him, in thick German accent: "I am glad you asked! Never take anything for granted! It is an overhand knot that will not capsize [come undone under tension] under loads up to (...5?) kN!  Also, look how its asymmetry makes it roll over rocks.  This knot won't get stuck when you pull rope, and that is what ["vat"] makes it so useful!"

He was very enthusiastic about his knot.  I, on the other hand, was enthusiastic about letting him be the first to rap down on his knot.  Ultimately it worked fine for us both.

Once down, Blake and Kyle kept referring to this knot as an EDK.  This, Sebastian discovered, is short for European Death Knot.  He laughed and laughed at this, bending himself over in giggles the whole hike back every time he said "EDK."

We got back and were invited to a potluck with some of the NPS/BAMRU folks.  That was great fun until the last two days came down on me like a sandbag.  Kyle and I hiked back to our tents.  It was a full moon so I stopped to admire El Capitan and the frozen-but-moving ghostliness of Bridalveil Falls in the half light.  And then I slept.  And slept.

Lucky for us on the way to Yosemite, one of the wrong turns I took led us near signs for Sonora.  Sonora!  That was where I first climbed outdoors, under the guidance of many of my then climbing buddies/mentors: Brian and Nick (who went on to climb El Cap together the next year), Joel ("It's a video") Tornatore and Annika before she abandoned us all for New Zealand.  There's a secret-feeling place there called The Grotto, at the end of a rocky and pastoral approach, and it is truly gorgeous.

Once there, we hooked up with a sarcastic and fun group of climbers - and, alas, engineers - from the Bay Area.  Kyle and I warmed up on a juggy 5.9.  Here's Kyle doing what turned out to be his most skilled activity that day - hangdogging:

After playing belay monkey and smack talking some more, the alas-engineers were nice enough to let us toprope some of their sport- and trad-led routes.  Here's me working on another excellent, technical 5.10 (c?) with a super-fun crux about 2/3 of the way up.  Everyone else went left to a side pull, then back over.  I tried to, and eventually managed to, go straight up after learning how to trust my feet on all that smeary goodness.  The crux is just below the small outcropping directly above my head in this shot:

 And here's me waving from the top:

After that we exchanged emails with the alas-engineers, talked about future climbing adventures together and then Kyle and I hiked back out.  Traffic was light and before I knew it, I was happily back home with wife and cat.

As usual, I couldn't wait to get back into lab :-)