Lazy Days in Yosemite

After much debate, Chelsea and I found ourself in the car on the way to Yosemite again.  The reason for the debate was that 1. we were both out of money and 2. I felt really bad leaving the dogs at home again.  However the perfect weather, beautiful granite and need to escape won out and with friends Kent and Cori in the car, gas was manageable.

Kent and the Captain!

We slept under the stars, and woke up Friday, the 29th, which is Tim's birthday.  (For those of you who don't know, my friend and climbing partner Tim passed away last year.)  So, basically I needed to escape from reality, pretend that everything was great, and do some climbing because that is what Tim would have wanted to do!

Pretty much sums up our weekend- laying in the meadow eating ice cream

Chelsea and I decided to climb Munginella, a popular 5.6 in the Five Open Books area.  It is a three pitch climb, but we decided to combine it into two.  The first pitch was great and super cruiser.  The second pitch was my lead and I accidentally went completely off route and climbed a blank, almost unprotectable face instead of an easy crack system.  Ooops!  As I was climbing I was thinking that it felt a bit harder than 5.6, but all ended well as we topped out the climb and hiked down.

Me going off route on Munginella

The descent happened to involve rappelling down a waterfall.  Our rope got completely soaked so we decided to grab an Its-It ice cream (best ever, you must try one!) and head to El Cap meadow for a nap.  We had an awesome afternoon in the meadow and got to see a few parties on the Nose.

Headed to the waterfall to rappell

On Saturday we redeemed the free breakfast that I had scored from a friendly climber in Camp 4.  It was a coupon for the Food Court at Yosemite Lodge and we were psyched when we found out it was worth $13 and we could get anything we wanted!  We got waffles, eggs, bacon and chocolate chip cookies.  Properly fueled up, we headed to climb Central Pillar of Frenzy (5.9) on Middle Cathedral.  The base of the climb was completely covered in snow and we pretended we were Ueli Steck climbing the Eiger as we kicked steps (well Chelsea kicked the steps and I followed) up the snowy slope, using branches as ice axes.

This is me coming up the second pitch, look at all the snow on the bottom!

At the base of the climb, we found that there was a huge abyss between the snow and the wall.  I balanced precariously on the snow and put my climbing shoes on.  I spanned the gap (not gunna lie... super sketchy!) and somehow got onto the wall without falling into the hole below.  The first pitch was thrutchtastic!  I was scootching up a weird chimney offwidth thing, throwing in gear, scoot scooting, getting my shoulders stuck, making funny noises, and whew, finally at the anchors!

Me on Central Pillar

I brought Chelsea up and then she led a sustained finger crack for the next pitch.  When it came my turn to follow the pitch I was really cold and stiff for some reason.  I made it up and met Chelsea at the anchors.  For some reason we both had the shakes and just weren't feeling super psyched.  We decided not to climb the next three pitches.  We rappelled down the snow bank, laughing all the way.  Another adventure!

Rappelling down the snow

Naturally, we found ourselves back in El Cap meadow and slept for about three hours.  Feeling slightly unproductive, we decided we needed to get in a few more pitches before the day was done.  We went over to After Six, a climb we had done on this very weekend exactly one year ago.  The climb went well, but it got extremely windy the higher we got.  By the time we were topping out five pitches later the wind was howling and we were ready to run down!

Me and Half Dome

In the morning we decided to go cragging with Kent and Cori.  We headed over to Pat and Jack pinnacle and I got on a sweet 5.10b face climb.  The first two bolts were definitely the crux, very techy and balancy.  The rest of the climb was big basketball jugs- super fun!  I then led Suds a 120 foot 5.9 that was a little dirty and sharp, but fun anyway.

The Captain looking quite nice

The sun was getting hot, and we were all getting tired so we decided to call it a day and hit the road.  It was another great weekend in the Valley and a nice escape from reality.