Goat Rock
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Goat Rock March 24, 2007
During last week Jesko and I did a few trips to Handley Rock where Jesko got his very first climbing experience. He was learning fast and so we decided to go to the Castle Rock Area for a day. Both of us were looking forward to a great experience - for him not having done any other climb that good old Handley and for me never been in Castle Rock and never been the most experienced climber on a outdoor trip before. Our plan was to follow Clint's recommendation and go to Goat Rock for some mellow toproping. We left Menlo Park at 9am, grabbed some sandwiches at Eric's and took the Skyline Boulevard. We arrived at 10am, the wheather was perfect. The forecast said something about slightly clouded, but apparently Goat Rock's above these clouds (see the above picture) so no problem with that.
At the rock, we searched for toprope anchors for the easy climbs, but we didn't findy any. At first I was afraid that would spoil the mellow climbing because our gear was limited: 60m rope, 3m static rope, 4 biners, 1 sling, 2 prussik slings. However, I found some rock structures where I could thread through the sling (which are called Sanduhr, hour glass, in german) to set up a toprope for Swiss Cheese. Backup was done using the static rope, a biner and a second Sanduhr.
- Swiss Cheese, 5.4-5.7 (UIAA 4- - 5+)
We ran up several times, the routes not presenting any problems to both of us. At the time, we met a guy who too set up a toprope for Swiss Cheese to climb with his kids, and it got a bit crouded. He highly recommended the Great Roof, which was fairly well bolted and's supposed to be real fun. You first climb into a big cave, then follows a tricky and kinda scary overhanging section. You could set up toprope by rapping down from the top to the three bolts close to the roof - so I did. I was connecting the bolts using the static rope, one biner in the biggest bolt hold the toprope, one biner from the static rope to the climbing rope as backup. To clean up, we would have to pull down the rope, go up to the top and rap down again.
- The Great Roof, 5.10b (UIAA 7-)
Jesko's supposed to be the first climber. So I was explaining to him how he could use our two prussik slings and a biner to climb up the rope, just in case our toprope got stuck while he was dangling in the air. That's when two dudes showed up, who'd really loved that route. At first they were like "are you gonna climb or just doing rope exercises?" but when Jesko started the route they kept on giving him data and pushing him really good. So Jesko mastered the first slightly overhanging part which led him into the big cave. After a short break, he tackled the scary part.
The dude was like "you wanna leave the cave to the left, lean out facing the wall, lean far back over the drop. Now there's a hold above your head, doesn't look like any good but's getting better as you lean in". Jesko did a pretty good job and found himself in the most scary climbing posistion: Both feet on the 50 degree and steeper wall, hand on the hold above the head which is only good if you lean in, body in a quite horizontal position, butt above a 40 feet drop. You can see the spot on the bottom left picture, although the guy dangling is not Jesko. The dude shouted up "Now you wanna walk up your feet, there's a perfect hold right over the edge!" and said to me "I've needed 5 times to get this far. How long's he climbing? If he's gonna make it it pissed me off!" but right after that he was pushing Jesko again.
Jesko got the hold over the ledge with his left hand. Now he needed to got the right hand onto it as well, and he managed to do so. The next move is acutally the crux: Put the feet into the small cave to the left, pull up, block the left arm, reach out to the right until you get a fairly good hand, loosen both feet hanging on your hand only, place the right foot on a tiny hold on the ledge to your right. Once you've shifted your weight to the right foot, you're save. Jesko pulled up but struggled with the arm block. So he couldn't find any other hold, that's when he fell.
I managed to on-sight the route, though I too found the lean-out-over-the-drop-on-supposedly-shitty-holds-part really scary. Back on the ground, we had our sandwiches and quite a few chocolate chip cookies to regain our confidence.
The rest of the day we kept doing the Great Roof, finding different solutions for the scary part, and at my fourth ascent, I wasn't scared any more. We met a party of other climbers, also going for the roof. Well, was one climber and his buddies, who'd never climbed anything before. Only one of them was as close to the summit as Jesko was before, and not even their leader managed the crux. Instead they were filming everything doing lots of posing and cheating.
After some time another guy showed up. He free soloed what I think is Overhang Continuation, passing me while I was on my fourth ascent, what actually was pissing me off a bit. But anyway, he proved to be a cool guy when he told us some stories of him coming to Casle Rock since 20 years. Finally he asked for a belay for the Great Roof which he solved pretty much in the same way as I did, so I was pleased again :-)
Weblinks
- http://www.bayareaclimbers.com/ssgoat.html - routes on Goat Rock
