Lover's Leap with Chris, Patrick

aus mowiki, der freien Wissensdatenbank

Lover's Leap, South Lake Tahoe, June 3rd, 2007

Chris (Santa Barbara Dude), Patrick (Canadian Guy) and I (The German) went for a day trip to Lover's Leap. We left at 7am from Stanford and at 8am from Palo Alto. Yeah, you better get the guidebook ready the day before you wanna leave. And Peet's Coffee isn't exactly the fastest these days either. We stopped at a Walmart for food. Like always, it was a strange experience. This time they had electric scooters "for our valued custumers who would like a lift" - for the fat persons that is...

We arrived at Lover's Leap at 11am. On the way there we picked a couple of climbs for the day, beginning with

• Bear's Reach, 5.9 variation, lead Patrick (1. pitch), Chris (2. pitch), Mo (3. pitch)

I new this route from Dan Osmans speed climbing video (see below), which I think made it to quite some popularity. Dan did it free solo in 4 mins 25 s. We used one rope, belaying two followers at the same time. The man in the middle tied in using a butterfly knot. For the first two pitches that would be me. When I got to the first belay station I started a discussion with Patrick about his anchor. It involved one bomber piece taking some 90% of the weight, and two not so good ones taking 20% each. In the end he agreed that he could have done better and I agreed that I shouldn't have called it a "shitty piece of crap" - we still are friends. Maybe we wouldn't if not we both liked discussing the pro and cons of a particular set up and doing so in a direct way.

I lead the 5.9 variation at to top out the last pitch which was 5.6 only because I wasn't exactly sure where the easy runout would go. It was three feet of slightly overhanging offwidth, I used a camalot number 4 to protect it.

Here is a short mock video of Patrick starting Bear's Reack the Dan-Osman-way.

Our second climb was

• Haystack, 5.8, lead Patrick (1. pitch), Chris (2. pitch), Mo (3. pitch)

When we got on it the sun was already lowering, but we figured there'd be enough daylight left for us to finish the route. Patrick lead the first pitch and finished it by setting up the absolute best anchor I've ever seen! He managed to equalize three bomber pieces using just the rope and ingenuity, a lot of it (ingenuity that is). It was a perfect kick-ass anchor!

Chris lead the roof pitch where he did a pretty good job. You work your way up using good underclings until you are almost in a horizontal position under the roof. Then you can reach for a small jug and a perfect hand jam for the right hand. There is good pro. When I arrived at the belay station, Chris needed to switch belay to Patrick. That's when he didn't redirect the rope through the anchor point again (see pictures). He noticed only when Patrick took a fall on the roof. Fortunately the one weight bearing piece was a good one...

When I got on the third pitch it was darkening. I followed the crack and the dihedral and placed almost all nut I had. It was not because Patrick exclaimed earlier he "loved nuts" but because each of them was a perfect fit. After quite some time, I yelled down how much rope was left. It was about 30 feet from the top and I was running low on gear- I didn't have any slings and biners left at that time. I wasn't sure if I got the answer 100% correct, I guess I heard "10" but I wasn't sure if it was meters or feet. Anyway, even 10m would have been barely enough. So I decided to set an anchor right were I was, on a slab, which was not too bad. I got two small point something camalots in above the slab, but for better pro I needed to leave the safe slab again to stem in the dihedral. Finally I got the number 1 camalot in and my biggest nut. I connected the four pieces using the rope and clove hitches.

When I was done it was almost dark. We had only one headlamp with us, I was certain I had forgotten mine in the car. Patrick and Chris quickly followed. I guess Chris was wearing the lamp and Patrick was climbing in the dark. He and was not exactly easy any more when he arrived at the belay station. Chris quickly finished the route. Patrick and I couldn't believe how stupid it was to leave the headlamps because of the not so easy descent. But then I checked my baggy pants again and there it was! I never felt this releaved before to find my headlamp!

I cleared the anchor and followed. We arrived at the car and after the usual gear sorting we got on the road by 11pm, facing a 3h drive. For some reason I didn't feel too tired, so I finished the drive non stop, while Chris and Patrick eventually fell asleep. We were back in Palo Alto at 2am.

Lessons learned

• Do have a headlamp with you at all times.
• Don't leave cookies in the backpack. Chipmonks like them, too. So much, that they at first will eat a hole in the pack's canvas, then dig right thru the cookie pack's paper and aluminum to munch Macadamia White Chocolate Chips.

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