Pinnacles II
aus mowiki, der freien Wissensdatenbank
Trip to the Pinnacles April 15, 2007
We left at 7am from Stanford, Eu-Jin's place. We picked up Sam and went for the 101. The four of us, Eu-Jin, Sam, Patrick and me, arrived at the Pinnacles around 10. We met Björn and Ben at the parking lot and hiked to Discovery wall. I was climbing with Eu-Jin, who started with
- Swallow Crack, 5.6 (UIAA 5), lead by Eu-Jin
which I think is one of the most popular routes at Discovery wall. In fact, you can tell it from the glassy and chalky hands all over the place. The Pinnacles are volcanic, so you find thousands of tiny footholds on the easier routes and a lot of rest positions. After we topped out and descended, we went for something slightly more difficult.
- Ordeal, 5.8 (UIAA 5+/6-), lead by Eu-Jin
Ordeal has a scary little roof, where you need to leave a really save position for precise face climbing on the left. Eu-Jin figured it out after a couple of minutes, obviously this was harder than he expected it to be! When following, I managed to clean a nut Björn and Ben had left in place. Actually, Ben suggested it might have been Björn's fault since he was the follower: "There! Evil!" When we were to the base again, Sam had lead
- Stupendous Man, 5.10a (UIAA 6+/7-), lead by Sam
and Patrick was just doing it toprope. It has a really nice overhang having two jugs and a decent ledge at same level right above it. So you need to pull on the jugs, place a foothook on the ledge, shift weight and push up. Since it was toprope, and since I had practiced this exact move in the gym just the day before, I could do it kind of dynamically. But leading it? Well, not yet :-) We had our sandwiches and did
- The Wet Kiss, 5.9 (UIAA 6/6+), lead by Eu-Jin
a very nice climb, all moves equally difficult. By now, the wall was getting shady and chilly, so were about to hike thru the caves to a beautiful lake. Suddenly Eu-Jin came running over and told us with some disbelief that an opened knife had just missed his shoulder by an inch before it hit the ground... At the lake, Björn and Ben did one of the pinnacles you can see from Discovery wall, and we went for some really mellow climbs:
- First Sister, Left Route, 5.5 (UIAA 4/4+), lead by Moritz
- First Sister, Center Route, 5.4 (UIAA 3/4-), lead by Moritz
Actually, this was my first outdoor lead climb! But I won't get too excited of 5.5s. On the other hand, it was a bit harder than I thought: The bolts where about 30 feet apart, and a strong wind was blowing so that I needed to secure my cap... Anyway, I felt perfectly safe.
We stopped at a taqueria in Hollister for mexican fast food and beers. We coincidentally met two climbers again and told the story of the falling knife. The girl flushed and confessed it was actually she who had dropped it. I think they left the taqueria sooner than they originally had planned to.
