Tuolumne Meadows with Warren, Sam
aus mowiki, der freien Wissensdatenbank
Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite, May 26th thru 28nd, 2007, Memorial Day Weekend
Sam, Warren and I left Palo Alto Saturday at 5am. This is always a pain but seems to go with a good climbing trip... We arrived at Tenaya Lake at 11am after the usual grocery stop in Oakdale. We left a note for Tim in the car and got on the Great White Book.
- Great White Book, 5.6, lead Warren (all 4 pitches)
The topo says it's a classic, and soon we had a party behind us. We were one leader with two followers, and since Warren never had belayed two followers from the top it resulted in a huge spaghetti fest. Warren did a really good job in leading the 5.6 chimney pitch where you can't get any pro in except for Sam's 4.5 camelot at the top of it. After this pitch our followers approached us. They proved to be cool fellows and didn't get pissed at all. Instead they were like "You're on." - "What?" - "On!" - "What??" - "O-N" - "What's that?" - "F-U-C-K !!" which was not exaclty SAC climbing protocol but pretty funny though.
The descent was the most sketchy thing I'd done in a while. Slabs, wet slabs and wet polished slabs. Almost like Half Dome without the cables! I was so happy when I was on the ground again. It was really funny that we met Chris and Sharon on the descent, totally out of coincidence. We were back on the ground around 5ish, we got some food in and suddenly felt really tired. Warren was done for the day, Sam was thinking of another short route and I opened a pack of cookies. Suddenly Sam was like "Ok, that's it. The cookies got opened, I'm done! You know, I'm the easiest person to be talked out of climbing!" We were like why? "That's because I'm lazy!"
We drove through the Tioga pass (pass on thru) to the Mobil with the Tioga Gas Mart, the most extraordinary gas station ever! Where other gas stations serve candybars this gas station offered a full featured menu and live music! We met with Chris and Sharon, had beers and pizza, enjoyed the laid back performance of Good Medicine, and finally Tim and Allison came by. They're old friends of Warren's, so they had many stories to tell. At 9pm the venue closed and we left for the bivy spot Tim suggested. We all were pretty much ready for the sack.
The next day we went for Daff Dome to climb
- West Crack, 5.9, lead Sam (all 4 pitches)
where we coincidentally ran into Chris and Sharon and Tim and Allison again, who'd picked the same route for the day. The fist pitch was straightforward to a belay station right under some overhanging offwidthy stuff. It was not really hard because of many jugs in it, but when you start from a hanging belay station with a strong wind blowing it feels different... The second pitch has a whole lot of knobs on it, so it's no real problem. But it ends in an even steeper hanging belay than the first one, close to vertical, and no bolts. So eventually all three of us hang on four pieces in the crack. The third pitch is a nice handcrack, slightly flaring, but not too much. After a short rest at the really spaceous belay station Sam tackled the last pitch which was only 5.2. We topped out and were happy to be at a real summit!
Back on the ground we had some food and decided to do some single pitch stuff. I wanted to lead something, and Sam suggested a nice handcrack close to where we were,
- Honeymoon's Over, 5.8, lead Moritz
I was happy to do it without taking a fall. A couple of times though I thought I needed to rest on gear, but in the end I didn't. That totally made my day! Then Warren got on a variation of Honeymoon's Over and passed the bolts by 30 feet. He needed to downclimb an easy crack again, which is actually not so easy. Even worse, his last pro was on the same level as the bolts... He was back on the ground when it was getting dark.
We arrived at the Mobil a couple of minutes after 9pm, late enough for it to be closed. We grabbed two beers, listened to the last song of Good Medicine and went for our bivy spot. There Chef Sam started his new double stove to cook spaghetti with tomato sauce and saucages. Warren even had cheese and salami ready, so our meal came amazingly close to good italian cuisine!
On Monday we wanted to climb Lambert Dome, but the route Sam picked was too crowded. So we hiked back to the parking lot, and on the way Sam managed to ran his head into a sharp branch and to hit a strong blood vessel. He wouldn't stop bleeding til we were back at the car! Eventually it stopped bleeding, and the wound actually was almost nothing. But the whole gear was full with blood speckles! We joked this way he wouldn't need the tape anymore to mark his gear, he simply could run DNA testing on it...
We decided to go for Dog Dome and to search, find and climb the only route that was listed on it in the guide book. After quite a hike, on which I again was quickly out of breath because of the altitude I guess, we found it.
- The North Face, 5.8, lead Warren (1st pitch), Sam (2nd pitch), Moritz (3rd pitch)
It started with an offwidth pitch. It was only 5.7, but already required offwidth technique like the chicken wing, which I tried for the first time. It worked really well! The second pitch had a nice chimney in it which was leaning to the right and had good jugs in it, and the third pitch really was climbing candy.
We hit the road around 6pm. When we passed Tenaya Lake again, Warren said it'd be cool to jump into it. I said, sure, why not, I've got a towel. So we stopped and did it - damn, it was so cold! But it removed the first layer of dirt. Later we stopped at the usual Taqueria/cheap gas combination in Oakdale, and were back in Palo Alto at 11pm.
