El Cajon and Woodson

This was a really fun climbing weekend, my first in San Diego. Ben drove down Friday night, and we had cheesesteak sammiches. On Saturday morning we drove out to El Cajon mountain. We made the approach in an hour and forty minutes (where the guidebook said an hour and a half) and I nearly died. It was a long, hot, uphill slog. There was a party of three on Leonids and a pair on Crystalean, so we went even further left to No Burritos. We could tell a couple bolts were damaged but were hoping things would look up further up. Ben went up and protected a couple spots with cams only to find there was no good way to reach the closest anchor. So he built an anchor with cams and lowered off, and we resolved we'd rap down to them from above to retrieve our gear. We then went even further left and started up the 5.5 ramp. We turned left at the bolted two pitch route Buffalo Brothers and went all the way up that. It's rated 5.8 on the diagram and 5.7 in the text of the guide book, but I think 5.7 is about right. It was really fun. We then rapped down, traversed the ramp and rappelled down the line of Crystalean, making a stop and a short lead up to retrieve our gear, and then all the way to the bottom. Then Ben toproped what looked like the first pitch of Crystalean. The downhill de-proach was far faster than the approach, but no less unpleasant to rickety-kneed me.
Sunday we headed to Mt Woodson, another place with an uphill slog of an approach. We were fascinated by Lie Detector, which was way too hard for either of us to attempt, but were resolved to try our luck on the Robbins crack on the back of the same boulder (technically the backside of the same crack, in fact). We dilligently did the warmup problems on the boulder behind Robbins, but they were scant preparation for the real deal, which the guide calls "sweetest 24ft crack in the world". Ben started up, fell on his first placement, then aided the rest of the way up. I flailed up, hanging on the rope a couple times. Actually, someone must have been watching me top out, because there was cheering and clapping, but it was embarassing. Then Ben toproped it and slipped once, but otherwise did fine. Then I messed around a bunch, discovering that if I focused on two hand jams and only a left foot jam I could get through the bottom hard section a lot faster and without barn-dooring off to the right. Then Ben flew up it and broke down the anchor. After that we hiked to the top of the mountain and sat in the shade realizing that we were completely good and spent. We headed down, pausing to send a 5.8 hand to off-width problem, but then called it a successful day. That Robbins crack is going to eat my brain until I get on it again, I just know it. I'm now determined to practice my jamming skills like mad.