Jtree misadventures

Ben and I met up with a bunch of other folks at J-tree this three-day weekend. We got rained out today, but Saturday was gorgeous, and yesterday was a good climbing day despite the cold.

On Saturday we went to Feudal wall and Short wall in the Indian Cove area. We warmed up on Donna T's crack on the Short wall (a supposedly 5.5 crack that I thought was much easier than that). Then we climbed Court Jester, a 5.7 off-width, and the Castrum, a 5.10a just to the left of it on the Feudal wall. Finally we went back to the Short wall and sent Toe Jam express and S.O.B. in style.

Sunday was a lot more eventful. We went to the Echo Rock area planning to get on Double Dip, which Chiru had suggested might be a good first lead. Our friends jumped on that first, so we moved a little to the right, to Stichter Quits, a 5.7 slab climb we'd seen a couple climbing. We talked to them and they assured us it was "mellow" if a little run out. So Ben got on it, but didn't have the stomach for it first thing in the morning, so I took over after the first bolt. I led up to the fourth and final bolt before the anchor. I took a fall between the third and fourth bolts, but it was nothing to write home about; tried the move a more direct way and made it. Then I realized the run-out was basically the top 40% of the route, and decided I wasn't really cool with that long of a potential fall. Ben toproped it from the fourth bolt, made the same decision about the run-out and we bailed -- note to self, I owe him a biner -- essentially having made it 60% up the route. Still, it was a super fun lead while it lasted...
We then decided to move to some of the routes further back and to the right from Echo rock. We got on Eff Eight, a 5.8 flaring, left-sloping crack. Ben was making his way up this awkward beast, having placed two cams, when he called for a take and took a fall. The rest happened really fast: the top TCU pulled and Ben decked just to my left as I flew 3 or 4 feet up the rock. The first piece held. I was looking at Ben trying to figure out how he'd landed and what was broken, but he assured me I'd caught him and it had been a soft landing. Then he went, "you can lower now", and that's when the silliness of the situation hit me: Ben was on his ass on the ground and I was locked off four feet off the ground, hanging off a piece of pro that had just taken a giant load and could pull out and dump me on my ass any second... So we put a toprope on that bitch and climbed it, and decided any crack crumbly enough for gear to pull out of qualifies as choss.

Just before toproping Eff Eight we'd seen a guy free solo a crack across from us on the back side of Echo Rock. So on the way back we threw a rope on it and climbed it. That was Finger Food, a 5.10a.

So now having climbed two 5.10a's, I'm forced to say they must be rated that high because of the difficulty in leading them, because as toprope climbs they really don't rate 5.10a in my book...

After Finger Food, things got really cold really fast. We checked out Echo Cove and decided against any of the routes there, and called it a day.

So, yeah, two lead falls on the new rope, one of them 13 feet to the deck after a TCU pulled. And my whole right side, the one that stopped Ben's fall, is killing me. But Ben's alive, which is about as good as it gets.

Maintenance

Yesterday was supposed to be a "maintenance" low key day at the gym. However, I did a 5.7, 5.8, 5.9, a hard traverse and a v2 at least. So much for maintaining.

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.

Rack

Today was a momentous occasion: I celebrated the one year anniversary of starting to climb. Not that I'd never climbed before, but it was end of January or early February of last year when Wil and I resolved to climb consistently and started going to the gym. Or was it later? Because I moved into Winthrop in April... Hmmm. Anyway, one year anniversary is what we'll call it. So I bought a used rope, a 10mm Mammut, and started (well, properly, continued, since I've had tri-cams for a while) a rack.
I am now the proud owner of miscellaneous curved nuts with smiley faces, between sizes 12 and 3, #1 and #2 C4 camalots, a dozen neutrino wire gates , 8 dyneema slings, and 3 more metolius quickdraws. My tri-cams span the small gap between my 12 nut and the #1, so I have a pretty big range covered.
I'm not dying to go out and use this stuff so much as I'm dying to go out toprope soloing, so I may do that soon.

Trapped in Greece

I've been watching mountaineering documentaries and reading books about sailing and climbing expeditions, as I'm trapped at home with my parents in Greece. Right now I'm re-re-re-reading "Sea, Ice and Rock", which I've had since 1996, and which has certainly played a big role in forming my obsession with sailing and climbing. I like Bonnington's explanation of the qualities he looked for in crew:

They also had to be congenial. Congeniality may be defined in a number of ways, but for crew I mean competent, hard working, willing, plus a good sense of humour. There is nothing worse than confining several people in a small boat who do not get on, and good humour overcomes most situations.

Heller Rocks

I've failed to document a couple adventures over the last month.

We took another trip to Owen's river gorge on the weekend after Thanksgiving, during which I was getting over a nasty cold. We spent one day bouldering in the Happies, one day in the Inner Gorge (which was mobbed) and one day at Heller Rocks. At Heller we did just one 5.7 trad route which caused me to come up with the designation 5.7 "T" for terrifying. The rock was really really loose and Ben kicked down a boulder, pieces of which landed on my helmet and back.

A couple weekends ago we decided to head to Owens' Ridge. We camped at Heller in 40 mph-gusting 60 winds, survived the night, but woke up amidst sleet and inside a cloud. We aborted the idea of climbing and drove to Death Valley via the Trona Pinnacles, which neither of us had seen before. DV was also cold and windy and not showing particularly well, so we returned to SB on Saturday night. On Sunday we went to Sespe, but the black wall was cold and windy. We continued to the Potrero John trail, thinking the climbing routes of the same name were off the trail, but a couple miles in we'd found nothing. We did an epic approach to a super chossy spot which we decided against climbing, and, on the way back, found out that the routes were on the other side of 33, closer to the black wall.

Golden Chasm

This past weekend Ben and I decided to check out somewhere that hadn't burned in a brush fire -- or at least, not recently -- so we headed out to Golden Chasm, which is this area near Upper Oso, off Paradise Rd. The approach to the crag was epic: hot, no path, bushwhacking, sandy soil, rocks that weren't. We decided to deviate from the destination to check out this other crack and that sapped more energy. Eventually we got to where the routes proper were supposed to be, only to find the rock super soft, and the bolts super rusted. We decided we weren't up for the risk, and turned back, for the epic de- or re-proach.

We rounded out the day with a phenomenal lunch at the Los Olivos Grocery Store, and a bike ride up Foxen Canyon to Fess Parker for some wine tasting.