A reasonable person only needs one reason not to do something again, “I didn’t like it”. I know I can be unreasonable, so I have eight: chossy rock, leader fall, lightning storm, lost hikers, hail, steep loose scree, attacking rodent and a dead headlamp.
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50 mosquitos swarm the car, waiting to sadistically assault me in vampiric fashion as I stop the Subaru at Big Sandy trailhead. They know no limits. I would get a dozen bites at 11,500 ft on the side of a climb, evade one on a 12,000 ft summit and use copious amounts of bug deterrent in a campsite surrounded by snow. It’s all worth it to climb the dozen 1000+ ft peaks in the Cirque of the Towers within the Wind River Range of Wyoming. To reach this backcountry lake basin wilderness you must drive two hours from the nearest town, 20 miles on dirt road and then hike all your gear 10 miles in by foot. All of this with no cellular service to call for rescue.
Here I was, sleeping 1400 ft above the valley floor on a forested ledge. Drinking unfiltered, fresh water directly out of a granite spring. Not a soul around except for a midnight food attack by a resident raccoon. All I had to do was ascend the longest single day climbing route I’ve ever completed and cross the worst traverse I’ve ever encountered.
I was flying down an icy, personal sized halfpipe with walls reaching up to three feet wrapped around me in the darkness of a moonless night. A few lights in the distance softly glowed from the town of Lone Pine 10,000 ft below, but here my speed descent was only illuminated by a narrow headlamp beam ahead. Every ten minutes or so I would have to stop to recoup my energy as it took all my effort plunging my heels and the pick of my ice axe into the slick icy chute to keep my speed to a reasonable level. Now 9 pm, I was glissading down the mountaineer’s route of Mt. Whitney, the tallest point in the lower 48 at 14, 505 ft.
Backcountry Nomad just published its second app: Where to Climb (App Store). ‘Where to Climb’ answers that common question ‘where can I go climbing this weekend?’.
It’s happened to us all where a weekend plan is foiled by weather or our favorite area opens up for a perfect weather weekend in shoulder season… That is, if we were paying attention close enough to notice. Instead of checking weather reports for each of these areas, just use your current location to find what areas around you are in prime time as well as the rock climbing routes there.
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Washington Column South Face (5.8 C1) is a 1000 ft granite face across Yosemite Valley from Half Dome. It is the easiest big wall climb in the valley and therefore the busiest. Optimistically, we were hoping to do it in a day with an early start, hauling only to Dinner Ledge and then blasting to the top. I even brought flashing light up glasses to make festive the predicted night rappels back down to Dinner Ledge where we’d hope there would still be room for our sleeping bags after sundown.
Speed would be the key and we planed to free as much as possible (first three and last four pitches) to make this climb 5.10b C1. Both Marco and I were relatively new to aid and we ended up learning a lot. We kept at it even after a lead fall injury where I climbed 70% of the wall with a fractured foot. I couldn’t walk, but I sure could aid climb!
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A few weeks back I visited Moab with the goal in mind to climb desert towers, accomplishing a dream of Sadie’s for her birthday. The Falcon Guide had some of the most popular climbs, but if I bought a guide book for the area again it would be the more recent and fully featured High On Moab book. Surprisingly it was actually this map from summit post that really lead me to discover the variety of towers in Moab. If you are a moderate climber who is comfortable trying some aid, these are the regions and climbs you must check out (in order of preference).
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This last weekend I finished my first multi-pitch aid climb: Machete Direct (5.10a A1 R, 6P) in Pinnacles National Park. It was a real adventure with runnouts to make my fingers sweet, unexpectedly technical sections and a night decent following a paper thin route description.
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Wow, I did a lot of stuff in one weekend! Sadie and I trial ran what it would be like sleeping in a roof top tent, we actually found some decent backcountry snow near Mt. Rose on a super hot weekend and I did my first outdoor climbing since my injury.
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After climbing Shasta my third time and attempting some other well trafficked peaks like Lassen and Round Top last year I started broadening my scope for mountaineering. Up to this point I was only going out into the mountains on days with Low Avalanche risk and to places pretty close to Avalanche centers. However, I like things deep in the backcountry, wild and untouched. I needed to know how to predict snow conditions and avalanche risk. It was time to take an Avalanche Level I course.
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