May 10th, 2016
As the title takes away our car seemed to be fixed and we left Smith Rock to pick him up in Medford. We were quite lucky as we only had to pay about 600 US and nothing for the rental. I am looking forward to sleeping in our car tonight again and I will not complain even if it will be at a Walmart outside Sacramento.
Smith Rock was like I imagine paradise to be with a river running right beside the climbing areas to cool you down after climbing.
We climbed a bunch of nice cracks, including a very intimidating looking crack called Calamity Jam (10c). The crux was a roof with delicate feet and thin fingers and Todd onsighted it while swearing a little. Another route we climbed was called Zion (10a) a four pitch route, that is visible in the picture below. It starts on the face left of the shadowy corner then joins the shadow in the corner, follows it up, then cuts right following the base of another shadow and then up and left to follow an amazing flake (a bit lighter in color in the picture; looks a bit like a crescent moon) to the top of the rock. If this is not terribly descriptive, my apologies, Todd did not want to assist with the description, he was too busy cooking lunch. We did not have time to climb the legendary Monkey Face as our car was fixed earlier than expected, which is of course fine.
In Smith Rock, we had stayed two nights at a very spacious and quiet campground (Skull Hollow) a couple of miles away from the climbing areas, where our closest neighbour was a black beetle. I liked the solitude and felt a bit overwhelmed by all the people when we moved to the Bivouac Campground right next to the climbing areas for the next two nights.
May 11th, 2016
After waking up at the Walmart outside Sacramento, we were understandingly mistaken for homeless people and were offered some food. We kindly declined and took off to Yosemite. I think the “AT oil temp” light on the dash of our car will be a loyal companion throughout the trip, as it was back on flashing maybe 300 km after we started that morning. We decided to keep driving to Yosemite Valley as it had discontinued flashing after a short lunch break and as we were already so close. And hurray we arrived, stared at El Capitan for a long time, and worried a little bit about what to do with our car.
I am really bad at putting worries aside and just enjoy the moment, but I will have to work on that, as we decided for now to climb in Yosemite as long as we can and then worry about the car. The next Subaru Dealership is 150 km away, which is within the BCAA free towing distance and the light is only flashing if driving long distances.
We met some nice people here and can stay at the Upper Pine Campground with them for two nights. A guy whose son is a dirtbag climber, a women who drives around Yosemite with a massage chair and food to cook for dirtbag climbers and give massages, and two climbers that have given us some good advice on routes. Our names are not in the registry yet. Once they are in we can only stay 7 nights camping in the Valley, so we will have to find more nice people.
Now we are getting ready to climb an easy route up the Washington Column (South Face), I just made 20 burritos and Todd organized the rest.
I hope that I do not have to mention our car in any future posts.
