May 13-15, 2016
For non-climbers this might be boring.
Our first climb in Yosemite was the South Face of Washington Column and it was a great success.
We ate 19 out of the 20 small burritos, made it to the top and slept two nights on a very nice ledge for free.
The route was 11 pitches long and had 4 pitches of aid climbing on it (we free climbed the rest with the hardest pitch being a 10b move).
On the first day we hiked one hour to the base of the climb with ~30 kg (24 kg water total) packs each, climbed three pitches to the nice ledge, hauled the bag up and fixed two of the aid pitches for the next day. The hauling was quite easy, because Todd did it and the aid climbing was quite an experience. The route from the ledge went through an exciting roof (Kor roof) and then traversed and it took us 3 hours to climb two pitches.
At that time I thought that this is a really long time, but as I found out the next day, it wasn’t that bad at all.
The next day we climbed all the way to the top and then rappelled the whole route back to the ledge. I hate rappelling.
When we reached the ledge there was one party on the Kor roof and 4 more people on the ledge. One of the guys on the roof was probably quite new to climbing and totally overwhelmed, while the other one tried to help him. It was a hilarious view, I am glad Todd could capture it as it was very likely the best picture of the day.
We were super happy that we were done with the route as it turned out that all 6 have been waiting there the whole day to climb. Apparently, they had let two guys pass them all, because they said they would be super fast. Turned out that they were super slow, did not even make it up the two pitches from the ledge, had somehow unzipped their backpack and spilled all their stuff down the mountain and then gave up. We never saw these guys unfortunately. Once those guys were off, the next two first in line started and they took several hours to get through the roof themselves. Actually, one of them never got through the roof. The mood on the ledge was surprisingly good though and everybody was joking and cheering the guy on that apparently had been spinning below the roof wildly in the wind. It struck me how we have been so cautious to be well prepared and trained and some of these people just think it comes to them naturally. I think (aid) climbing a roof does not come naturally. I felt we had done a good job on the route and we had picked a good time to climb it. The ledge was a bit more crowded that night but still quite comfortable. The nice breeze kept the mosquitoes at bay.
The next morning a new group arrived on the ledge around 7 and asked if they could pass the others, because they would be very fast… haha. Of course! NOT. So we watched the next party in line (two Norwegians) go up the route while the other 4 guys (the roof spinner group and two other guys, that we have seen the day before bailing from another route, the Prow) decided to go down as none of them would have a chance to finish the route anyway. The Norwegians were quite skilled. They have been climbing in Patagonia (Fitz Roy) before and the girl said that this has been her life dream. I cannot really identify with such a dream as there is no mountain that I dream of climbing. Any mountain is fine and if I get scared I just chose a different one or stop climbing.
Once the Norwegians were out of sight, the group that had just arrived this morning started. The guy leading was quite fast, but what a surprise, his partner had no idea how to ascend and asked us if we could check his set up before he takes off. We tried to tell him as much as we could, but of course he still struggled, especially with the overhanging terrain.
Before we went back down to the car we poured out all extra water. We had planned for 4 L per person per day, but we didn’t even drink half of that. Probably because on our third day, we just watched an amazing climbing show.
Back at our car, we happily drove off after retrieving our food from the communal bear locker at the trailhead. We did not have a campsite for the night though and all campgrounds are of course always full, so we decided to ask random people if they would mind if we camped with them on their site and pay half of the fee. The campsites at the Upper, Lower and North Pines Campground are really big and easily fit 7 or 8 tents and two cars and are barely full, so we started walking around, looking for somebody that might accommodate us. After one awkward short conversation with a couple that did not want to accommodate us as they were on their honeymoon, we found Sam, who had already been asked by another climber Josh. So the four of us stayed at the site together for two nights and it was really nice.
