Third Big Wall and Rest Days

June 8th, 2016
Hurray, it’s a rest day (or two)! It means lounging in the shade and eating. We went to a nice spot by Merced River and I finally managed to get a good shot of a Western Fence Lizard.

You can find them here everywhere, they are usually doing push-ups in the sunshine. I also went on a short hike to Bridalveil Falls. It has the right length (0.4 miles) for any tourist to quickly jump out of the car, take a picture and continue driving, without the need of changing into different shoes or clothes, because those heels and the lacy shirt are just the right thing to wear outdoors. Well, it was the right hike for me on a rest day.

It is said that if you stand below the falls with your loved one then he will propose to you. That would have been pretty risky, so Todd did not come.
Later in the evening, Todd was feeding donuts to ants, while I made dinner. Inspired by my sister’s weekend dinner plans, I prepared Kaspressknoedel (flattened cheese dumplings), a Tirolean specality fried in butter.

They were delicious and they might even replace the burritos on our next climb – what a big step!
Our last big climb was the Prow, from which we returned the day before. It is another route up Washington Column and it took us 2.5 days.

We did not go super fast and always had some extra time in the evenings before dark to read and eat chips on the portaledge.
On the first day, I led 5 pitches and onthe second day Todd did the same, and we therefore spend a night at pitch 5 and 10, topped out the next day and hiked back down.

It was the most awful hike I have done so far. Seems that hiking off a mountain is cruel and scary here, unlike in Squamish, where you find pretty much a staircase down the Chief.
The climbing went pretty smooth, I only had some minor trouble getting out some nuts (wedges) Todd had placed and heavily bounce tested, so I told him to place less of those. I only allowed him to place them again after he had two small cams pull out, taken a small fall and hit his lip with one of the cams. Todd is not a great fan of sympathy, so I stopped feeling sorry for him quickly.

Our nights on the wall were quite nice, although I cannot sleep very well on the portaledge yet. I always feel squished against the wall, probably because I am squished against the wall. There were a lot of bats swirling around us in the evening and I assume they contributed to the low population of mosquitoes in the area. Our second night had a big slanting ledge below us, which makes me feel safe, and a large tree above us. Small green caterpillars were dropping on us at times and it also smelled heavily like pee, so I was glad when we left.

After returning to the ground we had some pistachio Häagen Dazs ice cream. I am so glad I could cure Todd’s icecream sandwich addiction.