Summary

Description

I took Friday off. Woke up around 4:45am, finished the last of the packing and loading of the car, and got on the road by 5:45am, heading to the mountains. The day was overcast and threatening rain. Got to the Whiteside Mountain parking lot around 11:30am.

Met Lance and Robin, Nicole and her friend in the parking lot and hiked to the top with them. We hiked to the top where we met the rest of the team. They had rigged ropes and gotten out to rappel the day before so everything was already going. They had also rigged some big blue tarps over the spot just off the trail that we tend to congregate and store our gear; they put these up on Thursday afternoon when it started to rain. It was a bit of a mud pit under the tarps. (That only got worse the following day.)

There was space on the weighted rope just after I got up there so I suited up quickly and got ready to rappel. I took my pack so I could rappel with it for practice. I didn't weight it down to full El Cap weight so it was probably only about 30-35 lbs. I also took my Army duffel to stuff the pack in so it wouldn't get scraped up. I got on rope around 1pm.

Climbed back out on the rope, hauling my pack up under me. I could definitely feel the difference of adding 30+ lbs.

TBD.