Summary

Description

We started on Wailing Wall. We flipped a mental coin, and I took the lead. The beginning of the route was the hardest. I actually got Lisa to give me a hand/boost for the initial bouldering move. (I've done it twice seconding, but it's a lot more challenging on lead with a full rack.) I had to stop and think a few times on the first face to make sure my head wasn't too wrapped around the climbing and to figure out where to go and where to place gear. Once I made my way over to the corner, the view was outstanding. From there I made my way on up and around to the ledge.

We decided to climb the route in two pitches to cut down on rope drag as well as to get practice setting a mid-wall belay. So I built an anchor and belayed Lisa on up. From there, the climb to the top was easier and a lot of fun. I had one piece off on the left that I should have extended with a long sling, and it cause a little rope drag, but nothing bad.

From the top of the route, we climbed (class 4) on up to the top and belayed each other over to the slings and piton that made up the rap anchor for Golden Earring. We threaded our single 60m rope through the anchor. I rapped down first. The rope didn't make it all the way to the ground, but with rope stretch, it made it to a ledge just off the ground that we could hop down from. Lisa didn't have any problems either. It took us about 2.5 - 3 hours round-trip.

One interesting thing about the climb and rappel is that there were lady bugs everywhere. Walking around on the rock, flying around, landing on you. Lisa counted three or four different types.

We had lunch down at the base of the amphitheater. When we were done, we had time for another route. after consulting the book, Lisa decided to try My Wife's Pajamas which neither of us had been on before. We hiked back in that direction and found the base of the route. It didn't look too bad from the ground. (I couldn't see any goo places for pro, but later when I finally climbed up, the cracks became much more obvious.)

Lisa took the gear, and started up. The first 2/3 of the route were pretty easy, and she didn't have any problems except for one spot where she was trying to put in a piece, not getting anything to work and made a good decision to go on up a few feet where there was a better crack. Then she got to the last section of the route that was a bit more vertical and challenging.

She tried finding a way up a number of times and a number of different ways. I wasn't much help on the ground because while I could see her just fine, I couldn't tell much of anything about what line looked best from 50-60' below. I did pull out the climber's guide and describe my interpretation of the topo for the route, but that didn't add too much value. Eventually, Lisa backed off and climbed back down about 3' to the last ledge (and the last pro). By that point, she had gotten her head thoroughly wrapped around the problem and wasn't going to be making any progress no matter what. So she built and anchor there at the ledge and belayed me up to her.

I wasn't sure whether I could climb that section or not so I had started thinking about rappeling off from the ledge if we needed to, and I brought up some extra gear (hexes and webbing) to leave if that became necessary. The climb up to the ledge was pretty easy. When I got there, I gave Lisa the water I had brought up and gave her a hug and a kiss. Then I turned to look at the problem.

It looked a lot different up close. Not necessarily worse, just different. The line up the more-or-less vertical crack that ran up the face looked like the only likely way to go. So I started there. I ended up a little off to the left of it, but there were a couple of somewhat hidden holds over there so it was a big challenge, but it went OK. There were a couple points where I felt very tenuous, and both times, I quickly pulled a cam off my harness, prayed that it was the right size since I felt like I had only one shot at getting it in, set it and kept moving. I had to talk to myself the entire time I was climbing. (It's what I do when I'm stressed while climbing.) But I made it to the top. I think my longer reach than Lisa's helped a lot. It was definitely the hardest trad leading I've done so far.

It was nice to see a rappel anchor -- two slings, a piece of cord and two rap rings -- set around a tree at the top of the pitch. And all the gear was in good shape. I setup a belay anchor and started bringing Lisa up. She climbed it OK. She actually did really well at one point where she had to hang out for a while, working to get out one of the TCUs that I put in quickly. It had shifted (or been placed badly) so that two of the cams where fully compressed while the other one was fully extended. Made it tough to get out. I suggested that we could get it out while on rappel, but Lisa hung there and eventually figured out the secret to getting it out. (Hold the trigger while forcing it in a little further to get it all to collapse.)

The rappel down and subsequent hike out were uneventful. (Although, Lisa and I did have an interesting conversation on the hike out about what life would be like if people could change their feet to match the conditions and their activity. :) All in all, it was a great day! And we'll definitely be back to try My Wife Pajamas again so Lisa can send it.