Summary

Description

Friday (6/25)
Went with big group of our rappelling team from camp (me, Lisa, Wendy, TZ, Peter, Robin, Lance, Donny, Mike, John, Cindy?) in the late evening to get some easy climbing in. Headed over to Church Bowl in one car and one van. The mosquitoes were horrible! I was feeling rushed because it was late, and everyone was looking to me and Wendy to setup some ropes. After running around a bit with the guide books, we identified some routes, and I started leading what I thought was Aunt Fanny's Pantry. I was groveling up the base of a chimney that was getting pretty hard when Lisa called up to let me know that I wasn't on the route we thought it was. I was on Revival, and it went to 5.7 then 5.10a at the top. I down-climbed/down-lead the route.

Moved over to the real Aunt Fanny's Pantry (5.4) that I had led three years before. Much easier climbing. I led up to the big tree and setup a top rope from the fixed sling there, backing it up with a #3 Camalot just to be sure.

Also climbed up the short pitch that John had led and set a correct anchor since I was really bothered that he and Mike were top roping directly around the tree there. (Yes, the tree was already grooved from other people doing that, but that's no reason to cut corners and make things worse.)

Unforunately, I didn't get a chance to climb the 5.7 that Wendy had setup.

Saturday (6/26)
Lisa, Wendy, and I left Curry Village at 10:45am and hiked over to Glacier Point Apron (after moving out of our first-night-only cabins). Easy walk with short approach from the parking lot up the climbers trail. We got to the base of Monday Morning Slab, We found the route, got geared up, and I started leading by 11:45am. There was a little bit of shade, especially in the corners, but most of the route and the belays were in the full sun which made it very hot. I followed a lizard up as I led the second pitch.

From the top of the second pitch, we had to lower/down-climb to the rap anchors, but it wasn't too bad, and we did it safely. It helped that there were a couple guys at those anchors when I got to the top so I knew exactly were they were. We rapped from there in two pitches. Unfortunately, we stopped on ledge short of where we should have and had to down-climb some 5.0/4th class rather than an easy 3rd class walk-off.

Sunday (6/27)
Sunday morning we went with John, TZ, Wendy, and Peter and climbed the descent trail up to the base of the El Cap East Ledges to do some scouting. The trail ascended about 1000' vertically, and we were all pretty worn out by the time we hiked up, scouted around, and hiked back down. Didn't bring any climbing or vertical gear so we didn't ascend the fixed the ropes where we got the cliff face.

In the evening, Lisa and I returned to Glacier Point Apron for an evening climb at The Goblet top ropes. We arrived at the base around 6:30pm. Sunset at that point ended up being around 7:10pm. I led The Goblet, Right up to the anchors. Did not feel nearly as hard as 5.6. We each got in 5 climbs total (so about 300' or so each) and worked on various "routes" and trying to find harder lines.

Monday (6/28)
Alarm went off at 5:30am. We had prepped most of our gear the night before so we could get up, get water, hit the coffee bar when it opened at 6am, and get on the road to Tuolumne.

We had been planning to climb Cathedral Peak, but when we got to Tenaya Lake and saw Stately Pleasure Dome, we decided to stop and climbed Hermaphrodite Flake. We rushed at the start to beat another party who pulled up a few mintues after us. (I hate being rushed, especially when I'm getting ready to climb.) We scambled up about 150' of 3rd class to get to the start of the route. Very interesting route in terms of features, rock texture, and the view was amazing.

I was unsure where the top of the 1st pitch was supposed to be, and I ended up building a semi-hanging belay which was a bit awkward. For some reason, I was pretty unhappy and freaked out. Started feeling that was as I got higher in the initial chimney, and it only got worse when the chminey ended and I had to build the anchor on the awkward sloping rock. Not sure why I was feeling that way - maybe the angle of the rock or the exposure or being tired from the day before or having been rushed and never quite getting into the right head space for leading. Brought Lisa up (she was climbing in her approach shoes). I would happily have rapped down from there, but there was no fixed hardware, and the namesake flake was beckoning so I decided to continue on.

I led the tunnel under the flake (as opposed to the lie-back traverse around the right of the flake). The tunnel/chimney was awkward. I had to take off my Camelbak and tether it to my belay loop with a 4' sling for pulling up after me. Once up under the flake, I turned over onto my back and inched and scraped my way up. It was some serious groveling. It reminded me very much of caving except that it was somewhat vertical and no mud. It was cool and shady under the flake with a breeze which was nice. I managed to get a few pieces of pro in as a made my way along. The space expanded / widened near the top so I had to change technique (could no longer jam my foot out to the left side). I eventually popped out into the sun and had to turn back over. (More grunting and groveling.)

I came out from under the flake right at the anchors for Cross Reference. I brought Lisa up to those anchors, and we decided to rap off from there rather than continue on because my head just wasn't in the game. One double rope rappel down to a ledge then a long 3rd/4th class scramble back down to the car.

We stopped to look with binoculars at Zee Tree on Pywiak Dome just up and across the road. It looked pretty decent, but I wasn't up for it. It was 5.6, and I had just spent some time freaking out leading 5.4.

We drove on up to the Meadows. Looked around and took a few pictures. Stopped at the Store to get more substantial food than the various bars we had brought with us. (Not good food, mind you, just more substantial. We ended up getting frozen burritos and using the microwave there to heat them up. Then we at them outside at a picnic table.)

After eating we drove back to Pothole Dome to try to top rope route there. After wandering around a bit making sure we thought we knew where the route were (and we never really identified the middle and left routes), I scrambled up the easy slab, found the anchors, and setup on the rightmost anchor of Right Side. We each climbed twice. Neither of us was really feeling it so we eventually decided to give up. The mosquitoes were HORRIBLE as we walked back to and at the car! Much worse than at Church Bowl a few evenings before.

Here's the overall timing of the day:

5:30am	alarm
6:18am	left Curry Village
6:33am	at 140/120 split
6:48am	on 120 E
7:33am	at Tenaya Lake
9:10am	started climbing Hermaphrodite Flake
~noon	back on ground
~1:30pm	ate burritos at Tuolumne store
4:40pm	left Pothole Dome parking area

Wednesday (6/30)
Wednesday was our last morning in the Valley, and we had taken Tuesday as a rest do so we decided on another semi-alpine start to try to get out (a) before it go to hot on the slab, and (b) get in three pitches of The Grack and still be back to Curry Village in time to pack up before 11am when we thought we needed to check out of the cabin.

Alarm went off at 5:30am. We had prepped everything the night before, I had decided to forgo coffe to save time, and I had part of leftover burrito on ice in the cooler for breakfast. (Much better fuel to start the day with than cold oatmeal, bars, or even a bagel.) We packed up and drove out of Curry Village by 6am.

We had a bit of trouble finding the route. We expected it would be easy since we'd been to Glacier point twice before in the last few days, but we were heading farther around on the apron and ended up overshooting. We tried really hard to make the rock features we were looking at match the topo and description, but no dice. I had my small binoculars with me which helped. Eventually, I scrambled back up the last slope and found the route. It looked fairly easy and fun!

By that time, the sun was creeping down the wall so I climbed the frist pitch as fast as I could. I topped out just past the sun line, and by the time I finished building the anchor, Lisa (at the base) was in the sun so never got to climb in the shade. Just after I finished build the anchor and putting Lisa on belay, I realized there was a much better belay with a good ledge about 8' higher up rather than the semi-hanging belay I had built. Oh, well. I thought briefly about moving up, but we didn't have time.

The second pitch is where the climbing got more interesting with a splitter crack running up and arching through the slab face. It was mostly finger and hand size with a few wider sections. I was unsure where the second belay was supposed to be. I stopped at a good piece of protection and looked around (up and down) for a bit and talked to Lisa about how much rope was left. I ended up building another sem-hanging belay at a decent stance where the crack split into two line. I got four pieces go gear in and used a cordelette to pull it all together. I was very happy with the anchor.

(Note: while I was leading the second pitch, I pulled out my FRS radio and tried to raise anyone in camp to check on timing and whether we actually needed to be out of the cabin by 11am. Lisa had heard someone say the night before that they were not leaving on Wednedsay which meant even though we were still leaving, we didn't have to be out by 11. I eventually got a couple people on the radio. Neither of them were people who were authoratative, but they were pretty sure the group wasn't leaving until the next day, and I was able to pass on message about us running late.)

Based on the description of the route in the guidebook, I had decided to bring double red and orange Metolious TCUs plus my two ballnuts (just in case the crack narrowed a lot). I used a bunch of my small gear for the second pitch belay then more as I started up pitch three. I wished I had brought double yellow and blue TCUs, but it all worked out fine. I just had to skip a placement or two because I had no gear of the right size.

The third pitch was a little more spicy and fun. It has an arching finger crack and double cracks through the slab face which make for OK feet. Near the top of pitch three the crak stopped. I managed to get a ballnut in right at the top of the crack (probably in an old pin scar). There were 3-4 unprotected moves on holdless 5.6 slab to get from the now-ended crack up to the next feature / handhold. My experience on Stone Mountain plus playing on The Goblet a few days before really helped. The face was fairly featured, and I had no problem.

Got to the chains at the big ledge at the top of the third pitch and brought Lisa up. She seemed to enjoy the climbing as it got a little spicier. We spent a little bit of time on the ledge resting, having a bite to eat, and enjoying the view. Then we rapped off. Since we weren't completely sure our ropes would reach the lower of the two sets of anchor on the face, I rapped down first since I had noted where they were as I was coming up. They did reach. We made three rappels to get to the ground, with Lisa and I simul-rapping the lower two pitches for speed.

We were back on the ground by 11:30 and had everything packed up about 20 minutes later. It was good to be off the slab since it was really starting to heat up in the sun. We took a slightly different climbers trail out to the parking lot, but it intersected the main trail and a little camp area, and we had no trouble finding the car.

We had a fantastic climb on The Grack. I'm so glad we made the effort to get up early and that we were able to climb all three pitches. It was a great way to end our time in Yosemite. We were even able to get showers back at Curry Village before we had to get in the car and drive back to San Jose!

Here's the overall timing of the day:

5:30	- alarm
6:00	- left Curry Village
6:05	- at Glacier Point parking lot
6:15	- at base of apron
7:15	- finished route finding, started gearing up
7:35	- M started P1
8:05	- L started P1
8:25	- M started P2
9:35	- M started P3
10:05	- L started P3
10:20	- L topped out
11:00	- started rapping
11:28	- on ground (3 raps)
11:50	- started hiking out
12:02	- at car
12:10	- back at Curry Village