The original plan was to climb The Rostrum on Friday, then Astroman on Saturday followed by whatever we had energy for on Sunday morning before making the long drive home Sunday afternoon. That was the plan, lets see how things panned out...
First up was the north face of The Rostrum, considered by many to be one of the all time great multi pitch crack climbs. It sure looks pretty
It's 8 pitches of splitters straight up the steep north face of the pillar. And it's got some great logistics: park at the top, approach by walking down and then making a couple raps to the base, and then climbing back up to the top.
We got a nice leisurely start and eventually started climbing behind a couple parties already up on the wall.
Looking up at the route from the base
First pitch is some fun laybacking off the deck followed by a cool squeeze. Second pitch is a delicate face traverse into some powerful moves to gain a steep splitter finger crack...way good!
Third pitch has it all: layback off the belay to thin hands corner, turn a roof to wide hands in a corner, stem over a roof to thin fingers....whew all that in 165'...good stuff!
Leading up into the wide hands corner
Trish following
p4 is crux finger crack to hands in a corner to cool layback thin
eyeing the crux fingers of goodness
sooo good
Trish following the layback at the end of the pitch
More splitter on the next pitch
Trish following the hero hands
pitch 6 is wide funk! I suck at offwidths!
Getting up into the WIDE!!!
Hey Trish, how do you like offwidths?
The next pitch gets back to the goodness! Overhanging hero hands to some powerful moves over a roof/bulge thing...way sick!
Trish over the roof and looking a little worked!
The last pitch is more offwidth, but not that bad, although the moves getting up into it are pretty burl...
WOW what a great route!
Afterwards we were treated to a great sunset
So day one went according to plan, lets forward to Saturday....
We woke up to some cloudiness and a little breeze. Then a cloud appeared that didn't look like a cloud, but instead smoke! Soon a helicopter with a water bucket was flying by CLOSE! A fire had started about 1/4 mile up the road from where we were camped, apparently after someone tossed a cig out the window
Fortunately after dropping a few buckets on the fire, it was pretty much out and they re-opened the road.
The weather forecast was calling for 50% chance of rain, so we discussed options and decided to go for a shorter climb that would allow retreat if the weather went to shit, so it was South By Southwest up on Lower Cathedral Spire that we opted for.
The Valley from the approach...weather moving in?
The approach is sorta brutal, but at least the weather seemed to be holding for the time being
Trish in the forest
Big Stone
Trish heading up the endless boulderfields on the approach
We got geared up and started up as the wind started picking up. We did the first two pitches which are shared with the Regular Route and are mostly low 5th with a move of 5.6 or 5.8 thrown in. I started up the third pitch that starts up a 5.9 corner before moving up over a 10d bulge. I was about to commit to the last 5.9 moves and up into some not easily downclimbable terrain when I paused, looked around and called down to Trish that I was going to give the weather a minute or two. At which point the first sprinkles started. I decided to downclimb the corner and remove all the gear as I went. When I got down to Trish at the ledge we waited for 5 minutes or so and then the rain began in earnest. We decided to bail.
Trish rapping in the rain
After two raps we were pretty well soaked and sought shelter under a tiny overhang near the base. Prob waited for half hour until it finally let up. We quickly packed gear and carefully made our way down the boulderfield.
As soon as we got to the car it started pouring again and we spent the rest of the afternoon at the mountain room bar drinking hot toddy's and eating pizza...not a bad way to spend a rainy afternoon.
And to top off the day when we got back to our camp down in El Portal, we hit up the hot tub at the neighboring resort
The next morning we were not all that motivated as it was still pretty socked in so we lolled around camp drinking coffee and slowly packing up our damp stuff.
After more coffee neither of us was super motivated so we played tourist and drove up to Glacier Point to snap some photos and were treated to an early season snowfall from the storm the day before
peace out
