Smoked out of our objectives: Let's go to the Beach
With the extra day off of work coming with the Labor Day weekend, the little climber devil on my shoulder had the wonderful idea to take an extra day off, Friday in this case, to go after bigger objects. Kat, Dave and I had our sites fixed on the Thunderbolt to Sill traverse. This is an opportunity to tackle 5 Fourteeners in a one-day push. The plan was to head up on Thursday night with a friend Brian who was headed to the Whitney Portal area to climb the Keeler Needle, a huge objective. Kat and Dave couldn’t get Friday off so I was going to ride up with Brian and spend an extra night at altitude to prepare for the traverse, head to Bishop to get the permits and meet Kat and Dave in Bishop Friday night.
By Thursday at 4 pm my bags were packed and I was ready to head out the door. Checking the weather however, the chance of thunderstorms in the High Sierra rose to 30-40% giving me big pause. After talking it over, I decided to spend another night in the bay to see if the weather would change and to give the three of us an option for saying on the west side of the Sierra.
With the weather content on ruining our large objectives, Kat and I came up with a Plan B to climb the South Face of Washington’s Column. We’ve been up to Dinner Ledge, but were both excited to knock off the rest of this big wall in Yosemite Valley. With Dave bailing on the idea due to the projected heat in the valley, Kat and I set out on Friday night. Arriving in the valley around 11:30 pm, we rolled the familiar blue tarp out in the parking lot of the Awhahnee Hotel , divided responsibility for sherpaing the water, and loaded the haul bag.
Losing our way in the darkness, we ended up hoping around the talus field below the trail. Luckily we rejoined the Column Trail just above our intended bivy sight. We rolled out our mats and sleeping bags and by 2am our heads were on the ground.
We slept in and woke up around 7:30, very late for a big wall start, but we needed the sleep. When our eyes opened, I first noticed how thick the air was and how hard it was to see more than 20 feet away. Regardless, I went through my routine, retrieved the bear hang and packed the pig like I normally would. We hiked up until we could see the route, unfortunately we couldn’t see much. We sat down to have a grown-up conversation about our options, cursed the climbing Gods and swore that we should have gone to the beach; so that’s just what we did.
Saturday morning I picked up my buddy Wells and Kat, Dave and Karen headed out separately to meet up at the Mickey’s Beach boulders. We climbed all afternoon, entertained by the nude-beach ultimate Frisbee game going on; skins on skins apparently. Drinks followed that evening and needless to say, we had fun. I’m still excited to climb both Thunderbolt to Sill and the South Face of the column, but I’m sure it won’t take us too long at the pace we’re going.
By Thursday at 4 pm my bags were packed and I was ready to head out the door. Checking the weather however, the chance of thunderstorms in the High Sierra rose to 30-40% giving me big pause. After talking it over, I decided to spend another night in the bay to see if the weather would change and to give the three of us an option for saying on the west side of the Sierra.
With the weather content on ruining our large objectives, Kat and I came up with a Plan B to climb the South Face of Washington’s Column. We’ve been up to Dinner Ledge, but were both excited to knock off the rest of this big wall in Yosemite Valley. With Dave bailing on the idea due to the projected heat in the valley, Kat and I set out on Friday night. Arriving in the valley around 11:30 pm, we rolled the familiar blue tarp out in the parking lot of the Awhahnee Hotel , divided responsibility for sherpaing the water, and loaded the haul bag.
Losing our way in the darkness, we ended up hoping around the talus field below the trail. Luckily we rejoined the Column Trail just above our intended bivy sight. We rolled out our mats and sleeping bags and by 2am our heads were on the ground.
We slept in and woke up around 7:30, very late for a big wall start, but we needed the sleep. When our eyes opened, I first noticed how thick the air was and how hard it was to see more than 20 feet away. Regardless, I went through my routine, retrieved the bear hang and packed the pig like I normally would. We hiked up until we could see the route, unfortunately we couldn’t see much. We sat down to have a grown-up conversation about our options, cursed the climbing Gods and swore that we should have gone to the beach; so that’s just what we did.
Saturday morning I picked up my buddy Wells and Kat, Dave and Karen headed out separately to meet up at the Mickey’s Beach boulders. We climbed all afternoon, entertained by the nude-beach ultimate Frisbee game going on; skins on skins apparently. Drinks followed that evening and needless to say, we had fun. I’m still excited to climb both Thunderbolt to Sill and the South Face of the column, but I’m sure it won’t take us too long at the pace we’re going.