Maybe we are getting old because getting an early start seems to get harder and harder. When we arrived at the top of the Rostrum at 8am, I thought for sure I would see a line of cars. After all, the bird closure had only been lifted last weekend, so people must have been dying to get on it. I was astonished to find the climb empty. Well, that worked well for us because we were not particularly fast. Unlike three years ago when I did it with Erik last time, he actually took his time on the first four pitches that led to the big ledge right below the crux pitch. Last September, he did the Rostrum with Steve on the morning of our wedding day (and still made it to the wedding in his tux after a shower), but he has not been climbing much at all other than that. So, when we got to the ledge, we decided to leave the top half for another time. Just then, Blaine from Fresno and his friend Tevase from Colorado showed up on the ledge. They came here just to crag the crux pitch on the Rostrum and the first pitch of Blind Faith right next to it. We teamed up by putting our two ropes up the climbs. Erik and I each ran four or five laps on the Rostrum and two laps on Blind Faith. By the end of the day, every fiber in my body hurt. My fingers were raw and tender and my feet screamed everytime I jammed my toes into the thin crack. But I was happy because I figured out the move at the crux on the Rostrum and managed to climb without hanging on my last two laps. We also had a good time chatting with Blaine and Tevase.

Feeling defeated on the Rostrum, Erik decided to do a moderate climb on Sunday. Kor-Beck was the choice. This climb has the reputation for being a Yosemite old school. Most people do the first six pitches because after that it's mainly fourth class leading to the notorious Kat Walk, which had no appeal to me. So, we brought two ropes with us for the rappel. I read in Supertopo that the climb gets morning sun, so if we had been sensible, we would have waited to start in the afternoon. When we started climbing around 9am, the climb was already cooking in the full sun. The climb is rated 5.9, so it is not very technical, but there are some sections of climbing in a groove or an awkward chimney. Because all of Erik's shoes were in need of resole or beyond resole, he was wearing a pair of new Anasazi Velcro (bought mainly for the face climbs at Pinnacles) and he was audibly in pain. We had a full view of El Cap on the entire climb. The sun was warm on my back, but the gentle breeze kept the temperature pleasant. We had a little conversation that still made me laugh to this day. At one point, feeling content, I looked up smiling and shouted out to Erik who was up grunting in a Chimney, "Honey…" "What?" "I love you!" I expected to hear "I love you too" back; instead, after only a very brief pause, he responded, "You say that to everyone right before they are about to die." The unexpected response made me chuckle for the rest of the climb. When we reached the top of the crux (5th) pitch, Erik couldn't bear the pain in his feet any more, so we started our rappel down. By then, the climb had entered the shade. On our way down, we crossed paths with a team of three just starting up.

Although it was still early, Erik was calling it a day. On our way out of the park, we saw a car parked next to the Generator Crack boulder. We pulled over to check it out — it would be fun to watch people climb that crack. It was a young international team — one German, one English, and one American. The funny thing was they all had a strong English accent. As it turned out they all went to school in England. Seemingly strong climbers, they tried to muscle their way up the crack and one even attempted to lie back the crack, but none of them succeeded. I think Erik said something to them and I got a warm offer to the rope. I went back to the car and fetched my harness. Remembering having a hard time starting off the ground and having had to retreat to the tree start, I was feeling a bit unsure about how I would do today. But I told this little international group, in the spirit of Olympics, I would represent China if I managed to climb it. To my surprise, I had no trouble starting from the ground this time and made good progress on the climb without hanging. They were obviously impressed, which made me feel pretty good. What a good way to conclude a weekend of climbing!

p.s. I wrote this trip report while watching the replay of the Olympics Opening Ceremony. So I apologize for any disorganization and error.

The 11a crux on Pitch 2 of the Rostrum. You first down climb and traverse over to get to it.

Blaine styling the first pitch of Blind Faith.

Taken on Kor-Beck with El Cap in the background.

This time, I did not have much trouble getting up Generator Crack.

My alarm went off at 5am in Ron and Liz's dungeon room. I got up to make coffee and breakfast while Erik was sound snoring — he had had a long week at work and had been sleep-deprived. However, the clicking of my camping stove and pan woke him up. He was grumpy for quite a while until we got to the base of the climb. Poor guy.

My slowness in getting ready cost us the first place in line; however, I was happy that we beat the next two parties by two steps. When Erik was reading a closure sign on the climbers' trail, I heard voices approaching and urged him on. The people behind followed us all the way to the base of the Serenity. As it turned out, they were a bunch of really friendly folks I recognized from our local climbing gym, which made the wait at the base fun. The party in front of us were Matt and Nolan from the Bay Area. Nolan was belaying when we arrived. I quickly worked out a deal with him — we would each climb on one rope and on the way down we would share our two ropes for the long rappels off of Sons of Yesterday. This way, they didn't need to carry their tag line up and we didn't need to drag our second full rope up either.

Erik and I moved at a good speed behind Matt and Nolan. They were not slow climbing, but I noticed that they spent a lot more time at each belay station changing over. So, most of the time, despite our wait at various belay stations, we kept catching up with them. They were kind to mention that we could pass them, but since we would be sharing ropes going down anyway, we just enjoyed our wait. I followed Erik the whole way — just didn't feel like leading. But this time, I felt solid on the entire climb. The finger crack at the crux on Serenity felt a lot easier than I remembered.

On a side note, I just read recently on Supertopo that someone had put a bolt back on the first pitch of Serenity, which triggered a long discussion. It was still there when we climbed it, but Erik didn't clip it — instead, he placed a bomber red camalot (#1) in the crack at the same height of the bolt. In his word, the camelot was "belay quality."

Higher up on Sons of Yesterday, the wind was quite strong. I got a little chilled. That's the beta I'd like to offer to anyone reading this — bring a wind breaker even if it's toasty at the base.

On Sunday, we went cragging at Cookie, hoping that Ron would be able to join us. But at the peak season of Yosemite tourism, the Bed and Breakfast was keeping him very busy. We took this chance to run laps on Outer Limits and Crack-a-go-go. I had trouble in my first two attempts top roping Crack-a-go-go, but after taking a break, on my last try, I managed to climb it without falling. Whooohoo!

As I had planned, we went to Generator Crack before calling the day. Having poison oak rashes all over his left shin, Erik decided not to do it. But being a considerate and supportive husband, he kindly climbed up the rock and set up a top rope for me (and later took it down). I was anxious to find out how my wide crack climbing ability had deteriorated after two years of break, so it made me happy that I was able to climb it without any trouble starting from the tree. However, I had a hard time starting from the ground — I couldn't get my left knee over the restriction (will post picture later). Now I can't wait to get back again because I just read my own beta that I posted more than two years ago.

We didn't get home until almost 1am because we stopped by Ron and Liz's place on our way out. Time flew by when we happily chatted. But hanging out with our good friends made the weekend even more perfect (correct English?).

Photos:

I forgot to put the camera in our packs on Saturday, so we don't have any pictures from Saturday even though the view of the valley was great from Serenity and Sons.

Here are a few pictures from Sunday.

Is this the famous Separate Reality. Click on the image to see the full sized picture. You can see that fine line across the roof. Taken from the parking spot for Cookie Cliff.

On Supertopo, someone reported that a boulder rolled off the base of Generator Crack. Well, for what it's worth, here is how it looks now. The board is still there.

The start of Generator Crack. Right in the middle is the restriction I was talking about — too narrow for my knee to fit in.

That's me inside the crack. You can barely see me.

Oh, the fun chimney section near the top.

Yes, I did it again, and better

Remember how excited I was when I did it last time? after two unsuccessful attempts, finally I managed to get up Generator Crack. However, I had to start off the tree because I couldn't figure out how to get up the first five feet or so. But this time, I got it, every foot of it!

Beta for Generator Crack:

Beta for small people (with skinny knees): While standing on the ground, I place a hand-fist stack high, then with the right foot frictioning in the crack — with outside of the heel and inside of toes — I lift my left knee as high as possible and shuffle it into the crack. Note that at this point, the crack is fairly narrow, so the available spots to get your knee in are very limited. Once the knee is jammed in, it's very secure, so I can do a sit up pushing off my right foot to move my upper body higher — so high that my left leg is almost extended while the knee is still jammed in the crack. Now, it's the tricky move — because the crack is too narrow to move the left knee directly up, you need to take it out where it went in. To do this, I gaston with my two hands on the two sides of the crack to keep my upper body upright, stick my butt out so that I have room to move my left knee, and then carefully extract my knee from the crack. A couple of these moves later, I'm able to shuffle my whole left leg in, then the battle is over — all you need to do is chicken-wing with left arm, gaston with right hand, use the right foot heel-toeing to push up, and use the left leg kneebaring to rest. Higher, once I get my full body in, it becomes sweet squeeze chimney. I do the entire climb left side in — no turning around is needed.

Beta for big people (Based on my observations when Erik climbed it): The crux is also right off the ground. Because you can't get your knee in to stabilize your upper body, you can't move both hands at the same time. So, the key is to find small edges and flakes inside the crack for your fingers to pull on (almost look like lieback), while the feet are doing the side-of-heel to side-of-toe jam. You do need to get the footwork down so that the feet are not thrashing around, which makes it too hard for the poor fingers to cling to the tiny edges. At any given time, you either use one hand and the two feet to keep the body stable while moving the other hand higher or use two hands and one foot for stability while moving the other foot up. A couple of such powerful moves later, you should be able to get your left leg in the crack, then it's just typical offwidth climbing — all you need to do is chicken-wing with left arm, gaston with right hand, use the right foot heel-toeing to push up, and use the left leg kneebaring to rest. However, because you won't be able to get your full body in until very high up, you'll need to stay at the mouth of the crack, and when you get to jug on the left side of the crack, you pull up on it and in the mean time turn your body around. Beyond that jug, it's a squeeze chimney for everyone.

Hope that helps.

Oh, wait, rewind… Let me start from Saturday morning. Because the weather forecast for this weekend was very iffy, Erik and I decided to leave the Bay Area on Saturday morning (it was more my idea because I really wanted to see the movie March of Penguins on Friday night). So we got out at 9am, and by 1:30pm, we were at the base of Cookie Cliff. We did Catchy, Catchy Corner, Red Zinger (two laps for each of us), Meat Grinder 1st pitch (my lead), Beverly's Tower (my lead), and Aftershock (we both TR'ed in dark with headlamps).

We hung out with Scott and Micky at the Rock Rendezvous campsite and enjoyed a conversation around the warm campfire that Scott put up. On next morning, although I set my alarm at 6am, we didn't get up until almost 8am. It was destined to be a relaxed (aka lazy) weekend, so it only made sense for us to arrive at the base of the Rostrum as late as 11:30am. My heart sank when I saw a rope on the first pitch when I approached the start. But it turned out to be Dan and Hamid, whom I knew from the Bay Area. They were planning to do the first four pitches only, so they generously let us pass. Erik linked the 1st and 2nd pitches and we passed them quickly. Four hours and forty minutes later saw us on top. We had a great view of the valley in the afternoon glow. We finished the day by top roping Generator Crack, which added a bit more excitement and satisfaction to the weekend.

Photos: When Erik cheerfully anounced that he had packed everything for the trip into his car on Thursday evening, I should have raised my suspicion. As it turned out, he forgot to bring quite a few items, among which was his camera. Oh well, I had mine and I did take some pictures on both days. I should finish uploading them to my album by Monday night (or Tuesday, maybe Wednesday).

I had tried to toprope Generator Crack twice starting off the tree. Despite the best effort I could give at the time, I probably made three feet of progress the first time and five feet the second time before being shutdown by the crack. But today, Aug 13 of 2005, I did it (although still starting off the tree)! All that offwidth training finally paid off!

Ok, let me back track a little bit. For this weekend, I hooked up with Erik Strom (I hung out with him at Lost World once last year). According to a mutual friend of ours, Erik had been scuba diving a lot, but still he could fly up the Rostrum right off the couch. After hearing that, I put out a bait offering to belay him on the Rostrum, and he bit it. That was what we did the first thing on Saturday. After I led the first pitch, I handed over the sharp end to him — he would be my ropegun for the rest of the route. The climb demands all sorts of crack climbing techniques from finger to hand to fist to offwidth. I had trouble at the 5.11c crux (a steep finger crack ), but got it over with the help from the tension in the rope, about which I didn't complain because we were going for the speed. Everything else went smoothly and we finished the route in about five hours. Erik then toproped the top half of the Rostrum Roof (5.12). As if this was not enough of climbing, after lunch, we drove over to The Cookie Cliff and did Outer Limits. As if that was not enough of climbing still, we then went over to the Generator Crack. Finally, we could call it a day.

The dinner (salmon and vegetables) was cooked and served by El Cap Meadow. When the curtain of night descended, the stars on El Capitan lit up. It was also a night of an intensive meteor shower. I remember waking up in the middle of the night, opening my eyes, and right there, a shooting star running across the sky.

Sunday, we slept in not knowing exactly what we wanted to do — it was hot in the valley. But after the breakfast, we had decided to go up the Regular Route on Higher Cathedral Spire, which was supposed to be in the shade until early afternoon. I'd never done it, and it was probably fifteen years ago when Erik did it. Shortly after we started hiking, I came to understand why it took Erik fifteen years to repeat this route (but he might deny it) — the approach was very physical! Escorted by mosquitos most of the way up, we arrived at the base an hour later but 1500 feet higher. We beat the Supertopo estimate by half an hour, which was soon spent searching for the start of the climb. It was my fault — I printed four pages of Supertopo on one piece of paper (two on each side) as usual and mistakenly pulled out the topo for South by Southwest without reading the title. It turned out that if you work very hard, you can match any terrain and formation around you with any topo. At the moment I realized my mistake, I saw the cross etched into the rock at the base of the route. Up I went. Swinging leads, we made good time at a relaxed pace — base to base, 2 hours and 40 minutes including chilling out on the summit and taking loads of summit shots.

After a lunch break back at the car, we set out again for Central Pillar of Frenzy. Coincidentally, we finished the route base-to-base also in 2 hours and 40 minutes. That gave us time to toprope the first pitch of Bircheff-Williams (5.11b) before heading out of the Valley.

Now, that was a productive weekend!

Photos

Erik just bought a new camera (with 10x zoom). He was carrying it around in one of his socks. Maybe that's why they turn out to be pretty good? I carried my camera (in a proper case) only on Higher Cathedral Spire. I've uploaded all the photos from his camera and my camera. Click here or below to see all of them.

Compatible climbing partners

Good weather

Safe

Good climbing

This weekend, I made a perfect trip to Yosemite with Debby. And here she tells you all the details:

Trip Report

–written by Debby

Finally, a full weekend devoted to climbing. As soon as I committed to climbing with my friend Mei, I got invitations to five parties. Oh well, I had made a commitment. Given my weather luck this year I figured that we'd end up having to cancel the trip anyway… but as of Friday the weather looked perfect so away we went to the Valley. As soon as we left the Bay Area, I felt happy about my decision.

Mei had volunteered to handle all of the meals if I did the car. Friday night we drove up, and tried to find a spot to crash in at Hardin Flat. The first place we tried was a wee bit muddy, and my car got just a tad bit stuck. After some careful rocking and wheel spinning, I managed to extract the car, with only one side of the car covered in mud… Our second spot worked much better.

Saturday morning we got up fairly early. By the time I was standing, Mei was already cooking, and soon had prepared a delicious egg sandwich, cooked to order. We packed up, and drove to church bowl, where we had our pick of climbs.

Mei, having just returned from a several day crack clinic, was on a chimney/off-width kick. I was happy to humor her, since few of my partners will climb crack at all, and fewer still are willing to consider offwidth climbs. She first picked Church Bowl Lieback (5.8). Despite the enormous clouds of ravenous mosquitos (Mei's note: Among the big crowd in the area, mosquitos decided I was most delicious), she led it, with just one exciting moment where her feet popped, but her nut did not, and I followed. We rapped down. Emboldened by her success (and claims that it was safe), I then led Uncle Fanny (5.7). Although I grumbled and grunted a lot, it was indeed well within my abilities, and we quickly finished that. Pole Position, a 5.10a bolted sport climb, was finally open, so Mei led that. When I followed, I was astonished, because it involved a fair bit of standing on nothing, holding on to nothing, and praying (Mei's note: Debby was not even religious).

Having exhausted that part of the area, we moved over to Church Bowl Chimney, a 5.6 chimney that Mei had an interest in leading (Bishop's Terrace, our other possibility, had a line). On the way over, we spotted Church Bowl Tree, a 5.10b pin scar thin crack, which neither of us wanted to lead. The British couple on it offered to set an anchor on it for us when they finished though, so we postponed the chimney, took a rest, and then climbed it. Fun, but really difficult. Then it was our turn for the chimney. It looked awfully scary to me, but Mei led it with no problems at all (despite not being able to put in anything until quite high up; our biggest piece was my #4 camalot). We rapped down over a 5.8 flaring chimney, which Mei had also been interested in climbing; this climb I had noticed before and had had no interest in clmbing. Ever. Luckily, when we rapped down, she saw it was dirty and wet, and so decided to skip it. It was my turn to choose a climb. Bishop's Terrace still had a line, so we went over to Black is Brown (5.8), a climb I had previously gotten off-route on (5.10b?), and felt the need to do properly. This time, I was more careful, and the climb seemed ever so much easier. Go figure. (Mei's note: Debby's warning did not register in my mind and I decided without consulting the topo that only one rope would be necessary. I could still be hanging there if this weekend had not been perfect.)

We almost had enough time for another climb at this point, but were done with that area. We tried heading over closer to Camp 4 Wall (Mei wanted to try Doggie Do, a 5.10b off-width that I had tried (and failed at) last year), but there was no parking to be found near there. So instead, we drove to the campground. After a large amount of car shuffling and shuttling shenanigans, we ended up with a spot for the night in one of the Cragmont Club campsites. Mei cooked an amazing dinner (wild salmon, couscous, and vegetables), and we went to sleep at 10.

Sunday morning we got up at 6:30. Mei ensured we had a proper breakfast for the day, cooking not only egg sandwiches but also oatmeal with raisins, nuts, and soymilk. We headed to the Five Open Books area and were pleasantly surprised to find nobody on The Surprise (5.10a), and it dry. Mei quickly ran the first two pitches together, and got us to the base of the beautiful splitter crack. I had been a little grumpy about the quality of the first two pitches, but the third (5.8) was really fun. After kindly complimenting me on my lead, Mei took the fourth (the 10a pitch), and climbed it with no problems at all (Mei's note: except that I plugged in three pieces at one awkward stance right before the "psychological face move(s)" (plural for short people) at the end of the finger crack). She ran the fifth pitch together too, and we topped out at 12:30, four hours after leaving the car.

From the top, we headed up to Selaginella (5.8). It was my turn to lead, and we swung leads uneventfully the whole way up. The hike down the falls trail was quite pleasant, since the sun was behind clouds and we had finished our two liters of water at the top of the climb. It was only 5pm when we reached the car, so we decided to make another attempt at Doggie Do. This time there was parking, so we walked over and started the hike up. The dense clouds of mosquitos, darkening skies, thickening clouds, and approach soon convinced us that our time would be better spent heading over to Generator Crack (a classic 5.10c off-width climb, that Mei had a vision of being able to climb). I could hardly walk at that point (I'm out of shape), but I was quite willing to belay, especially since the climb is located approximately 30 feet from the road, easily top-ropable, and has the sweetest belay spot imaginable. After watching Mei valiantly struggle for a while, even discarding her knee pads in an attempt to beat the climb ((Mei's note: I tried), I thought perhaps I should give it a go before we left. As I stood up from my belay spot, I realized that I could barely walk, and decided to give it a pass. Why ruin an awesome day of an awesome weekend?

We drove out, and just as we were leaving the park, the skies opened up and rain started to pour. We found out that the park had flooded overnight… Our timing couldn't have been better.

Saturday, we started on the Right Side of the Cookie (5.9, 2 pitches) by me leading the first pitch and Allen finishing off the rest of it where the chimney is. This climb is in the shade whole day. Then we moved on to Catchy (5.10d). It felt really easy for its grade. Confidence boosted, I moved up the ladder — I followed Waverly Wafer (5.10c Reids, 5.11a SuperTopo's description). It felt a notch harder than Catchy. We finished off the day doing Butterballs (5.11c). I made it up to the top, but did not look pretty at all — I had to hang a few times. Better footwork and more pullup strength are what I need to do this climb.

After running into Allen's friend Bowe at the campsite, we convinced him and his friends to go back to Cookie with us on Sunday as they were planning to practice aiding on some thin crack anyway. But when we got there, Cookie was baked in the sun and we felt lethargic. Even so, Bowe's friends feerlessly started their aid climbing practice. Before we were about to turn to somewhere else, I discovered that The Enema (5.11b) was in the shade. Allen, Bowe and I did it in a party of three. I led the first pitch including a 5.9 squeeze chimney. "The second pitch is the business,"(SuperTopo) and it was Allen's business to lead it. The crack is flaring and overhanging. It's hard.

Since the notorious Generator Crack (5.10c) is only 1 mile away and I had been telling Allen about it for a year, we stopped there to give ourselves some torture. It felt like a torture a year ago when I attempted it, and it still felt like a torture this time. I made it higher than last time, but had to give up when my boney ankles reached their pain tolerance threshold. But, I will be back!

The cliff is better viewed from a distance. It seems small, but is concentrated with quality hard cracks. See that big flake-looking thing near the middle of the photo? The climb, the Right Side, is behind it — therefore, in the shade.