Yosemite

We just got back from a great week in Yosemite, CA.  Yosemite is world famous for its rock climbing and gorgeous scenery.  Most climbers find themselves there at some point, so it's surprising that neither of us had been there before.

We flew into Sacramento and spent a few nights with Jason, Diane and their new baby, Alex.  They live in Yuba City, about 30 minutes north of the airport and about 4 hours northwest of Yosemite.  Miranda saw Diane in June but Rich hadn't seen them for ages and we loved catching up with them and meeting little Alex, now 2 months old.

As it happens, Amy, Marc and Roman live only an hour away and came for the evening.  We hadn't seen them forever either, maybe 2 years and it was super fun.

After we'd been there a couple days and aclimitized to oh, about sea level, it was time to pack up and head to Yosemite for some climbing in the mountains.

Yosemite

We've all seen pictures of Yosemite in iconic Ansel Adams photos, but it's still something to behold with one's own eyes.  The scenery is grand, everything is big and bold.  There are shear granite walls everywhere with stately evergreen trees and picturesque rivers and lakes dotting their bases.  Because it was fall, there were no flowers and some waterfalls had dried up, but it didn't diminish the grandeur in the least.  We 'd also love to go back in a different season (but fall really is best for climbing).

We didn't see much wildlife , though there were bear warning signs everywhere and no food could be left anywhere but in bear proof food storage boxes.  We couldn't leave food in the car or in our packs at the base of climbs.  We saw a big bear near our packs when we were 200 feet up at one point, but because there was no food scent on our bags (and Rich yelled at him and I threw rocks) he left our bags alone.  We saw a sleek and agile ringtail while camping at the base of Half Dome.  He was around camp for hours looking for food.  Other than that we just saw tons of very fat and sneaky squirrels.  One squirrel took the top piece of bread off a sandwich I was eating and had set down for a second right next to me!

This is a picture of Half Dome.  Our original plan was to climb it, about 2500 feet, 27 pitches.  We were going to bivy (uncomfortable cramped sleeping) on a ledge 17 pitches up.  This pic is from the approach we did in the evening.  The approach itself was straight up about 3000', I'm not kidding.  When we got to the base of the climb there were already several other parties there.

Half Dome

Here's us bivying at the base of the climb- we had one bivy (a mini tent for 1) and on sleeping bag.  We figured we're small people and could save weight, but it was still a little tight.

We woke up before dawn. There were 9 people ahead of us who'd gotten their place in line the night before.  We started climbing at 7 am. After 6 pitches we felt we were going too slow, mostly because I just couldn't climb well with a 20lb pack.  Also, weighing on our minds was that the bivy ledge would be very crowded.

We rapped off after 6 pitches, which by the way were great.  So we hiked to the top of Half Dome.  The hike is up cables.  You can see the vertical line on Half Dome in this picture, which is the cable with people pulling themselves up.  It was steep and crowded and there were lots of people that had no business being on something like that- if you slipped it would be an awful fall.

Seriously, it was some of the scariest climbing we've ever done! None of the climbing we do with ropes has such consequences if a fall were to happen.

Me at the top of Half Dome- on top of the world.  While we were up there two of the guys who had started climbing ahead of us that morning topped out. We were impressed, it only took them 8 hours.  Rich wants to try Half Dome again, probably in one day so heavy packs wouldn't be needed. I don't know if I have it in me.

After hiking Half Dome we collected our stuff and hiked out and spent another night as a couple in a one man bivy.  We made it to the car at 8 am and drove to Tuolumne Meadows. We met our friend Matt who is a ranger there.  Rich had fun bouldering and climbing.  I had a lot of fun with my new camera and went on a hike at Tioga Pass.  Here are some pics from that day.

We then drove back to Yosemite proper late that night to tackle some classic Yosemite routes.  We got to bed at 1am that night and Rich woke us up at 5am to climb.  It's competative getting on the most popular routes.  If you get up late you can end up behind a slow party, or get fried by the sun.  It was an unseasonally hot week- mid 90's all week.

Rich was still a little sleepy when we started climbing, but he quickly woke up with all the great pitches of Sons of Yesterday and Serenity Crack- about 8 pitches of 5.10 crack (you climbers know why this is popular).

Rapping off the top- sun's up and we were happy to be heading down.  There were two parties coming up after us, and they looked super hot as we rappelled past them.  We headed back to camp for a restful afternoon.

The next two days were more of the same, but we didn't get up quite as early.  We climbed two days on Middle Cathedral, which sits directly across the valley from El Capitan- not a bad backdrop for pictures and boring belays.  Our tentsite was on the river, here's a picture from the tent...not bad.

The last day in Yosemite was a big one.  Rich again got us up at 5am to climb on El Capitan. The plan was to just do a few pitches at the bottom, but when we got to the base of a famous climb, Freeblast, no one was there!  We couldn't resist taking the plunge on this 10 pitch classic. Nevermind that the forecast was for another 95 degree day and El Cap faces south/southwest and we didn't bring the camelback or enough water and heavy snacks that can't be left at the base due to bears...  So up we headed. The first few pitches were awesome.

Now it started getting HOT!  We ran out of water half way- we've never been so dehydrated in our lives.  Unfortunately, after pitch 5 there aren't rappel stations, so you can't bail early, you have to finish all 10 pitches.  So, we pushed on (I probably wouldn't have been able to convince Rich to bail anyway, he was too excited for this climb and dehydrated to the point of being unreasonable).  I'm glad we did this climb, but I'd really like to do it again someday, when it's about 70 degrees.

Good-bye Yosemite! 

We'll be back soon.