Semi-radness

Headed back up Leaning Tower yesterday with Big Wall veteran Alex from Tasmania. Didn't send but had a rad time! It all went pretty well till the big roof on the 2nd-to-last pitch. Got there feeling tired but still with a bit of strength left and super-psyched to try one of the final cruxes of the climb. Unfortunately I misread the sequence of moves to get into the roof and flailed around trying different approaches before finally working out how to climb it. This was a bit silly as in hindsight the sequence is really obvious (and it's awesome! big moves up from a wet sloper to the roof underclings and then a few punchy moves before a desperate slap around the corner of the roof to a sinker handjam). I managed the rest of the pitch pretty easily and decided to come back down and try and free-climb the pitch cleanly. My arms were toasted though, I got most of the way out the roof before my foot slipped of a smeary hold and I didn't have enough juice left in my arms to hang on. Gutted, I fell and the Leaning Tower free ascent will have to wait for another day. It was cool to go to the top though, and great to actually get worked trying to free some pitches as opposed to just sitting around waiting for them to dry out. Conditions are getting better here now and all sorts of people are heading up on all sorts of routes. There's a log jam on Freeblast and a few teams are heading up to freeclimb.

In other news the gear is finally down from Freerider thanks to Crazy John and Crazier Anna. The haul bag was up on the wall for a few weeks and survived about three storms. Unfortunately the gear inside got wet and there's now an interesting white fungus growing on the lobes of the number 5 Camelot (sorry Adam). Zac and Elmar just arrived in the Valley and they look pretty keen.

Waterfalls in bad places

Just wandered up to the base of the Salathe and there's a waterfall running down the line! A fair bit of snow fell last night so Freerider might be wet for another week. Far out, 6 weeks in the Valley and it's still soaking wet - I must have done something pretty bad in a previous life. Will head up tomorrow and if by some miracle it's dried out I'll push on upwards, otherwise I'll get our gear down and head back to try and send the upper pitches on Leaning Tower. Pretty quiet in the Valley at the moment, most of the free-climbers have bailed. There's a bunch of parties on the nose. See ya'll back in NZ soon.

Lurking fear

Decided it was time to top out a route so I enlisted the help of an American gully-climbing specialist called Josh (famous for his back to back benightments in the previous week) and we set off for a 1 day ascent of Lurking Fear. It was awesome. We started at first light and stood on top of El Cap in the dark after climbing some immaculate pitches of rock-climbing. Perfect really, no free ascent or speed records or anything crazy.... just good fun on a big hunk of perfect stone. Have started recruiting partners for a last ditch attempt on freerider starting on Tuesday. Psyched.

Aid climbing sandwich

Went up Leaning Tower again yesterday. Both Derek and I managed to send the crux lower pitches which was great. Stunning climbing on an amazing wall. Unfortunately for us Leaning Tower is a popular Big Wall and we got stuck behind a slow (3 hrs plus per pitch) aid party. We couldn't work out a friendly way to sneak past them so we rapped off and left the final few pitches for another (hopefully less crowded) attempt. Close but no cigar.

We climbed some stuff

Pretty psyched to be finally getting some good weather and dry rock in the Valley. Freerider is still soaked so we've hitting up some other classic free routes here.

First up was the Silent Line on Gold Wall. It's around ten pitches of stunning crack climbing with a cruxy 5:13 first pitch that climbs off to the side of a bolt ladder than most people aid up. Super fun to be getting on some harder pitches on dry rock. Derek crushed the 1st pitch and I got close but slipped off some slopey crimps in the sun. The highlight of the climb was on pitch 5 where you climb up inside a massive chimney that completely closes off all around you to a point where there is a exit hole that you have to crawl through on your belly! Hard to describe what it's like crawling out a horizontal squeeze chimney and staring straight down 200m to the Valley floor but it's rad.

Since then we've been up on leaning tower twice. It's a shorter than the typical Yosemite "Big Walls" but it packs quite a punch. It starts with a scramble up an exposed ledge and then a steep bolt ladder to get into the freeclimbing. The climbing is steep and pretty sustained in difficulty. We've sent a bunch of the 5:12 pitches on it (up to the 4th pitch above the bolt ladder) and have worked out how to climb the crux 5:13 pitch. Unfortunately this crux pitch has been wet each time we've been up there but we hope it will dry soon. Tomorrow (Derek's last day) we're heading up there to send, wet or dry!

And as things finally drying out here and we still have a bunch of gear stashed halfway up El Cap I've extended my trip till the 17th to try and at least get a shot at climbing freerider...

We are spending today on El Cap watch, lots of action up there right now. The Tassies (Garry and Alex 2nd) are on the Nose and Alex the German and Josh the Gully Climber are on the West (soaking wet gullies) Face.

Some more photos

And the last snow storm of the trip is half way through. Think we will escape to Jailhouse tomorrow and then throw our selves at the big stone!

Fine (drying) weather photos

A break from trench climbing on TKO at Arch Rock

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