Now that the whining is out of the way (see post below if you care at all - and if you're at all like me, you'll read it even if you don't), on to my weekend. Thursday's drive was uneventful; went fishing when I arrived, stopped in town for a bottle of rum, and had a nice dinner with Joe up in the bivy (because, you know, that stove works whilst the one in the house doesn't... he should call the landlord!). Friday was brutally hot, but we went and worked on painting one of his houses until about half past 2, and then I napped in the back of the truck while he fixed the bathroom in another one. We went to his brother's house, a beautiful house on the lake with a private little beach and everything, and went swimming. Stella doesn't swim because her fur weighs her down, but she let me carry her out to deep water without struggling. Rocky, on the other hand is a big wimp, and he thrashed the whole way out. He swims just fine, but I don't think he likes getting his cute little face wet! We went to bed really early that night because we planned to do Wallface the next day.
The alarm went off at 5AM, but we didn't really manage to get out of bed until closer to 6. We had a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs and hot sage sausage on toast, and were out the door. We were going super light; we each had a small pack. Mine contained only the rack (selected stoppers, 0-3 TCUs, .5-2 camalots), my harness/shoes, an epi-pen, two deviled-ham sandwiches and 3 liters of water, while Joe carried the rope (one strand of my Mamut Genesis doubles), the draws (about 10), his harness/shoes, one liter of water and a bagel with cream cheese. No shells, no warm clothing, nothing extra. We parked about a mile up the road from the Loj (to avoid the parking fee), and started the hike in probably somewhere between 7 and 8 AM. It's about 6 miles from the trailhead to Summit Rock, and we were adding another mile on to that. We were quite concerned about it being far too hot out, but as it turns out we needn't have worried as it stayed largely overcast and hazy most of the day. The hike in was fairly uneventful; the only annoyance was the horde of black flies following me and biting me EVERYWHERE. I did take a couple of slips and falls on the hike up Indian Pass, but overall it was far easier than I expected; the hike is flat nearly the entire way. Wallface eventually started looming up above us to our right as we got up into Indian Pass, and though large, it simply was not as impressive as Whitesides down in NC was. It was kind of broken up and chossy looking, with lots of vegetation on it.
We took a break when we arrived at Summit Rock; I ate one of my sandwiches as we contemplated the talus field separating us from the base of the cliff. There is a helpful cairn up on top of a big boulder across the way, so we decided to make for that; after a really steep bushwhack down the side of the talus field we realized that there was actually a trail; after we found that it was not much trouble to make our way down and back up the other side. It's pretty amazing how cool it is down among the boulders; I guess there are big cave systems amongst them so it makes sense. We came out somewhere around the base of Lewis Elijah, and so rather than bother with walking further over to the base of the Diagonal, we decided to just head up there. We ditched our packs and donned our harnesses; I had a waterbottle and my shoes clipped to my harness and I carried the rack, while Joe had the rope. We started up but quickly realized that the moves were a tad stiff and the rock a bit wet to really safely be scrambling up unroped, so Joe got tied in and on belay, and two pitches of 5.easy plus some cedar scrambling up the corner to the left of Lewis Elijah got us to the base of the Diagonal's ramp. I led one pitch and Joe led the other; it's all very low angled and well featured so though there's not a whole lot of gear it's fine; it goes very quickly. There is a set of slings with rap rings around a large boulder at the end of the first 160'ish ramp pitch; there's a set of bolts at the end of the second. Joe decided to climb past these for another 50 feet or so to the right and a clump of trees at the base of the last two pitches, so we ended up simul-climbing just a bit. I was praying for a breeze the entire time to get rid of the bugs; swatting the flies was pretty much useless, though I felt like I must have done SOME good by smooshing 100+ flies that day.
We had quite an audience watching us from Summit Rock down below by this point, and we ourselves had a pretty good view of the thunderheads that were threatening to roll through the pass. Nothing to be done about it but go up, though. On the way up, of course, we'd noted that the rap stations were set up for double rope raps, and we'd only brought a single. Oh well... In the interest of saving time with the impending rain, Joe went ahead and did the last two (short) pitches (the only ones really worth doing on the route). The first move off the ledge was a little strenuous, but there was nothing really too bad after that (and the first move wasn't even particularly bad; rather than go up the corner as Joe did, I went up over a bulge about five feet to the right). I was surprised that our audience remained even after the rain started, and a little irritated: since I'd been diligently chugging my 3 liters of water on the hike in, I needed to pee pretty badly by that point. After telling Joe to hang out for a sec, I went ahead and just went behind a cedar and did it into a little crevice at the back of the ledge. I figured that with the rain coming in, it'd be ok!
The rain started as I was finishing up the last pitch, which has a great traverse left on a beautifully incut ledge on steep rock. I was getting too wet and bitten up to really fully appreciate it, but the moves were really fantastic. At the top, we gathered up our stuff pretty quickly and set out to get off the rock, since the rain was coming down pretty hard and the thunder was really going. I carried the rope and some draws; Joe had the rack. There wasn't really any sort of trail heading the way we wanted to go (left) through the hemlocks, but at least up top it was fairly flat so it wasn't too bad; mostly just pushing the branches out of the way and occasionally pausing to unsnag the rope on my back.....tbc some day...
The alarm went off at 5AM, but we didn't really manage to get out of bed until closer to 6. We had a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs and hot sage sausage on toast, and were out the door. We were going super light; we each had a small pack. Mine contained only the rack (selected stoppers, 0-3 TCUs, .5-2 camalots), my harness/shoes, an epi-pen, two deviled-ham sandwiches and 3 liters of water, while Joe carried the rope (one strand of my Mamut Genesis doubles), the draws (about 10), his harness/shoes, one liter of water and a bagel with cream cheese. No shells, no warm clothing, nothing extra. We parked about a mile up the road from the Loj (to avoid the parking fee), and started the hike in probably somewhere between 7 and 8 AM. It's about 6 miles from the trailhead to Summit Rock, and we were adding another mile on to that. We were quite concerned about it being far too hot out, but as it turns out we needn't have worried as it stayed largely overcast and hazy most of the day. The hike in was fairly uneventful; the only annoyance was the horde of black flies following me and biting me EVERYWHERE. I did take a couple of slips and falls on the hike up Indian Pass, but overall it was far easier than I expected; the hike is flat nearly the entire way. Wallface eventually started looming up above us to our right as we got up into Indian Pass, and though large, it simply was not as impressive as Whitesides down in NC was. It was kind of broken up and chossy looking, with lots of vegetation on it.
We took a break when we arrived at Summit Rock; I ate one of my sandwiches as we contemplated the talus field separating us from the base of the cliff. There is a helpful cairn up on top of a big boulder across the way, so we decided to make for that; after a really steep bushwhack down the side of the talus field we realized that there was actually a trail; after we found that it was not much trouble to make our way down and back up the other side. It's pretty amazing how cool it is down among the boulders; I guess there are big cave systems amongst them so it makes sense. We came out somewhere around the base of Lewis Elijah, and so rather than bother with walking further over to the base of the Diagonal, we decided to just head up there. We ditched our packs and donned our harnesses; I had a waterbottle and my shoes clipped to my harness and I carried the rack, while Joe had the rope. We started up but quickly realized that the moves were a tad stiff and the rock a bit wet to really safely be scrambling up unroped, so Joe got tied in and on belay, and two pitches of 5.easy plus some cedar scrambling up the corner to the left of Lewis Elijah got us to the base of the Diagonal's ramp. I led one pitch and Joe led the other; it's all very low angled and well featured so though there's not a whole lot of gear it's fine; it goes very quickly. There is a set of slings with rap rings around a large boulder at the end of the first 160'ish ramp pitch; there's a set of bolts at the end of the second. Joe decided to climb past these for another 50 feet or so to the right and a clump of trees at the base of the last two pitches, so we ended up simul-climbing just a bit. I was praying for a breeze the entire time to get rid of the bugs; swatting the flies was pretty much useless, though I felt like I must have done SOME good by smooshing 100+ flies that day.
We had quite an audience watching us from Summit Rock down below by this point, and we ourselves had a pretty good view of the thunderheads that were threatening to roll through the pass. Nothing to be done about it but go up, though. On the way up, of course, we'd noted that the rap stations were set up for double rope raps, and we'd only brought a single. Oh well... In the interest of saving time with the impending rain, Joe went ahead and did the last two (short) pitches (the only ones really worth doing on the route). The first move off the ledge was a little strenuous, but there was nothing really too bad after that (and the first move wasn't even particularly bad; rather than go up the corner as Joe did, I went up over a bulge about five feet to the right). I was surprised that our audience remained even after the rain started, and a little irritated: since I'd been diligently chugging my 3 liters of water on the hike in, I needed to pee pretty badly by that point. After telling Joe to hang out for a sec, I went ahead and just went behind a cedar and did it into a little crevice at the back of the ledge. I figured that with the rain coming in, it'd be ok!
The rain started as I was finishing up the last pitch, which has a great traverse left on a beautifully incut ledge on steep rock. I was getting too wet and bitten up to really fully appreciate it, but the moves were really fantastic. At the top, we gathered up our stuff pretty quickly and set out to get off the rock, since the rain was coming down pretty hard and the thunder was really going. I carried the rope and some draws; Joe had the rack. There wasn't really any sort of trail heading the way we wanted to go (left) through the hemlocks, but at least up top it was fairly flat so it wasn't too bad; mostly just pushing the branches out of the way and occasionally pausing to unsnag the rope on my back.....tbc some day...
posted by Stella Bella at 8:11 PM
4 Comments:
Wallface?. Hardly worth the effort it atkes to do it. Life is too short to climb such choss, but I guess everyone needs find this out for themselves.
That's kind of how I felt about it, but I can see how it might be different in the autumn when the hike in is nice and bug free, the trees are nice colors, and perhaps on a different route - Pleasure Victim? Eastern Shield? Hey, either way I've never walked that many miles before in my life!
BTW: Great Blog! Love reading it.
Thanks! I'm mostly just using it as a way for myself to keep track of what I've been up to since I've got the memory of a goldfish.
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