SAC Lead Backcountry Workshop II - Lover's Leap - 5/1-2/2004

This was the second of 2 weekend trips for the Lead class.

The first weekend was 4/17-18 in Yosemite, where Dave Weaver was the trip
leader, and the instructors were Dan Arnold, Ashley Laird, and Jared Brown.
The weather was rather wet.  On Saturday people practiced placing
gear and setting up (and testing) anchors at the base of Manure Pile Buttress.
On Sunday, they climbed at Swan Slab, mock leading a 5.9 (Grant's Crack?).

5/1-2 weekend:  Lover's Leap
Trip Leader:  Marshall Burke
Instructors:  Polly Fordyce, Clint Cummins, Dan Arnold
Students: Joe Cackler, Andrew Crook, Aaron Daub, Logan Egan,
 Steph Greene, Dustin Madden, Angel Pineda,
 [Matt Farrell and Jon Stocking were unable to attend this weekend]

We chose to climb at Lover's Leap in a brief discussion at the
Thursday evening classroom session.  The Leap has a large number
of climbs in the 5.7-5.9 range (relevant for people new to leading),
and it was unlikely to be crowded because the campground was
still closed.  Even though the gate to the campground was locked,
it was not a problem to park on the far side of the bridge and
stay at the campground.

We met at 6am at the Tressider bollards, with Dan Arnold joining
us as a last minute and very welcome 4th instructor.  Actually
one person was 25 minutes late, and was designated by our prior plan
to buy us all some treats since he was more than 5 minutes late....
Polly, Clint, and Andrew drove, with Polly's truck providing extra
space for gear.  We met at the Leap campground gate at about 10am.

We hiked in to the Hogsback, to the base of the Harvey's Wallbangers
climbs.  The students practiced placing belay anchors at the base
near the tree and out to the right.  Marshall and Polly led 100'
up the Left and Right Harvey's Wallbanger's routes (both 5.6) and
constructed toprope anchors for mock leads.  All students did mock
leads of one or both of these routes.  Often instructors would then
follow the mock leads to assess the quality of the protection placed
by the students on their mock leads.  I believe I took the only fall
of the day when I was following Angel on the left route in my hiking
boots and I unexpectedly popped off while removing some gear.  Angel
caught me nicely.  Dan arrived after some morning
separate "recreating" and took Logan and Dustin off to do Haystack
Crack (a classic 3 pitch 5.8) on the East Wall.  Dustin took an
embarassing fall when following the crux roof, because he missed
the key jug.  Marshall did Deception (5.6, 3 pitches) with Joe and
Aaron.  Steph did the first student leading, climbing Manic Direct
(5.5, 2 pitches) with Polly.  At one point during the lead, a (hand sized)
rock fell off, about 10' to the side of Polly.  It turns out there
were several loose rocks/flakes in the upper part of the first pitch
of this route, and probably the rope dislodged one of them.
I (Clint) tossed the largest remaining loose flakes off on Sunday
when I followed this pitch, to make it a bit safer for the future.
Near the end of the day, Polly and I cleaned the toprope anchors for
the mock leads by mock leading them, and then downclimbing the routes
on belay.  We figured this was faster than leading the second pitches
and walking from the top back around to the base.
The night at the campground was nice, with a little food and then
many well needed hours of sleep.

On Sunday, Dan, Joe, and Aaron got an early start, as Dan led them
up The Line (a really nice 3 pitch 5.9 on the East Wall); after The
Line the students led up Pop Bottle.  Marshall, Steph and Logan did
Pop Bottle (5.7, 2-3 pitches), where Logan led the first pitch,
and Steph took a look at the second pitch (but declined the lead,
as the protection is a little too sparse).  Angel and Andrew led
Polly up Deception (5.6, 3 pitches), while Dustin led Clint up Manic
Direct (5.5, 2 pitches).  Next, Dustin led Clint up Deception (5.6),
while Steph and Logan led Marshall up Harvey Wallbanger's Right (5.7,
2 pitches).  We all met up again at the campground, for the gear sort
and packed back into the vehicles for the drive home.