SAC Anchors II class - Yosemite - 10/22-23/2004

A lot of people applied to join this class, and 14 were selected somehow.

Trip Leader:  Dave Weaver
Instructors:  Polly Fordyce, Chuck Booten, Jared Brown, Clint Cummins,
              Scott Matula
Students:  Steph Abegg, Kali Albright, Jen Burney, Sam Chang,
           Charles-Henri Gros, Niloy Mitra, Jamie Nuwer, Dave Press,
           Arthur Rallu, Koushik Ray, Anne Steunou, Ian Suydam, Kim Woodrow
           [one person was unable to attend this weekend]

We chose to climb in Yosemite; the weather forecast was not great,
but it had as good a chance of being dry as other areas and has good
moderate multipitch routes and decent camping.

We met at 5am at the Tressider bollards, with everyone on time.
Jen, Sam, Jared, Anne, and Kim drove.  We arrived at the Camp 4
parking lot at a little after 9am and walked over to the left side
of Swan Slab.  The Yosemite Mountaineering School was in session
as usual on Oak Tree Flake, Penelope's Problem, and Swan Slab Gully
to the right of us, with 2-3 instructors and several young students.

Chuck and Polly opened the instruction by demonstrating the sequence of
belaying the leader (and follower) on multipitch climbs.  Then the students
practiced this themselves, (not actually climbing, but being tied in
and walking out to one side while the belayer feeds out rope).

Dave W. and Jared set up a "first pitch" belay anchor 15' up the 5.1 route,
and a second belay/rappel anchor on top.  This became a "mock" multipitch
climb, with Dave W. or Jared leading Anne first, and then Scott repeating this
process with many other students over the day.

Chuck began the anchor setting instruction at 2 cracks on the far left
end of the slab, roughly under the rappel anchor of the multipitch station.
The left hand crack was a nice deep 1.5" crack with good spots for cams
and a big stopper.  The right crack was thin and intermittent, more of
a challenge, but still a few good places for small wired nuts and small cams.
Students tried placing individual cams, and instructors provided mostly
minor critiques on the quality of these placements.

This was continued at several other cracks nearby - the 5.7, 5.9/5.7 and
5.8 left of Oak Tree Flake, and the 5.6 crack start to Kokl Duck.
In addition to placing individual cams, students joined 3 or more pieces
of gear with cordolettes to make belay anchors.

After a bit of this, Clint led the 20' 5.9/5.7 route to a ledge, placing
several cams.  Anne belayed him and provided some good spots as his foot
kept slipping off the slick hold on the initial move.  He belayed up Anne,
Sam, Steph, Dave P., Charles, and Arthur on this short climb, which had a
very tough 5.9 move or two at the start, and then eased to 5.7
face climbing and liebacking.  Each person cleaned the cams, anchored
in to the 3-cam anchor at the top, set up their rappel device on two
ropes, unclipped from the anchor, rappelled down, and reset/clipped in
the cams on the climb on their way down.  Clint belayed these rappels,
and instructed in the use of the "leg wrap", where the rope is wrapped
twice around the leg to stop midway on a rappel to do things like placing
a cam.

We also set up a practice multiple rappel.  Polly 'soloed' up 10 feet
of the crack the rappel was on.  She set a 3 point anchor.  All of the
students (except for Anne) rappelled from the top (about 30 feet high)
down to the lower anchor.  They then clipped into the lower anchor,
and transferred to a rope through the lower anchor to simulate a
multiple rappel situation.

Later in the day, several of us walked over to the far right side of
Swan Slab, where Clint led Claude's Delight, an 80' 5.7 crack to a bolt
anchor, with Steph belaying.  Steph followed, and Clint led a second pitch
with a right traverse on a horizontal crack and a short face with small
protection to a tree belay on top of the slab.  Steph followed smoothly,
and then rappelled back 120' to the base on the 200' (single) rope.
Sam and Dave P. toproped this climb as well, with Clint belaying from the
top.  It was getting late in the day, with some raindrops following,
so we didn't have enough time to replace cams in the full pitch for
practice removing them.

During this time, Dave W. led Lena's Lieback, a 5.9 thin corner to the
same bolt anchor (Clint and Steph had vacated this anchor by then).
Several students, including Anne toproped Lena's Lieback (I couldn't
see the route very well, so I couldn't identify everyone who climbed it).

It was late, and people were leaving for the campground, so Clint
pulled up the rope from Claude's Delight and downclimbed the 3rd/4th
class on the right side of Swan Slab.  We drove over to Upper Pines
and met everyone at the campsites.

Note to future visitors to Swan Slab - you can cross the road nearest
Swan Slab, walk between two buildings, and there is a bathroom in
the registration area for Yosemite Lodge (just past the seating for the
small outdoor theater).

-- Sunday --

It rained hard much of Saturday night, so things were pretty soaked
on the cloudy Sunday morning.  After breakfast, we headed over to
a small building at Curry Village, just west of the Pizza Deck, and
behind/south of the Curry Registration building.  We sat on some
benches outside the building, but under the roof.  It was fairly cold
but it was dry.  We sorted gear and Dave W. was reunited with 3 cams that
he was missing.  We talked about different things, such as the order
of events when doing multiple rappels, basics of setting up rappel anchors,
knots for tying two rappel ropes together, and an intro to self-rescue
of an injured leader.  After some lunch, Dave W. showed how to make/apply
the "palms free" style tape gloves.  At this point, it was about 3pm,
and the sun was still refusing to give much hope of drying things out,
so we said goodbye to the Valley and drove back home.