Yosemite - Nose - 6/2-5/2005 - with Johan Hvenmark

Here is a brief version of a trip report.  Hopefully more later.

It went relatively normally (3.5 days of climbing):

June 1.  Left Palo Alto at 3:45pm, hiked our gear in to the base of El Cap.

2. We swapped the 4 leads to Sickle, tied ropes together to reach ground.
Johan rapped down, passing the knots, fetched the haulbag, and tied it on.
I hauled it direct to Sickle, then rapped, fixing to stations.
We had a pizza, and slept on the ground (avoiding mosquitoes).

3. back up to Sickle, dropped the extra 2 ropes to the ground.
Johan led 5 pitches from Sickle to the swing into the Stovelegs and
the first main Stovelegs pitch above.  I led the long 3" crack and on
to El Cap Tower and fixed a rope on Texas Flake.

4. Johan led Boot Flake, the King Swing, the long aid pitch above, and
a short traversing pitch.  I led the pitch to Camp 4 and on to Camp 5.

5. I led from Camp 5 to the top.

6. We descended the East Ledges.

Of course this does not say much of what really happened.  The main
complication was that there was a party which had fixed the first pitch
the day before us, and they stayed 1-2 pitches ahead of us the whole way.
Fortunately they were friendly, fairly fast, and there was lots of room
at the bivvies.  But it delayed us on the very long day from El Cap Tower
to Camp 5, as we had to wait for them to lead and haul to Boot Flake
before we could start that pitch.  So it got dark on us as Johan
was cleaning the Great Roof, and I had to lead Pancake Flake and the
flaring pitch to Camp 5 by headlamp.  We got into our bags at 3am that
night.  I also led the final bolt ladder pitch by headlamp, and after the
final slab and the hauling we got into our bags at midnight.

It was also fairly cold; we could have used warmer sleeping bags and
warmer clothing, especially for Johan when belaying me on some of those
leads in the dark and wind.

I took 123 photos and Johan took many as well; I should be able to
put some of these up on the page at some point.