Pinnacles - SAC informal trips - Jan. 28 & 29, 2006

On Saturday, Darko Sarenac, I (Clint Cummins), Frank Winklmeier,
Ben Cline, and Zach Greenberg drove down for the day.
We also saw Ozgur + Ekin, and Dan + Ashley down there at Discovery Wall
as well.  The day started a bit cloudy but soon the sun was out and
it was nice and warm.

For the warmup, Darko led Wet Kiss 5.9; Frank and I followed/toproped.
Darko then led Big Pucker 5.10d nicely, placing some cams to supplement
the bolts; I followed.

Ben led Swallow Crack 5.6 to the top bolt which had a huge quick link
in it that he thought might indicate a belay anchor; he made a toprope
anchor and lowered off.  Zach followed and lowered down.  Then Ben
toproped back to the high point and led the final 20' runout to the top
of the wall.  During this time, Zach and I watched at least 35 swallows
come flying out of the crack!  I followed and cleaned the gear.

Frank led Portent 5.6 and Darko followed.

Darko led Between a Rock and a Hard Place 5.11a, with a brief hang getting
clipped into the final bolt.  Frank followed up to the 5.10c section.
I followed, and Ben toproped up into the 5.10c section.

I led Plague 5.9+.  Frank followed to the roof, but couldn't make the
tricky crux moves past it.  Darko then followed.

I led Ordeal 5.8 and Frank followed, with a brief hang above the crux,
near the end of the steep section.

Near the end of the day, Darko took a shot at leading Mammary Pump 5.11b
in the fading daylight.  He made it to the crux, but couldn't quite
make the crux long reach to the knob.  He took a couple of short falls/hangs
here.  It got fairly dark, so he lowered and I toproped up and cleaned
the gear.

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On Sunday, Eu-Jin Goh and I drove down.  It was fairly cloudy on the
way down, after it had drizzled on Saturday night.  At the base of 
Swallow Crack, it was drizzling slightly, but after about 10 minutes it
stopped and I led the corner.  It was sunny on top, and Eu-Jin enjoyed
following (his first time 5th class rock climbing outside, although he's
a mountaineer).

Next I led The Cleft 5.6, a fun chimney.  Eu-Jin found this a bit more
challenging; there is not much like it at the gym.  But he figured it out,
including cleaning all my cam placements.

We had lunch in the sunny/grassy area below Stupendous Man, where Eu-Jin
produced his stove and cooked some Tasty Bites.

We did Entrance 5.7, which is a flaring wide crack through a couple of
overhanging bulges that I had not done in awhile.  The crux for Eu-Jin
was when the sneakers he had racked were getting stuck in the crack
on the second bulge.  But he declared it felt a little easier than The Cleft.
We did a second pitch by climbing the nice knobby face directly above
the belay chains.

We hiked over to the Monolith and did the Regular Route 5.8 in one pitch.
We had trouble redirecting the belay rope after the rightward traverse,
so I tied it off and dropped the other end of the rope from a belay
station further north, so he was protected on the initial moves in the
ramp/groove, leading to the leftward traverse.  For the final thin face/slab
he was back on the original belay rope; he hadn't done thin face like
this before, but figured it out.  We climbed the summit boulder and
signed the register, then rapped off before dark and hiked out.