Pinnacles:  Crackaphobia started,  Diablo:  Nancy   2/23-24/91
Subject:      Communing with the pigeons

On Saturday, Jon McConachie and I got an early start and worked on a new crack
line on Machete Ridge (left of Son of Dawn Wall).  It started with well-spaced
jams through a bulge (a bit of tape was necessary), then steep fingerlocks with
the usual shaky footholds and face climbing to a rest.  The second bulge had
a good wired nut for pro, then I placed a bolt from a #4 Friend in a shallow
pocket.  This bolt took me over an hour to drill; I'm getting a rubber drill
grip and maybe grinding my bits to a plain chisel point to cut down this
embarrassing time!  It looked much thinner above, and I lowered off.  Jon took
over as sun hit the wall, and did a lot of scrubbing but couldn't quite crank
the move to the next stance.  I went back up -- I couldn't crank the lower
moves this time due to hand bruises, so I just yarded up on the rope.
At Jon's high point, I aided on wires to scrub and
placed a second bolt (a mere 45 minutes this time, ughh).  By this time the sun
was getting low, but with cleaned holds, I could crank the moves past the bolts
at minimal 5.10.  It looks like jugs above, so it will go clean to the belay.
We plan to return next Sunday with Jon's brother Jim to finish it off.  It has
some neat moves (pocket and crack), with an incredible bucket/pocket above the
first bolt.  It was interesting to see the transformation from looking
impossible to reasonable after the wire brush scrubbing.  We were entertained
by pigeons all day, and the low angle approach corner was full of pigeon turds,
which may deter some!  Possible name:  Splat on my Back.

On Sunday, Nancy went to Diablo with Wendy Roberts of Berkeley.  Wendy was
somewhat out of shape due to intensive study of Costa Rican frogs, and Nancy's
tummy has just recently gotten too large to do the Plaque traverse at Stanford,
but Nancy still cranked a lot.  They ran into Hugh Pease and John Shurtleff
there; John had to beat a hasty retreat after ripping a flake and his fingertip
off.  Hugh referred to Nancy as "Mrs. Beta" after she appeared with the crucial
3/8" hanger for setting up Jungle Book.