Tangerine Trip attempt 9/96  w/ Paul Friberg, Lin Murphy

>How did it go?
    Pretty badly, I guess.  The plan was to get 4 pitches a day, so we
would be off in 4.5 days (topping out midday on Sunday, allowing time to
walk off and drive home so Nancy could go to work on Monday).
   We did one carry to the base (mostly water) on Tuesday night.
On Wednesday morning, we carried the rest to the base, and started
climbing at 11am (rather late).  The day's goal was to fix 4 with 2 ropes,
and have our haulbags at the high point.  By dark, I was just starting to
lead pitch 4.  I led it in the dark, and Paul was too tired to clean,
so we left our lines in place.  This put us pretty far behind, and Paul
couldn't close one of his hands, so we bagged it.  Another factor was
that I was worried about a bad weather report for the weekend, and it
looked very difficult to retreat from above pitch 5.  Pitch 5 nails
diagonally above the lip of a big roof -- there was a party 1 day
above us, and we saw them doing it.  It would have to be nailed in
reverse to retreat.  Pitch 4 looked even tougher to reverse, since it
had a pendulum at the end.  On inspection in the daylight, however,
it looks feasible to retreat directly down from the anchor at the end
of p4, using the anchor on "Virginia".  On Thursday I jumared up,
cleaned p4, lowered the bag, and rapped off.
   Reasons for slowness:
- late start (needed extra day to get gear to base)
- it took Lin awhile to find the hooking traverse on p2 (she was about
  to give up; I had to offer suggestions on what to try).  This is not
  shown well in the topo.
- Lin belayed too low on p2 -- at a new anchor that might be used to
  avoid the "sharp edge".  So I had to lead a 25' pitch to gain the
  real anchor.
- our system for 3 people was not quite right.  The free lines were not
  fixed very quickly for the next leader.  Perhaps the next leader should
  simply clean, since that line is fixed first.  We also didn't have a
  quick way to haul the spare gear up to the belay.
- disorganization/rush.  I quickly packed one of the haul bags, but missing
  was a jacket (OK it was hot at the time), and Paul didn't have his
  belay seat (he was at a full sling belay on p3 for many hours...).
  Lin and I didn't have spare headlamp batteries, and our lamps ran out.
  Usually I don't climb at all by headlamp; it's just for at bivvies
  and a single emergency night.  But we had already used them for the
  carry on Tuesday night.
- the climbing was harder than we expected.  I didn't look forward to
  doing p5.  My back felt tired leading p4.

After bailing, we tried to get a consolation wall by starting The Prow
on Friday.  But a guided party of 3 just beat us in starting the first
pitch (short version of saga).  At least we had not yet humped our haul
bags to the base....  We free climbed a few pitches at the base:
- Jojo 5.10b (one move, then easy).
- first 2 pitches of the South Face of the Column -- fairly nice.
On Saturday we free climbed at the base of Middle Cathedral, and on
Sunday we bolted one of Lin's slab routes near Mirror Lake.
It's called "Cheap Date", 5.10, with 3 1/4" spinners.  The Pika drill
with allen screws comes loose very fast -- rather disappointing.
I heard that a 1997 rockfall mostly buried the route in talus, when
the left side of Werner's Crack fell off!

Clint