Valley Report  9/97

Evan Bigall and I did some Yosemite cragging last weekend.
It was the first time I tied into a rope in about 5 months,
following my broken (right ring) finger.  Evan led everything,
and I happily rode the toprope.  It felt good to grad some real
rock again, and we got good workouts.

Saturday:  Pat and Jack Pinnacle area
We pretty much systematically bagged 5.10 routes from left to right.
Evan had some trouble freeing the routes cleanly, but I won't go into
these details.

1. Knob Job 5.10b, a nice double crack.  I didn't feel like committing
my newly-healed finger to the usual fingerlock crank on the second crux,
so I kept using the left crack.  There is a fairly new set of chains
just above this, so you don't have to traverse left to the old anchors.
A 50m rope still doesn't quite reach the ground, though, but the lowest
part can be easily downclimbed.

2. new bolted route 5.10c, right of Knob Job.  This is sort of a
retrobolted start to an old route.  It's mostly well protected 5.8
knobs, then a big reach move at the blank spot.  The last 2 bolts
are in strange spots.

3. Trough of Justice/Knuckleheads 5.10b (big knob arete/face).
We tried to use the Knuckleheads start, but couldn't crank the lower crux.
So we both traversed to the easier Trough start.  At the shared arete
crux, I aided on a bolt, because I was afraid of skating off and skinning
a knee.  Above here, Evan took the Knuckleheads finish (L face), and got
stranded after slinging a knob above the last bolt.  If he had brought
a TCU, the pro would have been OK, but he had done a move onto a big
knob that he couldn't seem to reverse.  Fortunately he managed to crank
the very reachy next 3 moves, so he didn't test the slung knob.

4. Desperate Straights 5.10a/5.10c (2 pitch crack climb).