Two Classics in Two Days

Two Classics in Two Days (by accident)
? 2000

by Andy Gale

As a fairly new big-wall climber, in the past year I have done a couple of "beginner" walls and have been hoping to work my way up to harder walls bit by bit. For most of the summer I had been talking with my friend Jacek about doing a wall with him. He was my partner in my very first (aborted) wall attempt last year and shortly thereafter he moved to Texas and hadn't done a whole lot of climbing since then. We finally made arrangements for a vacation in Yosemite to do some climbing and it turned out we would have a small group of people along, including my friend Jean and Jacek's wife Amy. I began to plan a climb of the Prow on Washington Column, with the logic that it was one step up from what I had already done and also very manageable for Jacek's first wall.

Jean and I drove up to the Valley a day and a half before Jacek and Amy were scheduled to arrive, as Jean had designs on the Prow herself, which she was going to climb with Geoff. I had nothing else planned for that day and a half so on Saturday afternoon I helped Jean and Geoff carry their loads up to the Prow. Then Sunday morning I carried a load of water and my static line up to the Prow with the intention that Jacek and I would start off on Monday morning. I then immediately helped Jean and Geoff carry their loads back down as they bailed that morning (and that is a whole different story!).

Later that evening, after climbing all of one pitch on a hot day in the valley, stupidly enough, one that was labelled "the slipperiest climb in the valley" in the guidebook, Jean and I finally met up with Jacek and Amy at the Crane Flats campground. But, to my surprise, Jacek was wavering on climbing the Prow at all, in favor of getting a little more variety of climbing in on his first real climbing vacation since leaving lovely California. I couldn't really blame him. Afterall, he had done little but work for the past year. On top of that, this would allow him to return to camp with his lovely wife every evening.

Day one (Monday) we decided to start off with an easy day so Jacek could get back in the groove. So we decided to climb the Regular Route on Fairview Dome. Jacek climbed it last year so he was familiar with the route. We got a reasonably early start and were fortunate to be the first ones on the route starting at about 8:40. I lead up the first pitch, first climbing up the right crack a bit to place some gear and then stepping over to the left crack. The 5.9 crux was a just a couple of moves and passed quickly. The climbing was aesthetic and fun. I then continued on up to a nice ledge with a small tree and brought Jacek up. The weather was beautiful, cool and clear and the rock was perfect. As Jacek finished up the pitch another party showed up at the base and started roping up. A little while after Jacek started up the next pitch the leader started climbing and before long he was at my belay. He moved really well and I was a bit worried that we would hold them up. We chatted a bit and discovered that we knew some people in common in San Diego. But well before his partner arrived at the belay Jacek put me on and I took off. I tried to climb fast as I didn't want to hold them up. Besides it is always fun to climb these routes efficiently anyway. Over the next few hours we continued up the climb through progressively easier, but always fun, high quality pitches. The party behind us never really pressured us to get by and it didn't seem that we held them up much as the second wasn't as fast as the leader. Higher up I couldn't help but notice a crowd of people now gathered at the base of the route queued up to climb. Ouch. Sure it was a great route, but I would rather be climbing then waiting anyday. Finally Jacek and I pulled out onto the sunny flat summit of Fairview at about 12:40 after 4 hours of excellent, fun climbing. Forty minutes later we were back at the car and we cruised back to camp for lunch. Then we headed down to the Valley to retrieve my rope and water bottles from the base of Washington Column. We took a leisurely hike up and also checked out the start to the Royal Arches route as Jacek was considering it as a good route for he and Amy to do later in the week.

That evening we planned the next day's route, which was to be a considerably larger undertaking. We had to get some aid climbing in so we figured that the obvious choice was the classic one day route, the Lost Arrow Spire, from the rim. We set our alarms early and before we knew it was daylight and we were driving down into the valley to start that long hike up to the rim above Lost Arrow Spire. The switchbacks were infinite but gradually we gained altitude above the valley floor. At one point, while stopped for a drink, I asked Jacek if this route wasn't one of the fifty classics. It seemed to me that I had heard that it was but I wasn't sure. Jacek wasn't either but he thought it might be. It then occurred to me that the Regular Route on Fairview was also one of the classics. I told Jacek that we really ought to climb Royal Arches the next day so we could bag three of the classics in three days! Now that would be cool! But at that point I pooh-poohed the idea because we were already planning to climb the Third Pillar of Dana the next day. Of course, by the end of this day that plan had gone right out the window. Finally, after seeming endless hiking we got to the Yosemite Point overlook after close to three hours. I stepped up to the railing and looked out. Damn! That was the scariest thing I did all day! Wow, talk about exposure! I wanted a rope.

Presently we got racked up and dropped our two fixed lines over the edge of the rim and rapped away down to the notch. The first thing we did was get our second rope stuck somewhere down in the chimney on the left side! Oops. Jacek rapped down and retrieved it and we scrambled gingerly over the loose rubble down to the fixed anchors at the corner of the spire. The hangers had the now familiar ASCA stamp on them and they sure looked good! I clipped in and leaned around the corner! Hoo-ah, exposure city! Gotta love it! A little way up the shallow dihedral was a fixed pin and the route was obvious.

We got organized and presently I balanced up onto a thin flake at the bottom of the starting dihedral over that huge exposure and reached up to clip the first pin. I stepped up into the aiders and I was off. The aiding was mostly on fixed gear and nice shiny ASCA bolts (thanks guys), with the exception of a Fish hook placed into the bottom of this big solution bucket so I could step up higher before executing one free move in the bucket to reach the next bolt. Presently I climbed an easy ramp to a ledge and walked across it to the base of a wide crack behind a flake. The beta I had seen was that it could be aided with #3-#4 camalots with maybe a #2 at the bottom. I reached to my rack but the #2 was nowhere to be found! I then recalled trimming it off the rack last night with the mistaken impression that there were two of them on the rack! D'oh! I managed to place the #1 camalot instead but it was fairly deep behind the flake. I then proceeded to crack jug for 10 feet or so with the #3 and 3.5 camalots, presently leaving the 3 followed by the 3.5 then the 4 before a final couple of free moves onto the Salathe Ledge.

What a cool position that was! The pool at Yosemite Lodge was a small blue blob far below and the Merced wended its way through the valley. Soon enough Jacek was at the base of the wide crack, but the bloody #1 camalot was stuck! It was so far back it was difficult for Jacek to get at it but he worked at it and worked at it. After about half an hour of frustration I told him to give up on it. Damn! That was one of the first cams I ever owned. Oh well. Time to keep moving. So far we were making decent time. We had been climbing for a couple of hours.

I had decided to break the climb up into three pitches to minimize rope drag for the free moves at the top. Supposedly at the top of the flake system was a stance to belay at. Jacek pulled up on a bolt at the other end of the Salathe ledge and leaned around the corner to spot the next placement. There was a manky fixed alumahead but he decided after some debate to do without it and presently disappeared from my view unless I leaned way out and peered up. About this time I was hearing voices from below and before long I spotted a helmeted head below me at the base of the flake. A bit later a guy pulled up beside me on the ledge and clipped into the anchors. He was Spanish and they were a party of three. We managed some conversation and exchanged pleasantries.

After a while Jacek fixed the line and then pulled the trailing line up higher to avoid snags. I headed off up the pitch as the second Spaniard approached our ledge. It turned out that there wasn't really much of a stance at the top of the flakes and Jacek had a fairly cramped hanging belay set up. But we transferred gear over and I continued up the final pitch. This pitch had a couple of rivets on it, and one really manky broken bolt that I had to high step off of. But basically it was a solid bolt ladder. Finally I clipped one more bolt, stepped up in the aiders, and clipped the rope through a draw on that bolt then stepped out of the aiders while holding the draw. I then padded up a couple of low angle slab moves onto the top. As Jacek jugged I arranged the ropes for the Tyrollean traverse. When he arrived we discussed strategy trying to come up with a way that our one camera could be used to take pictures of both of us on the traverse.

Before long the lead Spaniard showed up and expressed his opinion that we didn't have the rope nearly tight enough. He said we should tension it with a gri-gri and it would be much easier. It was about 5PM at that point and we had plenty of time so we agreed to pool our resources and do the Tyrollean together. He set up his gri-gri on our rope and described what he thought we should be doing. Then we waited around for the other Spaniards to show since the third guy had the second gri-gri (to tension the rope at the other end after it was rearranged to pull the ropes). Presently the lead Spaniard jugged away and made fairly quick time with the traverse. Then Jacek followed and soon found out that it wasn't nearly as easy as that guy had made it look. He rested frequently and eventually made it across. Then the second Spaniard took off and had as much trouble as Jacek. Finally it was my turn. We had loaded most of our rack into our pack and I was trailing it behind me clipped to the rope with a biner and to my belay loop with a short sling. This proved to be not such a good idea as I was soon lifting the pack directly every time I pushed my bottom ascender up. I'm not sure why it worked that way but it was one hell of a workout. I thought the traverse might be scary but mostly it was just work. Eventually I did make it across and when the third Spaniard followed we were finally all back at the rim.

By this time it was well past 7 PM and the sun had disappeared. So we wasted no time in packing up and headed off down the trail. After a while we pulled out headlamps and continued on our way. Once again the switchbacks were endless but finally we dragged into the Camp 4 parking lot. At the top of the hike out I told Jacek that we should bag trying the Third Pillar as I was just too tired to think of another long approach hike. "What the heck, let's do Royal Arches with Jean and Amy", I said. When we finally hit the car at about 9:15 I said, "Screw Royal Arches I am sleeping in tomorrow!"

So that was it, we decided to settle for two of the Fifty Classics and the next day we slept in and had pancakes. Then we eventually drove up to Tuolumne meadows and Jean and I lazed our way up South Crack on Stately Pleasure Dome in the balmy sunshine. That was yet another classic, fun climb and all too soon it was beer-thirty and we were relaxing next to the car. All-in-all a fantastic vacation! Maybe I'll have to buy that Fifty-Classics book and see just how many of them I have actually done.

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A Los Alpinistas story and photographs by Andy Gale.