Yosemite
If you go once, you go twice.
Yosemite
If you go once, you go twice.
Yosemite Valley, with its impressive rock towers and countless climbing opportunities, didn't disappoint me and Nik Kohler one bit on our first visit in 2018. On the contrary On the contrary, we knew as soon as we left that we would be back. There were too many projects smiling at us in these huge granite walls. So we pressed the repeat button in 2019.
After we had successfully validated our skills on our first visit, our ambitions and motivation to try something bigger increased.
We opted for the "Final Frontier" as an introductory tour. It was perfect for the warm temperatures because it is on the shady side of the so-called Leaning Tower. It is a rather modern route, which was opened in 2014 by James Lukas and Nik Berry and offers 9 very beautiful trad pitches in the difficulty range up to a maximum of 5.13b (8a/8a+).
Our main project on El Capitan was on the southwest side and we wanted to decide between "Freerider" and "Golden Gate". Unfortunately, "Freerider" became very popular after the movie about Alex Honnold's free solo climbing became very popular and quite crowded. So, without further ado, we decided on the neighboring route "Golden Gate".
This comprises 1000 meters of climbing, 41 pitches and is rated 5.13a (8a). Of course it is set up in trad style. It was first climbed in 2000 by Alexander Huber and immediately redpoint by the Huber brothers together.
Nik and I wanted to enter the route from the bottom and climb it ground up. On the rest day, we brought all our equipment up to above Heart Ledge. We had to up 10 pitches to get there. So our rest day was not really relaxing. But we had fun and it gave us an advantage for the first day of climbing.
And so we set off the following day and made very efficient and rapid progress. We soon reached our equipment depot. The first thing that awaited us was an impressive offwidth pitch. We had been advised to climb this pitch in the shade in the afternoon. However, as we made very fast progress, we were already standing in front of the offwidth at 11.30 and still in the morning sun. We quickly decided to start climbing and were already at the belay after 20 minutes. We took it in turns to lead climb and progressed very quickly. The two routes shared a rope length after this impressive offwidth. We set up our portaledge at around 1 p.m. and decided to take a rest. Two pitches later came the so-called down-climb pitch. The name said it all program, because you had to climb down 10 meters, as the route at this point of the wall did not allow a natural continuation.
We climbed a little further and set up fixed ropes for the following day on the descent in order to get back to our highpoint efficiently. And so the next morning we jammed up the ropes and continued our tour, taking it in turns to lead climb. A particular highlight was the key pitch with an interesting bouldering problem, which we climbed free on the second attempt using the foothook technique. free climb using the foothook technique. It's not every day that you get stuck 600 to 700 m above the ground in a boulder problem.
Our climbing trip continued over offwidths and beautiful cracks until dark clouds suddenly appeared on the horizon. A short time later, it started to snow. And so we set up our portaledge again and hid from the nasty weather. Two to three hours later, the sun was shining again and the rock dried quickly. At 17.00 the rock was dry and we decided to continue climbing. The most difficult length with a narrow finger crack was still ahead of us. We also climbed this free on the second attempt and after a decent fight. The The mood after this pitch was great: we had already completed three of four key pitches and had only been on the wall for two days.
The next morning we tackled a treacherous climbing traverse. Here, too, we had set up fixed ropes as preparation in order to reach the key rope length in an energy-saving manner. We managed them both onsight/flash and by 9.00 a.m. we had already completed all the difficult climbing sections. We carefully climbed up the somewhat fragile exit pitches and were on the summit between 10.00 and 11.00.
It had taken us two and a half days to complete this varied tour. We had allowed for more time and more water, so we laughed as we emptied our surplus water reserves. empty out.
My stories in Yosemite don't end there and I'm already looking forward to the next time.
