Welcome To Huaraz 7-2 to 7-8-2012

Welcome To Huaraz
July 2-Jul 8

July 3 Day:
After arriving in Lima and meeting Mark and his girlfriend for drinks, I was was ready to get the hell out of there quickly. Lima exemplafies almost everything that I look to avoid when traveling. Noise, polution, overpopulation and Mcdonalds - just to name a few things. I spent the night at a hostel, then packed up my stuff in the morning to Cruz Del Sur busses to take the 8 hour ride up the Death Highway to the town of Huaraz in the Peruvian Andes. Tony had hooked it up and had gotten me a front row seat on the second level of the bus. The perfect seat to watch the bus tailgait autos on blind uphill turns winding through the narrow roads towards the mountains. Thrilling to say the least.

July 3 Night:
I promptly arrived in Huaraz after 8 hours of American movies dubbed in Spanish and some buswide bingo tournaments. I met Tony and Cory outside the bus terminal. They had been there for 3 nights before. So they bought all of our food, were all packed and had ordered transportation to the trailhead and 5 burros to carry 300 pounds of gear and food to last us 12 days at base camp. All I had to do is cross my fingers and hope that I could catch up with aclimitization.

July 4th Day and Night:
We arrived at the trailhead as our Burros were loaded with the gear. We set off. Immediatly Corry started vommiting and shitting every few minutes. I beleive he had something bad to eat in town. He was really struggling. I thought I would be the one in that situation because of my lack of acclimitization, but he got hit with a stomach bug. I joked with him saying that (this may be me in a few days). That was some acurate foreshadowing.

 Cory could not make it past midway on the approach, so I hiked up to base camp and came back down with a tent, food and sleeping bags, so that we can both spend some time at a lower elevation. I was planning on doing this anyway. Although it was still at 13,200 feet. We ate and slept well.

July 5th Day and Night:
Rested at base camp 14,200 ft

July 6th Day and Night:
We spent the next day in base camp 14,200 feet - bouldering and resting. I read a book that I had started on the bus ride called Solo Faces and we acclimatized

July 6th Day:
We went on an acclimatization hike to 16,300 feet and I was feeling great. We had great views of Urus Este which was the peak we would climb the next day. I had good fitness in my legs and my body felt strong. Maybe those two months of heavy running and stairs instead of climbing had paid off. I then started to feel an upset stomach on the way down. I thought that maybe I did not eat enough sugar or had too much cheese up high, so I rested.

July 6th night:
I was eating like a horse the entire trip but I had a hard time choking down my dinner and I tried to wash it down with red gatorade. I ate maybe half. We were planning to climb Urus the next day and starting at 3am. Something just was not sitting right. I felt a churning in my stomach and before I knew it I was instinctively walking over to the corner. I vomited heavily several times in a row. First my dinner, then my lunch the my breakfast. The vomit was red from Raviole and Gatorade and my entire body hurt. I felt better momentarily and headed to my tent.

This was one of the top three most difficult nights in my life. I knew that I was in for a night of heavy vomiting. Cory and Tony had given me some plastic shopping bags to assist. I had to sleep in a reclined position with head above my chest, so if I vomited while sleeping, I would not choke on it. I didn’t sleep a second. It got dark at 8pm, winds were howling outside the tent and I would attempt to rest. I would feel pressure building up in my stomach and every two hours I would hurl. My entire body would convulse and Cory and Tony said I would moan throughout the night. I vomited in the bag and would lift it but it had holes, so it would drip all over the tent. The entire tent floor was covered in vomit and that made me even more nocuous. It was too cold outside to leave the tent. I somehow made it through the night and was stupid enough to want to climb the next day.

July 7th night and day:
I spent the day trying to drink water and Gatorade. I had half a Tiger Milk bar (it was the only thing I could eat) and half a cup of ramen. I packed up ready to climb at 3am.

July 8th day:
I woke up to climb and felt like shit. I had a headache. I now knew I had acute mountain sickness and not just a stomach bug. I packed up and headed down and told Cory and Tony I would rest in town for three to four days and then decide my plans from there.
(Insert base camp video when internet is faster)

So now I rest..

South Face Washington Column Rope Solo 7-9 to 7-11-2012

South Face Washington Column Rope Solo

June 9-11 2012

Background:  

I had been debating climbing another big wall route solo ever since my trip up Moonlight Buttress in February.  I distinctly remember telling myself “I am never going to do this shit again” and “That was the hardest thing I have done in my life.”  Well, four months later, I found myself planning another adventure.  South Face seemed like the obvious line.  It would be my first onsight solo and I could rappel the route at any point.  I packed my bags, cleared my head, and set off.

The Gear

Pre Climb Night:
My good friend Joven accompanied me to Yosemite.  He was planning to hike Clouds Rest and Half Dome.  We loading up the car and set off.  Traffic began to slow and then came to halt right past Magic Mountain.  Are you kidding me?  They closed down I5.  There was a fire and traffic was proceeding at a little less than a walking pace.  After two hours in traffic I told Joven “We should just turn around, it’s not worth it.”  I was rationalizing.  At this rate, we would arrive in the valley at sunrise with no sleep and a big day ahead.  He told me “Let’s keep driving and see what happens.”  This was the first of three times that I almost gave up on the climb.  We pushed through and 8.5 hours later, we arrived in the Valley.  I had slept 1.5 hours in the car and 1 hour when I got there.

Day 1:  

I felt sluggish; more sluggish than usual.  I was run down from the week before.  I was out late every night, was fighting a cold and to top it off I had a Yellow Fever shot on Friday that wiped me out and took away my voice.  I looked like shit and sounded worse.  To be honest, it added to the experience.  I enjoy type 3 fun, so stacking the odds against me didn’t seem too bad.

Pitch 1-3: 
I humped my haul bag to the base and made quick work of the first three pitches.  I had climbed these before en route to skull queen so I knew what was ahead.  Free climbing is much different with solo belaying.  What was a piece of cake a few weeks ago turned into a heart racing mental struggle.  “Should I put in a cam?  Will this device hold my fall?  Do I need another rebelay?”  These thoughts were running through my head along with “should I have brought approach shoes instead of trail runners?” as I was tip toeing through easy 5.7 terrain.  I made it to the ledge, unpacked my bag, ate my first meal of the day and took off to lead the Kor Roof. 

Some Pre-climb Venting

My Rope Systems

Top of P1 and onto P2

Dinner Ledge

Pitch 4-5:  I was fatigued on Kor Roof and was moving a bit slower than usual.  After a bit of time, I made it to the top and rapped down.  I thought to myself “Damn, do I really have to clean this?”  I rapped and cleaned and after some more energy, I made it to the anchors of the fifth pitch.  I finished by 6pm.  I was exhausted.  I had been climbing 13 straight hours with only a 10 minute break.  I was nauseous and very tired.  This was the second time I thought “I think I’m going to bail.”  I decided that I would just wait it out.  I wisely decided to stash all my gear on the anchor.  This way I was forced to jug the line and get my gear in the morning.  That as a smart move – gave me some motivation.

Looking up P4 Kor Roof

P5 Traverse

Left gear on top to force myself to climb the next day

Night 1:  

There was a party of two and a party of three but we had a comfortable sleep on Dinner Ledge.  I told everyone that I would be waking up at 5:30 AM because I would be moving slower.  They all agreed with this plan and I dozed off the second I hit the pillow.

Bedtime

Day 2: 

Pitch 6-9:  (There is a lot of rambling - you can just skip the text and check out the video/photos)

I woke up at 5:30, packed up my gear and took off.  I made it to my gear, racked up and said to myself “I'm going for it.”  I was energized by the sleep.  I made good work of the next two pitches and was finding a nice rhythm.  There were a few 5.7 free moves that were a bit spooky with trail runners, but I got over it quickly.

Next came the chimney.  I aid/groveled up it.  It was not fun.  I had eaten and drunken very little and was expending too much energy.  Every few moves I would make, I would get pulled down my Gri-Gri and would have to pull out more slack.  I was tying my backup every 10 feet, so untying and retying it was getting to be an issue but I didn’t trust my Gri-Gri would catch me, so I wanted the piece of mind.  To add to it, I was climbing the chimney with my back pack.  I made it through to some anchors but I had misjudged the belay.  There was another chimney in front of me and I thought it was part of the previous pitch.  I hung my bag and set a rebelay.  I wasn’t feeling very well and I had taken a break all day.  I was intimidated by the chimney; It looked about 50 feet.  I looked up and saw no pro options.  I thought to myself “I'm going to bail.” But I pushed on and saw the chimney was only 5 or 6 moves and there was a crack with a piton that exited out to the right.  Hell yeah.  I kept going and was aiding some easy 3 inch crack.  All of a sudden, the rope came snug.  This is when I realized that I linked pitches.  I was 10 feet from a tree anchor but couldn’t move, so I set a three piece anchor and rapped down to clean.  I raced up to belay and soloed past it and pulled up my ropes.  I set my belay then climbed the final pitch. I aided a bit, did a tension traverse, did some free/aid moves and made it to the anchor.

There is a 5.6 gully system that some parties choose to do and I was debating if I wanted to go up it or not.  I had no interest in topping out the route since I have been on top of column before and I had completed all of the technical climbing, so for me it was an easy decision.  This was the top of the route.  But I thought that at least I should go check it out.  I aided a mini overhang, mantled up and traversed 30 feet on loose exposed class 3 talus blocks.  I saw that could possibly be a gully but was not convinced.  I decide that I would forgo the true summit and rappel from the final aid pitch.  I was also concerned of rock fall in the gully solo aiding and then rapping and jugging.  I was happy with my decision.  At the same time that I was rappelling, the other party had caught up and had accidently coiled their anchor on top of mine.  I was glad that I didn’t rope solo the last section because this added rope drag and feeding issues could have lead to be a problem.  They were friendly though and I began my rappel.

I do not like the idea of double rope rappels in heavy wind but I made it down with no incident, ate some food and chugged my final liter of water.  It was 6:30pm.  I had been going non-stop with only a 10 minute break for lunch for the past 13 hours.  I was wiped, but happy.  I played some Cat Stevens and just relaxed.

Looking up to P7

Pitch 8

Midway up P8

Pitch 9

My Rope Bag on P10

Bottom of P10

Looking down pitch 10

Happy Jared

All done!

Night 2: 
The party of two ended up bailing, but the party of three that were below me topped out.   They had extra food and water and offered me a cliff bar and a liter of water.  It was heaven.  Thank You guys!  I waited for the stars to come out – tested out my SPOT device to prep for usage in Peru, called my parents and went to sleep.

Final Recap

My Favorite Sunset

Day 3:  

Descent:

I woke up and I finally had my voice back.  I felt weak but rested.  I packed up and began my rappels.  At the second rappel, I went to pull the rope and it wouldn't budge.   I tried every trick in the book but I couldn’t free it.  This left me with three options.  I could wait three hours for the other party to come down and free it (they had decided to re-aid pitch 4 and 5 to retrieve some gear).  I could re-aid the pitch with the remaining rope (although my gear was in the bottom of the bag).  Or I could cut the rope and rappel off half of a 60 meter rope.  I was run down, in a bit of a rush to meet my friend at our determined time at the Awanee and just wasn’t feeling re-aiding or waiting; so I cut the rope.  I have a feeling that trailing party cleaned it on their way down but if there is still a fresh green rope up there, then someone could use it to re-rig some of the fixed traverse lines on the pitch.  I apologize for leaving a cut rope on the route – the rest of the route was done clean.  After I cut it, I setup a beaner block for the final pitch and extended the pull cord with 50 feet of coordellete that was my anchor.  I made it to the ground safe and sound.  I packed up and headed to the Awanee for a sink shower and continental breakfast. It was such a contrast being up on the wall struggling and to come down and see plump tourists overeating and waddling around.  I felt pretty rugged and I felt special – In my own mind I had accomplished a goal of mine:  To rope solo a big wall onsight  in Yosemite.

Thoughts:

-I think I wrote this last time on my moonlight TR but “Rope Soloing Takes A LOT of work”

-I averaged about 5 pitches a day.  I could do 6 a day but no more.  I took about a 10 minute break each day to catch my breath and have lunch

-Camp Nanos are awesome - such a weight saver

-I pooped in a VONS bag with laundry detergent, put it in a ziplock and then cut an empty water bottle, shoved it in and taped it shut.  I left it on the outside of my haul bag.  the odor wasn't too bad.

-I drink more water when I solo.  I went through a gallon a day and still felt dehydrated

-I thought the more I did chimneys, the easier they would get.  I haven’t got to that point yet

-Aiding to freeing while soloing with a Gri-Gri  is scarier than when being belayed

-People usually think you have no friends if you solo aid – or for someone reason nobody wants to climb with you. The majority of the time (95%) I climb with partners, but I get much more out of soloing than anything else I have ever done climbing related.  It’s just you and you only.  You are in the moment for the entire time.

-It is easier to give up when you are alone because you don’t have someone telling you “no, let’s do it man.”  I just had to stay focused at the task at hand and keep doing my “Job” and eventually I made it through.

-There is a lot of rope to manage.  At some point, I need to ditch my 10.5 cm 70 meter rope – it’s really heavy

-I was glad to make it down with plenty of daylight

-Music is nice before bed but I don’t listen when I climb.  I had the same Cat Stevens song running through my head the entire climb – I’m an old soul.

-My haul bag weight was 75 pounds – much more manageable than the 100+ pounds I lugged up and down Moonlight Buttress

-Writing trip reports on my computer in the car is a good use of time but I realized I had about 100 typos!

Shots of other parties on the route:

Special thanks to Joven Borro:  Thanks for encouraging me to keep driving to Yosemite in 8.5 hours of frustrating traffic.  If I had driven alone, I would have turned around.

Skull Queen Happy Birthday to me 5-12 to 5-14-2012

Skull Queen  Happy Birthday to me

May 12-14 2012

Background:  

Lea approached me asking if I wanted to do a big wall with her.  She had always been interested, had all her personal gear and was super motivated; so I said sure.  We chose Skull Queen on Washington Column in Yosemite.  It was a good choice because it is just hard enough to keep things interesting (two pitches go at C2+), the right length to do in two to three days (one night bivy and one night on the ledge) and easy to rap the line if things got tough or weather got nasty.  So we settled on it, sorted out the gear and were ready to rock.

Washington Column

Day 1:

I arrived in the Valley and slept in backpackers campground at 3:30am.  Woke up at 8am and met Lea to pack the bag.  We shoved in sandwiches, VONS bags with Kitty Litter, snacks, sleeping bags etc...We parked at the Ahwahnee hotel and hiked in to the base of the column.  There was a party a few pitches above us but other than that, the route was clear.  Sleeping in was a good idea.  We climbed up to dinner ledge and the I fixed the Kor Roof.  Right when I got back down, Lea busted out a birthday sash and some cupcakes with candles.  We sang "happy birthday" and chowed down.  Lea also was in charge of the food and made some risotto and mac and cheese for dinner. Good thing I wasn't in charge of that; or else we would have fruit cups and granola bars for each meal.

Cupcake Candles

Birthday Boy

Day 2:

We woke up around 8am and got moving.  Some of the pitches took longer than expected and we were constantly readjusting our bivy plans.  I tried to link pitches 6 and 7 and during the link up I was confronted by my first major obstacle.  A flared 5.8 squeeze chimney.  The chimney was short (only couple of feet) and I still wanted to link pitches, so I attempted it with a full aid rack, a backpack and a lot of slack in the rope from being far from the belayer- not smart.  After almost shitting my pants, I down climbed and set up the anchor.  I then took a minimal rack and squirmed through it.  Next was the C2+ pitch.  It went micro nut, micro nut, small cam...then repeat for a 50 foot seam!  Then followed by some rivets and bolts and then some C2. SUPER FUN with bomber small cam placements.  Really fun.  I then lead some C2, fixed a line, rap cleaned and we set up our ledge.  It took some rope management and some ingenuity to make the ledge and bag fit on the pitch.  We set everything up before dark, ate some food and then crashed.  This left only one C2+ pitch and a 5.10c finger crack to end the last day.  

Curry Dinner Night 2

Day 3:

We woke up at 6:50am to get a bit of a jump start on the day.  We packed up the ledge and jugged up the start of the 10th pitch.  This pitch was not as fun as the 8th pitch.  It was sketchy.  At one point the only way to make forward progress was to place a nut deep in a 12 inch hollow flake that reverberated with every bounce test.  No bueno.  After i got past that section, I wanted to back clean my nut so that if I fell, I wouldn't send the flake down on Lea.  But the nut was pretty tight, so I left it for Lea to clean and didn't clip it.  Some tension traversing and some free moves got me to the belay.  I then sent the final pitch, shuttled loads to the summit, rested for thirty minutes and we were ready to head down.  Three and a half hours later (we setup a handline and two rappels during the descent for safety - we both had very heavy loads), we were in Curry Village having beers and loving life!

Great Views

Top of Pitch 10

Lea Cleaning the 10th pitch

Lea topping out the final pitch

Our Urine 

Summit!

Closing Remarks:
*Keylock Beaners on cams may not be good-we lost 3 cams from auto-unclipping from my waist

*Didn't hammer on the route although I hand placed a large beak

*Sucks for women on walls because of trying to pee with a freshette

*Remind me why I climb walls?  My hand were swollen, my body hurt and I felt like shit when I was done - but I still want more...

*BD C4's are useless unless the are .75 and up.  C3's are shitty aid pieces.  Metolius offsets and non offsets confused me as they all looked alike

*Same grade, but much harder than The Prow

*The descent was easy to find - we set up raps and handlines for safety, which was smart

*I wore gloves for the first time - it was helpful for my hands

*Next time bring nail clipper and climbing solve and cut hangnails and moisturize each night

*Hard Candys rock on walls

*Walkie Talkies are nice, but don't be on channel 1 unless you want to hear tourists shouting at each other

*Chimneys still scare me

*Climbing a wall with two people is less of a cluster fuck than three people but you have one less person to carry stuff on the approach and descent

*C2+ isn't that bad.  I wonder how C3 will be :)

*Poop Tubes are nice

*Why am I still hauling my urine?

*Lea rocked it - super energetic and optimistic and did great for her first wall

Tahquitz 31 pitches in a day 5-6-2012

Tahquitz  My birthday Challenge (31 pitches in a day-although I am turning 28)

May 6th 2012

The Challenge:

Hamik and I somehow got the crazy idea in our head that if it was easy to climb 30 pitches in Joshua Tree in a day, then Tahquitz would be doable.  Somehow we talked ourselves into marking it on our calendars and when the time came and the weather was right - we went for it.

Friday Night:

We drove up to Idyllwild and parked at the campground around midnight.  I was restless and fidgety trying to sleep and was only able to get about two and a half hours.  Our alarms woke us up at 4:30 am and we paced up and drove to the trailhead.  It was the fullest moon of the year - we barely needed headlamps.

The Start:

We approached our first route and there was a little snow at the base that we skirted up.  We simil-climbed Northeast Face West - which was a little bit of a leg workout with packs containing food/water/extra rope/etc...We made it to the top and stashed our packs and water.  We each had 3 liters of water.  Hamik brought 12 cliff bars for food (I would have gagged if I had to eat that) and I brought an assortment of banana bread/sandwich/fruitcup/bars.  We walked around near the open book and set up a handline to the rappel rings with a 70 meter rope.  We then set up two single rope rappels and began our adventure.

This was the handline that we setup to the rappel

Hard to read but left a courtesy note to why we were leaving the line

Lunch Time at 18 pitches:
We were over halfway done by noon and decided to chow down some lunch. I still can't believe Hamik ate all of those cliff bars

Yum-Cliff bar number 9?

Birthday number 28!
I was stoked to climb my birthday in pitches, so I got out the customary fruit cup to celebrate.  Totally forgot to play Jay-Z on my phone.  We both felt pretty good and were psyched to end the day on Open Book.

Enjoying my fruit cup

Pitch 31 - Open Book:

We climbed Open Book to total 31 pitches.  All routes were done cleanly with no falls or takes.  The sun was still up and we had the option of getting in a few more easy pitches, but we were both satisfied and had accomplished our goal, so we were excited to head to town for some real food.  We literally ran down the deproach trail, jumped in the car and headed out to dinner.

Hamik Following P2 of Open Book

The Routes (in order climbed:

Northeast Face West 5.6 (6 pitches) simul climbed

Angel's Fright 5.6 (4 pitches) simul climbed

Coffin Nail to Jensen's Jaunt 5.8 (4 pitches)

Fingertrip 5.7 (4 pitches)

El Camino Real 5.10a (3 pitches)

Fingertip Traverse 5.3 (4 pitches) simul climbed

Left Skitrack 5.6 (3 pitches)

The Chauvenist 5.8 (1 pitch)

Open Book 5.9 (3 pitches)

Downtown LA Parking Garage Crack 5-2-2012

Downtown LA Creek Parking Garage Crack Attempt

May 2nd 2012

Background:  Hamik scoped out some good looking parking lot finger cracks in downtown LA.  They looked really nice and were a variety of sizes.  We decided to set a date to climb them.

Approach:  Parking was a little bit of an issue which extended the approach to a 5 minute walk - not bad though.  Walking through the streets of LA with helicpoters over head and hundreds of cops for May Day was an interesting experience.  I felt like we could get busted at any moment.

The Climb:  Hamik geared up first.  He bounce tested a red C4 to see if it would hold, i did, but with a reverberating hollowing sound.  I gave him a belay and he climbed the first route.  

Security: He immediately came down and said "Let's get out of here. They look upset."  We frantically packed up all of our stuff as a security guard came out and told us that we had to leave the premisses.  He let us grab our webbing that we setup as an anchor and escorted us out.  I guess it could have been worse.  He was cool about it and said their liability insurance didn't cover climbing on the building.  I think that they need a more comprehensive policy!