Ramblings of a Monkeygirl I laughed, I cried, I fell down…

Yosemite Valley Trip Report, May 2009: Day One

Wherein I learn to love Yosemite even more, and I lead my first multi-pitch trad climb.

The idea of waking up at 3:15am on a Friday for a four hour drive after only two and a half hours of sleep would probably seem crazy to most people, and I confess, a few of my brain cells might have been screaming at me to be reasonable. The rest of my whole being, however, was humming with excitement! I mean, I was headed to Yosemite to spend the weekend climbing with friends - who needed sleep!?! Sleep is for the dead, they say, no?

Despite a panicky moment of lost keys, I managed to get out the door to pick up Jeremy, and we headed for the hills. After securing a campsite at Sweetwater Campground, we hit the Valley floor around 10am. On the drive in I had the pleasure of seeing Jeremy’s amazement at the gigantic, gorgeous, and glorious granite cliffs (whooh! alliteration!). Yosemite is one of my favorite places on the planet, and I love seeing people’s awestruck faces when they see it for the first time.

Climb One: Munginella

I had researched different climbs during the week, and decided that I wanted to try Munginella, a 3-pitch climb on Five Open Books that was rated 5.6. The crag is right next to Yosemite Falls so we paused a moment to enjoy the site of the waterfall, still swollen and crashing from early summer snowmelt.

Antsy monkey was antsy, though, so we quickly pushed on to find the climber trail to the base of the cliff. I was excited, a little bit nervous, and amped on coffee so our fast hike uphill to the start of the climb probably wasn’t the only cause of my thumping heartbeat. The exposed and slightly sketchy scramble up to the starting belay position shook out my jitters and got my head in the game – Focus, Monkey, focus! (Why yes, Nina, you can actually die out there!)

It took Jer and I a little bit to set up since it was our first trad climb since Red Rocks back in March and only my third trad lead ever. The first pitch went surprisingly well and nothing sketched me out. The first belay transition, however, left something to be desired. Well protected but slow, cludgey, and a bit frustrating.

The second pitch also didn’t go quite as smoothly as I hoped it would. I wasn’t really sure where the line went, and, as a result, I ended up zig-zagging across the face. I didn’t bring enough slings with me so the rope drag was pretty tremendous (ugh). I also failed to shift left to the dihedral crack at the top of the pitch (where I now realize I needed to go) and instead climbed up the face on two, thin, runout cracks off to the right. Even if the climb would have been cake (and I mean pretty fluffy cake even...) on top rope, there’s something about being so exposed that high off the Valley floor that made me have to take a slow, calming breath at one point. I managed to stick it though and placed two pieces of protection. When I finally hit the belay ledge I was so incredibly proud of myself that I may have done a little dance; after I set my anchor, of course.

A climber doing the route in two pitches met up with me on the belay ledge and asked to pass by. After introducing ourselves (his name is Stan) and chatting a bit (he complimented my placements), we did a funny little squeeze and shimmy past each other on the narrow ledge (interesting way to make new friends quickly) and he climbed on up.

I belayed Jer up and we decided to sit and take a break and let the other party’s belayer (John) pass by. We devoured a PB&J sandwich and washed it down with water while taking in the view of Lost Arrow Spire and Half Dome. I was pretty content to sit there for a bit, gently kicking my heels on the rock and chatting with Jer.

The third pitch was an easy cruise up the corner to the top, and I was soon standing on top of my very first multi-pitch trad climb. (Huzzah!!) There are a precious few times in my life where I’ve felt like I could conquer the world, and I can definitely say that this was one of them. I am fairly certain I did a little celebratory wiggle/dance at the top as well.

Stan and John were hanging out at the top so Jer and I talked with them for a while. Turns out they’re from the Bay Area as well and are both members of a Yahoo rock climbing group made up of people from the area. They waited for us to hike down the descent and kindly let us rap down the wet part of the trail on their rope.

Climb Two: Swan Slab Gully

By the time the four of us hiked back down to the Valley floor it was sometime around 4pm. After some discussion, we all ended up heading over to Swan Slab to check out the Swan Slab Gully climb. Jer and I planned on doing just the first pitch because of the time, while John and Stan set out to do all three pitches. Jer was leading this climb and made quick work of the short first pitch. After I climbed up to the first belay station, Stan started to tease us to try to get us to do the whole climb with them. It took Jer and I one glance at each other and we were in. The only problem was that neither of us brought our headlamps, shoes, or water since we didn’t originally intend to do the whole climb. John was still in the middle of the long second pitch, however, so I lowered Jer back down, he grabbed our gear, and climbed back up on top rope.

Jer had no problems with either of the next two pitches and things went pretty smoothly. The only hitch was the ravenous swarms of mosquitoes that attacked me at the second belay station. The bastards didn’t even have the decency to bite me on exposed skin. They just taunted me by biting me through my clothes! I spent the entire time wiggling and shaking my pony tail like a mane to keep them off me. We topped out and hiked back down with our new friends. Two multi-pitch climbs in one day. Not bad for our first day in Yosemite.

Reflections

As I’ve already said, Yosemite is one of my favorite places on the planet. Nothing I’ve ever seen rivals its beauty – even with the hordes of people and craptastic Valley traffic you have to contend with on summer weekends. Now that I know that I can actually climb in Yosemite on multi-pitch trad climbs, the park holds an even higher place in my heart that it did before. Yes, that’s totally sappy but it’s true. The entirety of my being sings with happiness when I’m Yosemite, and I have more reason to go there now than ever before.

Our first day taught me that I CAN really do this stuff. With a little more practice, I know our belay transitions will get faster and cleaner. Also, I’ve found I can be a bit dictatorial at times about how I want things to go when I’m on lead, and I need to mellow it out a bit (I’m a bit of a safety bitch. Thank you for being patient with me, Jer!). It’s never out of a lack of trust, however, because there was never a time when I felt uncomfortable with Jer belaying me. It’s not a bad thing to be reminded that there’s a reason you trust your climbing partners with your life.