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rhyang
climber
SJC
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Topic Author's Original Post - Aug 31, 2009 - 12:33pm PT
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Thursday night I and my friend Mike Z headed up 120 west, bound for Tuolumne. There was a roadblock preventing folks from entering the Valley. I'd read about the fire on the Taco.
It was pretty smoky at times. We could see ash blowing. As we drove on we could see the reddish plume from the fire off in the distance, and the moon seemed to be the color of blood. Wish we'd stopped for pictures, but I think that drive alone may have been equivalent to smoking a couple packs of cigarettes =:-O
Friday we decided to go in search of Coyote Rocks, a bit west of Mt. Hoffman. Turns out Mike had an older copy of the Reid/Falkenstein guide with outdated approach directions, so the approach was "interesting" :) Much bushwhacking in any case, some of it thorny. And then there was the scrub oak .. but hey, what's an adventure without a little suffering ?
We decided to go check out Upper Wall from Notch (5.7) first, a laid-back looking route that goes from the notch between the rocks to the top of the higher one. My lead ..
The rock was pretty grainy in places, which is another way of saying kinda sandy .. but there were also some really cool plates and knobs. The views from the top were nice too.
Half Dome
Mt. Hoffman
There was a nice third class scramble off the backside. We pondered our next route, and looked around for Buckets of Blood (5.8) which apparently is to the right of the amphitheater on the lower Coyote Rock. There was much thrashing through scrub oak. We noticed a fixed line hanging from the west end (hmm). Finally we decided to climb up a chimney-like thing .. well, Mike did -
The plates and knobs after getting out of the chimney were a lot of fun, rather like the third pitch of Hobbit Book. Mike set up a belay in another wide spot. The next pitch looked interesting, so up I went. Wow, it was steep in places, but the pro was more or less sufficient considering how positive the knobs and plates were. Difficulties eased eventually and I slung a horn & brought Mike up.
There was a nice view of the upper Coyote Rock from here, kind of showing the route we'd started the day on -
In the meantime the wind was blowing smoke into the Valley -- we could hardly see Half Dome anymore ..
The book wasn't all that specific about the descent. We scrambled around the top of this thing trying to figure out how to get down.
From here we couldn't see an easy way to get to the fixed line we'd spotted earlier so we sacrificed a cordelette & leaver biner to the booty gods and rapped off into the notch with our single 60m rope.
We thrashed around through the brush looking for Acme Crack (5.8), which supposedly is an 'obvious hand crack', but couldn't find anything matching that description. Or maybe we just got tired. In any case, we called it a day and thrashed our way back to the car. It was a nice adventure, but possibly better remembered than actually experienced :)
Saturday I wanted to go do some of the newly-listed routes on Dozier Dome. We brought my 60m half ropes so we could rap off without walking all the way down. I started off by leading Scandalous Summer (5.7), a fun romp -
Mike then led Cheeseburgers and Beer (5.8) -
In the meantime some other parties showed up and started on Holdless Horror. It was going to be a warm day, and a popular one at Dozier Dome. My big goal for the weekend was to do Bull Dozier (5.7) since I hadn't climbed any decent cracks in Tuolumne all season. We scrambled up to the first ledge, and I took the first lead -
Mike took the next pitch -
I found the wide spot a little thought-provoking :) The next pitch was rather easy and I scrambled over to the anchors for Ripple. Two raps with our 60's got us to the ground.
It was getting warm and we bemusedly had lunch & watched folks doing their thing. What next ? We decided on Isostacy (5.8). Mike lead the first and last 5.8 pitches -
I took the easy middle pitch of course :) Three raps got us down and by then we decided it was time for dinner. There are still a bunch of climbs we want to go back and do ..
Yesterday we decided to take it a little easy and do some crack climbing, so we headed over to south flank of DAFF Dome. The Guide Cracks seemed like a nice warmup -
From right to left, I think these are 5.5, 5.7 and 5.8 ? We took turns leading them and rapping off .. I led the 5.5 and 5.8, and Mike led the 5.7, though it felt kinda 5.8 to me. The last one was pretty heady for me, but I enjoyed it.
Some folks got on Alimony Cracks (5.8) in the meantime -
I think she is leading the 5.8+ wide variation .. hard core. Mike headed up after them and led the hand crack variation to the left. I was pretty psyched to do this one.
After rapping off we decided to wander off and look for Doda Dome. I think we saw it off in the distance, and it looked pretty far. We were both a little beat. In the process though we ran into a family of four that had been climbing on the River Wall, so we went down there and sampled some of its treats -- we toproped Lion of Judah (5.10d) and Zulu Lulu (5.9). I must say the latter felt really good after hanging my way up the former :)
It had been a fun trip and we'd both climbed a lot of stuff we'd never done before. On our way back down 120 we saw a fire crew hiking up the road and lots of equipment. The Valley roadblock was still in place. The smoke didn't look quite as bad, but there were a lot of ruddy-looking clouds. We counted our blessings and made our way west.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Aug 31, 2009 - 12:43pm PT
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bitchen!
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Prod
Trad climber
A place w/o Avitars apparently
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Aug 31, 2009 - 12:48pm PT
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Thank you.
Prod.
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Greg Barnes
climber
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Aug 31, 2009 - 12:56pm PT
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Nice!
Acme crack is not really that obvious - it's very steep, left-trending cracks on the steep wall left of the obvious Pleasant View Arete. For Acme crack, you start up a little corner/chimney for a few feet, then move out right into the steep cracks. Portions of the main crack are really wide, but you're mostly on face holds. Steep and juggy, but lichen covered in spots with some suspect holds. Also, it's a 140' pitch to the top (not 2 pitches), and it's two modern bolts with cold shuts up top. Pleasant View Arete is also just one pitch with a 60m (about 180-190'). You can rap twice with a 60m by rapping off this chockstone in the gully to the left (or you can downclimb the last 40' at 5.7-ish chimney/stem).
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kev
climber
CA
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Aug 31, 2009 - 01:12pm PT
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Good to see Mr Zel's back out on the rock consistently and working off his belly!
kev
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Mike Bolte
Trad climber
Planet Earth
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Aug 31, 2009 - 01:12pm PT
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Great report Rob! Thanks. Looks like all the fun little routes at Dozier are about to be discovered!
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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Aug 31, 2009 - 01:25pm PT
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sweet
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rhyang
climber
SJC
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 31, 2009 - 01:44pm PT
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Thanks all !
Walleye, the formation with the easy walkoff/up is to the right actually -- the higher of the two spires. Head up to the notch, and then turn right, up the north side (I think, didn't have my compass out, but it's the backside of the thing).
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Jingy
Social climber
Flatland, Ca
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Aug 31, 2009 - 02:03pm PT
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Cool report...
Great shots...
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Greg Barnes
climber
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Aug 31, 2009 - 02:07pm PT
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The main beta for Coyote rocks is to wear tough long pants for all the bushwhacking.
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10b4me
Ice climber
the reticient boulder at the Happies
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Aug 31, 2009 - 02:12pm PT
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thanks Rob. I really enjoy your trip reports. was just on the guide cracks last week. lots of fun.
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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
Boise....
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Aug 31, 2009 - 02:13pm PT
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Glad to see you're still gettin' out, there, Rhyang.
Right the frick on!
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Roxy
Trad climber
CA Central Coast
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Aug 31, 2009 - 02:20pm PT
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Nice TR, couple cool shots of the Valley from the high country...BONUS that the pictures showed up on the work computer. Thanks for sharing.
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Big Piton
Trad climber
Ventura
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Aug 31, 2009 - 02:45pm PT
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Great report!! Can I go next time?
MMM
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Aug 31, 2009 - 03:50pm PT
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Good to see you coming through the neck issue & staying with it!
Nice crisp knob shots too: brings back memories from my daily YMS mien.
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i.c.
climber
the dark side...
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Aug 31, 2009 - 04:32pm PT
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thanks for the pic, rob. great trip report.
that's my first 5.8 lead in tuolumne. the wide section was fun. i'm glad that you don't have pic of me hugging the rock, couldn't let go, and telling myself should have done the shorter 5.5 instead...
i.c.
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rhyang
climber
SJC
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 1, 2009 - 03:29pm PT
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Well, whatever you did it obviously worked :) I'm still trying to redevelop my wide crack skills .. those have been the slowest to come back after my accident.
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Omot
Trad climber
The here and now
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I've always wanted to go check out Coyote Rocks, so thanks for the TR. Keep on adventuring...
Tomo
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rhyang
climber
SJC
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 3, 2009 - 12:16am PT
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I have to admit that Coyote Rocks was kind of a fun mini-alpine experience. The brush definitely seems to keep the riff-raff out :)
While we ate lunch after doing the first route, Mike decided to clip his toenails in preparation for the next one, as he sometimes does. There were a lot of ants running around.
After we figured out what we were actually climbing, and he cast off up the route, I noticed while belaying that some of the ants were carrying whitish crescent-shaped things. Yes indeed, the ants were carting off toenail clippings about three times their size.
Construction materials ? The natural world never fails to fascinate me ..
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kev
climber
CA
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So did Mr Z. take his usual dump on top?
kev
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