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Nate D
climber
San Francisco
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Oct 17, 2011 - 07:52pm PT
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Well done Steve.
Great shots everyone. Love the tree pro, Tom.
Keep at it Justin!
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Tork
climber
Yosemite
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Oct 18, 2011 - 12:06pm PT
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Awesome, nice to be able to place a face to the name/routes. We loved Voodoo Child Steve. One of the best routes I have been on out at Shuteye. Nothing else like it that I have seen out there. I don't think it's been done in a while. The anchor on Voodoo Child is a definite candidate for replacement...think light, think light, think light. Would love to hear the story of your first ascent.
The game is definitely not over!
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Slater
Trad climber
Central Coast
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Oct 18, 2011 - 01:09pm PT
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route maintenance, nice job Steve. How'd it go?
Quick question for any Queen's Throne experts...
I climbed a route that started on RR's Coronet and then instead of going right into the middle of that roof and around the corner and up, it went sorta over the left side and then straight up a thin runnel up to the headwall and up it. I would love to know the name and rating. Equipped with button heads and metolious hangers. Late 80s or early 90s? I have 3 topos for Queens and it wasn't on any of those. There was definitely some 5.10a climbing in there, so I'll call it 5.8 like everyone else. Proud route, and the Robbins route was stout as well. Respect for any of you Queen's climbers.
Glad you're all having fun, enjoy the season before it's over!
Good to see Tiki and others at the Faceoff at Tollhouse.
Justin lives...
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Slater
Trad climber
Central Coast
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Oct 18, 2011 - 02:59pm PT
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Banquo
there is a solid trail to Dreamscape, so I just used that at the start, then booked it down a low angle slab to the fixed line/waterfall. I only had to walk along side the creek drainage for like 30' and it was no big deal. Pretty actually, no real brush crashing. The walk along the base was gorgeous, with that big wall and water chutes looming overhead. It seemed like the natural path, not sure if it was yours, but looked like it was the usual path used in the past, as it was worn, but not clipped. Actually, Queen's was one of the easiest formations to get to, no wonder it got so many routes on it so early.
Clint?
Nate?
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Oct 18, 2011 - 03:50pm PT
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Tom,
Your description of the left variation to Coronet is clear.
I don't know the name or rating.
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Slater
Trad climber
Central Coast
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Oct 19, 2011 - 01:41am PT
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this just in
climber
north fork
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Oct 19, 2011 - 11:51am PT
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SUNDIAL! Sheet yeah. Matt sorry to hear about your job, on-the-otherhand glad you get to get some soyo in.
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susu
Trad climber
East Bay, CA
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Oct 19, 2011 - 03:31pm PT
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Photos from climbing Voodoo Child this weekend. Awesome climb!
Add: Nice shots Tom & Matt! Queen's Dome is a beauty. And finishing off with El Cid's sounds fun.
Add: Really cool imagining going up Voodoo its first time w/the gear in that photo, Steve.
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Slater
Trad climber
Central Coast
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Oct 19, 2011 - 03:58pm PT
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missed ya out there Just In
Thanks Clint. Maybe we'll never know, but it was a stout route, pretty fun i guess if you like slab stuff, the headwall pitch followed an amazing rib of knobs that required really high steps and mantles. You could see that pitch from the ground, striking. The lower pitches were just average.
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Stephen McCabe
Trad climber
near Santa Cruz, CA
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Oct 21, 2011 - 03:14am PT
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The third pitch below the Robbins headwall is very cool looking rock.
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Stephen McCabe
Trad climber
near Santa Cruz, CA
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Oct 21, 2011 - 05:07am PT
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Tork, not much of a story about the Voodoo Child first ascent other than I really enjoyed all of it. It looked a bit intimidating from the ground. The roof/lieback/undercling was quality climbing. I saved our three #2 friends for the crux section above, but I don’t seem to remember anything too run out. I think with abundant gear, it could be sewn up. Someone suggested taking 6 or 7 green camalots. I lost my custom Manx Mountaineers chalk bag on the way to the climb.
We wanted to do a long route directly up the largest face we could see, so we did Big Sleep, which was about as easy as it looked but not as difficult as we had hoped. So we placed almost no pro, except on the nice pitch with the wide crack followed by two protection bolts on the face and then a runout. The variation to the left, which has been done at least twice, sounds more in keeping with the difficulty of the rest of the route than our crack pitch(?).
I was excited to do more new routes, but Doug wanted to go to the valley. (warning: potential thread drift ahead.)
Leaving the area in the VW squareback on our way to north to Yosemite was more adventurous. There was a steep downhill where I needed to go high on a rock on the right and slide back and down towards the middle of the road as I hit the far side of the rock to avoid a rock that would have high centered us. We knew we wouldn’t be able to reverse the move. How bad could it be in front of us? Ha. A while later we came to an interesting, wide creek crossing. After looking at it for a very long time, we decided to try to drive moderately quickly through it never letting up on the accelerator because the tailpipe would be below water. I came at it with some speed. Part of the way through we started floating sideways, maybe 5 feet forward and 1 foot sideways before the wheels hit rock again.
In the Valley, I seem to recall we got a late start and were on our way on the shuttle to go do a route on the Column. We got off the shuttle early because we decided to do the NW face of Half Dome instead. We must have bought some more food at Curry Village for the dinner at the base and headed up the trail. Cold canned beans and hot dogs, what a treat for a vegetarian! The next day, climbing and hauling we get to the ledge above the 12th pitch at about 2:00 pm where we had caught up with another party. The famous British climber, Pete Livesey and partner, working on Half Dome in a day, were gaining on us. Rain was about to set in for the afternoon and we were jockeying for who would do what. I took off my shirt because I didn’t want it to get wet and set off up the off width while Livesey was French freeing the A1 pitch. I didn’t have wide pro to slow me down and I decided to have fun trying to keep up with him. At the belay, it started raining, so I headed back to the ledge. Doug dropped my t-shirt while trying to hand it back to me, so all I had above the waist for the rest of the climb was a new, tan, pile jacket.
The next day as we were going for the summit, in the early afternoon we saw incredibly dark clouds over the Meadows and high country. We heard later that the water cracks on Lembert were waterfalls that day and supposedly Tenaya Lake rose 9 inches. We were rushing towards the summit as the clouds started backing West towards Clouds Rest. We had to decide either to hunker down or charge ahead. The last two pitches, going down and then back up, can be run together if you don’t put in protection and that got us to the summit quickly where we ran for the cables as fast as we could with the haul bag on a shoulder. We got incredibly lucky that the clouds did indeed stop at Clouds Rest, with us getting down the cables without any lightning.
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susu
Trad climber
East Bay, CA
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Oct 21, 2011 - 12:24pm PT
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What a treat reading your stories... highlights from memories... when your FA of Voodoo Child was only a warm-up! Wonder where your bag is in those bushes to voodoo... such a bushwhack. Probably has manzanita growing out of it.
We too have added to the adventure by occasionally driving around shuteye in a westy... flirting with the idea of having to abandon ourselves out there for days. But taking it across the water like that... whole other level of abandon!
On the big sleep, the crack pitch seemed in keeping with the rating below, except it wasn't runout, and we felt that we may have missed the crux pitch somewhere to the right. Didn't have the book with us so... with all the lack of sign of bolts etc... felt a little like fa'ing,except that crack variation was such nice climbing that seems it would have seen a lot of traffic if shuteye ever were to get traffic.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Oct 21, 2011 - 12:52pm PT
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I did a water crossing near Bowman lake once that had that same sort of momentum or perish scenario going on. Nearly panicked when water came briefly over the hood of my Isuzu Trooper! It didn't help my climbing that day, knowing I'd have to reverse that move...
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susu
Trad climber
East Bay, CA
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Oct 21, 2011 - 03:52pm PT
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Bowman Lake - never been there but read somewhere its got some really good climbing. Hope to see you climbing sometime soon!
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Banquo
climber
Morgan Hill, CA (Mo' Hill)
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Oct 29, 2011 - 04:51pm PT
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I'm thinking of going up to Big Sleep in a couple weeks if the weather is nice. I've never climbed there. If anybody can offer some information on the approach and perhaps topos I would appreciate it. Thanks
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Inner City
Trad climber
East Bay
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Oct 31, 2011 - 03:37pm PT
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Just back from a weekend in Yosemite. My wife and I did Afternoon Nap on the Big Sleep. Thanks to Tom's generosity we were very well prepared for this moderate adventure. Not another sole was out there on Saturday and we had a brilliant day.
Thanks Tom for your kindness and generosity. I too now know about the specialness of that remote area! Wow, what awesome rock quality and such a fun route!
That someone (Tom) is willing to put up moderate routes like the 'Nap that a former weekender/duffer like me can manage is just great.
I am imagining that the long driving approach to the area is something that may keep the 'crowds' away.
So Yo is wonderful...we will be back.
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Grahm Doe
Sport climber
Just South Of Heaven
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Pics of conditions from today...
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Slater
Trad climber
Central Coast
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Brrrrrrr...
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mooch
Trad climber
Old Climbers' Home (Adopted)
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Nov 10, 2011 - 12:35am PT
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Nice ice smear! Time to break out the Quarks!!
Look John....ICE!! Oh wait....you hate winter. ;)
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