At best, I am relegated to weekend warrior status. I mean, you got to pay the bills, right? To satisfy that need on the weekend, Tahquitz has more than filled the bill. 2014 was my first year leading and I was able to get on;

Coffin Nail with Jensen's Jaunt finish (basically following)
El Whampo (only led the first and last pitch)
Fingertrip twice (so had led all the pitches)
White Maidens (alternated leads with 5.3 finish)
Northeast face West (alternate lead)
Jammit (followed)
Some wierd mix of routes on the Weeping Wall where I led second Clam Chowder Pitch

This year I had vowed to step it up a bit in difficulty and leading starting on May 30th. Here is the short and sweet of it on four consecutive Sundays.


May 30th; How to turn Whodunit (5.9, 8 pitches) into a nice epic

I suppose the alternative title would be "How To Piss Your Wife Off". To keep it short, I'll start with the mistakes made; The climb follows the dihedral to the top so stay in the f#cking dihedral, the climb is pushing the limits of our 3 man group a bit so get an early start, bring something warm (I wore shorts and a tee shirt) to wear just in case, and communicate with the wives beforehand as to what will happen if we get benighted. These things all seem so obvoius now.....

With an alpine 10:45am start, I get the first pitch of what will be a long day. And it goes pretty quick and easy, despite the fact that the parties above appear to occasionally knock rocks loose from above.




After the fifth pitch, the whole thing went wrong. As in one Right makes a wrong.

[Click to View YouTube Video]

I basically knew we should continue up the dihedral, but I did nothing about it. So on the sixth pitch, I set out into lala land, moving further right trying to find a way up. I found what looked like a promising crack system and headed up. The crack turned increasingly flaired, gritty, and difficult to protect. Not feeling too confident that I could protect anything for the next 30 ft, I saw a more promising line further to the left and made a command decision. I needed to friggen downclimb this mess and go over there. In the middle of this downclimb, one of the boys yells asking what in hell I am doing. I answer with I! #^* @$%! f#@k @@@#$!%. I'm paraphrasing, of course.

I have taken too long on this pitch, and the sun is going down. I mean sh#t, it's obvious. SO I move as fast as I can to get to the other area I see, set up a belay and start realing in the other two. I'm right below some sort of roof, with a weakness, so I realize we have a minimum of one pitch to go. With the sun rapidly setting, Mark heads up and over the roof and finds a ledge to belay from (as it turns out, working more to the left back to where we should be). But it is dark now. And Mark has the only working flashlight (I didn't mention that little bit of brillance before did I). I can't see much of anything, so I batman up to each piece, get a good hold on the rock and yell tension so Mark takes the slack up. I pull out some of the pieces but leave ones to protect the last guy as he comes up. The roof has good handholds so I end of climbing that part by feel. Javi follows and cleans the remainder of the gear.

We know we are spending the night now as it it black. So, we get down to the business of anchoring everything in so's we don't loose any people or gear. And we get down to the business of trying to stay warm; slowly sipping water and eating something every 1.5 hours, use the ropes as blankets, Mark lent me his windbreaker, and a little man spooning to cap it off.



I had the only cell phone, not that it mattered. I could not get a single text out all night from what ended up being the last pitch to go to the top (low 5th). If we'd have had 3 working flashlights, we could have made it out. Anyway, at first light we straightened the gear out did the last pitch, then started the trek down the North gully. Once we made it to the creek, we could hear the rescue chopper. Oh Sh#t, No doubt it was summoned by the "wives" (who btw were rightly freaked out).

When we got to the parking lot, we were greated by S&R. Told them what happened and they said we did the right thing and handed us recruitment flyers. We have since donated to them. One more hurtle to go; we needed to meet up with Patty and Gari in town. Throwing ourselves prostrate at their feet and begging for mercy seemed appropriate, but we got off with long hugs, some chastizing, and brunch with coffee. Dodged that bullet; now how would I get Patty out for the next Sunday.....


June 7th; FIngertrip (5.7, four pitches) with Patty

Got her out on this despite the past Sunday's events. It went smooth and she had a great time. All was forgiven (for now). Posted a TR on it. With Patty, I am the guide and lead all pitches. Great experience for my noobish self.



June 14th; White Maidens Walkaway (the 5.6 variation, 6 pitches)


We started on the 5.6 crack around to the left of the original(?) start, climbed through the pine tree up to that 5.6 crack that stays to the left and heads up.



It was very busy this day. Lots of people on the rock. Some small rocks and one biner flew by us (after someone above yelled "rock!"). There were ropes going everywhere though. We ended up doing a 5.5-.6 finish through a roof. Instead of going back left, you go straight up and into an easy offwith up to a nice belay. Then into the roof. I should have taken more pics, but I was trying to stay away from this pair of Korean climbers who did not seem to speak english.

A little crowded and hot, but Patty still had fun and is game for next weekend.


June 21; El Whampo (5.7, 6 pitches)

It was quite a bit easier on Patty; getting to the base of El Whampo compared to White Maidens. Nobody was around this time either. Occasionally we would hear voices, but no one else was on El Whampo. We had it to ourselves and it felt really nice to have it that way.








Third pitch I have no photos of. I should have taken one of the start, but it is a bit of a butt pucker pitch; 5.7 slab with no pro for about 30 feet. Very fun and interesting. Totally different from the second hand and finger crack pitch. The climbing gets easier after this.




All in all, another very nice day up at Tahquitz. Patty and I are looking forward to many more. And Mark and I are looking towards a rematch with Whodunit.











.