http://www.supertopo.com/tr/NIAD-AndAHalf/t11993n.html
I was looking for a fun big'ish climb to do on a cliff with almost the polar opposite angle of El Cap... A couple months ago I also set out to do South Face and Crest Jewel in a day, and failed in that we only completed South Face that day.. :-(
http://www.supertopo.com/tr/South-Face-on-North-Dome/t11965n.html
So Friday morning we did not really have a plan on what to climb, and we had bivy'd at Harding Flat Thursday night.. I was heading to Tuolumne to find something to climb, with my buddy Anthony following in his car behind me... When I saw the Porcupine trailhead pullout I slammed on the brakes and pulled in there... Anthony followed suite and pulled in behind me...
He got out of the car puzzled as to the nature of our hasty stop... And I was like "hey lets to climb Crest Jewel today???" He thought for a second.. and was like... WTF... sure lets do it...
So we sorted out some draws and a .6" cam and started slogging down the 5 mile approach to North Dome...
FINALLY this time I managed to nail the approach and experience the least amount of bushwhacking and suffering possible to get to the start of the North Dome climbs... It was very warm though... so we were approaching without shirts on... BIG mistake... while we minimized the bushwhacking, we didnt account for the insane amount of mosquitos we would encounter... and were itching to no end by the time we made the start of the climbs...
Starting the climb I linked P1-2 with our 60m rope.. barely.. not sure if my rope shrunk or the topo distances were a little off, but it was very close on a 60 linking 1-2.
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 me leading the p1-2 linkup Credit: anthony |
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The first 10a crux pitch now under the belt... it didnt feel too hard.... but there were certainly a couple moves where you needed to pay attention to avoid donating some skin to North Dome..
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 Anthony following the p1-2 linked pitches Credit: climber007 |
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The next several pitches were a blur of varying degrees of runnout'edness on moderate to easy climbing...
The only distinct memory I have from this section of the climb, is that for me... bringing the .6" cam was a total waste of effort... when I encountered the mini roof thing you need to surmount, where the cam could be used... In order to get yourself where its possible to plug in the cam, you must take a significantly harder slab climbing path and move over the mini roof... So I just kinda laughed, continued running it out, and opted to stay on the left side of the mini roof thing where the slab climbing and move to get up and over were much easier..
Anthony and I were in a good rhythm of climbing... he had opted to just follow the whole climb.. which was completely ok with me... so I just sprinted up the never ending slab, and he charged along behind me...
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 Anthony following a random pitch somewhere in the middle of CJ Credit: climber007 |
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In what seemed like no time at all, I was now in the middle of P6 laughing my ass off looking at this really improbable roof that needs to be mounted.. In the topo I think its shown in a section of 5.9 slab climbing... wow did this thing look ridiculous and improbable to be found in the middle of a slab route.... VERY COOL.... and you can tell the FA team was really having fun.. because this feature could have been easily avoided with easier slab climbing... but they made sure to incorporate it.... THANKS GUYS!!! AWESOME!!
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 me chewing down a bar after the awesome slab roof pitch Credit: anthony |
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Before I committed to a path up the thing, I studied a bit, and determined that once again sticking to the left side would be best.. I think the topo shows to go directly towards the bolt on top of the roof which is more in the center... but the climbing looked harder there... and while your not super runout here, your last bolt is still a solid 5 feet below your feet.. so if you blow it pulling/smedging the roof.. you will tumble a bit and loose some skin... so I gingerly made my way up to the left side of the roof where I had spotted a lone large knob which could be cranked on like a 5.11 crimper... cranked on it.. and was instantly mounted on the roof with no trouble at all... I did have to do a couple delicate slab traverse steps to get back over to the bolt... because now you are nicely run out standing on top of this thing.. but those traverse moves were no harder than 5.8/9.. and I clipped the bolt... laughed and giggled again at how much fun I was having... and continued on about the business of slab hiking...
P7 BETA ALERT...
Next we are at P7 and the topo shows a 30' runout coming off the belay to the first bolt.. I stood at the belay for a solid couple minutes staring up into the vast slab trying to locate a general heading for the first bolt... and finally I see it up and slightly left.. so I take off up that direction... the climbing feels a bit stiff given the runnout... feels more like 5.9 or 10a climbing... and after about 30', I reach the bolt.... FAIL!!! DAMN!!! its a super old crusty 1/4"... I look directly right from where I am standing, and about 30' over to the right is a beautiful ASCA bolt... but unfortunately there is no reasonable way to just traverse... So I had to down climb the 30' all the way back to the belay (exiting!!!) and start again... this time trending up and to the right.... so when you find yourself at this belay... make sure you trend up and right!
Next we hit the final 5.10 pitch... for me I thought this didn't really feel like 5.10 slab... seemed pretty easy.. at minimum it was definitely easier than the first 5.10 pitch on P2... Anthony disagreed with me, and thought this was definitely the hardest pitch on the climb... so my guess is that if you nail it just right on the available features it goes at a bit easier than 5.10, but much harder if you don't guess the perfect sequence of stuff to step on...
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 Anthony following the final pitch Credit: climber007 |
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We could have easily linked the final two pitches... but chose to pitch them out since the wind was howling at a sustained 35+ MPH and we preferred to be able to see and hear each other...
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 holding on for dear life in the wind during the topout.... ;-) Credit: anthony |
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Without even thinking about it, or intensionally trying.. we had completed all 10 pitches in just over 3h 30m... Wow... I guess I was still stuck in NIAD go mode.... ;-)
We hiked back up and over the summit, back to the saddle where we had our packs stashed.... YEAAA.. we managed not to get squirrel jacked!! here we chowed down on lunch... stuffed our crap back into our packs and started back on the 5 mile slog to the car....
As we neared the car... I started doing the math in my head... and realized we had done 10 miles of approach and decent, 10 pitches of climbing, 5.10a climb rating, in 10 hours....
AWESOME day of adventuring!!!
Final thoughts on the climb... I absolutely loved it... it deserves all 5 stars and them some...... I thought that as far as 5.10a slab climbing goes, it was very tame and reasonable... basically just good fun.. With that said, this climb is NOT for those leaders whose lead head is not screwed on tight... there are many a place on this climb where you are very runnout.. while the climbing is certainly moderate in those sections, you will definitely not be happy if you sketch out and blow it in any of the more runnout sections... in all honesty... a rating of "5.10a R" would be completely appropriate for this climb....
