FOBIAD Trip Report 10/25/08
Five Open Books In A Day

I came up with the idea of the FOBIAD years ago when I was looking for a training climb that was long but with little commitment. Somewhere along the line as a joke I started calling it FOBIAD as twist on NIAD, the Nose In A Day. I never did do it but the idea caught Ed’s fancy and he kept reminding me that we had to give it a go. The total length of the climbs is somewhere around 1800 feet. Ed had thought it over carefully and his plan was to simulclimb Munginella first before anybody else showed up at the crag. Then do Commitment and after that take whatever was open, just play it by ear. We took Ed’s 80 meter rope to be able to link pitches. We took what is for me a small rack. BD stoppers #4 to #12, the four smallest TCUs, 1 each Camelots from #.3 (the small blue one) to #3, with an extra .75, 1 and #2, and a #4 forged Friend. For The Hanging Teeth we added #4 and #4.5 Camelots. If you pitch the climbs as shown in Supertopo this rack is OK. For the long pitches we attempted it was sometimes a little small.
Here is the man himself in the pre-dawn.

Ed started up Munginella at 6:40 with his headlamp on but before he disappeared from my sight he’d turned it off.
Here’s a shot of Half Dome you don’t see every day.

I’d never done this Munginella before and, frankly, still feel like I haven’t. Looking at the pictures today they barely look familiar. It went by pretty quickly. Ed has a lot of experience and had climbed this many times so he was able to run it out.
Typical photo.

Last section

We did the walk off and got back down to the base in an hour and five minutes. The plan was working.
Lost Arrow was looking pretty perky by then.

Ed combined the first two pitches of Commitment and I took the last.
Here’s a pic of Ed on the P1 hand crack.

The crux of this climb for me is the first ten feet which is in the shadow of the pic.
Here’s a pic looking up P2.

I told myself not to get complacent just because I’d lead the 5.9 P3 roof pretty well the one time I'd done it. Maybe because of this concentration it went smoothly again. We got back down to the base in about 2 hours. Again all was going well.
The Surprise
The idea now was for me to link the first two pitches. I started out well but about half way up P1 I took my first leader fall in years. I had by now gotten used to the friction of the rock. When I hit an eight foot lieback where the texture changed and the rock was polished I just was way too casual. One moment I was climbing and the next I was running down the face. How I got onto my feet to run I don’t know. I was a little worried this would put a damper on our day so I jumped right back on it and kept cranking. It was an especially stupid fall. It took some time to get a belay built in under the P3 crack and I could feel the time passing as Ed followed over. It had started to get hot.
Here’s a picture of Ed leading P3.
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This sustained 5.8 pitch is one of the couple of hardest pitches on any of the Open Books, much harder than the Commitment crux in my opinion. I’d lead it before but was really paying attention following this time.
I lead P4. The thing is I am a 5.9 climber but I keep throwing myself at 5.10, and a lot of the time I get up it, like last week on Enigma, but this pitch thrashed me. I was starting to get tired and hot and had no technique to fall back on. I did manage to get to the top. Ed cruised this pitch. Even though he was just as tired and hot as I was. I was psyched. He was picking up the load for both of us.
Here’s Ed making 10a look casual.

This climb took us three hours and it was now past 12:30. We were hot and tired. We decided to take a long lunch in the shade to recuperate.
Here’s Ed doing some major recuperating.

By now there were climbers on Munginella, The Surprise and the Caverns. I was starting to doze off when I thought, “What if some noobs get in front of us on The Hanging Teeth?” You know, the kind that take leader falls on slippery 5.6 liebacks! Soon we were roped up and climbing again.
Here’s a pic looking down from low on the climb.

In theory I was going to link the first two pitches but by the time I tangled with the awkward chimney, and got about half way through pitch two, I was out of gear. There is a good place for a belay there.
When Ed came up a local soloist came by to see what in the heck we were doing.

Ed showed his experience and confidence by launching into 20 plus feet of lieback and undercling without putting in any gear.

This climb is one section of liebacking after another. You are not going to finesse this puppy. The top thirty feet is totally different in character from the rest of the Open Books. Steep cool climbing on wild flakes, the hanging teeth themselves.

Ed pointed out the light was perfect on Half Dome to see the Direct Northwest Face Route.

We made it around in about 2 1/2 hours so we were still on pace to finish without headlamps.
On The Caverns once again I was supposed to link the first two pitches but after a pitch and a half I stopped at this perfect hand crack when I had no gear for it.

Ed came up and he was beat. He took off to try to make the top. You can see him putting in a piece in the back of the overhang in the previous picture. He burned up a lot of gear getting to the belay of P2 so he brought me up. So I was physically beat too but, maybe because we were so close to making it, mentally I had gotten a second wind. Now I took off for the top. The pitch is a little scrappy but way cool when you step across “The Caverns”. I managed to milk the rack through the last few placements.
Here’s a picture of Ed coming up the pitch in the evening light.

There are a few 5.6 moves on the fourth class top out but we were now definitely done.
We made it back to our packs at the bottom before we had to put on the headlamps.
Another good day in the Valley was over.
See y’all on the rock.
Zander