This weekend, the husband and I headed out to the Valley with the goal of climbing Royal Arches:


We've been eying it for more than a year and have been debating when would be the best time to climb it. My argument for a little water over a lot of crowds finally won out and off we were.

After the grueling 300 foot approach from the Ahwahnee parking lot, we made it to the base of the climb at sunrise. We decided to go with the original chimney start for the full Royal Arches experience.


Somewhere in discussing which start to do and who would climb what, it got decided that I would lead the starting chimney pitch. Really not sure when or how that happened because I don't climb chimneys. Andrew climbs the chimneys. That's how our partnership is supposed to work. I am not the chimney leader.

So I find myself standing in the bottom of the chimney looking up. Knee bar, knee bar, squirm, ouch, knee bar, squirm.....10 minutes later I find the chock stone so close but still 3 inches too far away. Finally, gun for it, belly flop onto it and pull some beached-whale dance moves until I'm standing on top of it. Success! I hear a roaring beating noise fill the chimney and look up to see a hummingbird picking at the moss right above my head. A few more full value chimney moves and I'm on 3rd class terrain. A nice few hundred feet of 3rd class to shake out after all the thrashing.

So, the main question of the day: how wet IS Royal Arches this time of year anyway? Answer:


Wet, but avoidable. Around the rushing water we went, up the 5.7 hand crack.


Up the wandering dirt trails through the blooming manzanita. I was impressed with how clean the climb was (hopefully it stays like that for the whole season).

On to the 5.0 OW that Andrew threw himself into with gusto, knee jamming and all. I found a much more relaxing experience by stemming up the outside edge of it. We reached the pendulum (first for us) and each made it across in two tries and on to the excitement for the day: the waterfall traverse. We both kept our shoes on and found the granite to be amazingly sticky, even through the rushing water. The rope got a good bath and is now probably cleaner than when we started. A few pitches after the traverse I spotted the only other party we saw all day making their way up to the pendulum.


We made it to the top of the rappel route as the sun was setting (ya we enjoyed ourselves along the route!)


Down, down, down, from one beautifully bolted rap anchor to the next. On one of the 3rd class sections, I managed to butt-slide through a 5-inch wide super highway of red ants. Got a pungent whiff of that sweet, acidic ant odor everyone always talks about. Then a few minutes later, took a drink from my camelbak and experienced the pungent ant odor again. Only this time, in my mouth?!?! Wait, am I tasting it?! Yuck. An ant was hiding in the nozzle.

Second to last rappel, an almost full moon rises over Half Dome turning all the water falls into silver threads. Watch the moon shadows around the rock corners and the silver water droplets spray into blackness. Look down on all the little people bustling around the valley in their cars. Looks like a little Santa's village model.

Top of the last pitch, a ring-tailed cat stares at me, bright green eyes glowing. Wished I had a brighter headlamp so I could have caught his crazy tail. Make it to the ground, the ropes pull clean, and straight into the river at the base of the cliff. Some more turbo washing for them as they're tossed around.

Amazing day!


We are both so glad we got on the route when it wasn't busy. It would have been a totally different experience. On Sunday we spotted at least 4 parties on the route, all backed up against each other. I think we just had a lucky day!