After a late start from the bay area, we peruse the Saturday afternoon valley scene: not a chance in Camp 4, and waiting list for Upper Pines. We're in tent mode this weekend, going for luxury, so bandit camping is out of the question.

We planned to do Royal Arches that afternoon, so the plan just kind of fell into place; we would go camping on Royal Arches.

The crux was the P1 slab haul of two packs. I've done it wearing the pack several times, but not with a sleeping bag, two thermarests, tent and rainfly, and luxury-style picnic dinner and breakfast. What with all the confusion and stress, we didn't manage a pic of that debacle.

We took a leisurely start at about 4:30pm, and climbed until we couldn't see.

Glorious sunet over the Cathedrals:

Looking like the red spot on jupiter:

Lights in the valley at night... Ahwahnee in foreground, village behind:

Our humble abode:

And we were in luxury mode, so pre-dawn starts were absolutely out of the question! But we were encouraged to get up when the first party of the morning came along.

"Dude!" giggles. "There's a tent up here!"

I love it. Looking up the little crack before the pendulum traverse:

After the traverse:

Approaching the next generation rotten log:

And leading the pitch after it:

Hanging out for a snack just past the raps:

And the long road home:

I was a dufus on one of these raps, going darn near the end of my 60m ropes only to find I was about 15 feet short of a set of rap chains. Well, maybe that was because I threw one of the ropes in the trunk in the dark one night (after a long day on Conness where we didn't even use the damn thing) and I didn't see a few meters of tail hanging out of the trunk. Until we reached a gas station in Escalon. Now that section of rope looks a bit used.


The plan was to spend the afternoon on some harder cragging, but it just felt like an El Cap Lieback day. I've never had one of those, and it was nice. After a little nap:


Life is rough.

But I think a new tradition is being born... I might start a series called "Where Did Nutjob Sleep?"