A bonzai overnight run from the Bay Area Friday night to Wamello (Fresno) Dome. The goal was the South Pillar route (5.8ish) but mostly lighter than than. Knock the 6-7 pitch thing out and head back Saturday late afternoon/evening.

Yeah, right!

My partner for the soon-to-be quasi-epic was my good buddy Ezra (photonez). He has been doing well getting into trad-leading, doing some easier pitches in the valley. He climbs pretty hard, just getting into trad-leading.

Me, I can lead 8's and light 9's on gear, just haven't been doing it a lot lately. We've been sport climbing the local sandstone crags, which would prove useful later. The rock quality was outstanding compared to sandstone slopers!

Thanks to DR amd mooch we had tons of beta on how to find the trailhead, "it's a little confusing, but you'll find it" we kept reminding ourselves. Very true, DR!

We missed the Sky Ranch Road turnoff (turned too soon) but eventually found it (the billboard, duh!). Google maps got us lost for about 15 minutes on Sky Ranch so we jettisoned those directions, deferring to DR and the guidebook.

We stayed on course and eventually found the deteriorating roads. After cracking some relief beers we continued to get lost for about an hour or so, but we did find and go down Beasore Road for a while.

Every once in a while something would scurry off the road, I thought frogs? Nah, too fast. Finally Ezra see one and says, "Dude was that a tarantula?". That's when I remembered another buddy, Ken, reminding me that his friends see a lot of them at their house in the area. Nice, I ain't sleeping on the ground, I f*#king hate spiders!

Alright, we turn around on Beasore and head back to the correct road, find a sign for Fresno Dome camping and head that way. We pass that, head another 3 miles or so and at 11;30pm, we find what we think is the trailhead. (Turns out we were right).

We bust out the sipping whiskey and prepare for sleepy-time. We decide to sleep in the back of my rig. Ezra brought a 'bear-alarm' in case any bears showed up. It's kind of an air-horn thing.

Here we are!

We wake up at 6;30 the next morning (my baby boy has me trained pretty well now) and Ezra is saying something in his sleep. "What?". Turns out that he was dreaming of a bear cub sucking on his hand and he was yelling at me grab the Bear Alarm! He woke up to relief that it was just a dream.

Ha hah!!! Let's rack up and get'er done!


Lots of bouldering and short stuff on the approach in. OW too!


First view of the Dome! Yesssss!


Here's a pano I put together of the first faces you come to.


After spending about 2 hours wandering around the base trying to find the route, Ezra thinks he has it but I'm saying, "Dude, that's not it, where are the 2 bolts at the bottom?". He thinks he sees the 3rd bolt of the route but I'm unconvinced. We do an ultra-zoom with the camera. Is that a bolt?


Ezra is getting discouraged because I'm saying we should try one of the other routes but he's got the ultra-stoke for South Pillar. At this point I'm thinking, f*#k, I don't know if I wanna do 7 pitches now. The Snaileye was setting in. Ezra wanders over to the 'right of the gulley we were bolt scoping' and says, "Dude, this is it!". I wander over and he says there are the 2 bolts. Bam! He's right!

Start of South Pillar and pitch 2's Knob Wall peaking out above.


Ezra on the first clip.


Ezra at the 3rd bolt.


High on the first pitch.


Loook at that stone!!!!


I led the second, probably most awesome pitch I've ever seen. Here's Ezra coming up. Lots of knob tie-offs.


Here's what you see looking across the 'Notch'. This was our high point. After lunch I looked at it, scoped the wrong line and deemed it "dude, I ain't doing that!".

Turns out we were scoping the wrong line.



We did an epic-bail. We panicked too, we only had one rope to rap 2 rope strectching pitches. WTF??!?

After calming down we pulled off the bail, leaving only 1 sling and 1 biner.

We ran into the only other climbers on the rock all day. A Rollie-Fingers (handlebar) moustachioed fellow informed us that we were scoping the wrong line. After he told us the right way we felt like chumps.

Especially because after rapping to the ground and the second rap, OUR ROPE WAS STUCK!!!

His ladyfriend freed them for us when she passed them and we had beers and reflected at the base.

The first 2 pitches we did knock out were Super-Stellar!!!

We'll be back....