Last Tuesday, campah loaded with food, beer and climbing gear, Carol and I departed for Lover’s Leap, which, according to our guide book, was a great place for trad climbing newbies (that would be us) to practice their craft:
“There are few places as conducive to learning trad climbing as Lover’s Leap. Most climbs are well-protected and offer rests to place gear.”
Sounds like a plan. Late in the day, we arrived at the campground (pay attention to the guidebook directions, as I assumed – wrongly – that the place would be well-marked on the highway), picked a spot, and set off to find the Hogsback and Knapsack Crack, our first target. Along the way, we noticed that part of the Lover’s Leap cliffs were closed to climbing because of nesting peregrine falcons, and we were lucky enough to hear one and spot it as it landed on the cliff.
Around on the north side of the Hogsback, we fairly quickly found Knapsack Crack (it would be the last route we’d find easily) and then headed back to camp for the night.
Wednesday morning, after sleeping in, we opted for breakfast at the Strawberry Inn, your basic generic mountain inn restaurant with a nice view of the river, mountains and just plain food.
Back at camp we packed lunch, collected gear and marched off up the trail. After a little grunt up and over a saddle and a talus traverse (there’s always a talus traverse in the Sierra) we arrived at Knapsack Crack, 5.5 and three pitches, to find that a family had arrrived before us and Dad had set a toprope for the kids to climb up and down on. Fortunately, they were really nice and told us we could lead through when we got ready. Geared up and ready, “climb on”, and we were off for our first ever multipitch climb as a team. The climbing was pretty easy, which let me concentrate on finding gear placements and setting protection – perfect. I arrived at a big tree, fully suitable as an anchor and set up a belay station.
Carol then climbed the route while also removing gear. We discussed gear placements, which we tried to remember to do after every pitch. Carol got to see all the placements after the rope had dragged on them or whatever and her feedback is invaluable.
Next came the parts of multipitch Carol and I had not practiced together before – transferring gear, rope managment and handoff, getting ready for me to get back on lead. Back climbing, the route got steeper and harder, but manageable, and I was soon at my choice for the second belay station. I set up an anchor and belayed Carol up and then it was time for the third pitch. About 50 feet later, I was on top and ready to belay Carol up. When Carol arrived, we celebrated completing our first multi-pitch climb together, then packed up and headed back to camp. Our plan was to come back the next day and climb Knapsack Crack in two pitches.
Thursday morning, after a little gear arranging, we did the same drill, only when we arrived at Knapsack Crack, there was already a group of five; most appeared to be beginners (meaning this was their first climb) and we decided to try something else. Our choice was a climb called Deception, which by description was a fun climb, but “the routefinding can be tricky so follow the topo closely.” Right. After a bit of wandering and fumbling, during which I exasperated Carol by not being able to match the features she was seeing with the topo, I was on route and climbing. The first pitch was exceedingly easy and 90 feet up I set up a belay station and belayed Carol while she climbed up.
Now the fun began. I quickly found that the trickiest thing about the route finding was that if I let myself follow the easiest path, I wound up at the bottom of something I didn’t want to climb. At one point, I wound up back tracking, which is pretty stressful as down climbing and removing your own protection is a little scary and not fun. Back on track, I did some climbing moves I never thought I’d do on lead, which was good, but then pretty soon I found I’d created some significant rope drag by zigzagging plus I was running out of gear, plus I was climbing on gear placements I didn’t really believe in.
The last straw was placing a 1/4″ cam into about a 1/2′ deep hole and then climbing up and over a block – then I saw the slab traverse I needed to do to continue on route. What with the rope drag, the manky pro below me that I didn’t believe in, and seeing that if I missed the traverse the best thing that could happen was that the 1/4″ cam would hold and I’d do a big pendulum swing into the side of the offset crack, I decided to abort. Easier said than done. I had to downclimb (and pull gear) quite a ways to get to something I trusted for a rappel anchor. On rappel, I cleaned the rest of the gear and got down to Carol at the belay station. FYI, if you’re next to climb Deception, there’s a nice Attache locking ‘biner up there where I rappelled off…
We discussed and took a decision that I’d rappel down off the belay anchor and then Carol would clean the anchor and down climb to me on rope. The rope wouldn’t help her much except to keep her from going all the way to the deck, but – better than nothing. On rappel, oops, I was supposed to take her pack, so she wound up downclimbing with the pack and ultimately downclimbing all the way to the ground. I chose to set a rappel anchor and rappel down. Carol objected to leaving trash on the route, so she free climbed up and got my cordelette and free climbed down. Since she didn’t fall, we saved $10 on the cordelette. Yay.
Friday morning we got going at a better time and arrived at Knapsack Crack first, set up and zippy zip, two pitches and it’s over. Carol got some excitement when I climbed so high on the first pitch I ran out of rope and she had to follow me up a little ways.
Saturday we decided to climb Manic Depressive Direct. The approach was probably the scariest part of the day, and finding the route turned out to be a challenge. We’ve got to get better at reading those topos…
I was a little unsure, but after Carol says “I’m 100% confident you can climb this” (lucky I have Carol’s steadying influence) I took a deep breath and started climbing. According to the guide, and to some other climbers we talked to, the first section of the climb was the hardest. I found otherwise. Once I got going, it was pretty easy, though there were some sections with a finger crack and feet on slabs, which was pretty interesting. Set up belay, Carol climbs. She discovered that it’s kind of disturbing when the rope is laying in the same crack you’re trying to jam your fingers in and your partner (me in this case) keeps pulling rope up and pulling your fingers out of the crack. I take a note to leave her more slack in the future. Back on lead, I climb another 50 feet and I’m up. Belay while Carol climbs up; man we’ve had a good four days.
Then some guys that had climbed on an adjacent route came over and were looking to rappel back down to do more climbs. I showed the guy the rock flake I had belayed Carol from and he wrapped webbing around it and then I noticed he tied an overhand knot in the webbing. I said “I know a safer knot – do you know the water knot?” He says “Oh, isn’t that a water knot?” Not so much. I showed him that, then showed him that if he put the knot on the front side of the flake, it took force off the knot (he had looped the webbing around the flake). Yay, I got to contribute something to another climber.
Back at camp, we packed up and headed home. We didn’t take a lot of pictures, as one or the other of us had someone’s life in their hands most of the time, but click here for those we did take.
A great trip; we learned a LOT, and we can’t wait for our next climbing trip…
P.S. as for “How does the rope get up there?” – check it out here…
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