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July 2001
Friday night — Monty, the guy who was driving us to the valley, missed the turn off at Chinese Camp and we ended up driving an extra 60 miles before he realized it. I was in and out of sleep and didn't realize it either until... his car overheated and blew the radiator cap. So we're at 9000 feet, damn near at the top of the pass and his car is spewing steam. I pulled out the map and asked him a few questions about towns we went through and realized we were waaaaay past our turn off.
Looked at the car for a long time and decided to turned around and coasted back down the pass — found a closed restaraunt were a dishwasher let us fill up the radiator with water. At this point it was 12:30 a.m. and we'd been on the road for 7 hours. We limped for 2 more hours (I drove this time) up the correct pass to Yosemite, stopping twice tolet the car cool down. We got in around 2:30am and I passed out 3 minutes after we pulled into camp 4.
The first 9 hour drive from Oakland to Yosemite (usually 3 hours)!
So the guys we were to climb with (Paul and J) woke us up at 7:30 the next morning to do Royal Arches. We decided to go as 2 parties of 2. I swapped leads with Monty, who was just starting leading trad but he was okay (too slow, but okay). We got to the start at 9am — one party at least 4 pitches above us (never actually saw them).
The climb was really cool — definitely some great rock and wonderful views. There are some loose blocks to keep an eye out for. Amazing views and very easy climbing. We did the pendilum (there's fixed rope) which was fun and easy. We ran many of the pitches together and many of the pitches I'd only get 3-4 pieces in for a full rope length. I think you could solo all but a few pitches. Most go at 5.6 or 5.7 — many of them are just scrambles.
We did the 14 pitches by 6:15pm which was a snail's pace, but route finding was not easy the first time and Monty was a bit slow with leading and building anchors. So we had 2 hours to make the 10 raps back down in daylight.
8:30 p.m. — Sun goes down and we had 2 more pitches to rap. Monty and J were slow rappellers — so we were dragging and I kept harping on going way faster — but it was just no use. It was dark and Paul (the most experienced guy) did rap 9?? (off a big tree near the river) but stopped too early at some horrible old rusty 1/4 inch bolts and backed them up.
The other guys rapped (really slow in the dark) and then I rapped last, arriving and seeing the shitty old bolts I realized (as had paul) that he should have kept going and found better bolts lower.
I kept rapping on the same line, looking for the good bolts and then saw some anchors further down on the left wall(yeah!). What I found were 2 of the scaries looking button-heads with nightmare ripping slings on them (no!). No way was I hanging off that crap!
So I went down a more and didn't see a damn thing! It was really dark and I couldn't see the ends of the ropes and no bolts in sight (even with the headlamp). Knowing that I'd have to prussic back up all the distance I rapped if I didn't find any bolts had me worried about going down when I didn't see anything.
I finally decided that I'd prussic back up (70 feet) to the bad belay where the other were and we'd have to re-group and swing further right and onto another higher dihedral to find anchors. With a backpack full of crap, I climbed the ropes (prussics) back up to the belay. Did I mention that the ropes were wet? Horrible, horrible, horrible time getting back up the rope. Tying backup knots every 25 feet was impossible. The wet ropes would pull tight on the knot and become rock hard — making it really tough to untie.
I was completely spent by the time I got back up. Paul got on rappel and swung way to the right and finally found some shiny new bolts at the top of a bolted route — BUT the ropes were stuck at the bottom. He clipped the ropes to the new anchors, rapped and unstuck the ropes (they were in the water too) and prussiced back up to the anchors. At this point it's 10 p.m.
We all rapped to where paul was, me going last and breaking down his anchor. Upon arrival at what we thought to be the last rappel — we were all weary. But the night wasn't over.
The ropes got stuck again and we couldn't pull them through. All our energy was blown pulling and they were just stuck, but we still had both ends.
11:00 p.m. — Paul decides that because we could pull the ropes very slowly in one direction, he could tie in and toprope up to a spot where he could fix the problem. I would yard with all I had to get the ropes to move in the one direction, then they'de pull up the slack through an ATC. Finally Paul was able to get up enough to flip the rope over and then lowered slowly back to us.
We pulled and pulled — finally the ropes came down.
11:30 p.m. — Rap 10 put Paul on the ground. The others rapped and finally I followed, I'd been going last to double check the beginners before every rappel.
12:00 a.m. — Coil the soaking wet ropes - began scramble.
12:30 a.m. — Open cold beers from Paul's truck.
Wow, so what did I learn about the whole epic?
- 1. That bringing 2.5 liters of water per person is a good idea.
- 1.5 That putting lemonade mix in all the water is not a good idea. (acidic)
- 2. Start before 9 a.m. if you've never done Royal Arches and are going as a party of four.
- 2.5 You could simul rap 2 people to save some time.
- 3. My nylon windbreaker is not very breathable.
- 3.5 Prussicing up a rope with my nylon windbreaker on is a great way to sweat off the pounds.
- 4. I think you can hit the ground with 2 60m ropes from the tree??
- 4.5 Knowing that would have saved us 3 hours of pain.
- 5. Wet ropes handle like crap.
- 5.5 Dry treated ropes didn't make much difference when wet, but dried faster.
- 6 climbing is fun — but toprope.com is the BEST.
- 7. Headlamps are required even if you think you'll make it.
- 7.5 We all had headlamps — J's batteries died— bring an extra battery.
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