"Praise not the day until evening has come; a pitch until it has been cleaned;
a placement until it is weighted; a haulbag until it is at the anchor; beer until
it has been drunk." - climbing bastardization of a Viking proverb.

June 2

Boy, oh, boy ! Here I go again. The scene seemed a bit familiar, although a year and a half had gone by since the last time I'd planned, packed, and flown to California for the purpose of climbing an honest to goodness Yosemite BIG WALL. The big difference on this one would be the absence of my favorite Arizona climbing partner, Tim "The Toolman" Schneider and, of course, the leader of my one and only previous big-wall expedition on Sentinel Rock, Bill Wright. The flight to Oakland passed without excitement, and I exited the plane to find rec.climber, Eric Coomer waiting for me. The third member of our team was also a rec.climber, Michael Brodesky, also from the Bay Area. In fact, this may have been the one and only big wall trip that has ever been organized, planned, and executed via e-mail with not one phone call. Not having actual conversations was no biggie, we had covered most of the bases by now with a hundred three-way e-mail messages discussing everything from the amount of water down to who would be leading which pitches on the climb. It was time to execute. A quick stop by Eric's place to pick up his gear and we were on our way east to the Valley. Michael was planning on meeting us in the Valley later that night. He was somewhat of an advisor for this trip, as well as being a team member, since he'd just done his first trip up the same route about a month before. He'd also been down the "dreaded" North Dome Gully five times before and would keep us out of trouble there as well.

It was on the way to the Valley when I found that my assurances to my SO that climbing wasn't risky business were not entirely true. A more accurate statement would have been that climbing wasn't that risky unless Eric happened to be behind the wheel on the way to the climb and you're cruising through Bay Area afternoon traffic (just kidding, Eric!). Anyway, we made it to the Valley in good time and after a couple of quick stops at Curry Village, went on over to our campsite in the North Pines campground. Once there, we pulled everything out of the jeep and started the sorting and packing process. Two of these, three of those...don't forget the #3 TCU's...what about slings...this took a while. Michael showed up while this was going on and joined in on the fun.

After getting in the sack (finally) at about 10:30, I spent a night of living hell trying to get some sleep. Apprehension about the climb, waves of smoke from all the campfires, and people driving in and out all night long, contributed to the lousiest night I've spent since the epic in the Toolman's truck at Red Rocks. Toss, turn, toss, turn, hey! It's 4am, time to get up! Michael was already stirring, but Eric was dead to the world, so I went over and kicked him a couple of times to get him started. I felt like a complete pile of crap at this point. We stuffed the bivy gear back in the car and headed for the Ahwahnee hotel parking lot.

June 3

Out came all the stuff again. Bivy gear re-stuffed into the haulbag and Michael and Eric headed off for last minute system purges in the nearest outhouse. I made a half-hearted attempt to feed a Power-Tart into my face, but failed miserably. My stomach felt like hell and was rejecting all attempts at putting anything in it. I abandoned the idea of breakfast and put on my harness instead. Not a good way to start a wall. We were soon booking through the woods behind the Ahwahnee toward the hiking trail headed east. I was carrying all the gear in the backpack, Michael had the three ropes, and Eric was shuffling along under the load of the haulbag. I have to hand it to Eric. For the most part, he just kind of took it on himself to crate the pig up to the start of the climb. That's not an easy job to volunteer for at a quarter to five in the morning. The path soon joined the bike trail and then veered off to the left and headed up to the Column. It started going up at that point, so Eric was getting pounded already. I hung back to help him through the rougher sections in the trail while Michael ranged ahead looking for potential other South Face climbers heading to the start of the route. About half way up this section, we came across a couple of girls who looked like they'd just woke up and were organizing for something...South Face! We quickly moved on. The one aprehension that we all shared on this route was the chance of having crowds on the route. This climb ain't labeled the "most popular Grade V in the Valley" for nothin'. If we couldn't be the only party on the wall, we sure as heck wanted to be the highest if possible.

The south face of Washington Column

The trail moved upwards along the very prow of the Column, and along the right-hand side. We continued on up and finally came to the spot where you cut back left a bit and up some ledges to a large tree that marked the start of the first pitch. Bingo! First one's here! There were a couple of guys that passed us with just daypacks, but upon investigation, we found they were set to do the Prow and already had stuff three pitches up the wall. Upon reaching the start of the route where they'd stashed their ascending gear, they found that someone had stolen their pack and gear and there they were, left with their haulbag three pitches up and no way to get to it for the moment. That sucked! Guess there's no honor among climbers anymore in some places. Eric finally came along with the haulbag and unshouldered it with a large groan. Nice job dude!

Lessee...no other parties in sight, either above or below, 6:15am, all the gear at the base of the route ready to go and a beautiful looking day starting. We had it made! Michael had first lead and selected just a few pieces from the rack. Did I mention he'd been up this a month before ? The pitch starts with a nice looking 5.8 corner and then traverses to the left across a broken slab to a nice ledge on the corner. He made short work of it and had the ropes fixed in a jiffy. I slapped the jumars on the rope and started cleaning the pitch while Eric got the bag ready to haul and hooked up to the other fixed line. After cleaning the first piece, I was looking at a nice little pendulum, but managed to just climb across the face holding onto the jumars and then go up to the ledge. One down, nine to go!

Mike leading the first pitch.

With the belay on the ledge, once I got there, I unclipped and walked to the left to check out the start of my first lead. The haulbag was just getting there and Eric was right behind, so I sat down and put on my climbing shoes. From the topo, we knew there was a 10a corner to the left of the original A1/5.11 corner, so the plan was for me to traverse and try to free the corner instead of having to aid. I got ready and launched off across the broken start. Once around the corner, I could see a nice looking crack that looked hard, but what the heck. A couple of good jams and a bit of stemming got me up to a finger crack where I had to clip in and fifi-hook on a piece to rest. This thing was damn hard! To make a long story short, I made a couple of attempts to french free this section and had very limited success. After about 10 feet or so, I threw in the towel and just started aiding up the corner. There was some tricky stuff, but not too bad for the most part. I could see some slings higher and made my way toward them. Once past a small bulge, I was able to do some free climbing and ran it up to the slings where I clipped in and checked out my situation. Hmmm...nothing in sight and the anchors gotta be around here somewhere..."HEY MICHAEL! WHERE'S THE BELAY HERE?!" Mike looked around the corner, "You're too far to the left! The belay is over there to the right!" Uhhh...shit. I clipped in, apologized to Eric, who was going to clean the pitch, and did a short pendulum/tension traverse to the right and found the anchor waiting for me. Not a great start for me, but we were making progress. I hauled the bag up with Michael helping and Eric did a great job of cleaning and doing the required lower-out at the top of my little detour.

Eric cleaning pitch two.

The third pitch was also Michael's, and the last pitch for him that day. Once on Dinner Ledge, Eric and I were planning fix two or three pitches and then return to the ledge for...uhhh...dinner. Michael did a nice job on the pitch and was soon fixing ropes for us to ascend. On the topo, a corner is shown with the route going out to the right across a face and past a tree. A better way to go is to simply stay to the left of the upper tree and continue up the left facing corner. The hauling is easier as well as jugging. Michael had done this and we zipped up the ropes to see what the accomodations for that night looked like. I cleaned while Eric gave the haulbag a few nudges and when he made it up, we took five. What a place! Off to the southeast, the monstrous bulk of Half Dome's precipitous face, a bit southwest, Glacier Point Apron, and to the west, the rest of Yosemite Valley. It always amazes me to climb in Yosemite. The sights just don't seem real sometimes, just overwhelming. I guess that's part of the reason to climb there; To assure yourself that it's all real and also within your grasp and not just a dream or something to aspire to someday.

Eric coming up the third pitch.

Anyway...I digress...so we're sitting on Dinner Ledge kinda staring at the wall. I think at that point, my partners were a bit worried about me. I wasn't saying a lot and I still wasn't feeling quite up to par yet (this would be an understatement). Michael suggested shade and I took him up on it. A few minutes in the shade and some quick food and I was ready to go again. Figured we might as well get the show on the road. After some food and a box of raisins I felt a whole lot better. Also put on my FISH gear t-shirt that I picked up at the Phoenix Bouldering Contest. Emblazoned on the front are the words "Tools for Big Wall Fools." Inspirational! Time to roll! Michael put me on belay while Eric grabbed some shade and shuteye. I was expected to take a while on this, the Kor Roof, pitch. The pitch is rated A1 and has enough free climbing on it to be probably 5.7+ A1 or so. The initial part is easy high-step free climbing in a low-angle crack system up to just below the roof. From your last placement, you're looking at about a six-foot reach to the bolt on the face just below the roof. Too far! In between was a small pin scar that looked like a really crappy place to put a cam and expect it to hold, but whaddya do? I stabbed a technical friend (my most un-favorite type of pro) in the hole and (very) gingerly applied some weight to it. The two cams that were actually holding did a fine job while the other two waved "hello" in the breeze. Sheesh! I balanced out in a high step of the etrier with a quickdraw in one hand. The piece held, and I smacked the draw into the hanger and clipped the rope into it.

Starting the Kor Roof Pitch

Above that, the bolts simply go up the roof above. This isn't really a horizontal roof but an overhanging sideways sloping affair that's about 10 feet from bottom to top and has five bolts to get you to the crack above the lip. O.K...here goes. The first bolt was easy, clip, fifi, reach for the second. The roof smacked me in the face, forcing me to lean back for this next bolt and I repeatedly clipped, stood up and fifi-ed into the next bolt up the roof. Most of these bolts have been recently replaced, albeit with button heads, except for the last couple below the lip itself. I reached up to clip the fourth bolt and watched the hanger helicopter around the bolt. Great, a spinner. The fifth was about the same, and I was thinking how glad I would feel when I was off that baby. Above the roof, I was able to clip into a row of three biners and then launched off up the right slanting crack that parallels just above the roof line. This was pretty straight forward aid and I moved upward. I remembered Bill's (Wright) advice about not backcleaning too much on this pitch and tried not to put too much room between pieces while still giving myself enough pro to finish the route.

Leading the Kor Roof.

I probably didn't need to worry as we had somewhere between two and three full racks on the lead harness. I always believe in arming myself heavily when entering the unknown and the rack had about 25 lbs. of "arms" on it at the moment. In the middle of the crack, it occurred to me that the crack had become what would almost pass for "climbable." There's something about hanging on A1 aid placements that causes your climbing ability to go down. You just don't want to get off that solid pro and commit yourself to a possible lead fall. I got a decent handjam and that gave me the cojones to pull into the crack with my feet walking high and my hands jamming. About 15 feet later, I was able to grab a sling for a two-bolt anchor above the crack and clip into it (not shown on the topo). Another twelve feet or so of free climbing and I was in a tight dihedral corner that led upwards to a small roof. I could see the belay bolts on the wall above this and I tried to speed up a bit. The corner went fairly well and I was soon standing in aiders below the small roof. This has to be passed on the left where a short section leads to the belay. A fixed pin driven upwards in the bottom of the roof was backed up with a small TCU and I backcleaned below to try to help Eric with the roof. This section went well also, and I parked myself on a nice sloping ledge below a long roof and clipped into the anchors. This had been so fun, I just had to let out a scream of success. I checked the watch and found the 165-foot pitch had taken a little under an hour and a half. Not great, but for neo-aider like me, not too awful bad and right on our schedule. The morning's trashed feeling was gone by now, and I was completely psyched to be climbing in the Valley again!

Eric was up from his nap and as soon as the ropes were fixed, started up the lines to clean the pitch. I had hoped to be the exception to the rule with what I had though was limited backcleaning, but a short scream from Eric and I looked over to edge to find that he'd swung back over the lip and was jumaring back up for the next piece. He had to perform this two or three more times while I apologized for my pro spacing on the pitch. I wanted to make sure he wasn't pissed when he reached the belay above. I still had to clean his pitch, the big traverse above! :-) He never really bitched too much and was psyched like me when he reached the belay.

Looking down from the belay atop the Kor Roof pitch.

I pulled up one of the fixed lines Eric was trailing and quickly coiled it. I would bring it up with me when I cleaned the next pitch. The game plan was for Eric and I to go up and fix three pitches above Dinner Ledge which would give us a hell of a head start on the next day. We were looking good at this point. The wind had picked up a bit and as Eric clipped into the anchor bolt and stood up, it was really going good across the face of the Column. We worked out non-verbal tug signals for the rope and hoped that the drag wouldn't make this system useless to us. Eric leaned way back and was able to reach a bolt above the roof. I couldn't even see around the roof from the belay, but he stepped up and had another bolt above that. I think this is the spot where a cheater stick is usually recommended. The leader can lean up and clip a slin above a short blank section, but Michael had assured us several times that a #3 TCU could also be used in a horizontal slot to aid this section. The subject had been debated several times and we'd left the stick at home and trusted to Michael`s judgement. Eric found the placement and his aiders trailed above the lip were gone from view shortly after. I was getting a bit cool at that point, and with all the time I had to consider it, I decided that living in the hot desert, your body's thermastat adjusts for the consistantly hot weather. I didn't think it was all that cold out, but I was shivering from the cool breeze and my short sleeves weren't making it. I wished I'd brought my wind jacket, but that didn't do me much good. To make matters worse, I could lean way out from my ledge and see Michael on Dinner Ledge sunbathing in his underwear, reading a book and lounging about!

Eric continued to work his way to the left along the arch above. This goes out about 35 feet where a short pendulum is required. The only small excitement of belaying Eric (or any other aid climber) was the short pendulum. He was moving very slowly, but finally asked me to lock him off and lower him out. An initial try was too high, so I lowered him a bit more. I could again just see the ends of his aiders dragging back and forth across the roof above me as he swung on his pendulum. This was successful and he made a small ledge to the left. It was Eric's turn to scream, and he let it all hang out! :-) As this is the technical crux pitch of the route, the aiding went very slowly. He stopped to fix a rope at the intermediate belay anchors just above the pendulum (these are on the topo). This is the first time I would have to say I wouldn't have minded owning a Gri-Gri. The rope would stay still sometimes for 10 or 15 minutes as Eric worked out a placement or backcleaned. The next section of route again arched up and left and then through a tight crack above. I was still cold, and not enjoying this part at all. I should have brought a book up with me, or a radio or something to cut the boredom a little.

Eric starting pitch five...

... and pulling over onto the tricky piece above the roof.

Once up the tight crack, a short bit of tricky 5.7 climbing leads back right to the small belay ledge. Finally! Eric was able to call down that the ropes were fixed and I got ready to go. The pitch had taken nearly three hours! Not good for the schedule! I hooked into the jumars and headed up. The initial section wasn't too bad, but then the traverse started. I constantly had to lower out, back-aid and do a lot of tricky stuff to clean this without taking a swing myself. I got to the end of the traverse and, at first, started to set up a lower off of the slings. I thought better of it and decided to use the rap rings higher, so I had to reset my fifi higher and I finally lowered off the anchor across the pendulum. Hmmm...fun. It went well and I started up into the second arch. More tricky cleaning and back- aiding up to the tight crack. I got some respect for Eric's time-consuming lead at this point, as the placements were small stoppers in thin pin scars and, although this was the easiest cleaning, it looked like very interesting aid. I semi-climbed/jumared up the last 10 feet and was finally sitting at the belay ledge, a bit blown, but warmer! It was 4:30 p.m. I looked up at the next pitch, the Stopper Pitch and decide the prospect of another two hours of possible ledge sitting, and maybe coming down in the dark was a crappy way to end the day just for one more fixed pitch. We headed down. With my 200 foot rope fixed at the top of pitch 5, it dangled right down to the lip of the Kor Roof. We figured this would be helpful for getting the haulbag over the lip the next day. As I rapped by it, I clipped the end of the rope into the first piton over the roof to keep it from blowing all over the place. We were back on Dinner Ledge by a bit after five. An explanation of our deviation from the plan (not fixing pitch six) was requested by Michael. Mental respite...how 'bout that? I hate wind. Must be all those years of living in Kansas. :-)

Man, oh, man, that ledge felt good. Harness off, shoes off. Thermarest out of the bag. Nap time. Last night's crappy sleep had left me ready to snooze. We hadn't been there but about a half an hour when we heard voices...onto the far right ledge at the top of pitch three came one of the girls we'd seen on the way in. Turns out their names were Jenny and Chelsea and they were normally sport-climber women from the Bay Area but they were chasing their first big wall after being told that the Column was the easiest one in the Valley. I'll be danged. We'd written them off after not seeing them again after the approach hike. Figured they'd turn around to go climb something else. We went over to talk to them. It had taken them all day to get to the ledge, dealing with problems and their first wall initiation on the way. They'd had some help from a guy named Brian, who'd come upon planning to solo-aid the Column. Not with this crowd buddy! Evidently, they'd been trying to haul with the jumars on backwards and some other novice stuff, but even to make it this far showed they had the motivation to maybe go the distance. They finally all got up to the ledge and we swapped stories about the day's climbing. Their stories were better than ours. :-)

On Dinner Ledge with Michael.

Relaxing... the day's work done.

There are not many sights as beautiful as the late sun shooting orange off of Half Dome's face, looming above us across the valley. We'd seen boatloads of amature photographers gathered in the Valley to shoot this scene, and here we were, up close and personal. It was awesome. More war stories were traded and discussions of the girl's plans for the next day. Obviously, 11 hours for the first three pitches wasn't going to get them up the route the next day, especially with the harder aid sections coming up. Michael offered our rope-towing service to get them to the bottom of pitch six, but Brian had squashed this with comments of his own. It became a style issue. And something interesting to think about. Should they take our fixed ropes, or not? I discreetly got Michael's attention and pointed out to him that we could be getting them into bigger trouble by getting them higher up the wall, only to get stranded for a night at a cramped and nasty bivy spot. My recommendation for them was to leave their bag and just climb the next few pitches, rapping off in time to rap completely to the ground the next night. I figured the experience was better for them than topping out by "any means" would be. Guess the old axiom of "anything goes on a big wall" actually reads "anything goes on lead on a big wall." :-) They finally just decided to put it off until in the morning, so we all hit the sack. From Eric's report the next day, the two girls stayed up fairly late discussing their options and their final decision. We woke up to get ready to go at 5am. It was light enough to pack without headlamps by then. The girls' verdict : "We don't need your stinkin' ropes!" Good decision. See ya.

June 4

I was the first one ready to go, so at 5:30, I hooked the jumars back on the rope and started up. I thought the Kor Roof would be kind of a pain to jumar back over, but it wasn't that bad (mainly because of the slanting nature of the lip on the roof). I cruised right up to the first fix point and clipped in. Eric started soon after as I hauled the bag. As it turned out, we didn't have to worry about the haul bag either...it bumped right over the lip and I had it to the anchors even before Eric arrived. We had taken the remaining water (about 128 oz.) and transferred it to the small backpack we were using. This had lightened the haulbag to the point where I was able to hand-haul it up the face. Eric came huffing up to the anchors. He was huffing a bit, no doubt because he was carrying the pack AND the lead rack. Uhhh...bad form (later, I found out that Michael had thought he would be doing the second haul, so Eric got the backpack...confused me too). I swapped ropes and started up the next section, which went quickly and I was hauling soon after reaching the anchors. Eric got there right after the bag, and Michael brought up the ropes right behind him. Eric was ready to start leading the Stopper Pitch by 6:15am!

Eric leading the All Time Stopper Pitch (6).

We'd had a good look at the Stopper Pitch the night before. Straight up the face is a thin seam of a crack with pin scars along it that looks like a set of beads spaced on a necklace. Most of the aid placements are stoppers (guess where the name for the pitch came from?) set in the bottom of the pin scars and this gets a bit tenuous for some of the thinner placements, requiring the smaller stoppers. From the belay, you can see a wire loop sticking out of the crack near the top of the first section, marking a fixed copperhead that is almost a necessity for making it past that section. Pretty manky, I'd say. Anyway, aiding on stoppers is kind of a pain in the butt if you have to backclean since you've weighted each and every stopper before having to pull it. When the stopper is small, even harder. Eric really got up a head of steam leading this pitch. We were figuring this pitch would take a while, but he did a nice job of hitting a rhythm on the pitch and continually moved upward. The crack peters out towards the top, at which point you so some 5.7 free climbing past a bolt and then start aiding up anothe crack slightly left. This section got Eric's attention, but he was soon moving up the other crack and he move steadily to the belay and fixed the ropes. It was off to the races! Four to go! Michael was leading the next pitch, so I volunteered to clean the Stopper Pitch. He wouldn't need the gear on this pitch anyway, so he could just start once he got there if I wasn't done yet. The joy of the Stopper Pitch is that the cleaning is a piece of cake. I zipped up the rope right on Michael's tail and reached the belay just behind him. This would be the worst stance of the entire route and was nothing more than a small shelf on the vertical wall with belay bolts. With Eric and Michael taking up most of this small shelf, I just hung in my harness below Michael as he racked up and busied myself sorting out and stacking the the ropes. He was soon ready to leave and after a couple of initial French-free moves to get into the crack, he was on his way up the crack. This looked cool from below. The start was a thin hands, right-arching 5.9 crack that headed to an easier vertical 5.8 hand crack above. A short chimney section after that and Michael was parked at the belay. Here, he found that a piece of rock had dislodged from the back of what used to be a decent belay spot and was now suspended from a fixed stopper and some perlon cord in the chimney...and none too solid at that! I cleaned this pitch as well, so I could get there before the haul bag and had to tip-toe around over Michael in the cramped belay to get the rack ready and my climbing shoes on. The bag got stuck on the way up the corner, but Eric was right there to get it going again.

Michael leading pitch seven (5.9)

The eighth pitch of the route, although not the technical crux of the climb (maybe), had been described to me as the most mental lead on the route and considered the crux by many climbers. You couldn't see any of the good stuff from the belay, so that would have to wait until I got there. Michael had given me a bit of beta for what I would find and I would deal with the rest when I got there. First off was the "easy, chimney section" which I found to be a bit harder than I had imagined. It could have been the humongous lead rack or the camera I had clipped to my harness (on the wrong side!). Whatever the reason, as I climbed upward, I couldn't get enough of myself wedged in the chimney at any time to really feel solid at any time. At one point, I just got pissed off and downclimbed a bit to my last small stance, where I stripped the camera and jumar off the wrong side of the harness and put them on the other. This did the trick and I was able to finish off the chimney with little trouble, arriving at a two-bolt anchor right in the chimney. We'd talked about moving the belay up to this point, but decided against it. Time to get scared!

From the two-bolt anchor, the topo shows 5.7 free climbing past a bolt to a short flake, then into a "tricky A1 section" to finish up a 5.8 jamcrack. I had heard the face climbing was a little dicey and had dire consequences if you fell. I stepped up on a small ledge and clipped into a pretty decent bolt. Another short move and I could see another bolt hanger a couple of moves up from the first. I clipped this as well, but the flimsy-looking aluminum hanger didn't give me much of a warm fuzzy for the moves ahead. Traversing right on the thin, polished granite kept my attention fairly well. Ten feet to the right you can latch fingers onto some pin scars in a small corner flake-thing. The feet are pretty good, and you can put a small TCU into one of the scars. Having not done too much free-climbing on this thing, I was a little hesitant to launch off up the rest of the scars. I sucked it up and a couple of short moves got me to a good handhold lock at the top of this short crack. It was time to A1, so I set a great nut right where the good handhold was with some difficulty and clipped an aider into it. The fifi followed and I got ready for the aid section. Top stepping on the right, I was able to get up high enough to reach a crummy looking sling hanging from a rusty fixed pin. "Gee, sure hope that holds...", I thought as I grabbed the sling and clipped the next aider into it. Easing weight onto it, I quickly stepped higher and clipped another pin about a foot higher and watched the eye of this one flex as I weighted it. Finally, a decent piece of pro went in and I could relax a bit. I continued up the crack which led a bit right. At the top, just below where the 5.8 hand and fist crack started I placed what seemed to be a good #12 stopper. I cleaned the piece below and pulled a #2 Camelot off the rack to place above. As I reached to place the #2, the stopper decided to play with me and shifted in it's placement. Dropping about three inches got my attention! I stuffed the #2 into the crack and slipped the rope into the biner as fast as I could. The rest of the pitch went quickly with a little tricky swapping of the other #2 and #3 Camelots and I fixed the ropes on the large tree at the belay.

Eric at the tree belay atop pitch eight.

While Eric and Michael were coming up, they were able to kick the haulbag out to the right side of the chimney onto the face. This made hauling easy and the bag was soon hanging from one of the tree limbs. Eric made the belay sooner as Michael was cleaning, but we were moving well now and it didn't take long for Michael to reach the tree and start racking for pitch nine. I would be jugging the rest of the way, so I could relax. Two to go!

Michael wasn't looking too motivated for this pitch, but he racked up nonetheless. Eric and I got comfortable and enjoyed the nice belay and the awesome day. It was almost noon by that time, so things were looking pretty fine for us. The mood lightened as we neared the summit. The pitch headed up to the right of the belay in a right-facing corner and then cut to the left across a face section. The final obstacle of the pitch was a roof that led to the belay just above. We flipped the haul line and the free fixed line over to the left so that Eric could jug straight up to the belay This line went right up an offwidth corner, so he babysat the haulbag on the way. I got to clean and started jugging up the first corner. At the top of the corner, the rope traversed to the left across the face with only two pieces between me and the wall coming down from the roof. Looking at a nasty traverse on jumars, I was able to pull the first piece o.k. without taking a swing, but the next one was a different story. I moved on over to the next piece and with some back aiding, was able to get it out, but that stranded me with another ten feet of traverse, but no way to get there. I finally just worked my way over as far as I could and just jumped off. The short swing wasn't too bad and the traverse was over. Up the roof and that was it. Michael and Eric were getting the ropes straightened out when I got there and Eric was racking to lead the final pitch. The topo shows eleven pitches, but we were going to run the last two together and shorten things a bit.

Micheal leading pitch nine (10a).

Michael spent a bit of time describing the final pitch to Eric before he headed up. It's important on this last section to make a serious effort not to knock off loose rock. It is nearly impossible not to, but any climbers left at the belay get rained on as the rope knocks loose stuff out of the totally rotten gully at the top. Eric agreed to make an effort and launched off. This pitch ended up only being about 90' or so and he did a great job of limiting the incoming granite missiles from above. I think only one good one came down and ended up putting a dent in Michael's hand, but most of the rest was fairly small and harmless. Maybe it's just because I was hanging around just below Michael so he got the brunt of the abuse? :-)

Eric leading the last pitch. Michael belays.

Ropes fixed and I started up ahead of the haul bag. This is important as well because the bag performs kind of a sweeper function when it's dragged up the gully. For this section, it's definitely a benefit for the person nursing the haulbag to jumar either with or slightly above the bag to avoid getting bombed. Once I tip-toed my way to the summit, Michael followed the bag to the top. I had coiled one of the ropes and move up into the shade by that time, but we all topped out about 1:30 in the afternoon. Smokin' day on the Column!

Dragging the bag up and over to the summit, we opened it up and started stripping gear, shoes and harnesses. It took a bit to sort and stuff everything in it's proper place. I got the gear in the backpack while Michael volunteered to carry the haulbag. Geeze, I have to climb with these guys more often! We struggled to the actual summit of the Column and checked out the awesome view. If Half Dome was impressive from Dinner Ledge, it was completely awesome from straight across the Valley. We set up for gratuitous summit photos with Half Dome looming behind and then started the long descent.

Summit. Eric, me, Michael.

All in all, I would have to say that the dreaded North Dome gully was a bit easier than I had pessimistically imagined. Little did I realize that when we spent that nasty night descending from Sentinel Rock, it would make most other descents pale in comparison. Having Michael along to point the way wasn't working against us either! :-) We started down at about 2:45pm and made the Ahwahnee Hotel parking lot by about 5:20pm. What an awesome day!

Coming down the dreaded North Dome Gully.

Eric on the descent. Half Dome behind.

The East Face of Washington Column featuring Astroman.

Back at the Ahwahnee parking lot.

All the stuff was launched into the cars and we headed for the nearest water fountain which happened to be located in the Ahwahnee itself. Nothing like sustaining the "climber" stereotype whenever possible. Water...mmmm. Michael showed up with a handful of assorted cookies courtesy of afternoon tea at the Ahwahnee. Tasty. The bathroom was upstairs, so we hustled up for a quick pitstop. We were lounging in the puffy couches on the second floor when who should walk up the stairs but Jenny from Dinner Ledge! Cool! A chance to hear the rest of the story. According to her, she actually led part of the Kor Roof, but in her words, she got "disgusted" with how easy and boring the aid was and decided to lower off the top of the roof. Hmmm...whatever. They spent most of the rest of the day rapping off the route where we eventually ran into Jenny at the Ahwahnee. Her partner, Chelsea, was down in the parking lot with none other than "Brian the guide." It didn't take a genius to see that Brian was "makin' wood" for Chelsea. We went back down and chatted with them for a bit before headed for showers and food. Man, that shower felt awesome.

After getting dinner, it was time for the celebration beers! Eric and I headed into the Mountain Room bar while Michael ran some errands. We're sitting there basking in the glow of victory when a group of guys walk up, "Are you guys Eric, Greg or Michael?" Uhhh..."Yup!" Turns out it was David English, rec.climber from Portland with a couple of friends. He'd seen a post mentioning my trip to the Valley and taken a chance he see us at the bar. This was my eleventh rec.climber met in person. We had a great time swapping climbing stories and drinking beer. Not having a place to sleep that night, short of driving out of the Valley to a pullout, we suggested to them that we might be able to sack out in their campsite at Upper Pines CG for the night. They graciously made the offer (couldn't miss the subtle hints) and we had a place to bivy for the night. Thanks guys.

June 5

The next morning, Michael and Eric beat me out of bed and started sorting the gear. This took quite a while but we eventually had everybody's stuff back in the right pile and packed back in the cars. We hit the cafeteria for breakfast and Michael headed for home while we hit the mountaineering store. After that, we booked for the Bay Area. An awesome trip to the Valley (as usual) and I could go back two-fer-two on the big walls.