fun weekend in tahoe

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Christopher McGuinness
Date: Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 12:30 PM
Subject: fun weekend in tahoe
To: Sharon Houck , Justin Brockman
, mattyama@stanford.edu, vincent chu
, Kimberly Yee


Hey guys,
Here's a summary of what we did last weekend, for those that have work
they would like to avoid.

Saturday (The Leap)
Relatively early start with Vince, springing out of bed shortly after
the birds. Munched down some breakfast, consisting of canned fruit
for me, mmmmm, so good. We packed up and headed over to the lower
buttress. We started off on Surrealistic Direct, with Vince
spearheading this idea. I was a bit intimidated as I haven't lead
much 10a, and no 10b before. I also fell while TR'ing this route a
few weeks ago. But the pro is great, so what the hell. Vince starts
off, with numb feet after wearing sandals all morning. His feet skate
around a bit on the small features he's trying to smear on.
Eventually he gets up the somewhat awkward left side in hand
jam/forearm jam crack. He does the 10a (I think) traverse over the
right crack system going through the roof. After a few dicey moves,
and a couple good pieces of pro, he down climbs back to the good feet
stance and shakes out a bit. Up to this point he seems a bit jittery
and a little scared, all very warrented as this is not an easy climb.
But at this point he summons the spry crux firing juicies and blasts
through the roof without a moments hesitation. I was totally
impressed. Clean lead through and through, and an impressive vetran
move to put some pro, down climb for a rest, and fire the crux. Kim
goes to follow him, but is weighed down by the bag, and the fact that
she is trying to layback/face climb the first section, turning a 5.9
crack into an 11a face climb. She ditches the bag and cruises up
after this.

I jump on, work up the crack without much trouble. At the top of the
crack you can either traverse right, and go over the 10b roof, as
Vince did, or stay left to a 10b lieback. I decide to go left, but
get spooked with the 10b lieback, and don't see how to get from there
back over the right crack. I'm sure a couple face moves above the lb
would have solved this, but I chicken out and tension traverse over
the the right crack. I try the roof, end up hanging, and eventually
get up it. Not a very clean lead.... Oh well. Matt follows with the
pack carrying all our water (3L). He struggles a bit on the roof but
gets through with some heavy grunting and cursing. People down below
are cheering him on, and I'm calling him our mule.

We finish up the rest of Surrealistic Pillar and hike up to the main
ledge in pursuit of hospital corner. Vince had done this climb a
while ago, so he offers me first lead. I go for it, and love it the
whole way. It warms up with an easy blocky pitch to get to the start
of the second pitch. The second pitch is where the money's at. Great
stances to stick in pro into a crack that just sucks it up, fire a
couple moves with some good stems, good finger locks, and the
occasional hand jam to the next good stance to put in pro. Perfect
climb for someone pushing 10a. Matt works it, with more grunts and
heavy breathing, but makes it up clean! Awesome job! Vince has no
problem either, and Kim works it pretty well. Her jamming skills are
still in the works so one spot gives he a little trouble, but only
briefly.

This has taken us a bit of time, and its getting late in the day. Our
water is out, as we've consoladated to one bag. Matt and I decided to
go for Corrigation Corner, so Matt can get a little experience leading
the first pitch. We start up around 5:30 I think, not too worried
about the setting sun. Fortunately Vince gives us the one headlamp in
the pack, the others were left in the other pack at the base of
surrealistic. We start up, taking it slower than I was expecting. I
forgot how delicate this climb is. Its 5.7, but exposed and balancy
in some spots. I was expecting to be able to just run up most of it,
but find myself slowly working upwards or sideways. The arete on
pitch 2, and right traverse on pitch three were particularly delicate.
I get to the top just as its getting dark. Matt has the headlamp and
wips it out to finish off the last pitch. We work our way down the
decent sharing the light from the headlamp, and get to the main trail
just as we realize its 8:55, and I thought Strawberry lodge closed at
9. We start booking it down the trail, throw our shit in the truck
and beeling for stawberry lodge, getting there at 9:05. I thought we
were doomed, but was pleasantly surprised when the older guy there
told us they close at 9:30 on Fridays and Saturdays!

Sunday, Sugar loaf
I wanted to work on aid climbing, and give Matt some experience with
it, so we decided to cruise over to Sugar loaf to check out Grand
Illusion, 5.13 A1. Beautiful finger crack under a 135deg angled roof.
We start off a bit late and are pounded by sun on the way up the
trail. There is absolutely nobody around for miles. It looks like
the forest in the near vacinity was burned recently, maybe in the
forest fires from several months ago, so there is a desolate, sun
baking ominous vibe to this place. I'm looking around for the
vultures and dead carcasses at this point. I decide to start off with
wide looking 10a crack to get to the base of Grand Illusion. Half way
up I totally regret aiding this as its a very awkward aid climb, hot,
and not very good pro at the top. This would have been an easy free
climb for the most part, but we were there to get some aid practice,
so I keep going. Matt also struggles following this and is huffing
and puffing by the time he gets up. He says this took 1-1.5 hrs for
me to lead, but it felt much slower, and I'm concerned my aid skills
are too slow for the nose. From here we head over to grand illusion.
This thing is beautiful. It starts off deep in this alcove, and works
its way out overlooking a steep exposed drop. I start up and just
cruise it. Its perfect for aiding, just sucking in the cams, steep
enough that you can hang easily by the gear while using the side wall
to balance against while stepping up. green and yellow aliens are key
for the entire second half. I use two of each and back clean them a
few times even. I left as much pro as possible for Matt, which turned
out to work well. Matt went for it, a little apprehensive as he
hadn't ever aided before, or jugged up a overhanging traversing route
before. He took a few heart pumping swings when unclipping some of
the gear. By the end he seemed to be enjoying it and was fearless
releasing the cams holding him into the rock. We finish this towards
the afternoon, and decide to call it a day. I was feeling a bit
better about my aiding skills after this climb, as it went much faster
than the first. Nose, here we come!





-- Vincent Chu
Department of Applied Physics
Geballe Laboratory of Advanced Materials
McCullough Bldg. 318
476 Lomita Mall
Stanford, CA, 94305

vchu AT post.harvard.edu
vincentchu AT gmail.com

http://www.stanford.edu/~vincentc (homepage, updated sporadically)

Consider this:
"The smallest positive integer not definable in under eleven words."