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bbirtle
Jul 9, 2007, 12:57 PM
Post #1 of 1
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Registered: Jan 28, 2007
Posts: 102
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http://birtle.com/...YosemiteAmbience.htm .....I started us off by leading a tough crack - off width and off route. So next came a 20m traverse to the correct belay spot, where a party of three annoying French melonheads arrived shortly after. Richard took the next slabby pitch around the corner where upon arrival I glaced up to find a nearly overhanging finger crack. "Why do I always get the crack pitches?" I whined, as I sorted out cams and took stock of my bleeding fingers. But I came to life on the pitch - the crack was superb and after topping out I found another, even tricker off width crack. Jamming my arms and legs and shimming up, I arrived at the anchor feeling back in the game and happy that Richard dragged me up. The three melonheads were actually quite useful to use on pitch seven. We had arrived at a large ledge and I had started up a tricky line involving cracks protected by cams and nuts and bolted linking sections when they were happy to point out we were off route. It was a stressful pitch. I'd accidentally verred off on UCPA, a much harder route. There were bolts and anchors all over the wall and nothing made sense. After a lot of shouting and a long horizontal traverse, then more scratching of heads and shouting from below, we finally found ourselves, Richard, me, and the three melonheads, hanging from the same two bolts. I'd met one of the melonheads at the ENSA climbing gym two years back and not to get into details he proved my already formed mental image of him being a complete wanker. I happily let them pass us but my game was thrown off from the chaos of the last pitch. Richard was thankfully still in the game and it was his lead on a very tricky slab pitch. Following I could only think of how tired I was from yesterday. Racking up at the next belay was the low point for me - I had zero interest to keep going and the thought of sticking my nose out and leading made me literally sick to my stomach. I fought through a few exposed bits and nearly lost it near the top - the final few moves required laybacking with insecure foot placements, bumping up the left hand in a wide crack. At the top of the crack I whacked up my right hand to a ledge, finding not the bomber jug I'd prayed for but a blank slab. I looked down and assessed my fall potential - a so-so mid-sized nut and a passable 0.3 Camolot were a long four meters down. Would they actually hold? My eye traced down, down, down, way down the cliff face to the only piece of bomber protection - a bolt more than twenty meters away...... (More: http://birtle.com/...YosemiteAmbience.htm)
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