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slablizard
Jun 28, 2004, 6:14 PM
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Registered: Oct 13, 2003
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DTSA Burning, Sport climbing “sort of” epic.
7:30 I’m cruising at 80Mph on 880 toward Alameda, to meet Mike, he’s probably there putting his gear in the car. Driving to a meeting place is one of the best parts of a climbing day. I find myself pre-planning the day, starting from the approach, then pre-tasting the routes I want to climb, trying to remember the perfect state of mind you find yourself before a committing move, the instants of the climbs, the little details, the smells…the wind. The highway is empty I speed up a little more and take the exit to Mike’s House.
Fast forward, one hour later, we pull out at the DTSA parking sort our gear (we take minimum gear this time, and split it). The hike up the trail is pleasant, the air is cool, and we chat while we pass a couple of hikers. We stop few times to check the guidebook, the trail is long and I don’t want to walk more than needed.
Finally we get to the main wall, the Kremlin Wall I’m quiet waiting for Mike’s “Wow” factor, he likes it and we both approach the base of the wall to touch the rock itself, that, from a distance, looks good. Mike gets up a warm up route, he climbs a 5.8 wit caution, since. We get ready to do the multi-pitch one, we swap leads, I lead the last 11a pitch, a long elegant arete, We rappell down while the sun is coming up on the face. We eat and drink, under the shade of an apple tree the grows right under an 11b, the next climb of the day.
I start on a loose slab until a first move up to a bolt and a ledge. Now I have to face the little overhang that is the actual 11 part of the route, and here I have to partly abandon the research for finesse and caution, and carry on, get to the crux and keep cranking on a side pull confident that it will get better up on the edge where I will have a good clipping stance. So I keep bumping my left hand up, and up, and up looking for a nice positive edge that I don’t actually find. I’m pretty stretched at this point, I have to clip so I need to finalize the move and stabilize myself. Time to move my left foot up. As I start doing it my body begins a slow flag to the right, following the overhang, I feel a discharge of adrenaline while part of the pinch I’m holding on slips under my fingers leaving me with a 3 fingers pinch on my left, and my right pushing my body away from the rock to counter the flag. I find myself in a sort of “witness” position, waiting to see what happens, better than yell “take” and jump grabbing the draw. I’ve been there before, either I’m going to fall, ( the last bolt is a littlle under my foot) or hold.
I twist my body slowly, I get as stable as I can and realize that I’m not going to fall. Clip quick! I stop breathing while I pull up rope, the most delicate moment. Then I lounge for a jug and then another to get out of the “hard” section of the route, I’m overgripping a bit, Ah! Just a little shake.
Mike goes up with the draws in, he’s going to make it, I can see he’s determined, but once he gets on the overhang and goes up to get a good rail his right foothold pops under pressure, I recover rope quickly pushing myself away from the rock, ” Are you ok”? He’s fine, he finds his calm again and goes for it. He finishes the lead a little shaken but satisfied.
We both decide to take a breath, the sun is beating on us and the caffeine-ridden drink I had is wearing down, time for a smoke and a look over to the other huge side of the cliff.
And this is where the fun part starts.
We can see a house down in the valley, with a little pool and a small parking lot with 3or 4 cars parked, the valley cames up to where we are over a field of tall and very dry grass and brushes. The wind is strong and cames right up at us as well. Looks like these guys are having fun, we can hear music. We look at the other side of the cliff checking the tall spires and faces, wandering about the quality of the rock there and the sun exposure.. Then I look down toward the house again, I see a little fire in the parking lot, near the cars, ‘Hey Mike, those guys are burning something down there”
“Yeah, maybe it’s a controlled fire” He says.
We keep looking and in little more than 3 minutes the “controlled fire” has burned pretty much all the parking lot, while we hear those guys screaming, “ Move that car! Move it! Move it! Get those cars away from the fire! “ Hum… that does not really look under control to me. My sight goes from the now raging brush fire to the tall brushes. They start 30 meters away from the fire and end up few meters under the boulder we’re standing on.
Mike goes” Uh oh…when it gets to the tall brushes it will be really out of control”.
20 seconds later we can see the flames engulfing the tall brushes and picking up speed and volume, pushed by the wind, at the same time the bottom of the valley is filling up with smoke, the party is over, the cars are gone, we hear FF sirens in the distance, a chopper arrivesm.
We keep watching until we grow really worried since the wind seems to push the fire up right toward us. We look at each opther and decide to “Get the hell out of here…fast” the smoke is all around us at this point, the fire is still way down, but the terrain and the weather are perfect for a fast moving fire. We stuff our gear in the packs and start running down the trail, good thing the first part is down hill. After 3 minutes we turn around and the smoke is a lot thicker. Now there are 2 DF planes dropping water over the flames, a Bronco spotter plane and a second chopper that alerts “The people near the rocks, get down, you are in fire danger area” Thank you ! We knew it arlready!
I find myself basically running the first uphill section of the trail, I got the rithm down now and I keep pushing on my legs as fast as I can. Eventually we get high enough up on the other side of the valley, we stop to catch our breath and drink some water, it’s 3PM, it’s hot and we’re running up a trail chased by fire. LOL! That’s what I like of a quiet sport climbing Sunday. Technically we’re out of danger, even if I don’t like the idea of being on top of a mountain while a fire is raging down in the valley. Fire has the nasty habit to go up, exactly where we are.
We laugh about the whole thing, and about how the place chased us away. Well at least we got to climb half a day. We scramble up the last steep uphill section, finally arriving on top and at the downhill part of the trail. Boy that feels good. It’s going to be a fun post Monday on rc.com, I think while looking at yet another chopper coming in the valley from the other side.
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tallnik
Jun 28, 2004, 6:24 PM
Post #2 of 22
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Registered: Apr 18, 2004
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Craziness...
So, did you ever find out how the fire started/got out of hand? And did the FF manage to put it out?
Nik
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slablizard
Jun 28, 2004, 6:30 PM
Post #3 of 22
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Registered: Oct 13, 2003
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Nope. My guess would be either a firework went bad, a hot exhaust pipe or a barbecue...I have no idea. After we left we stopped down the road looking at the planes dropping water over the fire...The fire seemed kind of under control at that point, hard to say because the area was juss partially visible from the road.
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climbinginchico
Jun 28, 2004, 7:26 PM
Post #4 of 22
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Registered: Mar 24, 2004
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damn, I'm kinda glad I went to Tuolumne instead now. The only burning there was my skin from the sun! Glad you made it out ok, I will have to go with you sometime, maybe it wont burn then... :lol:
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slablizard
Jun 28, 2004, 7:52 PM
Post #5 of 22
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How was Tuolomne? Can't wait to enjoy some slabs there!
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climbinginchico
Jun 28, 2004, 8:03 PM
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Registered: Mar 24, 2004
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Tuolumne was awesome. The weather was beautiful, and I got to break in my new shoes. Ross is recovering from a broken ankle, so we only did some .8's .9's and .10a's But it was still fun. He wasn't comfortable leading, so I got to lead a .9 up a nice knobby face and then set up a nice TR anchor at the top with trad gear. My first anchor on trad gear, and it was "perfect" he said. I will post a TR later today.
You'll have to come and we will definitely do some slab work, there is some awesome face climbing with littly crimpy crystals too, for sport leads. You'll have to come soon.
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slablizard
Jun 28, 2004, 8:49 PM
Post #7 of 22
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Registered: Oct 13, 2003
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Cool! Sport climbs? Or trad? and where at Tuolomne?
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roughster
Jun 28, 2004, 9:41 PM
Post #8 of 22
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Registered: Apr 3, 2002
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LOL that does sound epic! Did I mention "The Curse" of DTSA?? :lol:
Glad to hear you guys were ok and I guess we'll see what the damage is next weekend :shock:
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climbinginchico
Jun 28, 2004, 9:52 PM
Post #9 of 22
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Registered: Mar 24, 2004
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the leads i did were sport, still not up to leading Toulumne trad. I can set a mean anchor tho LOL. There was a nice vertical face lead, .9 i think, and to the side an 11b that was out of my league for a lead on that day. Then there were the obligatory runout slabs, those were fun too.
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slablizard
Jun 28, 2004, 9:59 PM
Post #10 of 22
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I had the feeling that that place has some sort of soul...what curse you're talikng about? THE CURSE OF THE BLACK BOLT? :twisted:
CAming back we where looking also at the other place you told me about, the one on private land with that huge overhang. How's the rock there? Any news about that?
In reply to: LOL that does sound epic! Did I mention "The Curse" of DTSA?? :lol: Glad to hear you guys were ok and I guess we'll see what the damage is next weekend :shock: |
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roughster
Jun 28, 2004, 10:06 PM
Post #11 of 22
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In reply to: I had the feeling that that place has some sort of soul...what curse you're talikng about? THE CURSE OF THE BLACK BOLT? :twisted: CAming back we where looking also at the other place you told me about, the one on private land with that huge overhang. How's the rock there? Any news about that? In reply to: LOL that does sound epic! Did I mention "The Curse" of DTSA?? :lol: Glad to hear you guys were ok and I guess we'll see what the damage is next weekend :shock:
I'll have to tell you about that "experience" off line, heheh :) Its too incriminating to do on a public forum :mrgreen:
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jiadar
Jun 28, 2004, 10:20 PM
Post #12 of 22
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Registered: Oct 2, 2002
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Yeah, boy am I glad we decided to go to Tuolomne last weekend. With my busted ankle, there's no way I would be able to out run a fire. I only started walking again 2 weeks ago and actually can't run at all. But hey, I still managed some easy climbing at Tuolomne and yeah , that sun was definately strong! Can't wait to get back.
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climbinginchico
Jun 28, 2004, 10:25 PM
Post #13 of 22
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Registered: Mar 24, 2004
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Ross, when are you coming back up? Even though my fingers are still bleeding I want to go back so BAD.
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jiadar
Jun 28, 2004, 11:58 PM
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Registered: Oct 2, 2002
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July 9, too bad you will be slaving away at work in San Jose and will have to miss it. LOL... I had a great time too and looking forward to getting back asap. I can't stop thinking about it.
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tigerbythetail
Jun 29, 2004, 1:52 AM
Post #15 of 22
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In reply to: Mike gets up a warm up route, he climbs a 5.8 wit caution, since especially the foot stances are sometimes crumbly here and there.
In reply to: good thing he brought an helmet, I get a lot of flack while belaying...Mike is under a constant shower of debris that I can’t avoid
In reply to: I start on a loose slab until a first move up to a bolt and a ledge...so I look at the holds asking them “not to pop right now please”
In reply to: I twist my body slowly, I don’t really trust this “rock”...I’m overgripping a bit, especially when I have time to look down at the ledge under me, perfect anckle-trasher and thinking that 2 mile out in the middle of nowhere you don’t want to get hurt
Sounds like a great place...well at least the bit about the fire is amusing.
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roughster
Jun 29, 2004, 2:01 AM
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In reply to: In reply to: I twist my body slowly, I don’t really trust this “rock”...I’m overgripping a bit, especially when I have time to look down at the ledge under me, perfect anckle-trasher and thinking that 2 mile out in the middle of nowhere you don’t want to get hurt Sounds like a great place...at least the fire story was amusing...
Yeah, climbing choss is fun... I remember climbing Oso Smokey back in the day.... :lol: The route that Paolo is talking about has been climbed literally three times. Some of the routes out there have only been climbed once for the FA at this point. ALL routes take a little bit of traffic to clean up unless your bolting granite slabs.... oh wait, now I see where you are coming from Chris :twisted:
As for the fall, the wall is steep enough for you to clear the ledge (as is evident by the fact his partner took the fall and didn't hit it). Things always look worse than they are when you're gripped :D
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tigerbythetail
Jun 29, 2004, 2:07 AM
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You seem a little defensive...easy on the meds!
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roughster
Jun 29, 2004, 2:09 AM
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In reply to: You seem a little defensive...easy on the meds!
You're talking about my baby here :lol: Actually I don't mind the commentary that it is chossy, since it is, however, I hope people realize that when you go climbing at an area that is recently developed, you should expect some loose stuff and especially the little flakey crap to be on the routes.
I'll take a 300 foot overhanging chosspile, over a 40 foot granite slab anyday. The choss will clean up eventually, the 40 foot slab will always be a 40 foot slab :lol:
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roughster
Jun 29, 2004, 2:12 AM
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When your surrounded by choss, you learn to love choss. God knows I am neck deep in the stuff :mrgreen:
I have heard people call Rifle "chossy", so there really is no hope for any other crag out there other than perfect sheets of granite. And people who like that style of climbing can go have at it, as it just leaves more room for the rest of us having fun on the "chossy" stuff :)
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tigerbythetail
Jun 29, 2004, 2:22 AM
Post #21 of 22
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In reply to: a 300 foot overhanging chosspile
Sounds nice
In reply to: a 40 foot granite slab
Wow, that big? I gotta find me something tall like that...
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slablizard
Jun 29, 2004, 3:54 PM
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Registered: Oct 13, 2003
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Well...maybe I was a little dramatic in the "ankle-trasher" part. Mike actuall felt and was fine. Please do not missunderstund me, I don't want to spoil the joy to find a new crag to anybody, I was just telling the story of what happened sunday...I'm sure that when Aron decides to make the place "public" you all going to love it.
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