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After driving down to LA on Friday night, and spending most of Saturday with various doctors, family and friends, Erin and I finished the drive to J-Tree in the evening, making the compulsory (but hopeless) loop through Hidden Valley and Ryan campgrounds looking for a free spot before bivvying at Jumbo for the night. And a long night it was - incredibly windy, despite the trough we found to hunker down in. The wind noise prevented us from getting much sleep, and the clouds that moved in, obscuring the moon and stars, made us apprehensive about the possibility of rain. We stopped pretending to sleep around 6:30 on Sunday morning, and drove to Hidden Valley campground to look for a site. All the sites were taken, but some nice folks from Eugene, Lexi and Caleb, offered to share their site with us. Whew! By the time we had finished pitching the tent, the day had warmed up. It was sunny and warm - beautiful weather, with a gusty breeze from time to time. We were both really tired, and I hadn't climbed in a week since I dislocated my shoulder, so we decided to start out slow. We walked over to the Peyote Cracks, and Erin proceeded to lead the Right Peyote Crack (5.8), making short work of it despite the grunting noises and thrutching as she worked around the bulge. Much to my relief, my shoulder held out, though it felt loose with certain motions. We then moved 10 feet left, and Erin led the Middle Peyote Crack (5.9). For some reason she had the idea to lead the first section using just nuts, but soon discovered the value of small cams. More grunting and thrutching was brought out by the chimney at the top (pro to 2" my ass!), but she emerged mostly unscathed. We rigged a TR over the Left Peyote Crack (5.10), as I didn't feel up to leading the start, and paused for lunch. A party of three showed up then, and they worked on the two cracks we had just done. One of them managed to fall at the end of the finger section of the middle crack, pulled a piece, and landed on his ass on the ground. Luckily he wasn't hurt.

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Erin on Middle and Left Peyote Cracks

After lunch, we tried out the left crack. 5.10 my ass! It starts off with an overhanging insecure lie-back/stem, with bad pro. Erin tried it first, and wasn't long enough to really get into the stem, so ended up liebacking it. I wasn't flexible enough to do the stem, so had to try to lieback it as well, and boy did it suck! I fell a number of times before making it past the crux. I would say that it's a 5.11 at least. We finished off the day at the Rollerball Formation, where I led Rollerball (5.10b). Lots of fun! My right shoulder started to give as I was hugging the arete by the bolt, so I took for a moment before pushing on. Spicy! The roof crack at the top is excellent, though you can climb it using the jugs to the right of the crack. A single 60m rope rap gets you down. The next morning we were rudely awakened by a ranger, who said that we had to move our tent. Apparently we were more than 25 feet from the campfire. There was very little level ground with 25 feet of the campfire, unless you wanted to pitch your tent in the parking area, and we weren't more than 40 feet away. What a bastard. After breakfast, we walked back to the Outback. After Rollerball, Erin wanted to try some more roof cracks. The nicest one I could think of was Hobbit Roof (5.10d), where the roof goes at around 5.10a. It was sunny and hot, and the 10d slab move at the start felt rather hard, even if protected by a bolt. After finishing it, I rapped down, cleaned the pieces, and handed the rope over to Erin. She tried the slab move, but didn't want to commit on lead, so came down and I led it again and belayed her from the top. As she went up, I kept on hearing "ow! ow!" - she had really thrashed her hands the previous day, peeling away the tips on the Left Peyote crack lieback, and the backs of her hands on the rest. No wonder she didn't want to commit to the micro crimps of the slab! We then wandered over to Steve's Canyon, where we decided that it was too hot for Sidewinder, so I did Super Roof (5.9) instead. The move around the corner to the arete was a little spicier than I remembered from last time when I followed it! After leading it, Erin decided her hands hurt too much, so after lunch I followed it again to clean it. Amazingly enough, nobody else showed up in Steve's Canyon while we were there. We seemed to really be missing the crowds. We finished off the day at Intersection Rock, where I had a long standing appointment with Right Ski Track (5.10b). This time I led it clean, though there was a little cursing involved above the bolt. Erin followed it as the sun set, and we walked off and back to the camp site in the dusk. Apparently the ranger didn't object to our new tent location, because we slept undisturbed that night. We woke to slightly hazy skies, that cleared up as we were eating breakfast. We decided to spend the morning at Conan's Corridor, and then move on to Split Rock in the afternoon - I really wanted a go at Rubicon, which had been tempting me for years. After squeezing through the approach canyon to Conan's Corridor (with Erin laughing when my leg got stuck), we warmed up on Gem (5.8). A fun crack, but the rock is very crystalline! I moved very slowly to try to avoid opening up holes in the backs of my hand. Erin wisely taped up, and endured less pain than I. We rapped down just as another party was finishing up on Colorado Crack (5.9), which I proceeded to lead, after putting some of that sticky white stuff on the backs of my hands too. A swallow was hiding deep inside the crack about half way up, and surprised me when it complained about my presence as I passed it. The climb can be done straight in, but there are lots of edges and jugs around to make life easier. If you see them in time....

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Conan's Corridor

Conan's corridor gets morning light, and we lost it just as Erin was following Colorado Crack, so instead of doing Spiderman (5.10a), which is described in the guidebook with the phrase "A short, overhanging section is encountered near the bottom. Protection is difficult above." we hiked back out into the sun, and drove to Split Rock for a late lunch, before heading on to the Rubicon formation. I was a little apprehensive as I racked up for Rubicon (5.10d) - I have wanted to get on this climb for a long time, but it's always been too cold. This time, the weather was right, and I tried to ignore the pain in my shoulder. The first crack is a bit wide, but you get to the traverse fairly easily, and there are lots of good feet there. At the end of the traverse there's a great rest, and gear is easy. The second crack is where the money is - fingers and finger tips in disjointed pods in a right leaning crack. There are usually good feet on edges, and the crack takes medium nuts really well. The feet momentarily disappear at the crux, but there's a decent stance afterward to place gear, and then it's a fun jaunt to the top. Wow! What a great climb! There are bolts at the top, so I rapped down with Erin acting as a counterweight on the other end of the rope. She thought long and hard about following it, and in the end decided not to, so I had the chance to climb it again, with the added pleasure of extracting the well sunk nuts. I climbed it very differently the second time, staying further away from the crack. It's easier this way, but would make placing gear much more challenging.

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The Rubicon

Just as we were having dinner that night, it began to rain. It was fairly light at first, but slowly picked up in intensity. Since I had pitched the tent in a wash, we decided to spend the night in the truck, just in case. It rained all night long, which makes for a lot of noise on an aluminium camper shell. But at least we stayed dry. Then again, though there was a pool of water under my tent in the morning, it was still dry inside, so we would have survived there too. On the way out of the park, we stopped off at Echo, and had a go at Big Moe (5.11a). It was freezing in the shade. I fell off half way up, and my shoulder felt really bad. But by the time I had finished the climb, my hands had finally warmed up. Erin had a go, but couldn't stand the cold. She really hates me now for suggesting a cold 5.11 as a final climb for the trip. I ran it a second time to clean the anchors, and while my fingers felt fine, my shoulder protested a lot. Time to go. Finally, some (mostly) nice weather in J-tree! It was amazing to be hot there. Pity we were only there for 3 days. I could have easily stayed longer, and Erin's hands had finally toughened up by the time we had to leave. Well, there's always next year.... Oh yeah, and Erin got a speeding ticket around Wasco on the way home. The bastard had the temerity to say "if it makes you feel any better, I'll be giving out a lot of these today." Jerk.

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