Fourth trip out this year! Woo hoo! I had been thinking about Jeff's last route on Fairview for a while now, and after consulting with Deb, Tom and Jim, decided to give it a try. It wasn't hard to convince Michael to join me, so on Friday night we met up at the secret spot, and along with James, made a dash for the meadows. James was meeting some friends of his there, and we had vague assurances that they would be at the Tioga lake campground. I decided not to risk the problems of finding people at midnight, and we crashed in the meadows instead. Saturday morning began with us driving around, looking for James' friend Jeremy and another pair, making the circuit of all the campgrounds. No luck. We drove back to the meadows, and were about to abandon James to his own devices, when his buds showed up, and off they went to do 3rd Pillar.

Mike and I headed for Fairview, and tried to find the route. The only topo we had was a picture of the side of Fairview, a squiggly line, and a very brief description. [Update: here's a pdf of the new topo] Luckily, it was pretty easy to find the start (unlike, say the start of Sorcerer's....), and we blasted off around 9:30. Here's a brief summary. Skip this section if you want your adventure untarnished:

• P1: (5.9) start on large shelf, 4 ft off ground, in left facing corner, just to the right of Plastic Exploding Inevitable. Follow corner up to a seam, step out on face, follow line of bolts to anchors.
• P2: (5.11a) technical slab/face.
• P3: (5.10) knobs/face. bear left at top to right facing corner. belay on 6" x 18" ledge in corner (gear), just beneath a small roof/corner. You'll see the 1st bolt for the next pitch about 10 feet up on the right facing corner.
• P4: (5.11a) arete/roof, then head up and left to large ledge
• P5: (5.10) knobs/face
• P6: (5.10) traverse left around arete, up to 1 bolt + nut anchor (takes a green alien if someone's stolen the nut). short pitch
• P7: (5.10) up and left, belay at bolts just under roof. mossy at top
• P8: (5.11b) roof.
• P9: (5.9) face/knobs up bolts. bear left, joining 4th class finish of Regular Route.

• gear: 10 draws, 4-6 slings, singles of green alien to #2 camalot.

Dinner, of course, was at the Mobil station, where we ran into Erin Lutrick - though maybe that's no too surprising, for where else would any self respecting climber from the east side be on such a fine weekend!

It took us a long time to figure out what to do on Sunday, but we eventually decided on Phobos/Deimos cliff. Despite the less than alpine start, we were the first party up there. Since it was free, and Mike had never tried it, we warmed up on Phobos, then traversed at the top of P2 to Blues Riff and rapped down. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, another party was gearing up. A very slooow party. But we waited them out, then Mike sent the route, without any problem. In fact, as he was hanging out on the finger crack section, he asked me "so, where's the crux?" I followed, then we decamped and made for Gold Finger. Unfortunately, there was yet another really slow party on that, aiding their way up it. We hung out for about a half an hour, watching the leader make his tortuous way up to the bolt, during which time I learned how to say "tension" in Japanese. We gave up, and decided to have a go at Mocha Velvet Stout, another Jeff and Deb classic. I took the first pitch, which was a hard 11d, liebacking my way up a discontinuous finger crack. Mike tried stemming it, and fared much better. Mike to the second pitch, which was very grotty and in need of cleaning, so we bailed and did a couple of laps on the 1st pitch again. Very fun! Next time, I'll have to try the 12c third pitch....

We picked up James and Jeremy at Drug Dome, where they had also played the waiting game on OZ and the Gram Traverse. But they had fun none the less, doing the Gram in one long pitch all the way to the top. 219 feet and a lot of rope drag! After a quick dip in Tenaya lake (it wasn't as cold as I had been expecting), we headed back for home, running into many of the usual crowd at El Aguave.

A great weekend - perfect weather, amazing climbs, and great company. Sooo good to get out again!