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I have been cursed by the gods. Surely I am paying for some horrible transgression in my past - I just wish I could remember what it was. My original intent to do some climbing in Ontario after a meeting in Toronto went down in flames at the last minute, and in fact the entire trip was an unmitigated disaster from start to finish. Which set the stage for the three days that Jack and I had planned on in the Meadows. I almost didn't make it back to town due to airplane issues, but somehow Jack and I managed to get on the road at 9 PM. It was my turn to drive, which was unfortunate since I had been up since 2 AM. We figured that at that time of the day, it should be an easy drive. We figured wrong. First there was the long delay caused by the horribly mangled wreckage of a car on 24, then there was the car on fire in the middle of the road by the Altamont pass. And then, to add insult to injury, the Beacon gas station in Oakdale is gone - looks like they're turning it into a Vallero. We ended up at Hardin around 12:30, where I promptly collapsed. The next morning we drove to the Meadows, and set up the tents at the group site before going climbing - we wanted to snag the flat sections before the rest of the horde showed up. Then we racked up and headed to Fairview to go up Inverted Staircase (5.10b). Despite the threatening clouds, I had roped up and was ready to take off, when Jack, an unfortunate source of reason in the endeavour, pointed at the black thunderheads and said "maybe we should think about this." I was in a state of mind where I was fully prepared to epic, but saner minds prevailed. So we hiked back toward the car, where we ran into Amy and Aaron on the trail! They had been in the Palisades, and made an attempt on Dark Star, but had gotten rather sick, so came up to the Meadows to recuperate. We then made for Stately Pleasure Dome, thinking it would be drier there, with the intention to go up Death Crack (5.11d). Once again, we had tied in, and Jack was about to start up, when the rains began. We quickly packed up, and headed back to the car, but not before the slabs became rather slippery, which resulted in a couple of exciting "slab surfing" incidents for me. We returned to the campsite, and hung around with Amy and Aaron while the rock dried out, then headed to Puppy Dome, where we played for a while on Do or Fly (5.11c) and Horseshoes and Handgrenades (5.12a). Jack led them both - I was shut down by the overhanging off-finger crack on Horseshoes, and resorted to pulling on gear. I blame it on my bum knee and general wussiness.

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Aaron on Do or Fly, and Jack on Horseshoes and Handgrenades

The horde started to show up that evening. Jack broke out the bottle of Jack, and a pint sized mixed drink comprised of 80% whiskey was soon being passed around the campfire. Unfortunately, there was no bacon fat to spice up the evening, but I had hopes for Saturday night. The next morning dawned grey and overcast. Not a good sign. Which made it a perfect day for the central purpose of this trip: Sorcerer's Apprentice (5.11a). Cindy and Bob were already on Lucky Streaks when we got there, and were making good progress. We spent some time trying to find the start of the route, and finally decided on a likely looking crack. I wanted the runout "Sea of Knobs" pitch, which gave Jack the first pitch. A little spicy, with not so great pro. However, when he got to the belay, he expressed his doubts about P2 - it looked nothing like what was on the topo. Instead of a crack system off to the right, there were 3 bolts going off to the left. I went up to joined him, and we decided to rap down and have another look from the ground. We wandered around for a while, comparing the notoriously unreliable guide to the real thing, and eventually came to the conclusion that we didn't know what the hell we were doing. We could identify Lucky Streaks on one side, and Heart of Stone on the other. We were fairly sure about Scavenger, despite not seeing all the bolts on the first pitch. But Mr. Kamps and Sorcerer's continued to elude us. The line just to the left of Lucky Streaks looks a lot like the topo of Sorcerer's, but then where would that put Mr. Kamps? We gave up and decided to do Heart of Stone (5.12a). Jack took the first pitch, and boy, is that some challenging 5.10c! We even broke out the screamers for one manky bolt. I followed him up, and was just about to start P2, when we noticed the rain clouds coming in, so we bailed. We were a little concerned about Cindy and Bob, so started walking towards the descent as the rain began. We ran into them hiking back - luckily they had descended just before the sky opened up. We hung around for a while at the base of Great Pumpkin, where a party of 3 was trying to bail, just to make sure that they got down ok.

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Charles on Heart of Stone, and the horde hanging out at the campsite.

We returned to the campsite, and spent a few hours tossing some frisbees around. I haven't thrown a frisbee in a few years, and my right arm was kinda sore by the end of it. Note, hitting a ranger's car with a disc is not a good idea. At around 6 we made a quick dash to Puppy Dome for another go at Do or Fly, but it was pretty wet. We did a couple of laps on it anyway. Once again, much to my disappointment, there was no bacon fat to be had at the campfire that evening. We did manage to finish off Jack's Jack, and Chris' Maker's Mark though. We slept in a bit next morning, but eventually made it to Olmstead Canyon, where we wanted to check out the upper tier. We warmed up on Grease Monkey (5.8), which is a bit awkward, then moved on to Double Feature (5.11d). Jack took the lead, and was doing great things until the 3rd bolt. After that it got kinda hard... We eventually set up a TR on it, and I had a try. I think the mantle is the way to go after the 5th bolt, but it's still pretty damn sketchy. Every now and then, we would feel a few drops of rain, but it never really opened up. After that, we joined Amy and Haj by Lord Caffeine (5.10d++++), where we each ran a few laps. That thing doesn't get too much easier despite the multiple times I've been up it.

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The upper tier of Olmstead, with Jack on Double Feature

We were pretty fried by then, so we wrapped it up, and fought the weekend traffic back to the Bay Area. Not a high mileage weekend by any description - the rain gods (and probably a few others) definitely had it in for us. Or at least for me.