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Cowabunga, and it's effect on Jack

We picked up Erika and Olivier at the store, where they told us of their adventures on Medlicott. They had tried to do Shipoopi, but had unfortunately gotten on the wrong route, following the (sparse) bolt line to the right, and taking numerous whippers, under the assumption "if Jack and Charles can do it, it can't be all that bad." This is normally a correct assumption, but it does help to find the correct line. After dinner, we dropped them off with the rest of the gang in the Meadows site, then headed back to Camp 9 for some shuteye, as we had asked the front desk to wake us up really early the next morning for the big day. My wrist watch's miniscule alarm went off at 4:45. Luckily I was already awake, or it never would have worked. We drove to Sawmill, and had breakfast in the dark at the trailhead. My water bottle had ice in it. Decided the extra weight of the long johns was worth it, which was one of the better decisions of the day. We were hiking before 6 along with Bob and Tony, some other Berkeley folks who were heading for the West Ridge of Conness. We had found out that Dan and Rob, who were also planning on doing our route, had hiked in the night before to set up an advance base camp, which we though was pretty weak, and we planned to beat them to the base of the route. Were it just Dan, we knew we wouldn't have a chance, but with Rob in tow, the odds were swinging greatly in our favour. As we hiked past Alpine Lake, we heard loud huffing and puffing, and sure enough, not far ahead were Rob and Dan. It didn't take long to catch up and pass them. We ditched the packs and racked up on the Conness plateau, then in the bitter cold, trudged down the scree. This is where things started to go wrong. At one point I slipped, and dealt my right hip a massive blow, to the point that I was cursing myself for having left the ibuprofen in the pack. Each step sent painful twinges up and down my right side. Finally, we arrived at the base of the South West Face of Mt. Conness (Harding Route) (5.10c). Luckily, right about then Bob and Tony walked by on their way to the West Ridge, and was able to supply me with some vitamin I. There was a bit of discussion as to which party would go first, and Jack eventually stepped up to the plate. He decided the best way to start a 10 pitch, offwidth intensive, high altitude climb would be with a V5 boulder problem, which he onsighted. Unfortunately, I had left my bouldering shoes in the car, and when I tried to follow with my high top Ballet Golds, my left foot popped off. My right shoulder, never one to be left out of a party, followed suit and popped out of it's socket. I bellowed shrilly as I dropped to the ground, and luckily my shoulder reset itself on its own. Oh bugger. What to do now? So the options were to hike back up the scree, do the West Ridge, or continue on with the Harding Route. Never one to make sensible decision, the course of action was clear, and up the Harding Route we went. I did tell Jack that he had to lead every pitch though. His response was "ok!" P1 kinda sucked, and not just because of my shoulder. Doesn't protect well, rock not the best quality, and not very aesthetic. The rest of the gang agreed with this judgement, and they all had fully functional joints. P2 was about 350 ft long, that is if you climb it the way Jack did, going up the 5.11 crack by mistake for about 50 ft before realizing the error of his ways, and then having to downclimb. And then doing the same at the top when he went right instead of left. I was able to avoid reproducing his initial error, but did the same thing at the top as he didn't leave any directionals in the last 75ft to indicate which way he went. It's a rope stretcher in any case. Since communication between leader and follower is difficult under such circumstances, Rob and Dan agreed that their onbelay signal for that pitch was going to be a blood curdling scream. Unfortunately, Jack was not privy to this conversation, and was somewhat taken aback when Rob let Dan know he was on belay. P3 was the 5.7 chimney, which can be easily avoided with some moderate face moves. P4 was where the serious action began: the hand to fist to 10a offwidth. Even the hand and fist sections were non trivial. The offwidth soon had Jack saying "I think I'm going to puke," and giggling when he saw the state of the original 40 year old bolts. The #5 came in handy. And after the 10a is over, you still have 50ft of unprotectable 5.9 squeeze. Jack led it in fine style, and when I followed, I did two feet of the 10a, then said "bugger this" and proceeded to lieback and stem the rest. At first Jack couldn't believe that the rope was moving so fast, but then he clued in and screamed in anger, threatening to take me off belay. But by then it was too late, and I was in the 5.9, which unfortunately I did have to offwidth as it wasn't really liebackable. Peter Croft says "Harding's bolt ladder saves the day" about this pitch. Peter Croft is full of it. First of all, I wouldn't trust those bolts to hold in a wet sneeze, and second of all, there aren't any for the 50+ feet of 5.9 offwidth above the 10a. As I was belaying Jack up the next pitch, and Rob was following Dan up the offwidth, we heard a scream and Dan's rope came taunt. It seemed that Rob had slipped while trying to clean a sling, and smacked his head into the rock. Of the four of us, guess which one wasn't wearing a helmet? He seemed fine though, and finished the pitch with hardly any grunting. Meanwhile, Jack was linking the next two pitches. The 10b step across isn't so bad, you just have to stay low. The 5.8 squeeze was much more of a problem for me, as it was right side in, which put my buggered shoulder to the test. Luckily there were lots of little features to use. For the last pitch, Jack said "just start climbing when the rope gets tight." It's very mellow, with a few 5.9 crack moves thrown in from time to time, that eventually turns into easy 5th class. I'm guessing we did a rope length and a half before we untied and soloed the rest. We waited for a while before continuing on to the summit, where we napped on the lee side in the sun until Dan and Rob came up to join us. Then it was just a matter of retrieving the packs, and hiking back down to the car. It took us a long time to get moving the next morning. Group inertia had set in. Eventually, we motivated toward the Knobs bouldering area, where we spent the afternoon napping, reading, throwing peanuts, trundling rocks, and also a bit of bouldering. Around 4 we moved on to the lake, where we engaged in the more serious activities of beer drinking and eating. I pulled myself away from all the excitement for a quick swim in the lake - a little brisk, but not too bad. After an hour of gabbing, we packed it all up, and began the long trek back to the Bay. We were scared off by the long lines at the Taqueria in Oakdale, and continued on to Riverbank, the old standby. Surprisingly, the traffic was fairly light, and we made it back without encountering any jams.

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Bouldering at the Knobs

Despite the injuries, it was a great conclusion to a sierra climbing season. One of these days I'll have to go back and do the Harding Route properly, but I think I'll want to work on my off-width technique a bit first....