South Lake Tahoe Climbing

[lizolas]

South Lake Tahoe – 5.easy Runout Practice
October 13-15, 2017

Having been told that I should climb with Jen more, as she was increasingly finding Drew’s climbing too far above her level, I decided to make plans to do so. I was determined to get out at least once more before the end of the summer. Drew was originally planning to come along with another partner, but when it couldn’t be Ryan anymore, and they didn’t find another available partner, we just went as a group of 3.

We headed to the campground Friday after work, arriving just after midnight. We weren’t interested in an terribly early start, and I figured the cold was a fair point, however, I was expecting more like a 7-7:30 wake-up time as it got light. We ended up doing an 8:30 wakeup with a leisurely breakfast. We left the campground around 9:40, arriving at the Eagle Falls trailhead just after 10. After an adventure trying to locate the 90-Foot Wall - SuperTopo indicates 100’ West of the Vista area, while MP helpfully points out that you continue beyond the Vista benches and then find the wall on your right - we started climbing around 11.

I started out leading Casual Observer, a 5.2 chimney with some 5.5 above it, as indicated on the topo, however the portion above the chimney felt more like 4th class to me. The chimney took a fair bit of convincing myself that there would be holds to land on for each limb I moved. I placed 5 pieces for the ~60’ climb, then got to the top and realized I’d left my quad sling on a rock at the base. Not a problem in this case, as it was easy enough to improvise an anchor out of alpine draws, but a good lesson to remember for future multi-pitch climbs.

Don’t forget your anchor.

Jen and then Drew also led the chimney route, and from that anchor we flipped the rope over to toprope Strontium 90 (5.8) adjacent to it. It had far fewer great hand jams than Mountain Project comments had led me to believe. I hung once – to take off my watch I realized was still on – and fell once toward the top where I couldn’t figure out a move before I got too tired to hang on. Definitely not leading 5.8 any time soon, sport or trad.

We moved on to Holdless Horror, 5.6, and Drew led it first. My idea was to toprope, then decide if I wanted to lead it, but after top roping it I got a little nervous about the number of big moves where I didn’t find solid feet. I felt like a lot of the climb was hanging onto fairly secure hand holds, but flailing both feet up at the same time to push myself higher. Not the kind of feeling I like while leading, especially not with minimal gear placements below me rather than gym bolts.

We switched the anchor and all toproped Fallout, 5.9, after that. I hung a few times (2-3, I think) on Fallout, but I got through the entire first half, including the finger crack crux, without weighting the rope. After that, I was tired from climbing too much with my arms and not enough with my legs, as far as I can tell. Toward the top, there was a move that I did as a lieback and stepped one foot up into a small ledge on the wall. Apparently turning your hips into the wall has some uses for hand placements even when the terrain angle is still froggable.

Sunday morning was about the same late start story. I got up just after 7 and packed up my things, then took everything out of the trunk of the car and reorganized so my stuff would be at the back, theirs at the front, and the stuff we needed for climbing piled accessibly on the top. We left the campground about 9:20 and arrived at Lover’s Leap just after 10. We decided to head for Knapsack Crack, 5.4 or 5.5 depending on the guide, to get something we were fairly sure Jen and I could comfortably lead. Maybe in the future I’ll start working on things that I can uncomfortably lead.

Looking toward the highway from the base of Knapsack Crack

There were 2 groups in line at the base of the climb when we arrived. One group, we learned, was on the wall with a very new leader and a follower. The leader took over an hour to get up the first pitch – not even to the first belay tree – and then they took a while getting the gear sorted out and transferred so the leader could lead again. The second group waiting in line had a leader and two followers, but their leader was very experienced and wasn’t at all the reason for our delay. We waited over 2 ½ hours at the base before Jen started up the first pitch. She stopped just short of what seems to have been the crux, below the other group’s belay station.

While the other group was starting to follow up the 2nd pitch, something shiny and metal came flying past us. One of them just sat there going “…oops…” so I yelled “Rock!” assuming they hadn’t really received much of that type of instruction (the guy belaying also hadn’t known to warn the leader at the middle mark, and again with 10’ or so left). We couldn’t figure out what it was – it looked too short to be a nut tool, but there was no reason for something like a shiny piton to have just flown out of a new trad follower’s hand. It turned out that it was half a nut tool, which had broken while they tried to retrieve a nut.

We got the ropes figured out and transferred the gear to me. I started up the crack toward the offwidth section, which, as most rocks do, looked a lot easier from the ground. I found myself never quite finding a sequence of good hands like I wanted, but the feet were there, and mostly good enough to feel completely secure. There were a couple awkward and a bit scary mantels up onto a 4-6” wide ledge with nowhere else to put my hands besides where my foot was coming up to match. Not all that difficult, but with almost a full double rack on, I was worried about unbalancing myself and knocking myself off the rock.

For the majority of the offwidth portion, I found myself looking for good placements, expecting them to be everywhere, but finding nothing that wasn’t a shallow, very flaring crack in the sides of the rock. Since there are two directions, and “down” didn’t seem to be helpful, I kept reminding myself to keep breathing and go up. That’s what I get for making jokes about how we weren’t just practicing trad leading, we were practicing being comfortable with runouts on easier terrain. The offwidth started going better when I stopped trying to walk up it and started jamming myself into it, using my entire body to get myself securely in to rest and contemplate my next moves. Routefinding wasn’t difficult, since there was just the one main crack as the feature to climb, but occasionally there were decent footholds off to the left side that proved helpful once I noticed them.

I reached the other group surprisingly early – after having run out the previous 30-40 feet with no placements as the angle got better. What I’d thought was about the halfway mark of my pitch to the top was actually the top, or at least the top of the portion where a rope was necessary. When I pulled the rope up, I seemed to have not been much past halfway, so my concerns about not reaching the top with our 70m ropes was unfounded (the other group had reached it limited by a 60m rope for one follower).

At the top

I think the comfort of any belay is less about the setup of the anchor and more about the length of time you spend standing there wondering when your climber(s) will appear. This belay was fairly comfortable, though, with a stable stance high enough on the rock that it probably wasn’t really 5th class anymore. Someday maybe I’ll learn to belay 2 followers effectively and without blisters, but for this time I at least didn’t have huge loops of rope escaping my coils.

We headed back to the car and left about 4:30 and I got back home around 9:45 – not as late as I’d worried we would, although I thought we were going to try to fit more than one climb in that day. The climbing itself wasn’t a huge accomplishment, but it was some sort of personal victory to have decided to take the initiative planning a trip with people who weren’t close friends, rather than sitting around being sad that nobody ever invites me climbing.

Lessons Learned:

• Repeatedly looking at Google Maps has the added benefit of not only telling me travel times, but also getting the route ingrained in my memory for when my GPS won’t work. Also, it might be beneficial to have downloaded maps in advance, and to have transferred my AAA state maps to the new car.
• You’re allowed to value your own feelings and choose trips with partners you know you like spending time with
• There are two kinds of being in charge. Person-in-Charge, and Babysitter-in-Charge. I think the more enjoyable trips I’ve been on have all been characterized by one person being in charge, but everyone present being responsible enough for themselves.
• Keep in mind that easily accessible and low grade routes will probably have a line. An earlier start might have been better. Yes, it was cold, but we warmed up as soon as we started moving. I was in a tank top by the time we started climbing, so beginning an 60-90 minutes earlier would have been fine, and maybe improved our time waiting at the base.
• Take your anchor with you on your harness.
• Bring plenty of cash.