Wendy, passing time on Nutcracker waiting for the Japanese ladies. Note empty red vines package. No wonder she is sleeping!
Internet cafe, parking lot style
Andy: An international, tasty, baked Nutcracker sandwich - that about sums up the day. Beep, beep, beep at 5:50 am to climb Nutcracker, perhaps the most popular climb in Yosemite. Yesterday we rose at 5:30 am, but today we slept in for an extra 20 minutes. And it cost us - there was already a party on the climb. Two young, Japanese women were half way up the first pitch. Not so bad we figured.
The historic climb Nutcracker was first climbed by Royal Robbins in the mid-60s. He had recently climbed in Britain and was impressed by their use of "nuts" for protection. Instead of hammering rock damaging pitons into the rock, nuts could be wedged into tapering cracks in the rock to protect the leading climbing, and then easily removed by the following climber. No rock damage, and much faster to use. To demonstrate their usefulness to the other Yosemite climbers, he (with wife Liz) made of the first ascent of this climb using only nuts - no pitons. He named it Nutcracker Sweet (pun intended) in his typical punning style.
We opted for a more difficult starting variation - a thin, polished, 5.9 crack for 100 feet. Another wake up call. Super slick feet, difficult to place protection, and a nice slabby ankle breaking ledge to fall back on. What fun at 7:00 am!
A few more pitches of climbing and we caught up with the Japanese ladies, just in time for some French men to arrive from behind. Yup, popular place. The Japanese ladies were kind of sketchy - not very good climbers and not placing much protection, not a good combo. In fact, I pulled over an overhang just in time to watch one of them fall and swing across the face about 90 feet. Egads, fortunately she wasn't hurt. And while this was happening, one of the French boys was busy climbing over the top of Wendy with their rope. I guess they don't take turns in France! It must have not bothered Wendy too much as her first comment to me was "those must be the two best looking climbers I've ever seen." Nice.
Oh yeah - and did I mention the heat. While we were waiting for the ladies to pick themselves up, we cooked on the bright rock face.
So between falling Samurai warriorettes, Wendy's new French boyfriends, and shoe melting heat... it was a very eventful day.
Despite the chaos, the climbing was phenomenal - including an exciting, overhanging mantel right at the end.
Wendy: I think today's climb was one of the best I've ever done. The 5.9 first pitch variation was about as close to a perfect crack as you can find. To Andy's credit, it was pretty hard since the foot holds were small, slimy, smeary and greasy, but following it was really fun! He made it through the crux (hardest moves), despite his complaining about the difficult protection and greasy feet. No one could complain about the perfect hand jams at the top, though, as our hands slid in just like toast in a toaster.
Which is what we became sitting on the rock after the first pitch (toast, that is). It was sooooooooooo hot, and the climbers in front of us were sooooooooo slow. The Euro dudes were pretty pushy, and if not for their incredible good looks I probably would have said some very unfriendly things to them (instead I resorted to dirty looks and muttered comments). One Frenchie actually led up to my hanging belay while Andy was leading a pitch, entering at my right, setting a right sided piece, then traversing left over top of me and over Andy's rope to set up his next belay. His rope was running right over my cordelette, the thing I was hanging on, 300 feet off the ground. Every time he pulled his rope up it see-sawed my cordelette, making me very nervous that it would burn a hole in the cord and blow my belay station. Needless to say, many mean looks later and a few nasty comments muttered under my breath, the guy decided to wait for Andy to finish his pitch and for me to move off the belay before he came up the next stance.
For those keeping track of our early morning starts, we slept in an EXTRA half an hour today and I was much happier. All that whining yesterday must have paid off!! Andy is such a sucker :)
Wendy, passing time on Nutcracker waiting for the Japanese ladies. Note empty red vines package. No wonder she is sleeping! |
Internet cafe, parking lot style |