Seattle + Yosemite trip report from May

I'm up in Seattle now, staying in the plush guest room at Ara's house. Ara is an old friend from college, who I haven't seen for probably seven years. I sent her an email the other day to see if she wanted to meet up while I was in town, and she proceeded to offer me a place to stay for a week. I didn't think she would remember who I was. She has been a great host, and I am having fun getting back in touch. Her boyfriend Eric seems like a good guy, and he has a beautiful Larrivee guitar and a mandolin to boot.

Today I finally escaped the heat wave that was slowing me down in Portland. It was nice and cool and I could wear the warm clothes that I dragged all this way. It rained a bit, so I left my camera in its case today when I explored downtown Seattle. I did a tour of the old downtown, which is buried beneath the current downtown, and learned about the history of Seattle. This could have been boring, except that the tour guide was pretty hilarious and made it worth the 15 bucks or whatever it was. Seattle also has a semi-ridiculous history in some aspects, which helped.

Also, today I bought the most expensive pint of beer of my life (not counting those sold at a baseball stadium) - $5.75 for a Newcastle at some pub downtown. I guess beer is very rare here.

Anyway, I included some pictures from my climb up El Capitan in Yosemite earlier this year, because I like to show off I guess. My buddy Wes and I climbed Lurking Fear this spring. It took us about five days on the wall plus a couple days hiking to get from bottom to top and back. Unfortunately we only had a Korean War-era digital camera, so the pictures weren't super exciting. But it gives you some idea of what we got up to. As we were sitting on the portaledge one night, preparing for hours of darkness and fitfull sleep, we tried to distill aid climbing into 3 words. If I recall correctly we came up with: work, fear, commitment. It was all worth it, though. If you can't make it up the steep side, I recommend doing the hike up the Yosemite Falls trail, and then turning left (man, you gotta make a left) and walking to the top of El Capitan. There is an unbelievable view from up there, looking down on all the other Yosemite monoliths with a bunch of the high Sierra peaks in the distance. It is 8.5 miles one way, so a 17 mile round trip, with about a 3000'+ elevation gain. It would be a burly day trip, but doable without a huge pack. With a haul bag full of climbing gear on your back, the 8.5 miles down to the valley is almost unbearable. The only thing that kept us going was the thought of cold malt liquor and dollar-fifty burritos, piping-hot out of the village store microwave. And taco sauce, lots of taco sauce. And water. I forgot to mention that all we wanted in the world was water. We drank 7.5 gallons on the wall between us (which is like 60 pounds of water that we had to drag), and it wasn't nearly enough. I could barely swallow at the hottest part of the day I was so dehydrated.
Anyway heres some pictures (the dates are way off on the camera, they are from May 08):

1. Golly these hooks are spooky the first few times you hang off 'em. They work like champs, though. Wes even rode one a little ways when it slid a few inches along a flake, but it still hung on. He was climbing in the dark at this point, last pitch of the day. We named that particular hook Sparky.

2. That's Wes at a belay about 1/2 way up the climb. No going back now, especially after the big traverse I was climbing when I took the picture. There are a lot of ropes and random other stuff on these big-wall belays, and you have to be careful not to get 'em all mixed up or you will spend the rest of your life sorting it out. He did an awesome job of managing it all.

3. Me trying to think about something other than the chimney I have to climb up in a few minutes. I'm probably thinking about how I want a drink of water, but it is either gone or in the bottom of the pig (haul bag).

4. When you climb a brazillion feet off the deck, and it takes you a week of struggling to get there, it is mind blowing to happen upon some random frog going about its business (I respect its privacy). Was that frog looking at you funny Wes? There are also dive-bombing sparrows (or some other kind of LBB) that live in the cracks. You never know if it is a rock or bird winging past your head.
5. This picture kinda sums up how it feels when a couple regular guys try to climb El Capitan. It takes a lot out of you. But each time either of us felt like shit or was running out of gas, the other one was there to pick up the slack. It was a great trip, safe as can be, and one I will always remember.

7. Our summit pictures. Check out the mountains in the background, its amazing. You can see all of Tuolomne Meadows too, they are out of the frame to the north. The pirate flag is an essential piece of wall climbing equipment.