Sunday, May 22

I'm back in the valley now. Though the weather has been good, all of the bad weather is still oozing out of all the cracks. Climbers haven't flooded the valley yet, I'm pretty sure it's because of how scary El Cap looks. Ahh!!! 

Here are more pics from Jail House

Camping just outside Chinese Camp 4 on BLM land 

Colin trying to stay dry on the first few pitches on our Royal Arches to Crest Jewel linkup. Check out the full on waterfall! This made for an interesting few pitches. 

The dikes in the granite make some really sweet formations, and eases up the sustained slab climbing.

Leading up the first pitches of Crest Jewel 

We decided to go skiing today instead of climbing...

But seriously, a super fun day getting into cardio shape on our sub 30 pitch linkup. Car to car time: 8 hours. We didn't rush anything or try to climb fast, we just kept moving.

Me leading up the 10d tricky protection section on Freeblast

I made another run up Freeblast yesterday with Colin. We got a super early start around 11am and finished with the time of 5 hours 20 minutes, both freeing every pitch. We are planning on climbing The Salathe Wall in a day, and the first ten pitches are mine to lead. I led all of the pitches that my friend Julian led last week, so I am now really familiar with all of the climbing up to this point. 

Everything was going smoothly and we were having a great time climbing with 'American Style' (remember... no aproach shoes, no food, no water, no jackets, no excuses). Some guys let us pass them, but we ended up messing that up by getting a cam stuck, taking Colin 20 minutes to get out. My fault.. 

After getting up this morning and making the standard 4 eggs with sharp cheddar cheese, Colin came up to me and said 'bad news bears...' Uh-oh... Thankfully a bear didn't break in, but I did get a $50 parking ticket. I have parked in the same exact parking lot across the street from Camp 4 over 40 times and I have never even seen anyone get a ticket.. bummer.

The rangers have been wrenching down, it's not as easy living here as last year. Me and the other monkeys just have to get a little smarter about staying here longer than the 7 day limit.

Well, I'm off to join my friends around a camp fire.

Here's another video, enjoy!