A Classic First Multi Pitch Climb in Yosemite National Park

The distinct roar of a Jetboil cut through the silence of the still Yosemite Valley morning. It was a cool  morning but we were up early to beat the crowds of the day. My buddies, Neil and George, were coiling rope and sorting through the gear we would need for the day as I scarfed down the rest of the ramen and half of a peanut butter banana Clif bar for breakfast.

We left the car and started up the skinny approach trail to our selected route of the day. We had decided to climb the “grack”, a classic easy multi pitch splitter hand crack. We chose this to get used to climbing with three people and two ropes. We were all competent climbers but George and I didn’t have much experience with managing multiple ropes and a full rack of gear while hundreds of feet off the valley floor.

We blew through the first two pitches with no problems but come the third pitch I stated to hit trouble. I was on lead and all of a sudden two huge black bees fly right by me and then swoop around to come hovering right in front of me. Now I am not allergic of bees but I try to avoid interactions with them whenever possible. I started to let out yelps of distress and they continued to come and go always hovering right in front of my face. Neil and George, sat on a thin ledge, about 50 feet below me could contain their laughter as they watched me flail in distress as I tried to climb and simultaneously shoo away the bees. In the moment I found their jeering as really unhelpful but looking back I would have been laughing my ass off if it had been one of them above me.

By the fourth pitch and as Neil ran out of rope he realized that he had blown past the belay station and was now in no mans land. He was too far past the belay to climb down safely and could not keep going without leaving his rope and us. Eventually he found a way to tether himself to the rock and started to belay us up. Sitting at Neil’s belay, which was sketchy at best, we found a kind of off route way to the top. I led a completely different route that they followed and we ended up loosing a number three cam in some flake that is way to the left of the route. It might actually still be there because I’m sure no one else is stupid enough to climb the way I did.

Sitting at the top we realized that we had been holding up traffic as Neil’s route finding put us off course. We were none the less stoked to be at the top and more importantly get down because non of us had brought water and we had been exposed on the hot rock for over two hours.

Tying our two 70 meter ropes together we slung them trough the rappel rings to then rappel down on. The rappel went smoothly. At the ends of our ropes was another rappel station as we were still a hundred or so feet off the deck. Now this rappel station was definitely made for more than two people. There were just two bolts to hang off of on this completely black and sheer face.

The three of us hung awkwardly on these two bolts and as Neil started to to pull one end of the rope to pull it through the rappel rings above us I yelled out “STOP”. We had tied knots in the end of the ropes while at the top so that we wouldn’t slide off the bottom of the ropes had we come close to the ends. I yelled because we hadn’t remembered to untie these knots before pulling the rope through. These knots that we tied would not slip through the rappel rings and we sat there in utter disbelief that we had just made that mistake. The end of the rope with the knot in it sat there about ten feet of us. It was just barely out of reach and we felt like total idiots.

This then prompted the argument of how we were going to get down. We went back and fourth about what we should do. George wanted us to hold him up on our shoulders as he would reach for the rope. That got vetoed immediately as if he had fallen with out catching the rope it could have put so much stress on the bolts were hanging on that it could have ripped them right out of the wall and we all would have fallen to our death.

Hungry, tired, frustrated, sun burnt, and thirsty we sat hanging all alone on the wall. “well what the fuck are we going to do now” said George. That really summed up what we were all thinking in that moment.

There was only one thing to do. That was to wait. The party that were were holding up on our way up was just about level with us and we yelled over to them asking if they could could untie the knot and let it slip through the rings as they got to the top. Again we felt like idiots. Had there not been a party below us Im not sure what we would have done. We might have had to make a swing over to the route and then climb back up to get our rope.

Anyway we sat there for another hour until the knot was untied and out rope came tumbling down on top of us.

Back at the car we were all dead and all we wanted to do was sleep instead of driving five hours home. Finishing the last of our ramen and Mac and cheese we piled in the car and cracked open a can of Rosarita refried beans and tortilla chips for the drive home.

Photos by George Lubekeman