7 Months in California, and I still haven't climbed in Yosemite. Still, I'm covering some ground. For some reason we decided that Cosumnes River Gorge near Placeville (on the road between Sacramento and Tahoe) was the next destination on the Scott/Karl climbing circuit. In true well paid engineer type practices, we drove up early (9am) Had a leisurely lunch in town, chatted up some hair dressers to wangle a poster out of them, meandered on out to the crag sort of mid afternoon, decided it was too hot, had a swim, lounged in the shade for a bit, swam some more, and then decided it was time for a climb or two. The area was no-where near as big as we had first thought, and we overshot the clif we were trying to get to by about as long as the entire trail in all over again. A very scenic climbing location, even some scenic looking locals having a swim as well. We did a moderate gear route that I wimped out of the crux on. I skirted around and belayed scott up, who then re-led the climb. And so began/continued the saga of who has to climb first, and who is really climbing harder and who is rescuing who blah blah blah :) Part of the reason we were here though was to teach scott some aiding, we'd read about this cool 5.12c thin crack that we were hoping to aid. (single pitch local test piece thing) It too was much smaller than we expected, though a very quality route. It was actually just as well it wasn't much longer, or we would have run out of gear. I only have one set of nuts, and at the time had no RPs, and only one cam small enough to fit. Scott had fun, and I got to sit in the shade and pretend to pay attention to belaying him. Then it was time for yuppie dinner. No cooking on the whisperlite here, no siree. Back into town, and chatting up the lovely serving girls at a bakery/restaraunt back in Placerville. Just as we were ready to go out and look for a place to stay, (Not that we'd pay for that though, eating well all weekend is one thing but you must have some camping on on a camping trip) Scott discovers that he's locked his keys in the car. Or in the boot more specifically, and then left the car open. "A new way of locking the car" says Scott. Whatever. The locksmith arrived, and proceeded to use every trick in the book to get into the car, eventually succeeding, a little over an hour later, using a gadget he'd just got, and never used on Honda's before. It got him in, and us a new key in a little under 10 minutes. The locksmith was quite impressed with his new gadget. He certainly earnt his money that night.
And then the photos pick up... The sunday started in good form again, with a disapointing breakfast at a cafe in Placerville. A leisurely start and back to the cliffs, with the intent of doing one of the multipitch routes on the big dome on the other side of the river. We started it. Scott led a fun hairy 5.7 pitch (I'd refused to lead it, it was actually a lot better than it looked) and then I did the 5.4 traverse next pitch. Then Scott's feet got too hot (I'll blame him) and the belay station was a perfect height for a two rope rap in to the swimming hole. Who could resist. (My feet were hot too) Two ropes reached exactly to the waterline, and we didn't even get our gear wet. Perfect. After a bit of a cool down, it was time to pretend to climb again. I put my shoes on and had a go at "Trout Fishing in America" a 5.11 traverse above the water line, then a second pitch up to an abseil station on the main wall. I made it to just past the second bolt.
A campsite in the Emmigrant Wilderness, just off the road. |
Looking up Gutenberger Wall, from the swimming hole |
Me at the start of... |
Trout Fishing.. |
..In America |
Scott got distracted by the general beauty of the swimming hole |
I got distracted by the inviting waters, and fell off the cliff |
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