Ethan sent the crag, except for some of the easier stuff. Yawn. I tried to send 1 route. I did onsight the warmup though - yay! This is a good thing because I'm not a very good onsight-er. The route I tried to send was a .12a/b route that I wanted to try because John and Shannon flashed it (this was an egregious mistake in judgement - they are way better rock climbers). I tried it a few times Friday and twice on Saturday, but no dice. Melted off the slopey top portion. I also tried the "steepest .12a in California." Also no dice. I'm not a huge fan of the horizontal route climbing. It can be fun bouldering, but in routes...hmmm.
The first day we had the crag to ourselves, which was awesome. The conditions were perfect, the rock felt great, the climbing was fun. Saturday more folks showed up, but I knew them all. Ethan was over it, since he'd one everything, so he kindly walked up the hill to belay me. I should mention that Ethan might be my favorite belayer right now.
Saturday was also pretty fun, but I was cooked. I really need to sport climb pretty regularly to climb well. This has not been happening. Oh well, it's mountain season anyway. We also found this rad moth that had just emerged from metamorphosis on the hike down from the climbing:
I'll have to ask my professor what the species is. Whatever it is, it was still filling its wings with blood/hemolymph so it couldn't fly away yet. The photo doesn't do it justice in terms of color and size. The abdomen was about the size of my thumb.
Since we were already near the pass, I pulled out a hiking guide and suggested doing a short hike to St. Mary's Pass and then to the top of Sonora Peak. Ethan was game. Holy cats there is a lot of rock up there. here are some roadside photos:
Does anyone know what the above feature is? It's viewed from 108 facing south. Looks pretty cool.
The hike was really nice, and I'm glad that we rallied. Great trail, short hike, nice elevation (about 9000-10,500 feet), and the wildflowers were at their peak. Here are some photos of the hike. I mostly let Ethan use the camera until he dropped it in the dirt and the lens cover stopped working without a flick of the fingernail. I couldn't be too pissed because I dropped his head camera off his crash pad on Friday. Photos follow:
Nice trail, great views.
After we hit St. Mary's pass, we were mostly above treeline, and the trail was cross country.
Me walking up to the pass marker. From here you turn south to walk to the top of Sonora Peak.
summit shot!
signing the summit register
View on the way down
Now I'm sore.
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