I have never been on a long climbing trip before in my life; the longest was Joshua Tree for 4 days. When I told my friends I was going for 12 days, most of my partners balked and came up with excuses. I told them they didn't need to come for the full time, and some considered it. Without having any solid leads on partners the day I was due to leave, I left my parents house with a car full of gear and cooler full of food.
My friends mom had convinced me I could get a site in Tuolumne Meadows on a Thursday by walking up at any time. I was 13th on the waiting list. Without a partner or anything to do, I went about meticulously organizing my car while I waited for 2 pm. It only took 30 minutes to organize a preorganized car. So I sat down with a guide book in the shade and began planning climbs with partners I didn't have. Before too long, a line formed of wait listed campers and I started talking to one. He climbed a bit and we got a site together; that afternoon, we ran up Northwest Books (5.6).
A few days later, my non-climbing friend arrived, determined to learn. We headed over to Pothole Dome, I set up a toprope and she promptly got shut down on 3rd class terrain. Oh well, I said, points for trying. She offered to "hold the rope" for me, so I taught her how to belay and we headed over to Puppy Dome. Her first experience lead belaying, I didn't place a single piece and untied at the top, tossing the rope down. When I walked back to the base, there she stood, brake hand firmly grasping the rope, staring in confusion at the climberless end of the rope on the ground.
After she left, I met another partner, Richard. Together we did Zee Tree (5.7) and Hermaphrodite Flake (5.8) in the same day, the most pitches I had ever done. Things were looking up, apart from the campground being closed because of the plague.
On my rest day, I went to the valley, bought a bit of food and walked around. Having been to the valley before, my eyes were drawn to the flocks of tourists giving themselves neck cramps. The walls were now for looking down from, not up at.
Following my day off, I caught up with a friend of mine from home, Stretch, in the park as a volunteer. We decided to start up West Crack (5.9) that afternoon. He took the first pitch and raced up to the top. After an interestingly long wait, he called down that I was on belay. Slightly amused by the fumbling I could see above me, I climbed in my slowish fashion up to his position. The anchor he built was interesting, but I saw no major problems with his set up, so I set off onto the second pitch. I placed three pieces on the pitch before building my anchor just below the group ahead of us. As their leader swore his way up the finger crack (and his belayer and I chuckled and found out we were camped next to each other), my friend failed again and again pulling the roof. He called up for me to rap (there were rings to my left). I instead offered to haul him up the pitch. He seemed content and waited for me to set up a makeshift haul system and politely assisted as I hauled him. Once he reached the anchor, I fed him, made sure he was okay for the next pitch and then set off up the magnificent finger crack. Once atop, our epic was not over. When pulling the rope for the rappels, we missed the fact it tied itself into a knot and got stuck in the anchor above. I lead up and unstuck the rope and we rappelled off, luckily, without any more difficulties.
Richard and I decided to try Shagadelic (5.8) the next morning, knowing the walk-off would take up all day. I didn't feel up for leading the sustained 2nd and 3rd (crux) pitches. Unfortunately, Richard fell off above the second bolt, inverted and hit his head against the rock. Lesson learned, always wear a helmet. I lowered and checked him out, but he seemed fine apart from a bump. We were extremely lucky. I took over the lead and slowly worked my way up the face to the belay. When Richard arrived, he offered to lead the next pitch and french free'd the entire pitch. At that point, I didn't care, my head was only half on the climbing. I had been in the park for a week and it was beginning to feel like home. We topped out and walked off and bit each other farewell as Richard headed home.
My final partner, Taylor, arrived that evening and we instantly hit it off. We have similar amount of experience, climb similar grades and live and breathe climbing. To introduce him to Tuolumne climbing, we did Left Water Crack (5.7) and repeated some routes on Puppy Dome. After a break for lunch, I asked Taylor to belay me on my trad project, Ivory Tower-Center (5.10a). Stoked, and slightly tired, we went out to find the crack. I fell on my onsight, my first real fall onto gear. It scared me, but I rested for a moment before pulling through the thin hands crux. On my second attempt, I sailed up the bottom of the short crack and took a nice rest below the crux. In one burst, I forced my way up the right-leaning crack, smearing on vertical granite with my right foot and slamming my left as deep as I could. I threw a ring lock into the top jam, pulled the lip and shamelessly beached myself onto the ledge above, panting and parched. I stood up and my bellow echoed across the valley; I had broken into the 5.10a trad grades, a major goal for me this summer.
The stoke Taylor shared with me carried onto the following day, when we jumped on the Crystal Meth (5.8) to Hobbit Book (5.7 R) link up. The Meth was dispatched with quickly and easily and I offered to lead the first and third pitches of Hobbit Book, being used to Tuolumne runout. I shunned the 4th class ramp in favor of an extremely grassy 5.4 finger crack that I forced myself onto to protect with passive gear. It was messy, but fun and our switch-over at the belay was extremely fast. When I set off on the 3rd pitch, however, things weren't so nice. Instead of following the route up past a bolt to a 60 foot runout, I decided the sea of patina out left looked nice and easy and seemed to remember the line going that way. After a few marginal gear placements, I looked to my right and saw where I was supposed to be. I swore at myself, but it didn't make an easy line appear. I continued up, following a seam that took one decent piece up high, before I found a decent crack that took my three smallest stoppers and built an extremely exposed belay. The pitch below was dirty, the seam full of grass and it looked like nobody had ever been up it, or if they had, it had been a very long time. Taylor didn't say much as he passed me and followed the easy flakes back to Hobbit Book. He sewed the pitch up and we topped out. I mentioned my thoughts about the line I had taken, it looked somewhat unclimbed and there was no reason for anyone to take that line. I graded it about 5.8 R/X. (There is a line out there, but not much info on it).
On my last full day, Taylor, Stretch and I ran up to Cathedral and simul climbed the route in two pitches. It was a nice, calm, uneventful day to end a great trip. I began packing when we returned to camp and finished up the morning after. We had planned to do the Regular Route on Fairview my last morning, but I hadn't rested in many days and felt quite tired. As I was driving home, I thought back, remembered everyone I met and the climbing I had done. My hands and arms are all scratched up, I smell like crap, but now I feel like Yosemite is my second home and I can't wait to return.
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