Manure Pile Buttress is a Yosemite Valley rock feature, about 500ft in height found on the north side of the Valley in the Eagle Creek drainage between El Cap and Three Brothers. It has been a popular rock climbing site for more than five decades. Before then it was called "Ranger Rock" when used by park rangers for rescue practice. One of the more popular routes on the rock is After Six, a 4-5 pitch route first climbed by Yvon Chouinard in 1965. Adam had been eager to climb the route before we came to the Valley for a few days of scrambling and climbing, but his mood had changed somewhat when we got up in the morning of the second day to give it a go. He had become more melancholy about it following our much longer than expected adventure on Three Brothers, but was at least willing to give it a go. We were not the first rock climbers to the El Cap picnic area when we arrived there sometime after 7a, but luckily for us the large group that had gotten an earlier start was heading to Nutcracker, another popular route about 100 yards to the right of After Six.
There was little about our climb of After Six to be regarded as a model of
climbing speed and proficiency. Even getting started was a chore. Though there is
a fine restroom located at the parking lot, Adam waited until we had walked the
short distance to 
the start
of our route before determining he really needed to
use the potty. Almost half an hour was consumed by this and other preparations
before Adam ever took the 
first step
onto the route. As promised, all the pitches
were his to lead today, though I don't think he cared much with his mood.
I was a terrible belayer, to be honest. A good one would have stood by the base
of the cliff until a few pieces of pro had been placed to minimize any fall
potential. I chose to sit on a rock and make myself comfortable first, worry
about Adam falling second. It was a long wait. So maybe it was good I wasn't
standing there getting frustrated, but was instead prepared to chill. The
mosquitoes were mildly annoying but not all that bad. Though south-facing, the
base of the route is nicely shaded and the temperature was cool and quite
pleasant in the morning. Several groups came up after we'd started, eyeing the
same route. Half an hour had passed and Adam had gotten maybe 40ft up that first
pitch, 
the crux
of the route. I whispered to the waiting group, "It's going to
be a while." They got the hint and moved off to find an alternate. Some minutes
later a group of three came strolling up with the same idea in mind. They were
told the same thing and decided to do After Seven, a slightly harder
variation of the same route that has a different line for the first pitch. I
guessed they'd probably get up to the top of the pitch before Adam, so I didn't
mind that they pursued that line.
Meanwhile, Adam continued to struggle at the crux and I was coming out of my coma. I really wanted to get somewhere today. Adam paused and commented, "I guess I'm not feeling it today." I wanted to yell and shout at him to stop being a pussy and climb the f**king thing, but that wouldn't have been a very nice gesture. Not that that should really bother me, by the way. Instead I suggested maybe I could have a go at it. So I lowered him down off his last piece and we traded places. It was easy getting to the spot he stopped at with a top rope and I made short work of it in a couple of minutes. At the crux I bypassed the crack with poor holds he had struggled at, choosing to move out to the right a short distance to face climb around the problem. That accomplished, the climbing became easier and I went about finishing up the pitch by placing a few more cams on my way up.
The group of three were making good progress all this time. They had two guys
around my age, a bit paunchy but experienced, or so they seemed. The third was
a younger lad,
more climber-looking than the others, who was doing his first
multi-pitch climb. Their leader was quiet but efficient, an excellent climber by
my observations. The second was not nearly as good as he had talked. He seemed
to struggle, hesitated a lot, and made loud grunting noises and other
exclamations suggesting a difficult effort. I judged him to be more talk than
walk. The inexperienced third 
climbed
about the same rate as the second, but
without all the grunting. They managed to get to the top of that first pitch
before me and belayed from a tree above the usual first belay tree on After
Six. I set up shop and belayed Adam up. He was much better with a top rope
and had little trouble. When I had lowered him earlier, we had talked about maybe
just doing the first pitch and either rapping off or taking the walk-off to the
west because Adam was feeling out of sorts. Now that he had climbed the first
pitch, I asked if he wanted to continue. 
He did.
Problem was we had left our
packs at the bottom with all our water in them so we'd only be able to climb as
high as our thirst would allow. I thought this might be only a couple of pitches,
but somehow we managed to climb the whole darn thing without anything to drink
for more than seven hours. Yes, we were that damn slow.
It wasn't entirely our doing, the slowness. Turns out the party of three was not
climbing any faster than us now that Adam had gotten some of his mojo back and
there was a lot of sitting around and 
waiting. Again, I didn't mind all
that much as the belay stances tended to be pretty comfortable,
the views were
outstanding, and the weather a delight. This last part was key because our extra
clothing was down there in our packs with the Gatorade and we wouldn't be able
to layer up if things got brisk. 
Adam led the remaining pitches, some
five or
six all told, more than normal but preferable since there was some wind and it
was hard to hear each other if too far apart. The slower party ahead of us meant
we had extra time anyway to shorten the pitches as desired. There was a mix of
crack
and face climbing that was as enjoyable as advertised. Sometime after 2p we
finished up
the rock climb portion atop After Six. While Adam went about
coiling our rope, I scrambled up the remaining 150ft or so of class 3 to the top
of Manure Pile Buttress to take in the views. There is a fine view of
Three Brothers from the top.
Scrambling 
back down
to Adam, the party ahead of us had already departed. One of
the Nutcracker parties was just finishing up next to us and getting ready
to head down. Adam's feet had taken a beating as his rock shoes are a bit
cramped and 7hrs was far too long to have his feet mashed into them. Our boots of
course were down at the base with our packs. Adam decided he'd rather walk down
barefoot
than in his rock shoes. I winced at the huge heel blisters that were
revealed when he took them off. "Oh, those aren't even the worst of it," he
commented, "those happen all the time." Ouch. At the same time I
was feeling sorry
for him, I was impressed that he could walk down this rugged
class 2-3 descent
barefoot. We walked down together at a slow pace about half the distance, then
I sped up to get back quicker. The humane thing seemed to be to retrieve his
boots and bring them back to him to save him some additional suffering. The
first thing that I noticed when I got to the base of the route was that our
packs were missing. Dammit! Thieves!
Then I thought to look in the bearbox and sure
enough our packs had been placed inside. A ranger had left a note that he had
done this to keep the stuff out of a bear's reach. Stupid us. We hadn't planned
on doing more than the one pitch when we left them hours earlier and hadn't even
considered the bear risk. I got Adam's boots and returned to meet him through
the bouldery understory of the oak forest the use trail travels through. Adam
didn't bother to tie the laces when he put them on, tired as he was and not
caring all that much. I half-expected him to trip over them on the way back, but
he managed without stumbling.
Back at the base again, a ranger came by with a paintball gun. He was out hunting
bear. Seemed like it could be a fun job. I apologized for leaving the packs out,
getting us a well-meaning mini lecture. We deserved it, anyway. He went on to
continue his 
bear hunt
while we hiked back to the car. It was 3p when we were
all said and done, possibly the longest effort yet for After Six. Adam
declared he was done with rock climbing for the season. He'd had enough. I'd
have to find someone else the next time I came back to the Valley. Overall, I
thought it had been a fairly fun outing despite the lengthy effort.
On my way out of Yosemite I decided to stop at
Crane Flat, a 1.5 mile detour off
SR120 near the gas station junction inside the park. There is a short half mile
trail to the 
lookout tower
that crowns the flat summit. Almost entirely paved,
the summit is now used for helicopter rescue training by the Park Service. I went
up to the tower's deck to 
watch operations
that were going on while I was there.
A group of five or six rangers, all ladies as far as I could tell, were taking
turns getting rides 
in pairs of two from a cable dangling 75ft or so
from 
the helicopter. It looked like great fun and the rangers seemed
to be enjoying themselves. Sometimes low-paying jobs pay off in other ways...