Sun, Dec 27, 2020
|
With: | Jackie Burd |
The weather forecast wasn't particularly favorable, but Jackie and I decided to
head to Pinnacles ahead of another weak storm front that was going to wet the
state later in the day. With cold temps when we set out from San Jose around
8a and heavy fog as we went through Gilroy, it wasn't looking too good. I
figured we could just do a hike in the park if it was too chilly for climbing,
but as we drove south on SR25 the sun came out and things improved rapidly.
It was still a bit chilly, but the sunshine was very pleasant and made for
great climbing conditions. Others thought similarly, and for the first time
since Jackie and I have been going there, the upper Bear Gulch lot was actually
full. We parked in the larger lower lot a short distance away and walked through
the picnic area to access the Moses Spring Trail. There were hikers
and trail runners and climbers, too, some on the Ignorable Wall, Discovery Wall
and
Monolith areas, passing by them on
our way up to the
Bear Gulch Reservoir. We followed the Chalone Peak Trail south from the
reservoir, past
The Sisters where we'd climbed the previous week.
Today's formations are found on
the west side of the trail, south and
across the trail from The Sisters.
We started from a narrow groove that drops to the northeast through the lower
base of The Hatchet. An outward-sloping ledge runs about 8ft above this groove
to the start of the bolt ladder, but as Jackie found it, it wasn't a
very good way to start the climb. She retreated to join me in the groove. There
are two bolts at knee-level where we started but I couldn't see how they would
be helpful and we left them used. Another bolt is found above the ledge Jackie
had explored, but using it seemed like it would add extra drag to the route and
I chose not use it as well. Instead, I climbed directly up to a crack below the
first bolt and clipped a first piece in there, the climbing no harder than easy
fifth class to that point. Here the route goes vertical, or nearly so, up a
series of five or six bolts, each about two feet apart. It would take me the
better of the next hour to make my way slowly up this
bolt ladder
using all
the gear at my disposal. Jackie was tucked
into the groove below, out of the breeze
but also out of the sun, keeping a cheery disposition through what must been a
slow hour. For my part, I was having fun with the whole process, doing my best
to keep the entire system redundant so that I always had the rope protecting me
through two bolts and while hanging on one bolt, I always kept a backup line to
a second bolt. I got better at figuring out how to move up the chain, figuring
out some strategies that would probably cut 1/3 of the time off a repeat
performance. There is a small ledge 3/4 of the way up called the "Nail Puller",
which only later I recognized as a feature one might find on an actual
hatchet for demolition purposes. Two more bolts above this led to the summit
ridge, a rounded but narrow line of rock that finishes the climb with some
class 3 scrambling. There are two rappel stations along this ridge. I anchored
into the nearest one,
directly above Jackie, now 40-50ft below. I then
pulled up the rope, threaded it through the rap chains, and lowered it back down
to Jackie so that she could
prussik her way up to me. She had practiced
the technique with me on several previous occasions and was confident that she
could make it up without me rapping down to supervise. To make sure she was
really confident, I let her know that if she got stuck halfway up, we
were both going to be stuck without a way down. She proved more than up to the
task, making
her way to
the top in about 20min - a far faster
way to climb than aid climbing. I then belayed her to the second rap station at
the
highpoint to the south, and she belayed me to join her in turn. It was pretty
breezy up top and we were both glad to be wearing extra layers - today was not
one to sit lazily about the summit in the warm sunshine.
After congratulating ourselves, we went about setting up for the rappel back
down. Unusually, Jackie chose to go first, a sign of her growing
confidence with the gear. It's a pretty good drop, about 60ft in a near-vertical
line,
some of it overhanging. She paused about 15ft down, wanting to get some photos
and video. I told her to wrap the trailing rope around her leg so that she
could use both hands. This delighted her when it worked so nicely, allowing her
to
get the shots she wanted before finishing up the rappel. She
waited below while I came down in turn, pausing myself while I got a
few shots looking
up and
down.
Once we had retrieved our gear, changed shoes and packed everything up,
it would take us another 30min to make our way back to the parking lot. We had
no luck
finding the use trail shown on our guidebook's map, but got
back to
the main trail nonetheless, with
no real bushwhacking.
The park was much busier than it had been during the week, with the reservoir
and
upper caves drawing lots of interest. There were quite a few more
climbers, too, working various routes around Monolith and Moses Spring
Wall.
Face masks were the order of the afternoon with lots of traffic
from folks hiking the Moses Spring Trail on a busy weekend.
This page last updated: Fri Jan 1 13:39:29 2021
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