Mon, Apr 18, 2005
|
With: | Matthew Holliman |
This isn't really K P Pinnacle we found later. There are something like half a dozen pinnacles found on the ridge beteen El Cap Gully and El Cap's West Face. This is the highest pinnacle in the series and the most northerly. I don't think it has an official name, so I named it here in the spirit of how K P was named. :-)
Day 4 needed to be the easiest since we were driving back to the Bay Area afterwards, so we chose a short excursion to K P Pinnacle. This feature is located on the far west side of El Capitan, the highest of a series of pinnacles that divides El Cap Gully from West Chimney. It doesn't stand out in any particular fashion, its summit well below the rim of El Cap, and only about 100 feet above the notch separating it from El Cap. It was only in climbing El Cap Gully a few years earlier that I had noticed this well-formed pinnacle tucked away in the folds of the Valley's recesses. It had looked to be class 4 from the cursory inspection I made at the time, and it has been on my list of Yosemite features to visit ever since.
Around 6a we parked alongside Northside Drive just past El Cap Meadow,
where Ribbon Creek
crosses under the road. The approach we planned was far easier than that
described by Roper in his guidebook. Roper describes an approach from the
south via West Chimney, a class 5 route in and of itself - we planned to hike
up the class 2-3 El Cap Gully and approach from the north. In the early morning
light we scrambled along the boulders lining the creek. While there was a good
deal of water in the creek, there wasn't as much as I might have expected in
spring, and we had no high water trouble as we followed it upstream. Where it
forks we turned right (the left fork comes from Ribbon Fall, the right fork
from El Cap Gully) and continued following upwards.
The sun was behind El Cap and our path would keep us in the shade for most of
the morning - this would make a nice shady route for those hot days of summer,
but now we were wishing the sun would give us a bit of helpful warmth. From
my previous visit I knew to stay on the south side of the creek as we headed
up El Cap Gully, and this we did, avoiding much of the steep brush I'd wallowed
in before. The easiest route is to just stay on the south side of the creek,
bypassing some impasses in the creek by sidehilling no more than 100 feet from
the streambed where necessary. We didn't dial this in until the way down
however, and I led us astray for a short while as I climbed much higher on the
south side of the gully than needed at one point. We struggled a bit with
deep, loamy earth on steep slopes with some class 3-4 rock climbing as well
(the ugly variety, not the type we would otherwise heartily recommend). Back
down near the stream after this distraction, we did a much better job of just
heading up the canyon. There are a number of pinnacles that line the gully on
the right side, K P being the highest and furthest up the canyon.
The north
facing walls of these pinnacles are imposing and almost sinister looking. They
see very little sun and have growth sprouting from most crack and covering
every usable ledge. Significant gardening would be required for any climbing one
might do on these walls.
As we neared K P Pinnacle's North side, we were confronted with
hard snow
filling the bottom of the gully, extending up and around the corner to the notch
between K P and El Cap itself. We weren't prepared for this, expecting only
patches of snow, and had not brought either crampons or axe. We tried kicking
steps with our soft boots, but could only manage minimal ledges on which to
place our feet. We used the bare branches of shrubs on the south side of the
gully to pull us up and secure us from slipping down the slopes. Matthew found
a twisted stick a few feet long that he fashioned into a makeshift axe. It may
have been more of a psychological help than a physical one - it looked like it
would easily have snapped in a hard fall. Higher
up we used the rocks embedded in the snow (
evidence of high rockfall)
or whatever indentations we could find
to continue up. It wasn't pretty, but it worked, and eventually we managed to
work our way up the side gully on K P's northeast side heading towards the
notch. The slope steepened appreciably and there were several rock bands that
were to prevent us from heading directly to the notch as originally planned.
Instead, we had to move onto the marginal rock/earth mixture we found on the
north side, off the snow field.
Trees and shrubs held the rock/earth mixture
together for the most part, which was a good thing as it turned out. Still, it
made for dirty climbing as we scrambled up a steep, wet gully filled with
ferns and grunge.
About 100 vertical feet below the summit we came up short as our gully ended
on a small perch below a 15-foot impasse. In dry conditions it would rate
maybe class 3 to climb up and reach a low-angled slope above. But today the
low angled slope was covered in snow, and this was slowly melting away, leaving
the vertical section wet all over and slippery with lichen in places. I tried
climbing
this briefly, but the feeling was so insecure - not knowing how my boots would
cling to the wet rock - that I quickly backed down. It looked like I could get
a piece of pro in about halfway up the thing, so it was decided to give it a
try with a belay. Out came the rope, much flaking and reflaking before we were
ready, and then I went off to try again. A medium cam went in nicely, the only
one I could place, and the only one needed as it turned out. I had expected I
might just use the cam to aid this annoying section, but the
confidence it gave me in protecting a fall was enough to make easy work of the
climb - my boots held on the wet rock and I was able to do an easy mantle to
the slope above.
I felt silly dragging a rope behind me on a ten degree,
snow-covered slope, but
dutifully ran it out to a medium sized tree above where I could belay Matthew
up. Once he joined me, I suggested he could set out on the remaining distance
to the summit on lead, which he did. But it was much too easy a traverse to
be using a rope, and after some 5 minutes of this we just abandoned the rope
and continued up without it. There was nothing more than class 3 above the
belay (the crux where we needed the rope may have been worthy of the
5.2 rating the route has), but it was interesting still with some stemming
across a tree and a
blocky summit at the end.
It was 9:45a when we landed on
the summit, a bit more than three hours from the road. I looked around for a
summit register which I imagined might go well back in time and have only a
handful of entries - "who climbs this thing nowadays?" I thought. But there was
no evidence of previous ascents, no cairn, no register, no rappel slings
rotting on a horn. It was a bit disappointing in this regard.
The most interesting view was of the next
lower pinnacle to the
southwest, maybe 100 yards distance.
It didn't have the small summit block of K P, but it looked to be a much
tougher climb on the three sides that were visible to us - perhaps a nice goal
for
some future adventure. Beyond this lower pinnacle was the sunny west end of
Yosemite Valley, and across from that the Cathedral Rocks, Leaning Tower, and
Bridalveil Fall - not a bad backdrop after reaching the top.
After taking our obligatory photos,
we scrambled back to our belay tree,
collecting our rope back up in the process. We moved the belay to a tree lower
on the slope, and then one at a time
rappeled back over
the crux
on the north
side. We set up two more rappels to get us back down to the snowfield the
easy way - it was much more fun rapping down a
grungy crack than
trying to
climb it (or worse -downclimb it). We even had a short section where the rappel
went over
an overhang to give us a little extra thrill hanging from
the rope.
Two of the three rappels we did from around the base of a tree to avoid leaving
any unnecessary gear. The second rappel we had to leave a single sling - it was
a bit regrettable since we had found the entire route free of gear when we
ascended - it would have been nice to leave it the same way when we left.
The snow was softer now in the late morning hour even though we had yet to see
any sun, and it was possible to plunge step our way down to the base.
We did a better job of descending
the gully by sticking to
the boulders on the south
side as much as possible, with only a few minor detours for the larger
obstructions. It was around 12:30p when we got back to the car, about five
minutes apart, having gotten separated from each other halfway down the gully.
It had taken about what we expected, half a day, and despite a few surprises it was more or less what we had anticipated overall. Not the best Yosemite has to offer by any stretch, but a fun little adventure before it was time to drive back home.
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