Flush with our success the previous weekend, Jackie was eager to head back to
Pinnacles for more rock climbing. With temperatures in the mid-90s forecasted,
we both agreed an early start would we wise. This time, I decided we should
drive in to the East Side which is always open. This would allow us an earlier
start, by more than hour, over what we could manage from the West Side with a
gate that doesn't open until 7:30a. We were the only vehicle in the Bear Gulch
upper lot when we arrived at the end of the pavement before 6:15a. The sun
would within half an hour, so we didn't need headlamps and were
able to hike most of the while it was still cool. We
reached the High Peaks atop the crest by 7a with
overlooking the West Side of the park. The turkey vultures
in one of the larger trees were awaken by the rising sun and
our presence, soon taking flight for their morning
around the High Peaks.
North Finger
Our first order of business, in the way of warm-up, was to do North Finger,
immediately adjacent to South Finger, the last climb from the previous trip. We
didn't realize it at the time, but the two formations are easily done as a pair
since the Regular Route on both share most of the climb together. Since we'd
been up it once before, Jackie on the 5.3 pitch up to the
corridor that splits the two formations, giving her an opportunity to place her
first piece of pro, a single cam to protect the crux move in the wide crack. The
short pitch was accomplished in good time, after which she belayed me up to join
her. From there we switched leads as I went through the corridor to the north
side, in search of the "few fifth class moves that bring you into a 4th class
gully". I walked down the floor of the , past the
ramp/crack leading to the South Finger summit, to find that there is indeed a
gully on the north side of North Finger. The
tricky part is that you have to chimney up out of the corridor to get you to
the easier gully. Jackie watched as I did these first few low fifth moves
before moving out of sight into the gully. It doesn't seem to get much traffic
because I found it heavy with lichen, making it a bit unnerving. Luckily the
angle was low enough that there was little real concern for slipping, and in
about 5min the second short pitch was done. I clipped into the rap chains found
on and belayed with a fine view
overlooking the High Peaks in the early morning hour with the surrounding
formations still colored nicely by the low-angled sun. Looking over at the
Condor Crag formations to , it wasn't possible to tell which
of the two summits was highest, so that would leave us guessing for a bit
longer. The slightly higher South Finger was just to . Jackie
was happy to be able to found in an ammo box that
we had first spied the previous week from South Finger. A
described that the old register (from 1973)
had been removed for
restoration/archiving and available to read at pinnacles.org. An online
search later showed that this was never completed and is still unavailable
almost 10yrs later. A newer register from 2010 had less than a dozen entries,
showing the route has become less favored over the years. Our rope was just
long enough to allow us to make it in a
, mostly
following the line of the first pitch back down to the trail on the south side
of the formation. By 8:15a we were done with the warm-up, and confidently
carried our gear to base of Condor Crags.
Condor Crags
These are the highest formations in the High Peaks area, a pair of
closely-spaced pinnacles that, like the North/South Fingers, shares the same
initial pitch. of the route comes at the start of this shared
pitch where a
near-vertical thin crack has to be overcome. David Rubine's guidebook has this
as 5.7 which I figured would be challenging but doable, a step up from the
5.5 & 5.6 routes we'd done already. Not so. Calling it a thin crack is a bit
misleading. It does indeed call for finger jams in a crack, but the crack is
located to one side of a scooped-out face and is not continuous, requiring some
face climbing with minimal holds. Mountainproject.com has the route at 5.9
which I thought was a misprint until we actually got on it. This thing was one
tough S.O.B. The crack takes a few medium-sized cams which I quickly depleted
and wished I'd had more of same. I shamelessly placed cams and used them as aid
since
I found my free-soloing abilities too feeble for this route. The top cam pulled
out as I weighted it, but Jackie and the lower cam held me nicely in the short
fall. I made three efforts at getting past the crux to no avail as my arms were
soon spent. I even tried an alternate start to the left on a lower-angled
crack, but the lichen there was too scary and I backed off without placing
any pro or getting very far. And then came the real moment - when I discovered
my daughter was a better climber than myself. She and
succeeded where I had failed. Granted, she used the two cams I'd already placed,
fell off a few times and was frustrated that she couldn't free it, but I'll be
damned if she didn't get past the two cams, place a third and then go
into
the easier alcove above. "Maybe it's because I'm lighter," she offered in way of
trying not to hurt my feelings. But my feelings weren't hurt, really, in fact
I'd just gained another rope gun who could help me up routes I couldn't do on
my own. She probably should have just kept going to the top of the pitch to the
oak tree between the north and south summits, but since there was a pair of
just above the crux she anchored in there and brought me up
(again heavily aiding on the cams and this time the rope as well). She then led
the up to , a much easier, low-fifth
effort. From there we decided to do the South Traverse route to the south
summit, knowing it was rated a better climb than the 4th class munge on the
Regular Route. There were three bolts along the traverse to make it easier and
it looked like a sloping ledge (of sorts) below could be combined with a few
bomber handholds above to reach between bolts. Jackie didn't see this as doable
so she let me take the lead. I found it enjoyable, the bolt placements
appropriate, and only a tiny bit scary. A small bush can be used for protection
past the last bolt to reach the shoulder just . From the
shoulder on the south side of the summit, one more bolt protects
to the top. I clipped a quickdraw into
this but found the moves needed to be a bit more than I was comfortable with,
and decided to call in my rope gun. Belaying from the shoulder, I brought
across which she found concerning, then
let her to overcome the last bolt to reach the top. I was
a bit nervous watching her climb , knowing she would deck
onto the shoulder (and me) if she fell from what looked like a precarious
position. As she went over the top, a round
of applause went up from below, much to our surprise. A group of hikers on the
trail below had stopped to watch our efforts, evidently rooting for Jackie in
her efforts to complete these last moves. Anchored into a pair of rap chains,
she brought me up (aiding again on the rope) to conclude our 4-pitch climb of a
2-pitch route which we were proud to have made a real team effort.
The actual highpoint of the south summit isn't at the rap chains however, but
a class 3-4 scramble a bit further to the west. I went over to
while she still had me on belay, then so she could
as well. It was from this vantage point that we
could discern the south summit to be maybe a foot higher than
- we had finally reached the
highpoint of High Peaks. Compared to the south summit effort, the addition of
the north summit would be a piece of cake. After dropping off the scramble
portion of the south summit, I had Jackie start down the 4th class Regular Route
to the notch between the two summits. Easy at first, the angle soon drops off
more steeply and had her wavering, so we decided to simply lower her off on the
rope under tension. Following this, I rapped off from the chains with the rope
going over a horn to angle me more safely down the 4th class gully. From
, we had some trouble retrieving due to the
excessive friction
over the rock. Both of us were pulling the rope in synchronized fashion, finding
it took all of our combined strength to get it moving, our arms and backs
feeling spent by the time it was finally retrieved.
From the notch, it's a class 3 scramble up to the north summit which
while trailing the rope, placing no gear. After she anchored
into the rap chains she brought
where we shared a small celebration. Like
a true climber, she was a bit disappointed that she couldn't free the entire
route and felt it was a bit unearned, unlike her father's by-any-means attitude
that doesn't distinguish such trivialities. Our rope wasn't long enough to reach
the bottom in one go, requiring us to make two rappels. In addition to the set
of chains at the summit, there were two more sets found below that we had passed
by on our way up. down to the higher of the
wo sets, pulled the rope and then threaded it through the next pair of chains
for the . The third set of chains was not needed. We spent
about 20min on the two rappels before to
just after
11a. It was pretty warm out by now and we had sore hands, arms and backs, so it
seemed a good time to . There were no other climbers in the
High Peaks area (lots of , though) but we found dozens of folks
climbing in the lower areas closer to the
parking lot. Whether these were better areas or just easier to reach we couldn't
tell, but they looked interesting and worth checking out on a future visit. We
spent most of the last hour getting back to
the parking lot at Bear Gulch, finishing up by noon. The small lot was full,
with cars circling for the chance to get a prime spot. Ours was the
and clearly the prize for the family that waited eagerly for us to leave. With
AC blasting, we headed back to San Jose to rest up for the remainder of the
day...