TR Royal Arches 3/18/06

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Zander

Trad climber

Berkeley

Topic Author's Original Post - Mar 20, 2006 - 07:38pm PT

Royal Arches 3/18/06
When Climberweenie posted that he needed a partner for RA I realized it was divine providence. I had just been hasseling the guys down at the gym- "Come on. We've got to get outside. How about an epic on Royal Arches, or something?". Anyway by 9:00 we were roped up at the base. I had been planning to leave my approach shoes on until the end of the initial ledges. I remembered it as fairly straight forward. I changed my mind as I watched CW skate around in that first wet chimney. The sky was clear and blue. I managed to dunk both feet during the steam crossing between the 1st pitch and the next 5.6 section.
The low angle sections that were trivial in summer were covered in snow and Ice, and tenuous. The steeper sections on the outside were drier and better.
This picture is looking at the 5.5 stem on the supertopo (ST).
This picture is looking up the 5.7 crack off the ledge. The crux?
Now on dry rock we had a fun time until kickstepping below the final wet chimney before the pendji. We took a break here to eat and to contemplate the waterfall on the next pitch, the increasing wind, the fluttering snowflakes, our cold, wet feet and the fact that we already had put on most of our extra clothes.
We retreated. There was a minor blizzard driving over to Hwy 120 but it cleared as we got closer to home.
Another fine climbing day.
Zander

WBraun

climber

Mar 20, 2006 - 07:44pm PT

Was it really?

Russ Walling

Social climber

Same place as you, man...... (WB)

Mar 20, 2006 - 07:44pm PT

kick ASSSSSSSSS™™™™™

Way to go for it! All them other dudes are just fair weather fairies!

Lambone

Ice climber

Ashland, Or

Mar 20, 2006 - 07:51pm PT

did you downclimb/rap the route to retreat?

nice job!

Jaybro

Social climber

The West

Mar 20, 2006 - 08:19pm PT

"I am the Ayatollah of abseil!" -Lepton.

Nice work!

Elcapinyoazz

Mountain climber

Anchorage, Alaska

Mar 20, 2006 - 08:46pm PT

Well. I just thoughta something that hadn't crossed me mind in ages. A question I kinda forgot to ask anyone for a dozen years or so. Someone here gotta know this.

My memory is a little hazy as I've been up this thing a few times at most the last a decade ago, but somewhere on the ledge system, a hundred feet maybe before the 5.7 crack in your photo...there's a steep dihedral crack. Ton 'o bail slings in the top. Actually looks like it could be a cool pitch, had to guess I'd think .11
.
Anyone know anything about this? Ever climbed it, who established it, etc? It's way off route and doesn't appear to connect to anything else, but maybe a good pitch. so I ask.

Zander

Trad climber

Berkeley

Topic Author's Reply - Mar 20, 2006 - 08:54pm PT

Hey Gents,
It actually was fun.

And unfortunaely for our reputations the weather was fine right up until just before we retreated.

We rapped the route. Which was a bit of a pain because of the low-angle-rope-tangle but we kept a good attitude about it. Low expectations.

Car heaters are a nice thing.

See ya,
Zander

Nor Cal

Trad climber

San Mateo

Mar 20, 2006 - 09:20pm PT

I am glad you two went for it, next time try the 5.8 start at the 20 trunk tree its way better than than chimney....
As I sat in the gym on saturday i was regreting not making the journey to the valley. While I had no dreams of grand walls, I sure felt that a few laps on Lunatic Fringe or Outer Limits would have been way fun and well worth the trip out. I figure that I get "hosed" once a year and this was the trip, and from the sounds of your trip, I certainly would have been succesful at Reeds or Cookie....
I remember starting on After Six one day in the sun, we took off our shirts for photo ops (and to rub it into our bailing brothers), by the time we topped out it was snowing and the snow was blowing sideways, looking over at El Cap, horse tail falls was blowing up. I dont think I placed a single piece on the last two pitches in an effort to get the flock off the rock... its adventure at its finest.

Brutus of Wyde

climber

Old Climbers' Home, Oakland CA

Mar 20, 2006 - 11:20pm PT

Zander --

Did you or your partners ever forget some gear at Cragmont Rock in Berkeley?

If so, I may still have some of it.

Brutus

Zander

Trad climber

Berkeley

Topic Author's Reply - Mar 21, 2006 - 12:05am PT

Hi Brutus,
This would be way back. I left the top rope anchor- cordalet, a few biners, maybe a sling...
a couple of Hamms and a sixer of Olde English.
Ok that last is a lie. I've never had Old English.
If you cleaned it keep the stuff. I'll imagine it used as a rappel anchor on one of your Sierra adventures. Just waving in the breeze on some far wall. Aahh.
Zander

poseur

climber

yosemite

Mar 21, 2006 - 01:10am PT

An epic on the Royal Arches???......how lame can you be?...

Rhodo-Router

Trad climber

Otto, NC

Mar 21, 2006 - 10:13am PT

As lame as an awful lot of people, I guess. The RA scores more epics than the friggin' Eiger.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Mar 21, 2006 - 10:40am PT

Nothing like adding a little snow and ice, dropping the temperatures and turning up the wind while throwing in a bit of cloud to spice up a route. I usually refer to it as "going Canadian" as most of my 80's and 90's summer road trips to the GWN ended in snow storms, the peaks described by that delicious phrase: "out of condition".

Contrasting situations. I once hiked through the Alpine Gardens on Mt. Washington, NH, with my wife a mid-July day. Very pretty, big pillowy clouds drifting past, beautiful tiny alpine flowers at our feet in a sea of close cropped ground cover.

"Why are there so many cairns?" Debbie asked as we get near the top out for the winter gully ice climbs. "Yea, it looks strange, and it can be even stranger, we were up here once when you couldn't see the cairn ahead or behind". These seemed to be every 20' or so, and marching in line like so many trolls. The summer time feel is that this is a tiny area, and close to civilization but I have never felt so remote and unaccessible as some times I have spent up there in the winter.

We walked past the wooden sign announcing "Alpine Garden" and a smile came to my face. As we hiked on I recollect the last time I had seen that sign, knocked flat and underneath 4" of clear ice on a beautiful February day after topping out on Pinnacles Gully , of course the temperature was in the single digits and the wind speed in the double digits.

It is a place people die in, or loose limbs to, or generally have horrendous epics. But it puts on a serene vissage to those who visit it when the light of high summer dapples through the clouds across the tapestried slopes.

Good on you guys for going up the Royal Arches!

mark miller

Social climber

Reno

Mar 21, 2006 - 12:14pm PT

I wish I was there, that's my favorite kind of climbing,hard to find partners that'll put up with a little "cold". I guess I just read to much Bonatti and Pierre Mazeaud as a young impressionable tyke.

Jaybro

Social climber

The West

Mar 21, 2006 - 12:16pm PT

ed- did you everclimb in the north with Jon Arnow from Reno?

Forest

Trad climber

Tucson, AZ

Mar 21, 2006 - 12:28pm PT

An epic on the Royal Arches???......how lame can you be?...

Heh. My first time on RA we came very close to having a weather-induced epic. It was late October. A couple of pitches before the top (two pitches after the pendji, right before you go up the dihedral) the weather started getting really nasty. Lightning across the sky and a really slow party in front of us who weren't into letting us pass.

We figured there'd be better shelter at the next belay under the trees, so I led up the dihedral as the hail fell. It has been so sunny that the still-warm rocks melted the hail and turned it into warm water almost immediately. Of course, that lasted all of 5 minutes and pretty soon the stream running down the dihedral was icy cold.

We got to the next belay, under a bunch of pine trees, and we realized that we were going to stop there regardless because the pitch was a bit of a slabby traverse and it was currently sheeting water.

So, there we sat. The only waterproof clothing we had was a space blanket. We huddled together, took turns doing jumping jacks, and just basically waited for the weather to clear. Which fortunately it did about an hour later. The sun came out, the rocks dried out, we got to the top of the rap, and rapped down, hitting the ground just as it got dark.

Karl Baba

Trad climber

Yosemite, Ca

Mar 21, 2006 - 01:27pm PT

You're a sick man Zander, a fanatic. So I'm proud to know you.

They say that anything worth doing is worth overdoing.

Soloed up the Arches once when there was too much snow around. There was a huge snow cone at the chimney below the Penji and I thought that might be a good time to tuck in the tail and call it wisdom.

Peace

Karl

climberweenie

Trad climber

San Jose, CA

Mar 21, 2006 - 08:12pm PT

With respect to "epic on RA"....
I solo'd the route last summer and had fun the whole time. I was roped up and placing gear conservatively this weekend, and still having fun the whole time. There's a big difference between ice-covered sticky rubber shoes and dry summer sticky rubber shoes. There's a big difference between slapping a rounded edge in summer and pushing snow off the slippery ice sloper in spring. It's more difficult to crimp or do palm smearing when your hand is 100% numb from icewater running on the slab.

The only thing that would have made it not fun is getting soaked to the bone with icewater while traversing 100 feet sideways underwater after the pendulum while the wind and snow significantly increased, just because we had a bug up our butts to finish it. We weren't under the influence of that particular bug. We'll save that kind of epic for a second date :)

Good times, great views, new partners. Life is good.