Virginia to Tangerine Trip (TR)

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damienn

Trad climber

nevada city

Topic Author's Original Post - Jul 29, 2014 - 10:55pm PT

This past winter was a slow one for me in terms of climbing. I took a fall while soloing Zodiac last September and spent the fall in a cast and the winter building my ankle strength back up. So after several months of minimal climbing I was psyched to get up on El Cap with Kevin again. Initially our plan was to climb South Seas to the P.O. Wall. I got to the valley a few days before Kevin, who was still in Thailand, and fixed the first pitch of South Seas. After not climbing much all winter that pitch spanked me. Took about 3 hours to lead and another 1.5 for me to clean and I'm pretty sure my arms were sore for several days after. Luckily I had a few days to soak in the sunshine and recover while I was waiting for Kevin to show up. Did a few easy climbs and some catching up with friends and then I got the phone call from Kevin asking "so how do you really feel about South Seas?"....Well it was the night before we were supposed to start and I'd already carried 16 gallons of water to the base and fixed the first pitch so I was pretty psyched on South Seas. Maybe a little naively so. Did I mention I've got next to no experience nailing? Kevin has taught me most of what I know about wall climbing and has been an intuitive mentor, so I trusted his judgement on this one and we decided to climb Virginia to Tangerine Trip instead. Once we changed our plans we both felt more relaxed and looked forward to a fun climb.

Kevin arrived in the valley still jet-lagged around the first of May. By May 2 we were fixing on Virginia. We started it via the first pitch of Lost in America. This was the first pitch Kevin and I had ever climbed together about a year earlier. We had gone up there to retrieve Kevin's stuck rope. A bear had gotten into his haul bags while he was soloing the same pitch and caused him to bail. To retrieve the stuck rope he led P1 of Lost in America while I belayed him. It was my first time at the base of el cap and i had yet to do a wall, so i was excited to watch Kevin climb it and learn what I could from him.

This time it was my turn to lead and I couldn't help but feel like we had come full circle in a way. The pitch went smoothly and we bivied the base after fixing. In the morning we jugged the lines and Kevin started hauling. I heard a terrible screeching noise followed by Kevin cursing the busted pulley. We realized that one of the pulleys was pretty busted and I ran down to the car to get another one. Right now I'd like to say thank you to the Ranger who stopped me in my truck at the base of El Cap and gave me a verbal warning for several things that could have resulted in citations. Big sincere thanks.

So May 3 and we are finally blasting off. The weather was perfect and we were able to flag the ledge. Which I had never done before and worked out beautifully. We bivied at the top of pitch 4 that night and fixed pitch 5. We had a very comfortable evening complete with kite flying, beer, and solar powered christmas lights.

May 4 - We enjoyed a leisurely pace this next day as well and bivied on P7 of the Trip, and fixed pitch 8. When I checked my phone that night I got a message from my mom telling me there was some bad weather coming the following night. It was a 60% chance of precipitation and temps around 30 degrees with more weather predicted for the following 2 days. We had tons of extra food, plenty of water, and just enough beer to last in case a storm did come in.

May 5 - We saw on the supertopo that the top of Pitch 13 was a good storm bivy and decided that would be a good place to be if the weather came. And it did. Just as we arrived at the anchor it started pouring rain. Then there was a huge crack of lightning that came from the center of the valley. Like halfway between us and cathedral rock. The rain I was fine with but the lightning freaked me out a little. We got the ledge and fly set up and before you knew it we were both inside with all out essentials. We stayed up till about 4 am that night drinking beer and goofing off.

May 6 - Its snowing!!!!!! When we woke up at about 9 am it was snowing out and we were in a cloud. It was really amazing. The snow was light and beautiful and we couldn't even see the dawn wall. We decided that we werent going to climb any time soon so we cracked into the mangoritas. a few 9 am mangoritas after 5 hours of sleep meant that we were getting pretty tipsy. we hung out up there joking around catching glimpses of rainbows through breaks in the clouds. We even got to see a double rainbow.

A little later in the day, we sobered up and the weather was looking better so Kevin geared up to fix the next pitch. Just as he left the anchors freezing rain and snow started coming down on him. He climbed through it and returned back to the ledge.

May 7 - Our friends told us the weather was supposed to be good this day so we decided to try and top out. We packed up our gear and ledge and jugged to the top of P14. Kevin started leading pitch 15 and the freezing rain and snow started again. It really started coming down just after I lowered out the bags from the last sheltered anchor..... Oh well! I led the last couple slabby pitches in the wintry weather and we were on the top around 5 pm. The weather cleared up once we topped out and we had a nice bivy up there.

Virginia was a great route to get some experience nailing for me. Once we hit the trip the hammers went away and the route changed character. Kevin had a butterknife made in Bangkok and used it to clean a few dead heads. All in all the stormy weather made the experience really unique. Great times and I look forward to the next trip!