Anduril and Matthes Crest--not a trip report exactly

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Messages 1 - 16 of total 16 in this topic
phile

Trad climber
SF, CA
Topic Author's Original Post - Jul 21, 2010 - 01:11am PT
In short:

Party: Crusher and me
Date: Saturday, July 17 -- Sunday, July 18, 2010
Objective: Anduril (10b, 4-pitch alt start to Matthes Crest) and Matthes Crest (incl. northern section)

1:00am: arrive Tuolumne campsite
4:30: wake up
6:00: depart from Cathedral Peak trailhead
6:10: realize forgot topos; decide to keep going
9:45: start Anduril
10:15: realize not on Anduril
10:30: successfully connect our line to Anduril
11:15: off route again
11:30: rejoin Anduril
3:00pm: join Matthes Crest
8:30 traverse across "wave" feature near northern terminus
8:31 pretty much dark
8:32 lower/scramble off west side
11:30 lie down on slab @ Echo Peak to stargaze & watch moon set
1:30am: back to car
1:30:01am: inhale Trader Joe's potato chips and cookies
1:35: inhale Trader Joe's potato chips and cookies
1:40: inhale Trader Joe's potato chips and cookies
1:45: inhale Trader Joe's potato chips and cookies
1:50: inhale Trader Joe's potato chips and cookies
2:30: return to find that our shared campsite parking and bear box is full; drive around Tuolumne campground looking for parking spot and bear box space
3:00: sleep

cheers!

Phil
ß Î Ø T Ç H

climber
Jul 21, 2010 - 02:38am PT
"6:10: realize forgot topos" (and a digital camera)
Raw and on topic - 2 thums up .
Jaybro

Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
Jul 21, 2010 - 02:51am PT
and yet, they looked spry and had a spring in their step early (10am) the nexr morning!
Jerry Dodrill

climber
Sebastopol, CA
Jul 21, 2010 - 04:02am PT
Wait, what happened between 3 and 8:30pm?
Greg Barnes

climber
Jul 21, 2010 - 11:18am PT
Did you start Narsil (bolts, a pin or two, thin pro) or did you slab traverse over to that wide corner to the right? How did you get back on-route?

How about up higher - off route where Anduril walks out right on a 2' wide ledge for 20'? That ledge sure was fun to traverse the first time...from the trundling perspective at least!
survival

Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
Jul 21, 2010 - 11:21am PT
A bare bones TR, but still a lot of imagery.
Sweet!
BrianH

Trad climber
santa fe
Jul 21, 2010 - 12:12pm PT
It sounds like the route that was broken was forged anew.
phile

Trad climber
SF, CA
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 21, 2010 - 12:28pm PT
Biotch: 8:30am: Attempt to take 1st pic. Camera says "change batteries." Stupid &%$# supposedly-freshly-charged-but-old-and-apparently-won't-hold-a-charge batteries.

Jaybro: Thanks! Sorry we didn't get back in time to hang out around the fire with y'all. I want to hear some stories about back in the day.

Jerry: 3:00pm-8:30pm: We slowly soloed the south half, got caught in some afternoon roped traffic, got confused about where to cross the notch betw the summits, then *very* slowly simuled the north half, with our leader being extremely tentative on the steep downclimbing moves.

Greg:
On p1, we started on the knobs just right of Anduril. They're more fragile than they look! (Although now we have accidentally removed some of the worst offenders...) A shallow right-facing corner just right of the route took small nuts. We had looked at the topo previously and knew there were bolts below and above the roof, so once I got high enough to see those (and the Narsil bolts) I was fine.

On p2, I was guessing that p3 went straight up the roof and steep corner 6' left of the p2 belay bolts, and I thought the left crack directly below that looked like "flaring hands" [edit: and I hadn't seen the bolts yet]. So about halfway up p2, I traversed (from the correct, right-side arete) over to the left corner/cracks. That started getting quite hard, loose, and dirty, and I eventually spotted the belay bolts and realized I was off in the wilderness. I left a small nut (in rotten rock) at my high point, downclimbed as much as I could, then eventually decided I was better off gently lowering off the nut than risking falling on it (even on TR) with 40 feet of rope before the next piece. Then I tied the rope (and me) off to a cam, untied, and pulled it through the bail nut.

After that, things finally started going smoothly... and those shenanigans made the 10a hands move feel reeeeal easy...

Nice route! And looking at the topo the next day, we decided it was just about perfect... it would've been helpful to have...

cheers!

phil
tom woods

Gym climber
Bishop, CA
Jul 21, 2010 - 12:53pm PT
Where are these routes- what formation?

I'm ignorant of these.
phile

Trad climber
SF, CA
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 21, 2010 - 01:42pm PT
They're a couple hundred feet past the regular start of Matthes Crest, on the east side. I think Greg et al. put them up in 2007? They're in the most recent Tuolumne supertopo.
tom woods

Gym climber
Bishop, CA
Jul 21, 2010 - 01:52pm PT
On that cool looking gray tower?
nutjob

Trad climber
Berkeley, CA
Jul 21, 2010 - 02:27pm PT
This is great stuff! It didn't occur to me to scout around for other routes to climb on Matthes, even though there's a monster-load of rock! Thanks for the inspiration.
phile

Trad climber
SF, CA
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 21, 2010 - 04:34pm PT
Tom, it's actually on the Crest itself, just around the corner from the regular start. At 8:30 on Saturday morning there were 10 people on the regular start or in line for it, but we had our route all to ourselves. By the time we finally got to the top, the morning rush hour had ended and a smaller afternoon one had begun...

p.
Greg Barnes

climber
Jul 21, 2010 - 04:39pm PT
They're on Matthes itself: http://www.supertopo.com/rock-climbing/Tuolumne-Meadows-Matthes-Crest-Anduril
(Error on route beta page - supposed to be R- not R, it's correct in the guidebook.)

As far as the grey tower -there's a little tower (maybe 100' tall on the east side, 4th class on west) just to the south (kind of crumbly looking), but I assume you're talking about the "South tooth" referred to in the old Roper high sierra guide. We scoped that one time, there is an obvious, burly looking offwidth line in the middle (which had a 3.5 camalot stuck in it about 100+ feet up - probably a retreat piece), then a dirty crack over left (with an old fixed hex not all that far off the ground), and definite route potential - like everything else over there (namely endless route potential). There is a cool notch to the right where you go through a wide 3rd class chimney/gap and come out on the ridge south of Matthes.

But the Roper guide is wrong on the "opposite side of the tooth has a route rated III, 5.8" - it's not the opposite side of the tooth (which is 4th class to sand slopes), but several hundred yards further south where there's a large formation (directly above Matthes Lake). There are multiple obvious crack lines that could be 5.8 on that formation, plenty of adventure climbing to be had!
Greg Barnes

climber
Jul 21, 2010 - 04:50pm PT
And a note - just in case someone is thinking of doing Anduril and downclimbing the normal start to Matthes - do NOT leave anything down near the start of Anduril. There's a fat marmot that eats shoes and socks (probably wants salt). And it doesn't get too scared at rocks being thrown at it!
Greg Barnes

climber
Jul 31, 2010 - 11:58pm PT
Phil, we saw your nut & biner, you were definitely out in the flakey stuff!

I might get a chance to put together a proper trip report, but our short version is that we replaced the two 1/4" bolts on Anduril (3rd/last pro bolt first pitch, left anchor bolt top of first pitch), but not any of the four 1/4" on Narsil. Got my draws back from the anchor on Narsil, wonder if anyone ever got up there? Anyway I battled altitude sickness all day and we bailed from the N/S summit notch on Matthes - my splitting headache didn't fully disappear until I dropped to Lee Vining.

Here's Joe on the start of Anduril:
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