Braille Book 5.8

Braille Book Trip Report, April 14, 2007

The Doc, in his infinite wisdom, has decided that my ageing carcass needs a little tune up, which is going to put me out of climbing for two to six months starting May 7th. This weekend was the last chance for a big climb. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate. As a fallback and in keeping with the creed of WOWCA (Wood Off Width Climbing Association) we decided to do Crack Of Despair. In a fit of optimism we thought we could do it before the rain started at midday. We got to the rim at 6:00 AM where we took this picture at the top of Elephant Rock.
Looking down it was clear that no amount of optimism could get us down to the base, up four scary Pratt pitches, down two rappels and back to the car in less than a long full day. So by 7:00 we were re-racked and heading for Braille Book. I have yet to go straight to a climb up this gully. I always seem to follow the wrong line of cairns, so after getting straight to the start of NEB of HC I had to scramble along the base to where Bob was waiting patiently at the bottom of Braille Book. Here’s a picture of Bob leading the first pitch.
You can see the wild “Braille like” rock. As when climbing NEB, Higher Cathedral Spire is your constant companion.
I somehow missed taking any pictures of my lead of pitch 2. The little roofish crux seems unlikely as you approach but unfolds sweetly as needed. I usually put in a lot of pro but the logic of this climb, this pitch and the others, lead me to run it out much more than normal. Here’s Bob leading up pitch three.
We wanted to move fast because of the weather so we decided that if it made sense he should combine the next two pitches, which Supertopo has as 80 feet each. Maybe I should have read the beta on Supertopo about these pitch lengths! First I yelled out, “30 feet” but Bob couldn’t quite hear me. Then I yelled out “that’s me”. Bob yells down “I’m still climbing”. I go,”You’re at 200 feet”. “I’ll put in a belay” comes down. Actually, it worked out fine. He clipped into the two bolts shown on the Supertopo that you are supposed to skip. In the end this did save us one belay. This one combined pitch is great! You better know how to chimney though because the crux has no holdsand limited pro. Awesome! I took the short second to last pitch. Fun and exposed as you come around the corner. Here’s Bob following the 5.4 ramp.
The snow was softly falling now, big gentle flakes. The last pitch is one of the best there is. Continuous cruising on steep jugs and flakes.
By the time we got to the top it was really snowing.
Just beautiful and quiet. Here’s a picture looking up at the falling snow after we had hiked back to the base of the climb.
The “trail” tallus was a bit slippery on the way back to the car. By 2:00 we had gathered the families and were eating pizza at Curry Village. Another fun day on the rock. This is a great climb! Well worth any number of stars. If you are a fledgling 5.8 leader take the four 4 inch cams Supertopo recommends. We didn’t but we’ve been doing a lot of chimneys lately.

Sunday we hiked up the Falls Trail. There was interesting fog and cloud combinations all day. Here’s a few snap shots of some old climber favorites.
Washington Column

Half Dome

Yosemite Falls and Lost Arrow Spire

See you all around,
Zander

(Edit; Ed, I knew that didn't look right. So much for spell check.)