Red Bud 5.9

Donini has a thread, "The Problem with California Climbing" or some such... and it is with a bit of guilt, where a lot of the country is suffering under winter storms, that we get to enjoy a bit of springtime in the winter...


this last weekend was the first time out for me in a long time. I was meeting up with Bela and we were going to do a recon on The Cookie Sheet. The right side had some vexing puzzles to square the topo with a photo


The red line is the approach, the blue line on the left is the route Red Bud 5.9 which was our path of discovery, as it were. Climbing the topo is always a good way to get stuff straight.

Bela pulls the first lead, an excellent layback with strategically located knobs and a really interesting crux. Hopefully someone won't break it! But he was through his lead and at the belay pretty quickly. This pitch seems to be shared with Air Line, that route forking off to the right just after the crux, our route to the left.


Above this really nice pitch is a lot of slab, two pitches of it to get to a block stance which is the belay for the last pitch... here's Bela after having lead p3 with me at the p2 belay anchors


the great expanse of the cliff rising above the sheet.


The last pitch has some interesting bits to it, all in all a more interesting route than many over on The Cookie Sheet...

we rapped down Air Line and did the last pitch on top rope, which is also a fine, interesting pitch;

the right side seems to have more features, and a bit more difficulty climbs. I'd give this route a star, it's worth doing.


On Sunday, we ended up in a gang to do some cragging. Bela had the rare Sunday, and he wanted to lead Stone Groove 5.10b at Reed's. He proceeded to do just that


putting the rope up for us all to do many laps...

it was amazing, temperature around 70ºF and everyone basking


though attentive when belaying!

In fact, there was some complaining that it was too warm... so we went down for a round at Generator Crack, where it was 40ºF. Putting hand in crack it was also obvious that the sun hadn't visited that part of the Valley for a while. But the nice thing about laps on Generator Crack is that it induces an instant body heat... everyone made progress on their attempts, but at some point it was time to go back up into the sun, enjoy a beer and some snacks, and head home.

Great weekend with great partners - warm memories.