Usually for me the FaceOff is really the mark of the start of climbing season.
This year has certainly been no disappointment with lots of late-year activity going on in the area. It's hard to head 6 hours to Josh
when the backyard is still 50's. Warning, as all of the climbing in this TR was done solo, the shots are mostly scenic in nature.


So I've been packing up the truck


and heading to Shuteye. I first started putting up routes in this area when down in Fresno visiting my family for Thanksgiving from Seattle and have reliably climbed at this area in late November/early December for a few years now.

This particular trip started on a beautiful day with sunny and beautiful conditions in the mountains and fog in Fresno. Perfect. When i finally got up there the visibility was so good you could see the mountains of Sequoia, all the typical shuteye western crest stuff up to the Minerets etc. and all the way across the valley to the coast range. The table tops in North Fork were poking out of the clouds like little islands in a sea. Tip top climbing conditions for the 4,000-6,000 foot elevation climbing areas and highs in the 60's!!


Lots of steep hiking through beautiful forest littered with beautiful trees, boulders, and mini-crags.

The hike takes about 1.5 hours and it's pretty brutal. The whole time you're either walking up a steep slab or thrashing through the chinquapin/scrub oak/manzanita. And right now the chinquapin is growing those needle balls that cover your hands in thorns. Seriously, it's def. the most intense approach I've done in SoYo. After about 2,000 plus feet of elevation gain, dropping down into a creek, and bushwhacking up a chinquapinned gulley you get up to a nice little shangri-la of domes called the Stash.


I climed a bit at the lair, and the moved on to the NUGE wall


The first route i climbed is the obvious 5.9 splitter in the photo above. I named it the Albert Nugue Memorial Route after a good friend and fellow SoYo climber. Alberts love for life could hardly be contained at all and I was truely blessed to have known him. Big ups Bro!! I can't write this without crying a little bit. Your spirit blessed many. You taught me to do my absolute best every day to spread joy and help make other peoples day better!! I tried to name the most classic line in the area after you. This line is all 1's, 2's and 3's the whole 30M. Miss you bud!!

I then moved on to another part of the wall and got in two more new lines. Stranglehold 5.10 to the left and Cat Scratch Fever 5.11 to the right.


Both ended up being really classic. Stranglehold is a pure fun 5.10 crack that goes for like 90' and gets all knobby at the end with no bolts. Cat Scratch Fever shares the same start but branches off to the right on knobs that get thin in places protected with #2-4 stoppers and one bolt at the top when you're about 5' above a nut placement and pulling a hard move. This section of the wall is fairly overhung.

Couple of shots of the overall area.


A few days later I came back to do a climb I had been looking at for a few years.


I named this route Primal Scream after the couple of times i just had to shout at the top of my lungs in the darkness to get motivated getting back to the car. definitely got some frustration/stress out. Several times, i had made some significant progress only to get totally cliffed out in the bush and have to turn around and head down a completely different route.

This was the last picture I've taken with my camera. I wish it wasn't broken because i could have documented the mini-epic that ensued getting down to the truck in the dark. I walked down some unfamiliar terrain that turned out to be pretty hostile (big boulder caves, think plinko, with HEAVY brush mixed in). That was a mistake. The batteries and the spares i brought for my GPS were dead. Dang. I had a headlamp, plenty of food and water etc. but it was still pretty scarey when i totally pancaked my face into a rock on the ground after falling over mid stride with a heavy pack on. a branch caught my foot and my body kept on going. I saw stars, way more than i've seen in the many motorcycle crashes i've had in life which i number among my gnarliest wipeouts. Luckily i got down alright after getting totally schwacked trying to get back on route.

I now have some swelling on my cheekbone/eye area but my mental state is no more impaired than the typical baseline level i seem to always be at. I guess it's time to start climbing at the gym for a bit. What a departure from my former life in Seattle.

The climbing season is not over folks. If anyone wants to head up to this area, feel free to contact me. A few locals know kinda where everything is but as far as the general public coming out, no way. Thanks for reading :)