Ascents in Sentinel Rock

Had a great time on the route, thought pitch 11 was phenomenal! And hard for 11a.

Took once on the fifth pitch cause I was spiced at the prospect of not being able to place gear through the crux- guess what- you can. An incredible day out with will

Steak-salad-day. 'If you cant climb the good-looking 1000m peak, climb its chossier sister'. Id heard about the training methods for this route involving garage door sitting and asphalt parking lot crawling but really henry and i should have put more time into practising going down waterslides at wet and wild without sliding. We got the day started at 5:30 in the carpark to avoid pony-boy's unplanned summit shiver-bivvy scenario. An added incentive was the thunderstorms predicted for the afternoon. But it doesnt rain in yosemite so we werent worried. Got to 'the narrows' at about 2:30, just as the thunderstorm rolled in on schedule. I struggled through with much swearing, henry got the bag stuck on second. I tied him off and rapped back into the chimney to encourage him to ditch the bag! Lucky he had slightly better sense to just take stuff out of the bag till it fit through the chimney. Squeeze struggling while feeling the thunder rattling the rock is a slightly stressful but pretty cool experience. The storm cleared and we went through to the top via an incorrect but very fun series of sporty flake pitches out left, got some photos and then saw another storm inbound. A double header! Tailed it down the gully at 7:15. The rain belted us as we raced down choss, followed by slippery slab waterfalls, henry hurriedly navigating. One particularly sketchy downclimb was bailed off and an impromptu rap down the slabs cost us a couple of slings but we were granted our continued survival in exchange. This journey was being viewed by all our friends through binos in the comfort of camp 4 so were glad we could provide some wet-weather entertainment. After another hour of glissading through broken trees and avoiding unannounced cliffs and waterfalls, we stumbled across a tourist track at 10:15. The car was parked for 16:45. I cant imagine what henry and i will go through on our second climb together. We both deserved the bin pancakes i promised for someone climbing stalathe with me on my facebook ad.

We backed off due to extreme cold and critical sadness. Stout! We climbed to just before the raps. Even bailing was an adventure.

Amazing day out with Aidan. About 13 hours CTC, with the approach and descent accounting for at least 4 hours themselves. Some forgettable climbing on the lower pitches, but the end was spectacular!

awesome! yes, it's still 5.9, but old-school

Scary

actually 5.10d now i think. very tough

long day with Beat (swiss)

Happy, dass ich diese Route nachsteigen durfte...

With Magrane