Assault on Tahquitz
The picture from Mountrain Project, the Long Climb goes right up the middle, right side of the Northwest Recess
“There we were, only halfway up the wall with 2.5 hours of light and 4 more hours of climbing ahead of us. We had to decide between continuing and climb in darkness, or rappel into the unknown.”
Paolo and I arrived at the bottom of the Tahquitz wall, in SoCal. We were going to send a history route called “The Long Climb.” This is a trad route following up a system of 600 feet (182 m) worth of cracks.
Trad climbing: short for Traditional climbing, involves the lead climber placing protection gears into the wall as one climbs. Unlike in Sport climbing, where the leader is protected by bolts preplaced in the wall. This is a more advanced type of climbing, as this method requires more different types of gear (cams, tricams, hex nuts, nuts, nut tool…etc) and the knowledge to use them safely.
We started climbing at 12 pm, the climb is divide into 6 pitches which we figure we can get through in 6 hours That leaves almost 2 hours to hike down the backside, just after Sunset at 7:30 pm.
The first pitch was beautiful but it was too long. We didn't have enough gear to protect it all the way to the anchor so we had to do an extra “mini” pitch in between the first 2 pitches.
Here is me crack climbing the 1st pitch
I struggled big time on the 2nd and the 3rd pitch. The 2nd crack in the 2nd pitch was made up of a smaller crack (for placing protection) inside of a bigger crack, in such a way that my hands cannot reach around and jam into the smaller crack. Instead, I had to climb via layback style… …I got absolutely destroyed.
Just know that “jamming” uses more technique and “layback” relies more on endurance and fitness.
Layback climbing, pushing the foot away from the wall, while pulling the body towards the wall. Very powerful way of climbing. Illustraition by me.
I was side-pulling on the crack outwards while pushing my feet against the face of the wall. This was the first time I felt what stepping on “glass” truly feels like… …My foot slipped off the wall anytime the stars didn’t align perfectly. I haven’t been to a gym in a few months, and only had 2 training sessions for this climb… …fitness ain’t what I got today!
A chart about the grading systems which I found online.
I ended up falling around 15 times between pitch 2 and pitch 3. And I have never fallen off of a 5.8 climb, ever. It only occurred to me that this climb was established in 1965 when 5.10 was supposed to be impossible to climb. This 5.8 climb was probably a “5-point-too-hard” for me. (Honestly, this 5.8 pitch was harder for me than a 5.10b/c I climbed 2 weeks prior)
Yosemite Decimal System: back in the first few decades of climbing, a grading of 1 is flat walking, 3 is a very steep hill, and only starting from 5.0 did real climbing starts. Between 5.0 and 5.10 where all difficulties would fall.
After a while, it’s apparent that some 5.9 routes are way harder than other 5.9 routes, and a grading system that when beyond 5.10 was needed. So now modern standers are that 5.6 is as easy as climbing a ladder, and 5.10 is the average climber who had been climbing for a while. As of today, there are 2 routes in the world with grading for 5.15d.
After I finally slug through the 3rd pitches. Paolo and I had a check-up with reality, that there we were, only halfway up the wall with 2.5 hours of light and 4 more hours of climbing ahead of us. We had to decide between continuing and climb in darkness, or rappel into the unknown.
Option A, climb in darkness:
It is not uncommon for climbers to climb in the dark with headlamps, which we do have. The real problem is that not only will we had to climb with little visibility, find a good placement for protection, but also that the hardest section of climbing was still ABOVE us.
Option B, rappel into the unknown:
Rappelling station made left behind by the community. Made of multiple slings, and one or two rings for the rope to loop though.
The thing about rappelling is that it requires some kind of hardware or gear on the wall to loop the rope into. Usually, this comes in the form of permanently bolted anchors with rappel rings, or semi-permanently slings tied around nature anchors (trees or rocks) with rappel rings. The problem here is that on the entire 3 pitches, we saw only one of those on our way up. If we choose to go down, we will have to swing around the wall, on the end of our rope, hoping to find some kind of rappel station, or leave gears ($$$) on the wall to rappel from.
After a short pop-tart break, we agreed to keep climbing. But luckily, only 5 minutes into the 4th pitch, Paolo found some slings looped around a bush with a ring in it. It was a rappelling station! “There must be more below this!” Paolo said, and we gladly turned around and rappel down, getting to the ground just as it got dark.
We only end up losing one locking carabiner through the 6-7 rappels we did to get off the wall.
But…..Stay tuned to find out all we rappelled to the end of our rope, with the next tree anchor still 5 meters below us, and still 150 feet above ground.
