Back at Stoney Point
The summer's first trip pictures were in June with Joe, Ben, Wes, Krzys, Kim, Sophia, Carley, and Bill. This second trip was smaller, with Joe, Justin, Krzys, Sophia, and Carley. (plus the person behind the camera most of the time, but you knew that!)
We were over at Potholes for half the day (on the back wall, ~5.9), then over on Scuplture's Crack (~5.10c) for the rest of the day.
Potholes is a fun route, essentially a pretty easy climb until you reach near the top. If you can go straight up it's a 5.10ish, but if you use the crack to the right of it, it's a 5.9. We all used the crack to finish, as we were on this climb from ~9:30am to ~1:00pm, which meant we were exposed to full sun the whole time. That really hurt after a while, particularly as the rock got hot enough to start causing blisters!
Some of the holes that make up Potholes are large enough to sit in. When it's 94F out and inside one of these holes is 20F cooler, it's a nice place to rest. =) Follow up the path of holes until the top two holes, then below the top-most hole there's a nice ledge that you have to get your fingers on. It runs all along to the right of the 2nd-from-the-top hole, but it's a good reach if you're short or don't know where it is. Grab the ledge, then move your hands over to the right a bit, then reach out to the right and plant a foot in the crack. Inch up the crack, then reach over to the left to hit the top hole and finish the climb.
After Potholes and baking in the sun for 4 hours, Joe and Sophia setup our 2nd rope over at the Back Wall, in the shade. The rest of us finished Potholes, then joined them in the shade.
The crack up on the Back Wall was pretty difficult. Sophia was the only one to make it up to the top, as the rest of us were too exhausted from all the sun at Potholes to make it up the lieback going up the crack. (go Sophia!) Getting from the bottom to the middle was difficult because of the lack of any good feet near the crack, as falling off anywhere below the horizontal crack with two holes meant you swang right off the rock... highly amusing but definitely tiring. Joe and I both made it past the bottom to the part where you have to transition to the lieback, but I died right after getting to that point and even Joe didn't make it all the way up. It looks like an awesome climb, but we need to do it when we're not quite so freakin' hot and tired.
After we packed up and went home, Joe and Nikole's moving-away dinner was that night at Tia Juana's, then off to McCabe's for drinks. The other half of the group was over at a different party that night. T'was fun!
. . .
Three days later, Justin and Bill both have some lovely blisters. Sophia and Carley are looking a little better than those two are.
