Day #53 Birthday Climbing

I woke up and found a chocolate bar next to my tent – the Austrian couple left it as a b-day gift – I love small gestures like that and it immediately brought me in a good mood. When I returned from the lodge with coffee in my hand, two sweet girls I had met at the river, Christine and … (??? I‘m bad with names, sorry! 😅) made me breakfast burritos, folded like a crêpe with onions, eggs, sausage and tomatoes inside!

Saseen and I arranged our gear, picked up a sixpack of IPA beer and walked over to the Five Open Books crag. Two other guys, Chris and Ian, joined us. After discussing back and forth and almost melting from the heat, we decided to to an easy multi-pitch trad climb called Munginella. It was just too hot to do any hard routes.

I racked up with lots of friends and nuts and shot up the first two pitches, barely placing gear as the stone was almost too hot to touch and I didn‘t want to stay in one place longer than necessary. I set up a belay under a shady tree and brought Ian up. The climbing was fun and had a bit of everything – cracks, face climbing, big flakes… but nothing too difficult.

The other two followed quickly but on the very end of this beautiful climb, we had to wait a while until Saseen recovered his phone he had dropped at one belay.

We scrambled back down and decided to go swimming. A little further, at the Lower Yosemite Falls, a hidden trail lead past a bunch of gaping tourists into the forest and then up some very polished boulders.

We arrived at Lower Falls Amphitheater and marvelled at the dark red and brown stone – just like the rock at Pat & Jack, this didn‘t look like granite at all. Some chalk-lined cracks lead up an otherwise featureless wall. Other Camp 4 climbers including Disco were already there and getting started.

We had to go swimming first – the crag was in shade but we were sweating so much. At the opposite of the climbing wall was a thin waterfall, filling the most beautiful outdoor pool I‘ve seen so far.

The water was not too cold and refreshing. We fooled around in the pool, trying to deep water solo (of course) which didn’t work at all so we cooled the beers and chilled out, talking about climbing non-stop and watching other climbers. After two beers, I was ready to lead „Ranger Crack“ a beautiful and mellow 5.8. – it didn‘t force your hand and feet to stay in the crack permanently which was comfortable. I was content with that – a solid onsight lead for my birthday. Each one of us took a successful turn on it.

Later in the evening we had a bonfire and many more beers – the guys from my campsite had a huge box full of free beer, for reasons I forgot. More people joined and shared their experiences, the routes they did, the projects they wanted to do. I was happy to have such lovely company for my birthday and decided to come back next year at exactly the same time, but longer. I want to start with big wall climbing – why wait any longer?