Friday, October 8, 2010

West Cracks 5.9 on Daff Dome - September 25, 2010

Our good friends Paul and Crystal had been holding our aid climbing gear for us at there place in San Diego and we had arranged to meet them in Tuolumne Meadows on Saturday night so we headed up there from Sonora about a 2 hour drive.

When we got up to Tuolumne it was a pretty busy day and we decided to head over to West Crack on Daff Dome.  It is a nice 5 or 6 pitch 5.9.  We headed over there from the car at about 2:30 pm.

 Daff Dome in the background the route is on the far left side of the face.

It was about a 30 minute approach and we found Skater Dave at the base climbing with someone he had meet on rockclimbing.com.  At the time a party was just finishing up with the first pitch so we charged up behind them.  The first pitch has a slippery 5.9 face move protected by a bolt that is a tad low and is then pretty cruiser.
Skater Dave's friend had his wife waiting back at the road so they were only doing the first pitch.  
 Dave's friend leading the first pitch
 
Dave following the first pitch.
The second pitch pulls a steep 5.8 roof and then links up with an amazing 5.7 crack for about 1.5 pitches.  Then the dome angles back and it eases off to 5 easy and 4th class climbing.  Ken lead the first pitch and then Anja led the 2, 3, and much of the 4 pitch as one long linked pitch and then Ken lead to the top as the third pitch.  We were on the summit looking for the rap anchors at 5:20 pm.  It was a really fun climb!

Nice featured 5.7 crack.
Anja at the top of her long lead.
The top of Daff Dome.
Fairview Dome (as note Daff Dome stands for Directly Across From Fairview) on the left and just the top of Cathedral Peak on the far right (we climbed earlier that month)
The party we passed coming down the hanging rappel.

We headed to camp and Skater Dave made it over to our site and Paul and Crystal showed up at about 9 pm.

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