Yosemite Valley Shots

View from The Sentinel

Me leading on the Chouinard-Herbert

Following one of the 5.11 pitches

Finishing the crux pitch, after the Afro-Cuban Flakes

Sunrise illuminates the Cathedral group, from the West Face of El Capitan

Runnin from the sun!

The wacky traverse pitch

Ridiculously fun moderate terrain way up

Matt givin Thanks on El Cap's biggest ledge

....and praises!

As the bro mentioned earlier, I was living in Yosemite Valley this Spring volunteering on the NPS Peregrine Falcon monitoring project. It was incredible to observe these creatures as they incubated their eggs, caught food for the young chicks, and eventually the little dudes took flight! It looks like the Rostrum is one of the most successful nests in the park, go figure!

It was a super-wet and generally cool spring in California, which meant great cragging temps when it was dry. In June, I started climbing a few of the longer routes. The West Face of El Cap was my favorite route of the season, which I climbed with a young send-bot, Matt Wells from Bzoeman. Hard, technical cruxes down low, with fun knobby jug-hauling towards the top of the climb. A few days later, we suited up for the Sentinel's Chouinard-Herbert, another classic! The Afro-Cuban Flakes make up the hardest part of the route, where you pull over tough roof with tons of air under your feet! Hooking up with Taylor, a Valley fixture, we climbed the Astro-man, getting redemption from an earlier attempt being rained off AFTER the harding slot. Sorry no photos!(harding slot again)((its an extremely tight squeeze chimney)).

It seemed as if the snow in the high Sierra would never melt, and I finally made it to the Eastside and started work on July 7. Another season catching frogs is underway!