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| The awesome face of Cal Dome... |
Metres and I had been planning a climbing weekend FOREVER. And finally, we made it happen. We were originally planning to do something in the high sierra... like Temple Crag, or a 14er or something... but looking at the low temps in the mountains we decided to drive less, be more comfy and settle with type I fun... vs the type II fun we had in mind. So we drove up to Cal Dome on Fri night... arriving with the herd of Camp 4 climber bums who all got kicked out of Yosemite due to the shutdown.
After sleeping road side, and having a leisurely morning, we rolled up to Cal Dome to find 8 cars (mostly subarus)... parked on the Cal Dome lot. And... it was cold. And... we knew that Cal Dome wouldn't get any sun all day. So we decided to climb on Hammer Dome, across the way.... which was already in the sun. Starting off with Gemini Cracks, then rapping down to Wings & Stings... we had to iron out our climbing techniques, and made a few ridiculous mistakes. All in all, a great day of trad climbing... and we stopped when Dave's right hand wouldn't open up... as it was stuck in a GI JOE kung fu grip...
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| Metres on pitch 2 of Gemini Cracks |
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| Rapping off... and soon Dave would fall off the Wing's & Stings roof, burning his hand on the rope. Amazing. |
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| After removing himself completely from the rope, Dave down climbed a bit to reach it and rapped back down to the start of Gemini Cracks... where we would soon devour our spare burrito from last night. |
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| About here, Metres was grunting a lot... and barely made it up no-falls... we skipped the third pitch due to being completely exhausted. |
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| The canal from Salt Springs Reservoir... |
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| Cal Dome... home to HUGE boulders. |
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| California Mountain King Snake - totally harmless.. |
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| and the mandatory post climb dip into the frigid river... after setting up a nice fire, eating a nice meal, and drinking a few beers we bunked for the night as we had a long day of mtn biking lined up tomorrow. |
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