Lover’s Leap
Climb Review
The Lover’s Leap area is all granite, but not the garden variety. The granite here is distressed by lines of horizontal dikes which offer mostly great holds.
The most difficult sections were when the dikes were spread far apart and easiest when they were spaced apart like ladder rungs.
There were many climbers at the crag and as usual, everyone was really nice.
The route was pretty free from choss for most of the way, until pitch three where there were lots of it on holds.
Ham and Cheese (5.6; Hogsback)—This three pitch route was quiet popular and we had to wait an hour and a half to start the climb (there was a party of two climbing and they were on the first pitch, then a party of three who got to the start a minute or two before we got there). The first pitch was awesome in that it starts lower angled, so it gets you ready for the steeper terrain that shows itself half way through the pitch. Once there, the dikes get spaced further apart, and things can get a bit heady. The first pitch belay station is a hanging one and while I got decently comfortable, I didn’t love it (does anyone actually love a hanging belay though?). The second pitch is stupid in that it’s easier, but there’s also no bolts and two rusty pitons to trust. I placed two or three pieces to make myself feel a lot safer. The belay station though is a 5 start hotel of belay stations. There’s tons of space and the bolts are solid—what more does one want? The last pitch looked terrifying and it was, but in an unexpected fashion. The small roof and mantel is what looked scary, but was actually easy with great holds. What was terrifying was a 15 ft stretch where instead of dikes, what one gets is just smears on admittedly sticky granite—but still, trusting your life on hand and foot smears just feels so bad. What made it worse was that I carried 7 quick draws, but I wished I had 8, as if I had that extra one, I could have protected myself with a cam for the blank section. Lastly, the final belay station felt terrible and I give it two stars. If it were 5 or 10 more feet up, I could have a sitting belay. Instead, it was a awkward hanging belay. All in all though, it’s a great 5.6 route that feels more like a 5.8. Most of the climbing is easy and fun, but there are a few sections where I felt that it was above 5.6. Lastly, I had two or three holds that were unstable and a few more that were alarmingly hollow sounding, so I would advise care on this route.
What I Learned
I felt nauseous before the first pitch as I was just dogged tired from only having 3 hrs of sleep the night before. I ended up dosing myself with 100mg of caffeine and a can of coke on the drive to Lover Leap. During the climb, I felt okay—the nausea was still there and there were times where I felt a headache. Still, by the end of pitch 3, I felt strong and nausea/fatigue was no where in sight. On the drive back though, there were definitely parts where I felt my age. And writing this now, a day after the climb, I must say that my memory of this day is very hazy.
I ended up drinking Elinor’s water as my bottle was in my backpack and I didn’t want to take it out and chance dropping it on someone’s noggin. I think I want to figure out a better water setup for myself when I multipitch. Maybe I should just carry my running vest and carry minimum gear? That would work pretty well, actually.
I setup a beautiful quad anchor on the second pitch with my quad length sling and it was a beauty. So much so that Elinor was found to be shopping for the same sling on the drive home.
After the climb, I counted a 10m accessory cord, double length sling, bail carabiner, a shorter accessory cord, my ATC, and my autoblock as things I brought but did not use. In my backpack, I carried a bail quicklink, two bottles of water, rope bag, emergency energy bars, sunblock, and lip balm. I think I need to start really thinking about everything I bring so that I can use a smaller pack with easier water access for future multipitch climbs.
This was my hardest multipitch yet, but I know I’m still sand bagging it, since I haven’t fallen while leading yet.
Friends
Elinor requested this trip from me as we had another climb in mind, but it had to be cancelled due to weather. She was a hoot as usual and we had a great time climbing. Seeing her push her climbing boundaries is inspiring to me and it definitely made me try harder on this climb, and this was my most difficult multipitch yet!
What Happened?
With our Pinnacles plans cancelled due to weather, Elinor and I came up with a new plan. Climbing one of the only sport multipitch routes at our comfortable climbing grade at Lover’s Leap—Ham and Cheese. The plan was to get there and have Elinor lead the first pitch, with me leading the second, and switching leads again for the third. This was optimal since Elinor wanted to lead a sport multipitch and I could place gear on the second pitch, where beta told us that gears would have to be placed to avoid a runout.
We started driving at 5am and got to Lover’s Leap at around 8:30am. After racking up, using the bathroom, and hiking up to the route, it was about 9am. When we arrived, there were two parties ahead of us, so we ended up waiting an hour and a half for the route, though, it didn’t feel that long as the company was good and many jokes were shared. The wait would have been even longer as the party directly ahead of us was a party of three, but the third person simul-climbed with the second, so they went decently fast.
When it was our turn, Elinor started up with a lot of gear and some trepidation. After clipping the second bolt, I could physically see that she was afraid as I could see her hands shake a bit and her progress slowed. She said something to the effect of that she’d just clip the next bolt and maybe she would lower after as it was a bit too heady for her. Instead, she clipped more than a few more bolts (I think 6 or 7 total; around 20-25m off the ground) before throwing in the towel and getting lowered back down.
We audibled and changed our plans to have me lead all three routes, which was fine by me. I found the rock to be so interesting and different due to the horizontal dikes and by the end of the first pitch, I was really used to the type of climbing Lover’s Leap demands of you. I describe the climb in the review section, but basically, there were some questionable design choices in creating this route, but overall, it’s a great route. Oh and we finished around 2pm, which meant the climb took us about 3.5 hrs, which I don’t think too bad for my third time leading a multipitch and Elinor’s first time finishing a multipitch.
After the climb, Elinor wanted to rappel down, but given the traffic below (there was a party of two below us) and the fact that each pitch is almost exactly 35m long made me want to not rappel (there were also some comments on mountain project about the rappels being not great; though this might be attributed some people trying to rappel this route using a 60m rope and falling). Anyways, so we hiked back down the back side of Hogsback, which was a slidy, chossy mess, but fun never-the-less (not fun for Elinor though).
On the drive back we gulped down a delicious In-and-Out hamburger and I sang myself home to keep myself awake. I haven’t had such a long day-trip adventure in a while, so it was good to practice that muscle again.
