Mount Tamalpais
Climb Review
I’ve climbed here before and my review is the same as the last time.
Big Crack on "North" / "East" Face (5.6; The Northern Formation)—I had rappelled down this route after helping to set the anchor, and I found the climb fun and a good warm up for the day. Because I didn’t trust my right ankle with any pressure (with weight), the climb was harder than necessary, but there were good holds everywhere, so wasn’t so bad.
Face right of "Big Crack" (5.6; The Northern Formation)—I thought going up the middle would be harder than the crack, so I went up this one having forgotten that I had done it the last time I was here in July. Eh, doesn’t matter since I still had fun. On a more serious note, I did end up loading my ankle with almost my full weight going over the flake and while it didn’t feel great at first, I do believe it loosened it up for the rest of the climbing day.
Grovel Groove (5.6; The Northern Formation)—While the other guys led this route, I didn’t feel good about a possible slip and landing on my ankle, so I just top roped this. It was fun! More fun than the two earlier routes as the body positioning is more interesting... though I thought that the hand holds were even juggy-er, which I can’t complain about.
Sun Slab Undercling (5.7; The Northern Formation)—I misremembered this route being difficult (last time I thought the step on to the arete was scary), but once I got on it, it wasn’t bad at all. Unlike last time, because this was my last climb of the day at Mt Tam, I didn’t even get scared stepping on to the arete. I felt strong and even did some balance-y foot moves on the crux. I think Rai said that I looked like I did a pirouette.
What I Learned
I saw that Rai and David were extremely patient with each other and I think I can learn to go slower when I lead so that I can set more gear while climbing. I was also impressed how good they were at finding placement for nuts and placing them in such a way where it wouldn’t walk out.
Friends
I met Rai while working the Coalition Crag booth at Craggin’ Classic. He joined the Discord server and while I was trying to figure out what to do after my Joshua Tree plans fell through, ended up connecting with Rai about climbing. Rai also brought his main climbing partner David. Rai and David were just fantastic climbing partners who were super focused on safety, were patient with each other, and hilarious. I’m not sure if I’ve ever laughed so much while climbing.
What Happened?
Thanks to David for this picture of me going up Grovel Groove
I woke up pretty early and drove over to Berkeley to pick up Rai and then David from their respective addresses. Because I had only chatted to them on Discord and WhatsApp, I only had their addresses on my contact and had my fingers crossed that they were paying attention on WhatsApp when I drove up to their houses. Not were they paying attention on the apps, they were also prompt in getting out of their house and into my car. While at this point, I wasn’t 100% sure if they were serial killers or not, what I did know was that they were respectful of my time.
We then drove to the top of Mt Tam while getting to know each other and talk about the adventures we’re been on and hoped to do in the future. What I learned was that they were accomplished mountaineers with some really cool adventures under their belt, with appetites for even more.
When we arrived at Mt Tam East Peak, we quickly hiked up to the crag and Rai started setting an anchor with webbing that he knew how to use (the used a water knot to close the loop) but wasn’t 100% on. So, I doubled the anchor with my accessory cord and the resulting anchor wasn’t just bomber, it was BOMBER. I then rappelled down and we started climbing.
After two top rope routes, my ankle was feeling iffy (and a bit painful), so I told the guys that I wanted to rest and possibly not climb the rest of the day and they were super nice about it. We finished climbing on the East Face and David moved the anchor to the West Face (to make it easy to clip in after they led the route). After an hour or so, my ankle started to feel better, so I went up the two routes that they led and I had lots of fun climbing. It wasn’t just the climbing too, as we were just cracking jokes and having great fun.