Sonora Pass - 4,5 September 2004

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Pushing last-minute planning to the extreme, Daniel, Leslie, Karl, Kirsten, and I made an early Saturday departure to the Sonora Pass for a Labor Day weekend on uncrowded rock. We drove directly to the crag, rolling on fire roads to the Potters area (left center and center right). Kirsten and Karl won the first leads, with cut corner (5.6) and trad fusion (5.10a), respectively. I had the honor of finishing trad fusion, meanwhile Leslie made her first trad lead repeating cut corner. Daniel gained more gear experience also with cut corner, and Karl had an exciting gear-pulling fall low on give 'em the finger (5.10a). Thankfully a backup tricam kept him on the wall.

We drove out with the remaining sunlight, set up a campsite, and sought food at the Strawberry Lodge. We walked in just as the kitchen was closing, but between Daniel's toothbrush, Kirsten's stomach, and an entertaining wait staff we got our repast.

After a relaxed Sunday start we packed up camp and made tracks to the Green Acres area (left). Karl supported his crack habit with the white tower (5.7) while Daniel pushed gear into bonafide (5.6). We eventually dropped a rope on the diamond cutter, left (5.11c) and the diamond cutter, right (5.10c). After a day of playing, Karl, Kirsten, and Leslie hiked out while Daniel and I climbed out via an interesting variant of maynard (5.7).

The sun set, burritos were had, and with it a successful weekend came to an end.

Kirsten on the sharp end. Daniel leads cut corner. Karl shows off 'Exhibit A.' Karl in the white tower. Darrell belays from the pit.

Darrell, Karl, Daniel, and Leslie. Leader Leslie finds time to smile. A happy Kirsten finishes trad fusion. Kirsten, Leslie, Karl, and Daniel having a camp breakfast. You had to be there. Kirsten and Karl at the white tower base.

Daniel the bonafide leader. Darrell follows Daniel up bonafide. Leslie works the white tower. Heel hooker Leslie. Karl on the diamond cutter (right).

Daniel penned this fun trip report, included with permission:

Various people had mooted various trips to various places, but by Friday night the asynchronous distributed consensus oracle had determined that Darrell, Karl, Kirsten, Leslie, and I were leaving Saturday morning for Sonora, though I was the only one who had decided when he was returning. Darrell nabbed Karl and I swung by to pick up Leslie, and we all met at Kirsten's shortly after 8:30am for le bon voyage. After navigating Labor Day traffic, refueling, and making a leisurely pee stop (maybe it would have been faster to avoid the recently-arrived tour group?), and despite lunch at the inimitable Oakdale Diner, we arrived at Potters around 1:30. Kirsten and Leslie geared up for Cut Corner 5.6 (presenting a crack or face choice), while Karl tried his hand on the warm-up Trad Fusion 5.10a, a slabby face with crack elements, an arete, and some good handholds. Karl's first pro, a bolt (it was "Trad Fusion," after all) was conveniently 18 inches out of reach, and after several scary-looking off-balancy attempts he found the stem, made the clip, moved right onto sketchy feet, and sketched -- thus occasioning the catch of my first "leader fall" (very gentle, with Karl below the bolt). Karl reached the arete on his second attempt, pulling a macho pumpy arm move that left him in a tight spot, occasioning the catch of my second leader slide. Karl was not to be defeated, but after a further four or so attempts he was de-handed, and I lowered him to terra firma.

Meanwhile, Kirsten had cruised up to the small 5.6 roof, only to find herself with a gorgeous crack and no suitably sized piece to protect the apparently tricky roof move. Kirsten (in a stance) clipped into her last piece, and Darrell sent reinforcement cams by Leslie's rope express. Karl's bailage left a rope free for Darrell, who stood on slabby nothings, pulled on a lousy undercling (from too far under), and with difficulty attained a shallow, highly variable, horizontal crack. Hanging from poor hands, he slammed a cam into the crack, after several tries eventually convincing the cam against its better judgment to take hold of "something," and powered onto the ledge above by way of a mantle and sidepull. The rest was history.

In the interim Kirsten had done her own powerful mantle and fancy highstep to gain the roof, and set an anchor in a city of ants. Leslie followed; upon reaching the roof, she made use of the huge bomber foothold ideally placed beside the roof (which she had naturally forgotten to tell Kirsten about earlier), ran to the top, and lowered off.

Upon Darrell's return, I seconded Trad Fusion, falling once just after the bolt but otherwise climbing it clean (I think :-) while repeating over and over, "I'm so glad I'm not leading this." Using footholds on the arete, I had a relatively easy time of it, reaching a comfortable perch from which I could inspect the dodgy cam at my leisure. It held a hard tug, but one of its lobes was fully extended so who could tell.

Having followed it easily, Leslie was hot to lead Cut Corner -- or maybe she was just hot. Either way, she took a harnessful of cams and slings and set off skyward. Back at the crack, Karl sent his original problem on toprope and turned his attention to Give 'Em the Finger 5.10a, a finger crack (who'd have guessed) that starts about 8 feet off the ground. But how to protect it? He pre-placed a cam behind a flake, and after a bit of thought eventually decided it wouldn't hurt to back it up with a tricam in a pocket a few inches down. He passed the rope through both 'biners, unequalized, and proceeded to work the face problem (the problem being, there were no good holds that could be used to reach the crack).

While Karl was climbing on Kirsten's belay, Leslie cruised through her first trad lead and lowered off to applause, and Darrell followed for expert placement critique. All her placements were good, with one "perfect" and one "textbook" piece. As I was racking up for my lead of the 5.6, a projectile loudly departed from Karl's vicinity, and he could be seen hanging from the shock-loaded tricam. Our first adreniline-addled thought was that the SLCD had literally blown off the rock, and several of us moved to look for it. Of course the cam was next to Karl on the rope; the flake, however, had gone walkabout. Karl sprinkled holy water over and otherwise blessed his tricam before calling it a day. My lead of Cut Corner was uneventful, though I could see how easy it was to miss the huge foot pocket below the roof. Leslie lowered me from the ant city anchor, and Karl seconded for placement critique. I only got one "perfect" from Karl, so I had to concede the protection contest to Leslie.

We thought it was 4:30-ish but it was in fact 6:30, so we packed up and began the drive out, arriving at the Mill Valley campsite in the last twilight. We counted out one tent for each person, set them up, and piled into Darrell's car for the trip to town. It was suggested that we take our toothbrushes to dinner, and I dutifully complied, putting my Sonicare on the dash of the car. "I bet they don't see many of those in the restaurant," Karl ventured ominously. The Lodge was no longer serving food by the time we arrived, but we smiled sweetly and they took pity on us. I, needing to deposit my toothbrush somewhere, placed it unobtrusively on the empty chair next to me. The waitperson was very taken with my vibrating "friend," and earned a giant gratuity for recognizing and exploiting our true natures.

After returning to camp, we had beer and tired conversation and went to bed. Having underestimated the required number of single-occupancy tents, we made do as best we could. Morning came, zippers opened, and a new food product was proposed: squeeze peanut butter in a container with a hole through it, squeeze jelly with another hole, and bagels: Breakfast on a 'Biner. We have one year to file the patent. After using the cleanest latrines you'd ever seen -- well stocked with tissue too -- we broke camp (with only Leslie and me yet decided upon what day we were leaving) and leisurely departed for Green Acres Left, arriving at rock around 12:30.

Karl, perhaps unable to find a suitable 5.10a, readied himself for The White Tower 5.7, a dihedral crack with an offwidth start and some solid face holds, narrowing to an excellent hand crack farther up. Meanwhile I decided to warm up on Bonafide 5.6, a beautiful crack with a plethora of face holds and, according to the topo, a two-bolt anchor. Karl, demonstrating his crack prowess by largely foregoing the face holds, was unable to use his BigBro but did place his Camalots almost in order from number 4.5 on down. My lead was cake (except for the opening move, a high step on nothing) until I reached the bolts. Or lack thereof: there was no sign of bolts or bolt holes. After much hunting I set a natural anchor of a cam, a nut, and a tricam, and Darrell was gutsy (or crazy) enough to start climbing on it before Karl (who had finished the offwidth) had traversed over to inspect it.

Kirsten followed Karl on The White Tower, as did Leslie and I, who learned the hand-fist stack for the first time. Darrell re-led Bonafide with all-tricam protection, and then everyone else took turns on Bonafide, each one finding their own different way to make the opening move. Leslie suggested that it would be cool to start Bonafide by diving towards the wall from a nearby boulder, but had second thoughts when she found herself belaying Karl's daredevil attempt at same. Karl tried a number of diving and swinging starts, each one successful, while he walked Leslie through the various advanced belaying techniques necessary to keep him from decking if he had missed.

Meanwhile Darrell scampered up The White Tower, foregoing the crack almost entirely, and moved the rope over to The Diamond Cutter 5.10c/5.11c. I took the easier right side, Darrell having wisely set up his Gri-Gri for my belay. I liebacked all the way up the arete, falling thrice on slippery feet but otherwise loving the well-placed small knobs and seams. Darrell cruised up the left side (which had no visible feet whatsoever, just a seemingly smooth wall), and then swung over to the 5.10c right side for another rapid ascent. Karl then sent the 5.10c, using more face holds for hands and less lieback than I had. Leslie did the same, with some great moves that I couldn't see but were reputed to be beautiful, and though I wasn't there I heard (several times) that Kirsten fell only once at the start and otherwise flashed it with no hesitation.

Meanwhile, I had overheard another party talking about climbing Lorax 5.7 to the rim in lieu of hiking out. Climbing instead of hiking appealed to me, and the guidebook promised another climb near Lorax, Maynard 5.7, which had more stars and no one on it. Why might that be, I wondered. Many of the cracks were mossy, but then so was part of Lorax; so with pack and rack in place, I started up what I thought was Maynard on Darrell's belay. The first 5 meters were great, but then options dwindled and, as feared, the topo's resemblance to reality faltered. A traverse finally yielded a protectable, climbable crack and eventually a second ledge. Another traverse led to bad puns about rope drag, a final crack, and then a scramble to the rim. I'd placed enough nuts and hexes that when I finally did top out I still had a fistful of cams. Darrell thoughtfully critiqued each of the many placements, and we followed distant laughter to Karl, Kirsten, and Leslie for the hike back to the car.

Everyone decided to join the trek home, and after Oakdale burritos we divided gear. Darrell stole Leslie to drive his car but gave me Kirsten and his iPod in exchange, and we chased each other homeward through Oakland and across the Bay Bridge. I learned so much, saw so far, and laughed so hard. Dear, dear friends.