Labor Day in Tahoe

With reknowned skiing, Tahoe enjoys prime visibility as a wintertime West coast destination. Rock climbing in Tahoe, while not quite as world class, does offer enough variety to offer welcome respite during the (climbingwise) lean summer months. So this past Labor Day weekend Mike, Shane and I, loaded up in Mike's trusty Corolla and made the 3.5 hr trip over. Correction: should've been less than 4 hrs, but with hordes escaping hot weather in the Bay, the drive over actually took almost 5 hrs :( Long drives that get longer to contend with the heavy population density in California, are one of those things that is taking me a while to get used to after my move here from North Carolina.

We pulled up at Mayhem Cove, a nicely concentrated sport climbing area, close to South Lake Tahoe, around 2 pm Saturday. A late climbing start wasn't altogether bad since the crag gets in the shade only later in the day. After (somewhat stiff) .10c, and 11c warmups we made our way to the route of the day - Cajun Hell - a cool blocky 12b that you get to by crawling up a 4th class slab. A cheesy name, but a great route, if coupled with the 12c extension, makes a really classic 13a. Given that I currently lack route endurance, my ambitions that day were limited to redpointing the 12b. I had tried this route a few weeks back on a previous trip and was relying on fuzzy route beta that I could barely remember. Redpointing took 2 burns. My final burn was so ugly as I forgot my own kneebar beta and had to horribly muscle thru some clips in the middle. Made it to the end to clip the chains..whew! Walker, if you are reading this - you do not have to clip the anchors from the shitty undercling. You just need to make two more moves to a jug and then clipping is a breeze. Thanks to Shane for having the imagination, and kudos to him too for making the route look really easy. Mike made good work on the route as well and all of us hope to be back soon to try the entire 13 a route.

Shane making the move out of the kneebar.

I found a great (no hands) kneebar around the 4th clip.

Shane cracks a smile as he rests on jugs.

After average Mexican fare, and really strong margaritas :) we made our way to a well-earned rest. I'd have slept better but for the winds howling all night. We were bivying in the open and I had a fitful time trying to keep my ears and any other body part warm that would poke outside the sleeping bag.

The next day found us climbing at Donner summit. The route of the day was Transmogrifier - an amazing 12d at Roadcut crag - that was created unnaturally by man-made explosives to create Donner Pass road. After a really cold warmup (damn winds again) at Snowshed, we made our way to Roadcut which was mercifully warm in the sun.

I did another warmup on Totem Pile (Shane pictured above on the same route). I was happy to flash it but felt it was quite harder than the 10d given by the Falcon guide. Falcon makes really bad climbing guides by the way so avoid them if at all possible.

I worked Transmogrifier twice on toprope (am I becoming such a wuss?). This route has 3 different cruxes:

• A V3/V4ish start on slopey crimps
• In the middle a really bad pinch move in the middle (hardest move for me and the main crux - V4) with really awful feet but you do get a no-hands rest immediately afterwards.
  
• Another V3/V4 crux guarding the route at the top.
  

All 3 of us managed to do all the moves. But there was no time, energy or skin (!) to give it a serious redpoint burn. We packed up around 7 and had an uneventful drive back to San Francisco to get home by about 11 pm Sunday nite.

I was just way too excited about being able to sleep in on Monday given the holiday. With really warm temps we headed to Stinson beach at Marin for a fun day of boogieboarding, swimming, eating (lots!), volleyball and beers with friends.

A great weekend overall.

Mike got this cool shot of me on Cajun Hell with Lake Tahoe in the background.