Climbing at Seneca - day 2 of 2

Waking up Sunday morning at a leisurely hour (8:30 am), the rain has stopped, but it was humid and wet. We talked about our plan over breakfast. I wasn't sure how wet the rock will be, but I figure we can start on the first pitch of Skyline Traverse (5.3), which was east facing and should dry out first if the sun was out. At this point, the sky was overcast, and it seemed like a good idea to climb an east facing route. If the condition was good, we then can continue on Kauffman-Cardon (5.4, 2 pitches) to Broadway Ledge, then scramble to Gunsight Notch and climb Gunsight to South Peak Direct (5.4). It sounded like a good plan, so we left the tent in the campground to dry, drove to the Visitor Center parking lot, and started the hike.

No one was on the first pitch of Skyline Traverse, which was unusual. Since my plan was to climb up the South Peak and rappel on the west side, we had to bring everything with us, which means both Jason and Megan had to climb with backpacks on. The sun had come out by now, and it was getting hot. The rock was surprisingly dry considering how much it poured yesterday, so I racked up to lead the first pitch.

However someone was at the anchor for the first pitch of Skyline Traverse, and it sounded like a party of three. They must came up either Candy Corner (5.5) or Lower Skyline Direct (5.4). It was ok, the ledge below the anchor was huge, I slung a big boulder as my anchor, and belayed Jason and Megan up.

Jason on the first pitch of Skyline Traverse

Megan was not looking at full spirit, I wasn't sure if she was just tired, or maybe I was climbing too slow. But anyway, when she got to the belay, I just assumed that I will be leading for the rest of the day, since switching backpack and gear between us was too much hassle and would cause more delays. Megan didn't object my decision to lead all the pitches (normally she would), she passed me the gear she cleaned (she managed to get out a stuck nut), and I set off to lead Kauffman-Cardon.

This route was recommended to me, but I've never had the chance to climb it. Route finding seemed to be a little tricky, this route traverse across a few harder and more runout routes, it would be easy to end up on something I wasn't expecting. I took my time looking for the easiest path, traversing around an arete, a few tricky moves (at Seneca, even the 5.4s have tricky moves) later, I was at the belay.

I brought Jason up, then Megan. While I was belaying Megan, Jason told me he felt the exposure when he climbed around the arete. I don't blame him, most people would be scared of the height on their first multipitch climb. Unfortunately the battery in my camera died at the first belay for Skyline Traverse, so I didn't get the cool picture of Jason coming around the arete.

The backpack Megan was wearing was giving her trouble, because it messed with her balance and required her to put more weight on her hands. Even the easy routes at Seneca can be quite steep. Her fingers have not fully recovered from her injury, so they were hurting a bit, making her a bit cranky. Of course I didn't know all this until later, then just I thought she didn't seem to be in good spirit, I thought she might be dehydrated or hungry (I know I was!). I was concerned, but I trust her to let me know if she wasn't feeling 100% well for climbing.

I racked up to lead the 2nd pitch of Kauffman-Cardon. I traversed around another arete right off the belay, and wasn't sure exactly where to go. I thought the pitch might keep traversing to the right, but it looked too easy, and seemed like it would cause tons of rope drag. Besides, I know at some point I need to go UP. The corner had lots of chalk on it, but the moves seemed pretty hard. I starred at the corner for a while, but finally decided not to give it a go. I climbed up the arete instead.

The arete and the face to the right of it was pretty easy, with big holds. But soon I discovered that the protection was sparse. With no abundant gear, the moves suddenly felt much harder. I kept my head in check, placed as much gear as I could find, breathed keep, pulled a few tricky moves, placed more gear that wasn't all that great, clipped a bolt that certainly was off route, then pulled the final runout to the Lower Broadway Ledge, breathing a big sign of relief when I got up there. Later on I found out it was Cardon's Rib (5.4 R) that I climbed instead of the second pitch of Kauffman-Cardon, it certainly deserved the R (for runout) rating.

I then belayed Jason and Megan up, they didn't think the pitch was too hard. Oh well, everything just felt harder on the sharp end. A look at the watch showed it was already 1 o'clock! I took forever to lead just 3 pitches. We had a quick lunch, coiled the rope, then traversed the length of Broadway Ledge and scrambled up to Gunsight Notch (5.0).

Both the Gunsight to South Peak (5.3) and Gunsight to South Peak Direct (5.4) were free. Since I've been wanting to do the direct version for a while (having done the regular version last year), I started on the direct route. On this route you are climbing right along the knife edge of the South Peak, it felt much more exposed than the non-direct version (which climbs a corner on the west side of the ridge). This is probably one of the most exposed 5.4 in the country. I did enjoy the exposure.

However the gear wasn't so great, at least not in the beginning. Shortly after leaving the belay, I was faced with placing some protection in a thin flake and pull on it to continue the climb. The flake was reasonably thick at the bottom, but near the top where it was mostly detached it was maybe the width of a finger. I did not believe it would hold bodyweight, but having no other choice, I placed a nut at the base of the flake, then gingerly stepped on the flake while trying to put as little weight as possible on it. Once I got above it I immediately placed another piece.

After the Loose Flake of Doom (Ok, ok, "the American Death Flake of Doom"), the rest of the pitch was much better with more solid holds and gear placement. There was a long sling over a big block, I wasn't sure if it was someone's emergency rappel anchor, so I left it along, opted to place some gear in the crack instead. I got to the belay, clipped one of the anchor bolts (saving the other one for Jason or Megan), slung a rock, and then sat myself in the Captain's Seat to bring Jason and Megan up. The Captain's Seat is the sitting belay on Gunsight to South Peak Direct, with a commanding view of the North Peak of Seneca and either side of the South Peak. It was a great spot for a belay.

After some confusion at the belay station, in which Megan decided to anchor in using an American Death Triangle much to my dismay, I set off to lead the last "pitch" with order from Megan to climb fast. So I placed a not so great green Alien to protect the initial move off the belay, pulled onto the summit ridge, and basically walked over to the true summit while dragging the rope with one hand.

Jason posing on the summit ridge

The summit ridge is about the size of a sidewalk, with a couple hundred feet of air on both sides. The guidebook describes the last 50 feet as "walk, crawl, or slither south to the true summit". I have yet to see slithering, but I have seen some crawling. Jason came up, and walked (for the most part) to the true summit. Megan came up as well and properly walked over to the true summit.

Jason looking at the summit register, I'm really sorry about the sunburn, dude!

We were the only party at the summit, but there was no time to sit and enjoy the view. We saw a thunderstorm moving toward us from the west, and heard thunder rumbling in the distance.

Time to go down as fast as we can! But not too fast. Falling down to the ground may seems fast at first, but the result generally is not really favorable. If it was Megan and I, we would just down scramble from the summit to the West Pole rappel tree. However, since this was Jason's first time on a multipitch route, I decided to set a "safe" example and had all three of us on belay scrambling down from the summit. I was the last one down from the summit, so I just continued on scrambling down to the rappel tree while still on belay. But Jason and Megan decided just to scramble down to where I was, unroped... so much for setting an example. Oh well.

Besides discovering that something had chewed on one of the rappel slings around the West Pole rappel station, we didn't have any other problems rappelling back down to the ground. We quickly made our way back to the car, then back to camp, where Megan and I broke some speed record taking down our tent and packing everything up. Another stop at the Seneca Climbing School to inquire about Megan's camera ("Ah, it's in someone's car. That person isn't here right now, but come back next week and we should have it."), and then we were in the car driving back to DC and introducing Jason to O'Dub.

Our timing was just right. Shortly after we got on our way, it absolutely poured. I've never seen it rain so hard at Seneca before.