DAY ONE: Daff Dome; West Crack (6 pitches, 5.9).  In truth, there's only one 5.9 move, bolt protected, at the very start of the first pitch.  I led it without undue trauma, which tells you it ain't too tough.  After that, it's all 5.8 and easier, with one small roof on pitch two and a section of wide crack on pitch three that's easily by-passed by face holds to the right and a moderate willingness to run it out.

On the right, and below left, R.L. follows the first pitch of West Crack.  Below right, he brings me up the second pitch.  Doesn't look like he's suffering too much.  And as you can see, the weather did not suck.

DAY TWO: Fairview Dome, Regular Route (12 pitches(?); 5.9) What a difference a day makes.  Graded 5.9, just like the first pitch of the previous day's route, the first pitch of the Regular Route was by far the hardest trad lead of my career so far - a full 60 meters of awkward jamming, stemming and smearing.  I've led trad pitches with harder guidebook numbers, but none that kicked my butt like this. My effort was packed with tunnelvision-induced gumby errors, like twice lifting stoppers out with my feet, leaving me suddenly looking at potential thirty footers.  Yipes!  I got up it clean, but the pitch took me something like an hour and ten minutes, including at least two minutes of passionate embrace with the belay tree, when I finally got there. To the right is Fairview Dome, viewed from the rap station on Daff.

And here's a shot down the first pitch from the belay.  Not such a great picture, and the lead wasn't exactly elegant, but I'm still pretty proud of it.

In contrast to me, R.L. knows exactly what he's doing, and shows it in these two shots.  The left hand pic is pitch two of the Regular Route, but I can't recall what pitch the right hand pic is from.

In the seven days from October 2 through October 8 I got my first taste of climbing in Tuolumne Meadows and Yosemite Valley.  My partner for the trip was R.L. Stolz, lucky full-time resident of the east coast climbing hotbed of Keene, N.Y., and the possessor of extensive previous experience in Tuolumne and Yosemite.  Since I began climbing in 1998, I've climbed with R.L. on his home ground in the 'Dacks, in New Hampshire, in the Dolomites and now in California.  I come back from every trip a safer, faster, more knowledgable, more skilled climber.  On this trip, as always, his strength, wide experience and horrible jokes got us up climbs that would otherwise have been at the outer limits of my capacity or beyond.

Yosemite 2001

Below, I stand on the summit of Fairview, with Cathedral Peak in the background, displaying the effects of long granite routes on unaccustomed fingers.  The face could use some work, too.

DAY THREE / DAY FOUR Half Dome, Snake Dike (8 pitches; 5.7) After a strenuous day on Fairview (for me, anyway!), we spent the first half of the day relaxing, purchasing supplies and packing, then began the hike in to the base of Half Dome at about 2:00 p.m.  The approximately six mile walk is gorgeous, following the John Muir Trail and the Mist trail past Vernal Falls and Nevada Falls.  We selected the variation that cuts off the Mist Trail between Mt. Broderick and Liberty Cap (instead of rejoining the Muir Trail to go all the way around Liberty Cap), skirted Lost Lake and moved up close to the base of the climb.  Mild weather (low in the 40s, I'd say) made for a fairly comfortable night, and we moved out early the next morning, concerned that Snake Dike's popularity would draw a horde of other climbers.  As it turned out, we had the rock blissfully to ourselves for the entire morning, although we saw climbers strung up the route like ants on a sugar trail in the mid-afternoon, during our walk out. The climbing itself was pure pleasure.  In truth, R.L. took the first two, relatively unprotected slab pitches - you can see why I say it was pure pleasure! - and then we swapped leads up the soaring staircase of 5.4 knobs of the Dike itself.  We were on top early, along with a mob of hikers who had come up the cables on the opposite side.  The cables made up the first part of our descent route, and then it was a long, beautiful, but dusty hike back to the car.

Here are Vernal Falls and Liberty Cap.  (The shot of Liberty Cap is actually from the walkoff.  The shot at the top of this page is of Nevada Falls.)

And here's Half Dome itself from a spot toward the end of the approach.  Snake Dike runs pretty much up the left-hand skyline.

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