I just got back from two days in the park with my partner, Hung, and we had a lot of fun. He's always been somewhere between a little bit and much stronger than me, but not anymore. I've climbed a fair bit since we returned from Greece in November, and he hadn't. Oh well, what can you do? We still had fun.
We had avoided Discovery Wall in our early forays into the park because of its mixed nature, featuring very few true sport lines. But now we've had some trad adventures, some formations are closed, and so we decided to spend Sunday there. He followed me on everything, starting with Swallow Crack, then Ordeal before putting the rack away. Both of these are genuinely great. The fixed pins seem to be in good shape, and the movement is fun, especially on Ordeal. The rest of the day consisted of some sportier climbs. I learned the mantle on Stupendous Man while some very impressed gym bros watched. We put up their top rope for them. I tried to use the big inclusions just left of the bolt with a high left foot first, and found it undoable. Then I moved further left to sa couple of big divots, and went high right foot instead. This worked much better, but everyone who followed after me kept insisting on trying it the first way. Funnily enough, while that's definitely the single hardest move, there is some face climbing above that's pretty thin and delicate that shouldn't be discounted.
I then moved on to trying Broken Arrow. Wow, the distance to the first bolt is no joke, even if the climbing is easy up to there. I understand that the rock isn't super solid below it, and it's maybe 5.5 climbing, but I do think this is scaring folks off of getting on this route more often. SO many of the ticks on MP are top rope solos for, I think, this reason. I found the rest of the route hard but not impossible. There are several pretty thin moves, a few awkward weight transfers, and it was pretty tiring. Somehow the last few moves on the direct variation felt more doable, but maybe getting into it is the 11b section.
Finally, we spent some time on Wet Kiss, which is absurdly fun for 5.9. The mantle moves require commitment, and the moves on the inclusions in the last third are good fun face climbing. There's definitely potential for a bad time if you blew it before the second bolt, but I agree that spending time trying to place a piece in between is probably not worth the effort.
We overnighted in Hollister since the park wouldn't rent us a campsite unless we were there for the whole three-day weekend (seriously, someone needs to buy some land near the entrance and start making bank) and came back Monday morning. We'd kind of decided to have a chill day at The Sisters, but stopped at The Monolith on the way, and never went any further. I redpointed Terranean Tango after hanging on it a few times two years ago, which felt pretty good. We were chilling and watching some less experienced folks working their way through some stuff. I considered jumping on the Direct Route at some point (why am I suddenly so willing to run it out?), but decided to put a lap on POD first.
I'd top roped it twice two years ago, and not been back somehow. Jumping on on lead, I'm definitely stronger than I was then. I went from the ground to bolt 2, and from bolt 4 to the top cleanly. I just really need to work out beta in between. I set it up as a top rope for Hung, intending to top rope to try and get more sequence specific afterward. He struggled more than expected, and then, falling about halfway up, managed to smash a couple of fingers inbetween the rope and the rock, or maybe behind a draw. We're not sure what happened, honestly, but the tension added to the rope from his fall put some force somewhere it wasn't ideal. He bruised up two fingers pretty well, and was bleeding more than I've ever seen from a climbing injury. It was ultimately pretty minor, but put an end to the rest of our day. He cleaned himself up while I ascended the rope to clean it. Being able to fix the line to one of the ground anchor bolts was very handy.
After that, we packed up and headed out. Kind of a bummer, as I did really want to get another run on POD as well as maybe try either Direct or Regular Route. I've got a few photos I'll post later, as always, but it was nice to get out in the park this weekend. I will say, we saw LOTS of very green climbers out. Folks wandering around Discovery Wall looking for things that didn't need trad gear, folks expressing fear at leading anything and only willing to climb top ropes their friends put up, etc. I know I was this climber not that long ago, but it really feels like my perspective has shifted some.
