Pat and I went climbing in Yosemite over the weekend. Unbelievable weather. I’m batting a thousand on that front. We did the same route I did last weekend, only this time Pat and I swapped leads.  And this time we had two cameras, so we got some goodshots.

Pitch 1:
I led the first slabby pitch. My route wandered a little too much, so the rope-rub got so bad that I couldn’t move and I had to make an impromptu belay in a very unfortunate spot.

Pitch 2:
Pat led the second very tricky pitch to another very unfortunate belay ledge. Can’t remember much about this one.

Pitch 3:
Then I led the third pitch with a sketchy friction move to a nice, wide, comfy belay ledge where we were finally able to take a breather and prepare for the infamous chimney pitch.

Pitch 4:
Pat led out on this one. He used most of the 50-meter rope to get to the belay above the chimney. This time, after clipping into the anchor, he untied his end of the rope and lowered it down so that I could attach the pack and haul it up upon reaching the belay anchor.  This worked much better than trying to climb the tiny chimney with the pack on my
back.

Pitch 5:
I led the 5th pitch with an awesome lie-back corner block section and a freaky step-around to an
even more comfy belay ledge than the third.

Pitch 6:
Then Pat led the 6th and final pitch to the summit. He decided to take an alternate route to a tricky 15 foot crack. After that he was home-free to the summit.