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Carol and I went to the Eastern Sierra for a week or so – rock climbing, sightseeing, camping…

Highlights:

• Carol did her first, second and third outdoor lead climbs. Yay, Carol! That took guts, no  matter if they were beginner climbs in the Alabama Hills.
• I did my second, third, fourth and fifth 5.8 outdoor lead climbs. Plus I did my first and second 5.9 outdoor lead climbs.
• We did a lot of scouting and found a lot of new crags to return to – basically a lifetime of climbing opportunities.
• We found that soaking in hot springs after a hard day’s climbing worked wonders.
• There’s no end of scenery in the Eastern Sierra.
• All the pictures here…

Safety:

We had discovered at the climbing gym that when I took a lead fall, I pulled both Carol AND the 70 lb belay melon she was tied to off the ground. One evening, Carol says “So what happens if you take a lead fall outdoors? Do I stop at the first bolt or what?” Reasonable questions – so we subsequently made it a habit to establish a ground anchor for Carol when I was climbing. This turned out to be a great idea for two reasons:

1. The ground anchor is there and ready in case she has to escape the belay to help me or go get help. We practiced escaping the belay.
2. I took a fall on a toproped route and, sure enough, Carol was launched skyward and the ground anchor stopped her. This with  ~135 feet of rope paid out  to stretch, plus  the friction of the mussy hooks at the anchor. Scary.

We’ll be setting up a ground anchor at all times in the future.

We saw another climber take a lead fall and grab at the rope as he was falling. Bad idea. We gave him some salve for the resulting rope burn. ‘Nuff said.

Crags:

We did all our climbing in the Owens River Gorge, working out of this guidebook. It’s a good one; we were able to quickly find the various walls and routes. Pictures in addition to drawings are always welcome. One errata – the Pine Creek campsite is ~7.7 miles from 395, not 6 miles as the book says. Another guidebook has it right.

We did spend a lot of time scouting crags mentioned in this guidebook and this guidebook. You might as well have all three at hand.

At the Owens River Gorge, we sampled the Upper Gorge and the Center Gorge. The approach to the Upper Gorge is easier than the Center Gorge, but the Center Gorge has many more climbs. The Gorge and the Volcanic Tablelands are amazing pieces of geology – look for the volcanic gas blowholes and the columnar formations – more interesting than Devil’s Postpile, IMO.

If you live at sea level like we do, expect to do some huffing your first couple days in the Gorge area. The Upper Gorge is at 5600-5800′  elevation.

Camping:

We camped in a lot of different spots. My ranking:

1. Mono basin near Rush Creek. Can’t tell you exactly where, as I don’t want to find you there when I go looking for our spot. Ha.
2. Upper Gray’s Meadow west of Independence. Beautiful views; pricey at $16 / night.
3. Convict Lake near Mammoth Lakes. Beautiful views, if you go, don’t miss the Convict Canyon hike; really pricey at $20 / night.
4. Pine Creek west of Rovana. Free. No facilities whatsoever. Awesome views and right next to infinite climbing possibilities.
5. Tuttle Creek campground near Lone Pine. Cheap and better than staying in the Alabama Hills.
6. Pleasant Valley campground near Bishop. OK, but runs to the RV, ATV and fishing crowd.
7. Some random spot off a dirt road near a loading ramp that turned out to be completely covered with sheep shit when we got up in the morning. You  won’t go looking for this one.

The Climbing:

In the Gorge, you’re climbing on something called “welded tuff“. The guidebook calls it soft, but it seems pretty hard. Unlike sandstone, where every hand and foothold seems likely to pop off in your hand or underfoot, I kind of expected this stuff to stay in place. The hand and footholds certainly aren’t as grippy as granite or sandstone in my experience.

Someone had told me sometime that the climbs in the Gorge are “really hard”. I don’t have a ton of experience, but it seemed like the YDS ratings were fair. If by “really hard” they meant there weren’t a lot of 5.1-5.6 climbs, well, yeah. The routes by rating section in the guidebook is pretty sparse at those grades.

It’s great climbing in the riparian environment – mostly all we heard was the river and swallows, especially on the weekdays in the Upper Gorge where we were effectively alone. We did go down into the Center Gorge on a weekend, and it was – busy. Be aware.

The Net:

Astounding scenery, complicated geology, somewhere to climb in pretty much all weather, civilization’s perks in Bishop, hundreds (thousands?) of routes – JUST GO!!!