Last of Tehipite Climbing

Fighting Irish cloud...nah I don't think so.

One of the upper pitches of the final 1200ft. This route was already established and is a wonderful 6 pitch (each pitch being 200+ ft long) route that goes at about 5.11. The route has a first and last slab pitch with great vertical crack climbing in between! Here is a sporty endevour with very few bolts being placed on the slab.

Ari nearing the top of our route on the last techy 5.11 crux. Notice that he is always ready to party with that shirt on!!

Ari coming up the monster 4th pitch of 5.11 big hands. Straight up and straight down perfect splitter and not a loose part of the wall in sight. What was amazing about this wall is that we hardly had to do any cleaning. The wall had no flakey rock or crumbley stone. It is really a choice line on a choice piece of stone. Compared to El Cap it certainly is a rival in rock quality.

Triple roofs, pitch 4.

Tehipite Climbing

Ari figuring out how to beat the sunburn on the back of his neck. He also has a Halloween costume for this year too!

Ari heading up pitch 4. Its about 150+ ft of 3 and 4 inch crack with three roofs at the start. Each roof is square cut and pretty casual for this monster 5.11 pitch. After the last roof, the pitch is 3.5 inches for close to 80ft up dead vertical granite that is so good you don't think that it is possible! I am jugging on a fixed line and shooting photos of mike b and ari on this day.

Mike B heading up pitch 3. This is a cool dihedral with plenty of good holds and gear placements. There is one bolt and a pin through the blank sections and it climbs nicely with all the rests at 5.10+/11-. If you want to climb this route, you should be able to climb pitches 1-4 or 5 by the time the sun hits you and then get into the shade above pitch 6 for almost the rest of the climb!

Ari smiling because he is so happy to be on Tehipite Dome. Another amazing pitch of Sierra granite all to ourselves!!

Ari leading out the only pitch with trees on it! Pitch one ascends this corner and isn't as bad as it looks. Begin from a 1 bolt belay on a ledge after some scrambling up ledges and the base of the wall for a few hundred feet. This pitch ends at a bolt and the first and only 5.12 pitch on the route. Pitch 1 chimes in at 5.9ish with some adventure and is the only pitch with bushes on it in about 1300ft. The rock is safe and you get to climb on/through the trees to get to the belay.

Stay tuned for the entire topo and more photos and stories.
Hope to see you out there getting it done!

piz : )

Tehipite (some more)

First off, you haven't seen any climbing yet because it took about 6 days before we got to do any. So, I am making you wait and giving you the details. Here is mike b sitting in the cold water washing off on our first rest day. Hiking and cleaning and jugging up and down the wall three days in a row crushed us. We could have gone to 4 and 5 days in a row but it wouldn't have been good for our bodies and we wouldn't have been able to climb the harder pitches first or second go. Mike, loves the cold water and sat there for a long long time enjoying the high sierra summer temps.

Each walk was through a burned out forest and every step was like walking through ash from a fire. We were very very dirty. Every part of our bodies were covered with ash and the only way to get rid of it was to wash in the creek at our camp.

We did pass by some beautiful wildflowers on our trail everyday and it was a nice contrast to the the burned trees and ash on the forest floor.

Yes my legs are that white and yes my feet were that dirty. I made the mistake of only bringing two pairs of socks and I made that first pair suffer until they died in the fire on the last night!

Ari passing one of the creek crossings on our hike to the wall. This water was clean enough to drink without purifying it but we did anyway. Most of the time we just filled our bottles and added a drop of bleach to it and called it good. Tasted just like home.

piz : )

New Route in Kings Canyon National Park

piz : )