Keeping it Together in Tuolumne

I spent the last day of August and the first day of September climbing with Karie and Winnie in Tuolumne Meadows.  On the 31st Winnie and I meant to climb the classic Phobos, but we decided to run across the street and climb the equally cool Aqua Knobby (II 5.9 R) on Pywiack Dome instead.  The 5.9 face crux on pitch 2 was only bettered by the 20-foot 5.8 runout on pitch 3.

Pywiack Dome /  Aqua Knobby follows the white streak

up the center of the face / Dike Route is on the right skyline

With that under my belt, Karie convinced me to climb the Dike Route (II 5.9 R), also on Pywiack.  This route is described as a "testpiece slab" by the SuperTopo guidebook.  In addition to its two-bolt anchors on every pitch, the first pitch had no bolts (5.6), three bolts for the second (5.7), two bolts for the crux pitch (5.9) and none again for the final pitch (5.8).  Winnie and Joel climbed the neighboring Zee Tree, and by traversing over to the top of our route we were able to tie our ropes together and rap down instead of walking off the back side.  This plan would have been perfect except we forgot to untie the stopper knots when we pulled the ropes on the first rappel, awarding me with a repeat lead of the third and fourth pitches.

Karie is all grins after climbing the crux of the Dike Route

We finished the day with a late lunch at the Mobil in Lee Vining.  Yeaahhhh!!