Last year at right around this time Matt and I were bailing out of attempting a High Sierra ascent of the Fishook Arete on Mount Russel. Snow and cold weather forced us to abandon hopes of climbing. We decided (and had planned for months and months) to try to get up there this year, but things just weren’t coming together (re: I am lazy and didn’t train and don’t want to freeze on some big cold mountain while spooning with Matt on some bivy ledge.) Buh…Anyway…we had a free weekend.

Group Swenson

So, to take advantage of my hall pass from Home Improvement 101, we headed to Tahquitz to pick off some moderate multi-pitch. Brian Frandsen carpooled with me down to the big granite rock, and Brian Burgess met us there as well. The Brian’s and I spent an anticipation-filled night in our bags on the forest floor outside of Idyllwild, CA and eventually met up with Matt early Saturday Morning.

Routes

Tahquitz climbs are somewhere between 600-1200ft in height, and both of our climbs were in the 700-900ft range. Matt and I teamed up to climb Sahara Terror (5.7, green dots) and the Brian’s shimmied up The Consolation (5.9, red dots). Climbing with Matt is a blast (obviously).

Stoked

Brian and Brian headed right up, while we waited for another party who was ahead and likely faster than we were. This turned out for the better, because they did climb faster and we weren’t in each others way on the climb. Sahara Terror is named so because of the propensity for large slabs of granite to be loose on the climb. I can’t say I’d disagree with this reputation, but it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be avoided.

There it is

One particularly noticeable loose stone was this guy, which I coined the ‘Death Block’. About 6′ tall, and 2′ wide, this thing must have slid down the face above me, and perched directly on this tree. Incredible. And really scary. Sounds like this stone has been here for years though, and isn’t going anywhere. No choice but to stand on the block while you climb this route, which definitely increased the pucker factor by a few notches.

Would you climb with this guy?

Photos may say otherwise, but Matt has turned into quite the Trad leader. Long way from a few years back when I drug him up El Whampo and scared the ba-jimminey out of us both.

Clip it with Style

Matt lead the first three pitches, along with the crux 5.7 pitch, while I lead the 3 top-off pitches. The entire climb wasn’t super difficult, with most all of the climbing hanging in the 5.5 to 5.6 range, with a few exciting 5.7 moves thrown in. The cruxes were fun and challenging, but stayed within the 5.7 grade. Fun stuff.

Matt and I Summit

We topped out to find Burgess and Frandsen chilling in the sun, shirtless and enjoying the fine weather. They beat us up by an hour or so, and snapped this photo of us finishing up the final little slab. (Thanks for the photo Burgie.)

I miss climbing at Tahquitz. I think Bergie got it right when on the downclimb out he said, “I feel like I’ve just re-found an old friend!” Tahquitz has so much solid granite, just grainy enough to give your shoes great purchase, but not too sharp to cut your hands up. Awesome hand jams, finger jams, body jams, fist jams…you get the idea. Cracks everywhere.

I think we all decided that we need to make it out there more next season.