Say, what time would you have to show up to snag a bear gulch parking spot on saturday?
It's not as bad during the winter, but we rolled into the lot at 8am last Sunday and wouldn't have had a spot an hour later. In better general visitor conditions, 8am is pretty much the cut off!
Greetings all! My buddy Hung and I had a quest last weekend, so I thought I'd make an update. We got into the lot about 8am with the intention of heading out into the boonies past the Reservior to get up near The Hand/Frog. Most of the hike was uneventful, having been to Crud N Mud before, but after we got out to where you cross back over the drainage and approach directly became a bit adventurous. On the way out, we figured out what was what, but we needed to go about 20 yards further out before crossing over. The way we went involved a LOT of brushwhacking. I've never before crawled on my hands and knees on an approach, but I have now!
In any case, we arrived after this bit of the expedition, and took a look at Love Line on The Hand. Brad's 2007 book calls this route 5.10b. Mountain Project has it tagged at 10b/c, and a 2014 comment suggests 10d was discussed. So, it's solidly a 10, I guess. Beyond that, I'd certainly call my experience on the first pitch 10+. The lower portion of pitch 1 is pretty approachable, with the crux kicking in around bolt 4. I took a good fall between 4 and 5, and it was feeling pretty heads up given the rock quality. This isn't a regularly climbed line, and it shows. I'd also say that bolts 5-7 here weren't the most confidence inspiring, but they were better when I remembered which orientation of SMC was the death hanger. None here. The line heads up and a little left before returning to the "Love Seat" belay, which is where the rap line in the photo is set up from.
You can also get a sense of the climb from above here. Hung had a hard time even on Top Rope, and I was really glad I could actually see what he was up to while he was climbing so that I could keep him pretty tight. We definitely cleaned some stuff off of this one, both intentionally and not.
The second pitch starts with several bolts of traversing up and left. The climbing isn't wildly hard, but it does feel pretty exposed. After 5 bolts, climbing gets vertical, but does require pulling on some slightly less solid stuff for a second to get through the crux. From there, you've got another couple bolts before topping out. Mostly, it's the head game and the route finding that is hard with the second pitch. After bringing your second up, there's a fairly straightforward scramble to climber's right to a rap anchor that heads straight down the water chute. That one puts your back on the Love Seat, followed by one more to the ground. They're nice raps too, with some air and everything.
Given the bushwhacking and time we took getting up Love Line, plus the early sunset, we ended up not hitting The Snail, or The Frog, which is a shame. I still need to get at The Fast Lane and Get a Grip on The Frog, especially.
Monday was spent on The Monolith, and given how cold it was over night, I'm still surprised it ended up being very warm on Lunch Rock for the whole morning. We climbed Subterranean Tango as a warm up and to get a top rope over to POD (Hung got his Redpoint!), and then I started working on beta. I've been on it in 2023, and again in February this year. But trying to remember the beta is so important, because piecing it together on the wall is SO hard with this one. Literally anything bigger than a marble that's embedded within 6' of the bolt line on either side on this one has chalk on it, whether it's actually usable or not. I blame it on the frequency with which I see folks flailing around on this one on TR.
After two runs on TR, I've got some pretty functional beta, so I'm now on to redpoint burns on lead. I tried once, and fell at the crux, but worked through things a bit more, and feel good about some tries with a full tank.
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