Snake dike, the hard way

[mynameismud]

Mudworm thank you, I will say this about climbing with you; your smile can light up the darkest decent and your little girl laugh is something to behold.  I really enjoyed climbing with you.  Your a highly technical climber and it show with your OW technique.  Well your technique and your relentless drive, lol. 

Brad, I do not know why I always forget about that climb when I mentally list out walls that I have done.  I had a good time.  I could tell you were beyond stressed, especially when I led out on that pitch, you were pale as a person can be.  The lead of yours though those pasted on flakes was impressive, I was laying back in your hammock or whatever it was and was thinking, there is no where to go, so I just watched.  I could read your thoughts as you looked down at the belay.  It really was a masterful lead.

The roof pitch is one of my all time favorite leads, I remember the hawk or eagle, whatever it was, flying by just out in front of the roof, beautiful weather, great views, then Rob.  WTF, what is Rob doing up here? Too funny, it was a good day.  Not too many folks would do that approach to support a friend. 

Noal, your stories never cease to amaze.  I think this sums up my thoughts of your character;  " eating popsicles, digging through junk on a sunny day", amazing.  Write a book.

Brad, one other thing, one of your strengths is your OCD, lol.  OMG dude, so amazing, so annoying, so funny.  Keep up the good work. 

[JC w KC redux]

I'd have a story about climbing with Mud but it's weird...

All he ever says to me is DIE.

[JC w KC redux]

This isn't a contest but I have to say when it comes to telling funny stories...

Noal is the goods 

[mynameismud]

I'd have a story about climbing with Mud but it's weird...

All he ever says to me is DIE.

DIE

[F4?]

The one thing I remember is not leaning back on the bolts with my feet on the wall.  Instead I was hanging from my harness and resting on my knees which was pretty painful.

Yup, fond memories of bruised knees.

Please don't stop....I have all of these hair brained adventures logged into my little brain that need to get typed out!

30 yrs later, I still chuckle at the thought of Scott having the balls to graze one of the hikers in the pitch black darkness.

I need to edit the story a bit as I did type it out on an IPAD.

Carry on!

[Brad Young]

That's a really good story Brad.  I hope that the experience let you heal somewhat from your PTSD.  Up thread I mentioned  how fascinating it is to think of the amount life altering  experiences that occur on a daily basis in Yosemite.  Your story is definitely in that category.

More than anything else, time helps heal from stuff like that. Although I've been around two more helicopter rescues since the one where I was at Pinnacles with Rob (one of the other two was the Lars rescue, near Goat Rock), and each of those was difficult too (helicopter/PTSD difficult as well as the more obvious bad parts of each occasion).

I'd be pretty happy to never be around that kind of occurrence again 

[Brad Young]

...I’ve got a weird, weird, jaw-dropping connection to that Pinnacles day’s head injury - it happened on Liebacker’s Lullaby. But that’s a story for another time.

We live in a small town. In most ways it's great.

As an example, my older daughter Katie went from kindergarten all the way through high school with eight other kids. Twain Harte Elementary through Summerville High, all nine of them shared every year.

One of those kids is A.J. (that's what he's always gone by, A.J.). His family lives 100 yards from us, through the woods behind the house. Walking up our driveway and around to Michigan and then their house takes five minutes.

A.J.'s dad it Tony. Tony's retired now but for all of the years that the kids were in school he worked as firefighter in the east Bay Area. Tony's always been a bit of a climber, a bit of a river rafter, and a bit of a mountaineer. He and I climb together now and then, usually from one to four times per year. I met Joel though Tony on a climbing day, some years ago. Tony also climbed now and then (pre-retirement) with some of the folks he worked with in the east Bay Area. He did other stuff with them too on occasion.

One day about ten years ago Tony and I were out climbing. I don't remember how it came up, but he'd been sailing on the bay with friends of his, a married couple, the week before and that subject came up. My uncle Mike has a boat on the bay too and we sail there with him now and then. I asked Tony about his friend's boat. Somehow the subject of the boat's name came up.

Tony said that they called the boat "Liebacker's Lullaby."

Pause in the conversation. "What?"

"Liebacker's Lullaby."

I said: "that's a weird name for a boat, how the hell did they come up with that?"

He answered: "It's the name of the rock climb that she got hurt on."

I said: "At Pinnacles? A head injury?"

"Yeah, how did you know."

His friends, the couple had never climbed again after that day. They sold all of their climbing gear. Her head injuries were permanent, but only significant, not life-destroying. They got into sailing.

I told Tony how I knew.

[Brad Young]

I suspect that my funniest occurrence while climbing with Mr Mud was the time he jumped me. Literally.

We were making a two hour approach almost in what is now Jim's back yard. Half an hour across the desert floor and then an hour and a half up a wide, steep gully to the base of The Rabbit Ears on Wheeler Crest.

Dennis was just ahead of me, trudging up this steep but walkable gully. Trudge, trudge.

All of the sudden I hear a noise, look up, and wham! he hits me. Dennis has literally turned around and jumped at me from above. I instantly reacted by trying to push him off, but he had the momentum and we ended up bear hugging with my face in his chest. I kept fighting. Somehow we didn't topple downhill.

And then I heard the rattlesnake.

[waldo]

Jack and I made many cross country trips to Piedras Bonitas back in the day. When we made our way downhill from the ridge, we'd skirt one certain boulder with a wide cleft beneath it, stomp up and down and speak politely to the gramps rattler who lived beneath it - five feet, if an inch. He rarely complained.

[Brad Young]

Jack and I made many cross country trips to Piedras Bonitas back in the day. When we made our way downhill from the ridge, we'd skirt one certain boulder with a wide cleft beneath it, stomp up and down and speak politely to the gramps rattler who lived beneath it - five feet, if an inch. He rarely complained.

They're usually quite courteous, giving lots of warning if they feel bothered.

[mynameismud]

I think I leapt 10 feet up and 10 feet across.  I tried whispering sweet nothings in Brad's ear but he was not having it.

I suspect that my funniest occurrence while climbing with Mr Mud was the time he jumped me. Literally.

We were making a two hour approach almost in what is now Jim's back yard. Half an hour across the desert floor and then an hour and a half up a wide, steep gully to the base of The Rabbit Ears on Wheeler Crest.

Dennis was just ahead of me, trudging up this steep but walkable gully. Trudge, trudge.

All of the sudden I hear a noise, look up, and wham! he hits me. Dennis has literally turned around and jumped at me from above. I instantly reacted by trying to push him off, but he had the momentum and we ended up bear hugging with my face in his chest. I kept fighting. Somehow we didn't topple downhill.

And then I heard the rattlesnake.

[mungeclimber]

An early date with my spousal unit was to the Citadel. Costanoan 5.4. The approach in was warm but nice enough. Spring like time when snakes are coming out of their dens lying in the middle of trails where the sun warms them up.  I had gotten ahead of her around the corner of a large brush section up a steep dirt hill section of the trail. Back then it wasn't well established.

Next thing I know, there is this blood curdling scream!!! It was long and sounded horrifying.

My mind screams. I am immediately gripped that I've dragged her out and the bite will affect her and she'll never climb again.



I yell out "WHAT?! WHAT?! ARE YOU OK?! WHAT HAPPENED?"

no response.

Shit, I think. Not good.

I yell again. "DID YOU GET BIT?!" As I'm already starting my return to her position.

no response.


a long pause.


I turn the corner to find her standing upright.

"What happened?"

She replies... "I fell"


"That's it?"  "You fell?"

BUAHAHAHHAhahahaha

The look of disdain at my laughter at her expense is showing through. Anger boils.


"I thought you got bit by a rattler." My relief at her well being apparent.

Smile came back later to her face... at least until she ended up dehydrated and hangry on the last pitch of Costanoan!  But we did summit.


We should do that route again.

[BAP]

The first time I climbed Snake Dike was in 2002, my third climbing trip ever in Yosemite, less than an year I started to climb.  Three of us newbies left Curry Village at 5 am in the morning, got lost a little bit after we past Little Yosemite Valley, but caught a party ahead of us and followed them to the start of the climb. We were all kind of clueless but somehow managed to climb the whole thing safely.  I lead the pitch one and pitch four and had little trouble at the start, but all of us thought the hardest part was the 3rd class slab to the summit. We made it back to the car around 7 pm and went to the buffet place at Curry, everything tasted so good there and I must had 3 plates full of meat, some ice cream, and cheese cake.  The next day, none of us could walk of course, we all agreed we had never done anything that hard in our life before the Snake Dike climb.
 
On the drive back to Bay Area, we were so proud of ourselves and decided to make  t-shirts for our amazing ascent, there would be a picture of Half Dome in front, underneath the picture, it would say "I Climbed Half Dome, technically!".   On the back of the t-shirt, it would have Julius Caesar's "Vini Vidi Vici".

 We later got some feedback from an "experienced climber", that climbing Snake Dike was not that much a big deal, so we we never made the T-shirts.

[F4?]

Well a few years later I was leading a college group up 1/2 Done.

I think it was on that trip I spied locals taking a short cut. Instead of hinking north on the trail, you make a right to go cross county as a crow would fly down to LYV.

In a moment of leadership weakness, I took a faster group down the short cut.

It was crazy as you could run down hill on soft dirt gravel. Since it was soft, it slowed you a bit and cushioned the impact.

I would like to think it was faster, so yes it’s faster.

Later on I got an earful from the slower group for leaving them!!!

Can’t win.

Last time I hiked 1/2 Done, I  did not take my wife down the short cut.