This last weekend I was in the Valley again with John Blackberries. Blackberries was still nursing a tender finger injury that precluded him from using his right hand for anything but hand jams, yet he still wanted to be out on the rock in Yosemite than on the couch in Oakland. Our goals were the West Face of Rixon's Pinnacle and Braille Book on Higher Cathedral Rock.

Since Rixon's was only five pitches long with a five minute approach we weren't worried about starting real early. After eating some breakfast over at the Church Bowl parking lot (in a fruitless attempt to hook up with Brucey Hilden-biker) we headed down to Rixon's. First I forgot my harness and had to go back to the car and then we forgot the nut tool so things were proceeding normally.

Blackberries had been up this route before and gave me the beta on each pitch. I would lead the climb and John was just going to jug the route to save his finger from any damage. His enthusiasm would get the best of him though and he climbed the third pitch (which has a significant traverse on it.)

The first pitch is neat 5.9 fingertip liebacking and is lots of fun. This pitch, like the 2nd and 3rd pitches has some significant traverses on them and gave Blackberries something to think about while cleaning the pitch.

The second pitch is the crux of the route (10c) and involves stemming across to a hand crack. Now I mean STEMMING! The moves to get into the stem are difficult and then the actual stem is absolutely at my maximum stretching ability. I am six feet tall and while no gymnast, can do a fairly wide stem. Now, maxed out in a stem with my calves quickly fading on me, you have to reach way over and get an insecure fist jam right next to your foot. Having done this Blackberries yells up, "You have to get both hands in the crack." No way, I think. It is too far for my left hand, but I do it anyway. It still didn't feel possible to pull over on these shitty jams so I placed a #4 friend and just yanked on it. What a pussy! The fall here is not even a fall since you have pro above you. I should have tried it.

With that indiscretion I moved up to the belay on fun hand jams and John followed doing his first "jumar lower out" across the crux section. The third pitch is fun hand jams up to a brutal thin hand section (I suck at thin hands and they are always brutal for me.) After this is an exposed and exciting undercling traverse around a roof to the belay. John free climbed this pitch, mainly because of the difficulty of following the traverse on jumars, but also because he loves this pitch.

The fourth pitch is once again 5.9 and starts out with some really cool 5.9 face climbing on nice edges. I used some small holds in the seam also. This seam had a couple of fixed pins in it that provided the protection. The ending of the pitch has some lieback/hand jams and is really cool. This was probably my favorite pitch.

The final pitch is much different from the others in that is it viciously continuous and steep. It starts with vertical hand jams and then goes overhanging. The crack is in a corner so you aren't hanging out in space, but it is very strenuous with no chance of a rest for 15 or 20 feet. By placing pro above my head (my usual inclination) I was able to get the rope in the way of not only my feet but my hands also -- a useful technique if you are planning to flame out and hang on your pro (which I did.) After one resting on the rope, I pushed through the overhanging section to the find a heinous squeeze chimney/offwidth section! Ugh! John told me about this, but didn't mention how difficult it would be. I thought the pitch would be easy after the overhanging section. I was sadly mistaken. The next 10 feet reminded me of Generator Crack, and then I got a flake that enabled me to lieback in a near horizontal position to gain altitude and periodically pull myself back into the crack to put in some pro. What a struggle! I was sweating like the squealing pig I was by the time I reached the top. John didn't find it too bad on jumars...

This is a very classic Yosemite climb and I am really surprised it is not in the Yosemite Select guide. The last pitch is a bitch and is probably more like 10b, but the rest of the climb is very reasonable and lots of fun. The descent rappels were recently redone with new slings and new rappel rings by Brucey "The Mad Bolter!" Hilden-biker. Hence, the descent went very smooth and we headed over to Curry Village to watch the babes, drink Root Beer, and wait for the day to get cooler.

Eventually Blackberries talked me into going up to toprope Circuit Breaker (11b). For some reason Blackberries can do this climb (normally more than a grade over his head) and hence he likes it. No such luck for me though. I could only get up it with Blackberries giving me the super power belay. He is awfully good at that!

Next we went over to do Y-crack (10a.) I had spotted this on the approach to Washington Column before and it looked like a lot of fun. It is a low angle, very thin crack that gets wider and steeper towards the top. The mosquitos were eating us alive at the base so I quickly ran up the lower section.

The upper section gets tougher and the crux is right at the very top and involves flared finger jams. Blackberries cruised the lower section, but got in a bit of trouble at the crux with finger pain and trouble handling the flared jams. He took a rest on the rope before finishing it off, but then insisted on being lowered back down to the last no hands rest from which he soared through the crux this time. I highly recommend this climb as it is not too strenuous, well protected and lots of fun. It requires two ropes to rap off.

We ate dinner at the Yosemite Village cafeteria (just barely!) and found Brucey there with his friend (forgot his name). Brucey was speed talking in two languages as he met some Swiss hikers at an adjacent table.

The next morning we were up at 6 a.m. and soon after heading for the turnout near the Cathedral Rocks. After some organizing and breakfast eating we hit the trail (or rather thrashed through the woods in a near futile attempt to find a trail - not that it matters too much) by 7:45 a.m. There were a number of cars already at the turnout and we were a bit worried that there would be someone on our route as Braille Book is a three star route. An hour later when we arrived at the base we found it to be deserted. But not for long! Five minutes later an English couple arrived. By the time we finished the second pitch another two parties were approaching it.

Originally we had planned on swinging leads, but with the pressure of a team behind us and the incredible verticality of the first pitch John graciously allowed me to lead. The "Yosemite Select" topo shows five pitches for this route, but we did it in eight pitches. I recommend this method unless you are in a big hurry. The belays are all pretty nice, with one notable exception, and it was nice to take a mental break from leading and regroup. The climb is very, very steep. Much steeper than the West Face of Rixon's.

We broke each of the first two pitches up into two pitches. John says that we did the "Billster Direct Variation" on the first pitch and calls it 5.9. John isn't a big fan of steep face climbing and he immediately felt the steep nature of the climb on this first pitch as he was wearing the backpack containing our shoes and a couple of quarts of water (not enough!) Things went smoothly until our fourth pitch. This is called "5.8 fist" on the topo and I assumed it would be lower angle. Wrong! It is overhanging! Fortunately there are supplemental face holds to grab and stem on, but it was still quite difficult.

The next pitch looks scary for it is a steep, exposed wall. This section is supposedly rated 5.6, but seems more difficult. After climbing a chimney for twenty feet you step out onto this incredible knobby wall and the climbing is very exciting. The end of this pitch involves 25 feet of very scary, marginally protected (two questionable, very small stoppers) offwidth climbing to a hanging belay from slings wrapped around a chockstone that didn't look too securely perched! Yikes! This was the scariest part of the climb. As I belayed John up I scoped out the next pitch and that just made me more uncomfortable. It is an intimidating flared chimney that is very long and didn't look too protectable. Stress was gradually creeping into my mind.

Blackberries got stymied by the offwidth section due to the pack he was carrying and since we didn't bring a haul line I couldn't help him out. He decided to just prusik this short section and accomplished this in remarkably fast time. Heck, I don't even carry prusiks with me. If I got in this situation I would be stuck. Blackberries is very resourceful!

The next pitch was difficult climbing, but it protected better than I thought it would. The first part is protected by very small stoppers and the initial wide flaring section I protected with a #4 Camalot that I walked up once. From there I could clip a couple of fixed pins and then the climbing eases up. Exiting the flare around the roof at top was supposed to be a 5.8 stem, but this was very easy compared to the flare. John once again prusiked the pitch as climbing the flare with a pack would be extremely difficult and he was getting a bit tired.

Our seventh pitch started off with very difficult fingertip moves to a big ledge. I went around the corner here and communication suffered immensely. Here I did a difficult face traverse on marginal holds and then up to another big ledge. John followed, but due to my inattentiveness had to do the tough fingertip moves without much of a belay. I couldn't hear him yelling at me to pull up the rope and was a bit lax in this area. When John got to the belay he wasn't in the best of spirits, understandably. We had anticipated a much easier time on this climb and the stress was showing.

The final pitch of the climb is simply awesome! Definitely one of the best easy pitches (it is rated 5.4, but more like 5.6) in the Valley. Actually, anywhere! It is a huge, wide headwall with 800 feet of pure exposure. The wall is near vertical and covered with big, positive holds. A pure joy to climb!

While the routes on Higher Cathedral Rock tend to be very steep, strenuous and tough, the descent is very easy hiking and a welcome finish to our day.

It is interesting to contrast the two main climbs we did this past weekend. According to the guidebook, they were each five pitches long and you might be tempted to simply compare them on this level:

Pitch	Rixon's West Face	Braille Book
1	5.9	5.7
2	5.10c	5.8
3	5.9	5.7
4	5.9	5.8
5	5.10a/b	5.4

This analysis would lead you to assume that the West Face of Rixon's Pinnacle is a tougher climb, but the guidebook doesn't tell the whole story. While Rixon's, is technically a tougher climber, that is the only measure in which it is tougher. Braille Book is actually about eight Rixon length pitches and is much steeper. Braille Book has a much more grueling approach and descent. Braille Book also has some runout climbing and a marginal belay.

Don't get me wrong, I loved both climbs and would recommend them. Every pitch is a good one. But Braille Book requires more complete climbing skills and is a more serious undertaking.