Third year in a row traveling to the American West from the other side of the world for rock climbing, expectations and the outcome.

The experience in the US in 2016 and in climbing the Nose in 2017, I was inspired to make this trip for climbing the Salathe Wall route on El Capitan, Yosemite.

My long-time climbing partners of Armenia, who moved to live in Los Angeles, joined me in the Valley, to share the rope for some short climbs and to remember our old days together on the rock.

At the time I arrived at Camp-4, Nick D’Hulster, who with us did the Nose a year ago, was already nesting in the Valley this season and had done a bunch of climbs including solo climbing Leaning Tower. Meanwhile, I was standing there like an amateur after a long ski season. The first day we went for cragging on a warm-up route. The next day we went for a day-attempt to the Lost Arrow Spire Direct, 15 pitches grade VI 5.8 A2+ big thing. It was already past 6 pm, five more pitches but we decided to bail because even if we could finish the route in some 3 hours we still didn’t want to rappel all this big stuff in the night. I should confess that it was my fault to be out of shape and being slow.

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During the rest of our stay in the valley, the forecast didn’t promise us three days of stable weather, a sufficient time we needed to complete the Salathe Wall. As typical for these days you could climb till afternoon then storms would come. So being considerate with our climbing tempo and respectful to the elements of mother nature we had to step back from our plan. Our routes split with Nick then, till we would meet in Colorado again for climbing in Boulder Canyon. Meanwhile, I spent some time in the valley climbing with Andranik and Vahe, slowly feeling better on jamming in the cracks. With Andranik we did the Serenity Crack, classic 5.10d with pretty bold start where you can put your first pro only above some 7 meters above the ground climbing slicky sketchy flared pin cracks.

Soon Armenians had to leave the valley, to their families and clients in LA, yet I extended my stay in Camp-4 to celebrate my bachelor status. On May 19, we met with Jim Donini at Lower River Amphitrite at Jim Bridwell’s memorial. After three days of climbing cracks and chimneys, I was going to chill and recover for a couple days to heal the bloody skin on my hands and knees. Apparently, I didn’t know what the Bridwell memorial meant to be. It doesn’t make much sense to bother you with the names of all the celebrity climbers who came to share and listen to the old stories about Jim Bridwell.

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In the sweet smoke of weed (which is forbidden in National Parks) symbolizing the day of solidarity in between park rangers and climbers, we were enjoying freaky stories about Bridwell’s vision on the climbing perspective during Golden Age of Climbing in Yosemite, and the inspiration and energy he radiated through his projects and first ascents, mostly made under the influence of constant use of drugs. At the end of the event native American old women blessed the crowd with an Indian shaman song and dance in the smoke of a burning cluster of some vegetation in her hand, people were following the instructions of the ceremony given in prior, and I suddenly woke up with an idea like “what am I waiting for.. I should go for Steck-Salathe. Tonight!”. The Steck-Salathe is another Yosemite classic grade V, 15 pitch 5.10b climb on Sentinel Rock, about which you can often hear weird stories of runout chimney climbing pitches through tunnel-like rocks.

The valley shuttle came late and slow, it was dark when I got to Camp 4, broken and tired, still with bleeding hands and knees. It was not a rest day at all. At Camp-4 I started to ask around who would like to wake up at 3am for Steck-Salathe (for the approach to the base of Sentinel Rock you need more than 2 hours to walk up the steep and some technical slopes, gaining 500m).

Finally, I found a young Canadian guy Alejandro Aquino, we have met before at Sentinel Creek. He was psyched to rope up with me, even though it would be his first big route. I knew he did not realize how sustain and intense will be the day, and I was too mean to Alejandro not to tell him more about it, this guy was my chance..!

After we sorted out the gear and agreed to meet at 3am at my tent, I went to Michael Dom’s campsite to get some betas for the route. The tribe was missing John Sloan this year, but the mood was there. These days Michael was belaying Brad Gobright, who was projecting to free the El Corazon on El Cap, and they were discussing their tactics for the next few days. Brad's beta for me was concise - “Actually, I underestimated the Steck-Salathe when I climbed it the first time”, he told me. I realized he said it rather to make me think well about the route than it was a big deal for him, he could even have free soloed it on his first time, I think. After Michael perfectly described all the betas, he even drew a cool map on a piece of paper for me as a true artist, I happily went to my tent to have a three-hour nap till the alarm would wake me up.

But the problem is that nowadays Camp-4 is like a “Zoo”, as Jim Donini calls it. It’s rather crowded by tourists, this folk usually have some easy hikes during the day, then they chill till late at night, drinking at a campfire. It was already 1:30 am, my sleeping bag felt too tight, I was rolling from this to the other side. Had to smoke some weed desperately. The campfire light, next to my tent, and the "zoo-noise" blended into a harmonic orchestra, through which I could see myself climbing all the 15 pitches of Steck-Salathe including the chimneys, in detail! In the dark, it seemed more like a trip to the moon though..

Surprisingly, in an hour I met Alejandro completely recovered. Whispering a couple of words under our headlamp beams, we quickly left the campsite. At dawn we were already on the first pitches. My concerns came true when, I think after the pitch 9, Alejandro gave up and said he does not want to switch for a lead anymore. Well, struggling through the fancy claustrophobic runout chimneys we made it to the top of Sentinel Rock when it was still light, but our way down we had to find through the dark and despair..

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The last days in the Valley we were hosted in Mark Chapman’s duplex in Yosemite West with Jim Donini. He took me to a traditional US tour, this time through unbelievable beauties of Tioga Pass. After 840 miles we got to Jim's place in Ouray, where lovely Angela hosted us with a nice dinner. After a couple of days of sport climbing on the Ouray crags, and visiting Telluride for the Mountain Film Festival, we drove to the mysterious Black Canyon, “The Yosemite with an attitude” as Jim calls it. Last time we were there with Jim was two years ago, then we climbed the Russian Arête. The days were already too hot in Black, so the only shady climbs Jim could find were Maiden Voyage and King Me. My dreams about the Scenic Cruise and Astro Dog are still living there.

After we headed to Boulder CO. We climbed the Petit Grepon with Jim, and later I made two routes on the Diamond of Long's Peak.

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WE FLY CROWS

We choose Black Diamond

MOUNTAIN GUIDING

Armenian Alpine Club

8/38 Margaryan str., 0036 Yerevan, Republic of Armenia

Tel: +374-93-337-937, +374-93-318-006.

Yosemite / Black Canyon, US trip_N3

Armenian Alpine Club