Alabama Hills
At 5:30am TJ picked me up for a day of climbing up at Alabama Hills. We stopped by Inyokern to get Walter, and we were on our way. I slept on the drive up, it was too early for me to be a social butterfly. The guys talked shop in the car, and before long, we were in Lone Pine.
By the time we got there, it was already warm. I took my t-shirt off right away favoring a tanktop. There were a total of six routes put up over the course of the morning. I hopped on 4 of them but I did one of them twice-for a total of 5 pitches. The heat was sucking the energy out of me, I felt lethargic and tired. Also the stabilizer tendons in my ankles were suffering from the hike the day before, and from playing a tough game of Ultimate Wednesday night!
By the time it was 11:30am, it was about 95 degrees outside, so I opted for the shade. I took some good pics of the guys climbing, and I’m sure they’re happy about that! My favorite climb of the day (one I hadn’t previously done before) was “Slab” rated 5.10b !!! but really it’s 5.9 ish. Very fun route, and in the shade (woo-hoo!). I’m sure I’ll get the redpoint on that one easy.
Sometime around 1pm, we wrapped things up for the day. So hot-now it was 100 out, and I was dumping water on my head. We headed into Lone Pine for burgers at Mt. Whitney Restaurant. Oh, so happy at this point to be sitting in a nice cool room talking about climbing with friends instead of laboring on the rope in the heat!
It was the last trip to Alabama Hills until fall, and I’d call it a success! From now on out, I’ll stick to High Sierra stuff, Needles, Tahquitz/Suicide, Mammoth, and Tuolumne. Summer is upon us!!!