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| Just before a free air repel |
Long, Scott, and I went to
El Cajon Mountain on Saturday. Our plan was to hike up, climb a 3 pitch sport climb called Leonidas, and hike down. The hike takes about an hour and a half and crosses 3 ravines. I was very worried about the hike. Leonidas is a sustained 5.9, meaning that every pitch is a 5.9. While that may not seem so bad, an outdoor 5.9 is more like a 5.10/5.10 indoors and I'm doing this after a very long hike in the hot sun and high elevation. These are also very long pitches.
This may be as close as I ever get to a big wall climb.
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El Cajon Mountain is a ways up the 67. Act like you are driving from San Diego to Ramona and your going the right way.
Disclaimer: I didn't want to bring my DSLR because this was going to be a challenging multipitch climb. I ended up taking a few barbie doll point and shoot canons with me instead. They were convenient and good for this application. Unfortunately, my framing was bad and some of the photos were of questionable quality.
The Hike.
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| We are going to be hiking there. |
I was person number two on the three person pitch. I had both ropes tied to me and had the benefit of being top-roped on each of the three pitches.
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| Anchor Station number 1. |
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| Long is person number 3. He is coming to the first anchor. |
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| Long then lead climbed the second pitch |
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| These are our shoes at the second anchor station. My feet were hurting like crazy at this point. |
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| long belaying from the second anchor station |
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| Long's feet |
Scott then lead climbed the third pitch. We were all VERY tired at this point. Luckily, the third pitch was the shortest pitch. Unfortunately, it started with a gross runout. On the plus side, the runout was across a cute little ledge that you could walk across like it wasn't even a deal.
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| Scott walking across a ledge during his third pitch lead. |
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| Interesting rope management |
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| Selfie! |
The third anchor was a relief. It was beautiful out there, and I was almost dead. I am glad everyone agreed that we shouldn't go for the extensions because at 2pm, the rock was getting hot to the touch and the blazing sun was melting away my sunscreen. I had also run out of water.
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| View from the Third Anchor |
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| The repel setup complete with 3 PCS |
Then we repelled down. I <3 repelling, especially when I'm tired of climbing.
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| Scott Repelling down |
The second repel was a free air repel and my hair kept getting caught in the belay device.
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| The free air repel |
I tried to take a photo of Long free air repelling, but I had a hard time with my camera and I got this silly photo.
Like I said, this day was exhausting for me. If it were only a climb, sure, maybe I wouldn't be so destroyed. Having a 3 hour hike just pushed the day over the edge, and the pads of my feet were sore that evening. I am looking forward to doing my nails and doing general pampering to get back up to snuff.
