YAY the sun is funally out! Yesterday Lee and I, Ben and Jake climbed the East Buttress of El Cap. We had  a great day shuffling up chimneys, stemming and being sandbagged (by Lee) onto a super exposed face pitch near the top of the route...Its a great route & one we would all recommend, just take an umbrella for the middle few pitches if it has been raining recently!! The run off from around Zodiac gets blown onto these pitches! Made the climbing quite exciting and a little like swimming! If anyone is short a 0.75 black diamond camelot yosemite is the place to get them!!! bring a hand made cam removing device and maybe some butter its amazing how many of these cams, all shinyy and brand new we climb past that people have shoved too deep into the cracks..

 

So for a booty update...so far Lee and I have found...1 petzl spirit quickdraw, 1 offset alien, 1 blackdiamond firewire, hotwire, quicksilver biners and a 30cm nylon sling, 1 metolius nut and  andd old wild country rock.....also we found and left on the ground a large yellow Dmm cam...still 20 days to go so who knnows what else we will find.

 

The boys have rapped into the top few pitches of Salathe today for Lee to get the pitches sorted and for ben to see howhis piton scarred hand is healing. He and I are planning to go up Salathe for a 3 day push next week some time...lee climbing, me cleaning...I mean working my butt off and being scared!!! Ben and Jake willtry free rider together after Jakes thwarted attempt earlier...I don't know if i reported that one...but when Lee and I went up el cap earlier, I had just taken my helmet off and suddenly a rocket came screaming 2 m away fro, past our ledge...it was the crucial hold that people jjump to high on free rider. apparently it was super glued up and was waiiting to come off, bummer for jake it was him that pulled it ooff. He  was trucking along great guns for  a suuuccessful ascent of free rider when he jumped to the jug and suddddenly he was flying through the air holding two bricks...he let them go (they were heavy), pulled himslef together and spent the next two hours working the move too the now existing sloper!!! He decided it wouldn't go that way for him so he worked/ cleaned teflon corner instead and this is the way he will try it instead. Leo holding and dean potter are a bit bummed as their attempt to climb three routes in a day has now been complicted and made significantly harder and they now need to go and work the pitch...

 

I just had some bad and good news, Lizzy Scully who I was climbing with for a Rock and Ice article has pulled the pin. The photographerfrom R&I has cancelled for now....the up side is that we are running out of time to get everything done...with the west face, zodiac, salathe and half dome still on Lee and I's lists! So we need all the time we can get! The west face looks amazing I am soooo excited about this route, el cap has some amazing knobby face climbing on it which is a relief for my sore crack eaten feet!!The Evolve Pontas' are great however...even in  a slightly bigger sizethey are great on tiny edges and still awesome for crackss and smearing...I am converted!!

 

Zodiac update:Lee and Ben said the El Portel pitch has  crux that is protected with a series of 4 copperheads and a rurp!!! TThey say it is a "rad corner climbing,  smeary and insecure with a pounce onto the face", they spent 4hours working out the urine soaked/ stained/ encrusted open book pitch (their trousers were also encrusted when they got down from kneeling against the wall..climbing is soooo glamourous!!! The open book is a featureless slick corner....super tricky, super technical....the nipple pitch is a finger tip undercling along a diagonal flake...super bouldery and NAILS hard....but it should go next attempt....or there willlbe some sad faces getting off the plane in Sydney!!!!!!

 

Well that all for now...freeblast tomorrow for me then another stressful move of campsite on suunday ...if we can get into camp four otherwise we are a bit stuffed.....its sooooooooo busy here. Will update soon, hope theres lots of good weather back home..ahhhh to sleep in a bed again!