Yosemite; Leaning Tower (V 5.7 C2F)

Today was a long one!

We left Camp 4 at 06:00am and biked roughly 20 minutes towards the Leaning Tower to climb the West Face (V 5.7 C2F). This was going to be Pat and my first aid climb. It's a shorter “big wall” with only 11 pitches (compared to some that have 30 or more in Yosemite). The overhanging nature of the West Face has it overhanging 110 degrees on the first half of the climb and 95 degrees on the upper half. This gives it the title of the most overhanging wall in North America. The guidebook mentions that most people take three days to climb. Although a friend of mine told me that it is possible to climb it in a single day. Yesterday I had gone up solo (belayed by a Grigri) to fix a rope on top of the first pitch and stashed climbing gear and water to make the approach easier and faster. This would help us attempt climbing it in a single day. On the climb we brought along a bivy sac, an extra litre of water (5 litres for both of us) and some energy gels in case we needed to spend the night on the wall. We weren’t too sure what to expect since this was going to be our first long aid climb. The climbing was slower than we expected. It took us about one hour to lead each pitch. To make things faster we started linking the pitches on the upper half. With three pitches to go I noticed thick dark clouds rolling in from behind El Cap and coming our way. This placed some stress on us as we kept the rhythm going. I finished leading the last pitch just as the last light disappeared behind the horizon (around 7:00pm).

A few things stood out for me during the climb:

-When we started hauling the pack up it was about 40 feet away from the wall. That’s quite overhanging!

-The more interesting part of the climb was found on the upper half of the wall. There were some fun horizontal roofs to pass.

-The climbing was more time consuming than we expected.

-It helped build confidence with smaller gear placements and placing them properly for body weight only.

Leading up the traversing pitch 5.



The overhanging wall.



Looking down on the sixth pitch.

Making good use of the etriers on the hanging belay.

Leading up pitch 7.

Traversing a roof on pitch 9.