Jan Karl: Eldorado Roof

Evening everyone. I'm am DEAD BEAT! So a rewind to last night after my previous blog. Javier and I went back to base camp after using the free WiFi at Starbucks. Just at the moment we were about to head to bed, just hanging out under the stars, two other climbers/campers approached us and invited us to a bon-fire gathering. Off course we couldn't turn that down, so we brought a few beers with us and enjoyed great conversation around the pit. A few of the guys that were there have been camping in the Pit for 4 weeks, some 3 weeks, and others a little shorter. Everyone was from all walks of life, bust most of them were pretty dedicated climbers/hitch hikers. Some of them were pretty much jobless, taking a break from school and traveling for weeks/months climbing from one spot to another. Some of them have been living out of their VW Westfalia for a while just traveling the country to climb. Something that I hope to do one day.

So today Javier and I got a late start after staying up a little later then what we wanted to, d/t the bon fire thing we attended the night prior. We had a goal to do this 5.11a traverse over a giant cave called "Eldorado Roof" (pictures below). Usually I can onsight 5.11a but this traverse freaked me out and I ended up almost going bolt to bolt. Pretty scary stuff climbing sideways and not the usually UP. All said and down Javier and I did 2 pitches of the 3 pitch climb because we thought the last part didn't look as fun. The day ended up really long but we only were able to do a few climbs. By the end of the day, we both got pretty beat/dead tired. I included photos of the downhill descent you have to do to get into the climbing areas and also a photo from the bottom looking up. The photos don't do it justice, but its a pretty steep hike up and down. Until next time. In Phu Pham's words "Smell ya later"