Yosemite Recommendations for Moderately Experienced Climbers (New to Trad)

Since you are staying in Curry Village, the Grack and Monday Morning Slab would be perfect for you. Walking distance from your tent cabin and classic intro-to-trad moderates. As mentioned above, make some inquiries as to the rockfall situation (I haven’t climbed there since the last century).  The hike up to Vernal and Nevada Falls is also walking right out of your cabin.  Low water that time of year, so the falls won’t be raging, but still beautiful. 

Bb Cc wrote:

a “climber” too inexperienced (with Yosemite) to recognize (and admit) danger..

Oh yes, I see where you got confused. I’m a moderately experienced climber. As in, a climber overall. As in, I am very well versed in the fundamentals. I never made the claim that I was experienced, to any degree, in Yosemite. Additionally, the existence of this forum disproves that I am not able to recognize and admit danger, I wouldn’t have asked if I was so brazen about it. As a result of asking here, plans have already been changed to better mitigate those risks. Such as changing climbing location and putting an emphasis on getting another rope and another person.

Logan Wendelwrote:

Oh yes, I see where you got confused. I’m a moderately experienced climber. As in, a climber overall. As in, I am very well versed in the fundamentals. I never made the claim that I was experienced, to any degree, in Yosemite. Additionally, the existence of this forum disproves that I am not able to recognize and admit danger, I wouldn’t have asked if I was so brazen about it. As a result of asking here, plans have already been changed to better mitigate those risks. Such as changing climbing location and putting an emphasis on getting another rope and another person.

Stating that you would solve mismatched rope lengths by having (other less experienced climbers?) people untie, retie, switch ropes, etc… is adding an amount of completely unnecessary risk that would suggest a dangerous lack of experience.

What I see here are people not trying to poop on you but keep you and your friends safe. Take it for what you will…

Christian Heschwrote:

Stating that you would solve mismatched rope lengths…

I would solve having mismatched lengths by not climbing anything over 28~meters thank you but the question wasn’t about that, it was about “what if we did.” If you’d like to add something constructive, what would you do if you were in that situation, because I’m pretty open to hearing if there is a better solution to a situation that I would do everything to avoid happening in the first place. 

Start well below your limit to get used to the rock and placements. 5.6 is a good starting point.

3 people on multipitch can be challenging. If you do an easy route for you with the 2nd and 3rd tied into one rope (one at the end, the other 10 feet from the end) it’s almost as quick as a party of 2 and fun because the 2nd and 3rd get to climb together and talk, it’s a unique experience to climb right next to someone, but if the 3rd falls they are likely to pull the 2nd off, so only do it when there’s low chance of a fall. If it’s a harder climb for you, you can use one rope per follower, but that is much more time consuming, and with a 40M you’d be limited to shorter pitch climbs. Agree with the reply above to get another 60m. If you have gear to top rope solo (e.g. a microtrax and camp lift for each follower) you could do fix and follow, that could be quick.

I think 3 on a multipitch is fine IF you are still relatively quick. E.g. 30 minutes per pitch. If you are taking an hour+ per pitch to lead, clean, follow, and be ready for the next pitch then you really aren’t ready for it, and holding other people up, but it doesn’t matter if you are 2 noobs moving really slowly or a party of 3. Just stick to something really easy, so you can still move fast even with 3. A lot of moving quickly is efficiency and efficiency comes from practice. E.g. if it takes you 5 minutes to setup an anchor on a 3 pitch climb that’s 15 minutes. If it takes you 15 minutes to setup an anchor that’s 45 minutes. You can also just climb a single pitch climb to get used to Yosemite. There’s tons of good ones, and it’s probably better to get used to the climbing and protection on something less committing.  To reiterate: moving at a decent pace with a party of 3 is doable, it just takes some practice to get efficient. Practice on a single pitch, or very easy for you multipitch, until you get efficient (<30 minutes per pitch), then I’d say no problem getting on a classic multipitch like Munginella or After Six, because many noob 2 people teams are taking that long anyway.

The shuttle will take you most places you want to go so no problem staying in Curry.

The Grack is low angle and easy. It seems well below 5.6 to me. So it’s a great first climb, and to have the followers on one rope.

Munginella is great, and littler harder and a busy classic. So you don’t want to take 3+ hours to do it and cause a big traffic jam. So climb something easy, or a single pitch first, to make sure you can climb each Yosemite pitch in about ½ hour.

Swan slabs has some good single pitch climbs, and Swan Slab gully is a good multpitch to get your feet wet. Could do 2 followers on one rope here. The first pitch is good. The next two aren’t great, but you’d get the multipitch experience.

After 6 is a great 5 pitch. First pitch has a slippery move down low. And the 3-5 pitches go quickly. About like Munginella, it would be best to start on something else first.

Bishops Terrace is a classic 2 pitch 5.8 to do after some of the above. Super short approach.

So many good hikes. As a climber one must do hike, that avoids tourists is the 15 minutes hike to the base of the Nose. Follow the directions to the start of pine line, there’s a big flat area where you can have lunch and have a nice view of the valley, and be right under the big stone.

Logan, people are making a good point in a classic mountainproject way (i.e. snarky and seemingly totally unhelpful.) It's not that you have zero climbing experience in an absolute sense, it's that everything you listed has pretty limited transfer to your objectives (e.g. sport 5.9/10a to Yosemite 5.6/7 is really not very much physical/technical margin at all; sport multipitch has some relevance but there are a million things that can go wrong in trad multipitch that don't happen in sport, it's not just sport multipitch+placing gear.) Your posts suggest overconfidence and lack of respect for your objectives, which is more dangerous than inexperience.

If you want to actually be prepared: go seek out 2 pitch trad routes near you. If they don't exist, break up single pitch routes into 2 pitches. You will learn lots of things very rapidly from doing that (e.g. you will find out firsthand how annoying party of 3 can be.)

Gloweringwrote:

As a climber one must do hike, that avoids tourists is the 15 minutes hike to the base of the Nose. Follow the directions to the start of pine line, there’s a big flat area where you can have lunch and have a nice view of the valley, and be right under the big stone.

Hanging out eating lunch at the base of one of the most popular big wall routes in the world is not a great idea. You’re directly in the firing line of dropped gear, and not just small stuff. I once saw a haul bag go to the ground from Sickle. 

Logan Wendelwrote:

Interesting definition of inexperienced, Oxford dictionary disagrees with you :)

I would accept “mildly experienced” based on your stated credentials. 

Logan Wendelwrote:

Scenario two doesn’t make a ton of sense to me because if we know we need a rappel longer than 40m we can simply find the midpoint of our ~99m rope and set up a carabiner block on the same end as the fisherman’s bend. That way, once at the knot, the belayer can use two prusiks to transfer all their weight to one strand (the side without the fisherman’s), pass their belay device below the knot, re-engage their belay system, test their belay system, and remove the prusiks.

I highly recommend you practice passing a knot on rappel in a safe situation before trying it in the wild. Make sure you practice both with the ability to kick off the wall and also freehanging.

Allen Sandersonwrote:

Given you are in Boise between now and then make a couple of trip to the City of Rocks, there are many one pitch trad routes at the lower grades that you can begin to figure out what trad leading is all about. And this time of year lots of people around. Also the rock is granite. That way when you get to the valley you will not be a complete knob and perhaps have a more enjoyable time.

A side comment. Your thread title of being moderately experienced has a typo, it should have been inexperienced.

Excellent advise.  Also, unless I read your posts incorrectly, the group’s experience trad climbing is limited to placing gear while standing on the ground?  If so, while you may be overall moderately experienced climbers, that would make you really inexperienced trad climbers.  Having said that, others have mentioned a lot of good recommendations.  You can also have a good time just finding some TRs, bouldering and enjoying the Valley vibe.  Just progress comfortably.  Be mindful that a lot of Valley 5.8, like Bishop’s Terrace, will be far stiffer than you suppose. 

Marc801 Cwrote:

Hanging out eating lunch at the base of one of the most popular big wall routes in the world is not a great idea. You’re directly in the firing line of dropped gear, and not just small stuff. I once saw a haul bag go to the ground from Sickle. 

Pine Line isn’t under the Nose. It’s a platform jutting out near the toe. Salathe/Free blast and the direct are over there but stuff dropped from there doesn’t seem like it would likely end up by pine line either. If there was a big rockfall that hit the wall and exploded and went everywhere it could hit there but that’s a danger anywhere near or on a big cliff. I have seen a lot of dropped gear from the 4th class original start to the nose heading east to under the stove legs. 

To be fair, we all hang out there and shoot the shit & run laps… but a good sized (300+ lb) block did come off directly above there a couple days ago - and a couple months back I had my rope snag an 8”x8”x8” block (guessing 50-75lbs?) … tried to get it back to the ledge but couldn’t (was 50ft below me), and it tumbled between sickle raps and pine line, thankfully nobody was hit.

 I would guess that anyone going up there is intelligent enough to understand the risk(s)

Thanks yall for the offers—I have friends that I’d ask to loan a rope from first but I’ll make sure to come back here. I hadn’t thought of borrowing it and had only considered buying a new rope. Thanks! 

Maybe consider hiring a guide instead?

man, i hate to be the voice of reason here, but... yosemite isn't a great place for mildly experienced (or perhaps wildly inexperienced?) groups of three. are you the most experienced of the three? based on your lengthy jibberish and lack of practicality i really don't think you should be the blind leading the blinders.  

No thanks lmao

What DeWeese said ^^ is spot on.  Get another 60 and have fun.

slimwrote:

man, i hate to be the voice of reason here, but... yosemite isn't a great place for mildly experienced (or perhaps wildly inexperienced?) groups of three. are you the most experienced of the three? based on your lengthy jibberish and lack of practicality i really don't think you should be the blind leading the blinders.  

Slim, to steal a quote from Air Zermatt. They are what YoSAR would call potential clients.