US Trip 2013 - Take 9; Yosemite Epic RAGE - Part 1

After short rest day in Davis caused by sustained rage-time in Castle Crags, Jordan and I were off to Yosemite Valley. The destination which consists most of our goals for the trip. It was really awesome to get back to the Valley after 3 years since our last visit. I was even more psyched because this time I was going to touch Yosemite granite and do some climbing. I mean, don't get me wrong, highlining is really cool and we had and still do have lots of crazy plans on a high slackline but climbing in the Valley was always my dream.

Rainy welcome to the Valley (photo by Jordan Tybon)

On the 'almost tensioned' longline at one of the Yosemite Meadows (photo by Jordan Tybon)

We arrived late in a night and luckily at the time when Camp 4 still had some space available. Next morning the weather looked pretty good but we knew there was a storm coming. Our friends Preston, Jared, Max and Braden were up at the Yosemite Falls. Knowing that the Yosemite Falls Highline is up and ready to go we decided to pay them a visit and do some training for our "24 hour highline marathon" project. We started kind of early at the morning. I was feeling really fit after all of that hiking we did in Castle Crags and finished running up Yosemite Falls Trail in one hour. That felt really good and I knew I am ready to do the trail in 1,5 hour with the 10kg backpack I will have for the 24 hour run. I got to the Falls and surprisingly none of my friends were there. I assumed that they must be on the Spire rigging their slope highline project. I took some time to eat and drink lots of water and then got on the line and sent it on the first try both ways. That felt really good although the rigging was really unusual. Nothing like anything I walked before. It felt amazing to cross this line. I've helped bolting ad rigging it for the first time back in 2007 together with Damian Cooksey and Jon Ritson but even I tried lots of time I could only sent 3/4 of the line.

Right after my send Jordan and Faith finished their approach. The weather was changing and you could see the storm was coming fast. Jordan sent a line after few caches and Faith crushed OS-FM. As soon as she step off the line it started to rain and hail. We packed our stuff and went back to the woods where we thought our friends set up their camp.

Epic stormy weather (photo by Jordan Tybon)

Wet but happy (photo by Jordan Tybon)

We waited for a while but they weren't there. Later this week we learned they had some epic scary moments during the storm while sitting on top of the Lost Arrow Spire. We hiked down as fast as we could. After getting back to Camp 4 it rained even more. We decided to go sesh Taft Point highlines next day.

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