Despite all my trips up here, I have never climbed the Grand Wall. But, after a little convincing, and maybe some minor sandbagging, I convinced my friend Tatjana to join me. So we geared up in the parking lot at about 7:30 and started the hike. As we left the van, we saw a party starting the Split Pillar, which is the fourth pitch.
We did the hike, and I lead the first three pitches to see that same party just finishing the pitch. Their leader anyway. This wasn’t good, but what I couldn’t see from the parking lot was that there was another party in front of them which was just as slow, and another party behind them and in front of us patiently waiting below the pillar. We then looked down to see three more parties starting up the wall behind us. At this point, I just wanted to be anywhere else, so we did exactly that.
Tatjana and I rappelled to the ground, then hiked along the base where she lead Seasoned In The Sun (5.10b), which is one of the hardest things she’s ever done. Then we drove to Shannon Falls and she rope gunned all of Skywalker (5.8, 5 pitches). I was bummed to not get a chance to do the Grand Wall, but it was awesome to watch Tatjana hit a bit of flow state in her climbing.
