Jen and I were both beat up when we got back to Yosemite. I have a sprained ankle, and she had plenty of her own aches and pains. Combine this with temps in the high 80s, and it meant that we spent most of two weeks cragging in the shade. Occasionally Jen would go on a hike while I would go rope soloing in order to get ready for Kenny’s arrival and our NIAD attempt, and Murphy just went crazy due to the leash laws and other pet restrictions in National Parks that kept him from joining us on anything.
The good things about the heat and the injuries were that the combination forced us to seek out shady, short routes—which is something that we’ve never really done here before. We explored a bunch of new crags and got on some super classics like the five-pitch Central Pillar Of Frenzy, which definitely lived up to the hype.
