Dan Hughes: Climbing Off the Couch and into the Mountains

After taking a 3 month break from climbing and working in Texas, I hit the road for a Fall climbing trip. I met up with Will on the East Side of the Sierras and we decided to do 1 day at Toulumne to get acclimatized and get me back on some rock. What was suppose to be a chill day turned into a tough day at altitude for this sea level, non climbing working stiff. We did a couple multi pitch slab routes, then climbed West Crack on Daff Dome for another 4 pitches.

Will getting his slab fix

Will following the first pitch of West Crack

The next day we headed north to Bridgeport to hike the approach to the Incredible Hulk. This turned out to be a long hot day with heavy packs, 5 miles and 3400 feet of altitude and 3 hours later brought us to about 10,000' and our bivy spot.

The Incredible Hulk from the approach

The following morning we awoke at 6:00AM and began climbing the Red Dihedral (1200', 12 pitches 5.10b) at 8:00AM. The climb was awesome on amazing rock. We enjoyed ideal temps and climbed in long sleeve shirt and pants the entire time. We were first on the route and saw only one party low on the route then never saw them again. The climb took us 6 hours and we made back to camp a little after 3:00PM and began the painful descent back to the car. We were back at the car by around 6:30PM to make for a nice 12 hour day of exercise. Today both our bodies are hurting! All in All not bad for an off the couch climber who has only climbed one day in the last 3 months.

Stay tuned for more updates in the next few weeks.