Fear in the USA

Returning to Yosemite has made me think about fear. More specifically: the things to be scared of in the USA. Dr Curly has been good enough to give me some advice about his top 3 fears:

Crack- tastic Domes!

Sunday 22nd - Friday 27th August - Toulumne, Yosemite National Park

View of Half Dome

On the Sunday morning we drove into the Park and headed to Toulumne Meadows.  Here we managed to get the equipment we needed and 5 nights in the campsite - awesome!  In the afternoon, we headed off to do our 1st route:  West Crack on Duff Dome.  60m pitches of crack on pristine granite - wow!  Felt the altitude kicking in as I puffed my way to the top!

Simon marking the summit of Daff

Next day, Regular Route on Fairview.  A classic American climb.  Team Jones were hot on the heels of the American team above and speeding along above the Taiwanese team below!  Think I've got the hang of hand-jamming now!

That's Fairview Dome.  Our route went right up the middle

The bottom of Regular Route.  The crack goes on and on

The descent off Fairview, you just walk down the Dome.

Back at camp, we cooked ourselves a tasty meal and put all our food in the bear box as instructed.  Unfortunately, we can't have closed it properly:  Si got up for a midnight pee and discovered the bear box doors to be wide open and most of our food scattered across the ground or gone!  Yogi had eaten our bran flakes, biscuits, trail mix, tortillas, muesli bars, bagels and banana flakes. He had mauled the apples, had a scratch and sniff at the jerky and rice before making off with our montgomery jack cheese (but left the crackers).  To make matters worse, he had summed up his opinion of us, by leaving a large, brown present in the middle of our camp!