Yosemite and the Diamond part 2

"There is no place comparable to the diamond. Its high, cold, steep, a long way from the parking lot, and most of all, intimidating." -Malcolm Daly

Sip sip, gulp glup (neil downs his 3rd beer), "Callum," "What!" "lets climb the Diamond", "alright". That's it, once either of us comes up with an idea and we both agree on it, neither of us ever has the balls to back out.

Now i don't exactly like the cold, the Diamond is 1,000 feet of vertical granite at 14,000 ft and in November it wasn't exactly going to be toasty up there. Also neither me or Neil have any idea how to ice/mixed climb, Neil had been up there two times before in summer but we didn't know what conditions would be like in November. i.e how much snow on broadway ledge and what the 4th class sections would be like.

I arrived in Colorado late October super psyched for a 7 mile walk in and a 3 days of suffering in the cold.............pause NOT!

After a week of mincing and some local craging.

We went up for a recon mission to test out the 10 dollar gloves and various other items that we acquired in the sports recycler.

We spent the night at around 11,500 ft and seemed to be warm enough. However upon venturing out from out sheltered bivi spot we got blasted by 50 + mph winds. It was grim, we went up to Chasm Lake which is a little under 13,000, the weather was terrible and we both agreed that we where definitely not nearly hard enough to climb in these conditions. So getting a good spell of weather would be vital for the real attempt.

(the recon mission......Brrrrrrrrr)

We retreated the 3 or so miles back to the trail head and began hitching back to Boulder. It was crazy how good the weather was at the trail head (9,500 ft) no wind at all, two thousand feet higher we couldn't see more than 10 meters and where almost blow off our feet.

The route we chose D-7 looked easy to aid at C1/+, it goes free at 11c (6c+ french) or around E4 6a, it was far to cold to free climb up there, all the ledges and parts of the cracks had snow in them. We figured that if we could get to the start of the route the actual climbing (if you can call it that) would be easy.

The route across Broadway to the bivi spot and then up D-7 (roughly)

Getting back to Boulder we began to wonder if maybe we had bitten off more than we could chew, for the first time in a while i felt nervous and slightly out of my depth. Aid climbing is a lot about strategy, how much food to bring, how much water, how many pitches are you going to climb every day. On El Cap i feel we have got it pretty wired, however climbing the Diamond was a whole new challenge. Just getting to the start of the route seemed to be the biggest hurdle.

Error 1: only bringing 1 walking axe, 4th class in snow = a butt load harder than without.

Error 2: Not knowing how to wield said walking axes.

Error 3: drinking a beer and watching the Real Rock Film Tour

(melting snow at the bivi spot on broardway)

The next week began with an excessive amount of mincing, a lot of time was spent deciphering and navigating the very complex area of weather forecasts. Our strategy chanced daily, Neil came up with retarded plans, i told him to go back to Darwin. The problem was it would be fuckin awesome to be on that wall chillin in the portaledge.....but that would mean taking the fucking thing up there, which would mean more water more food and hauling. Also it would add at least an extra day to the trip and that would increase the chance of the weather craping out. I for one did not fancy being up there in a major storm.

In the end we decided to sack off the ledge and go as light as possible.

BEEP BEEP, BEEP BEEP......i hate that noise, it means pain and suffering, it means the beginning of the unknown. The alarm shock me awake at 5am "urrrrrrr" 30min later after multiple presses of the snooze button we got up packed our sleeping bags into our already overflowing bags. 1 hour later after the usual amount of mincing and a massive coffee we stumbled outside and walked to the bus stop.

The bus dropped us off at the edge of Boulder. Thumbs out. We got to the trail head head at around 11am, there was a good 3inches on the ground which hadn't been there 2 weeks ago.
After a major 6 mile trudge gaining about 4,000 ft of elevation we found crap bivi spot. The wind as predicted began to pick up and blow spindrift straight into our bivi bags and faces............at that point i wondered what i was doing.

After a pretty poor nights sleep we dragged ourselves out of our warm bags at about 9am (yep i know, lazy......FUCK it was cold OK?)

There is 2 ways to get to the base of the Diamond.

1:To approach via Chasm Lake and up the North chimney (300 ft)
2: Ab in down Chasm view (right side of the diamond)

We chose to ab in as there no way we could climb the north chimney in winter with one walking axe. Neil went first as he had been down before in the summer. It took a while to find the first anchor as it was buried in a few feet of snow. Neil was unable to locate the 2nd anchor after searching for a good 30 min, it was well and truly buried. So he set one up that was......well shit basically. The rock on Broadway pictured above was not pretty terrible in terms of gear placement.

Anyway your probably getting bored of reading this by now so ill cut to the chase, we shat ourselves onto Broadway ledge, kicked out a platform and i lead across. The 4th class section ended up being OK, Neil basically swam up it, the snow was terrible and soft.

We got to the bivi cave and i fixed one pitch up some more 4th class to the start of the route. That pitch turned out to be a fuckin nightmare. No gear, rock coated in powder snow left the useless axe behind, OMG, it was like climbing E5 with crampons and gloves on, i fell i died, simple as. I sore, shouted, headbutted the rock and finally sucked it up and fixed the pitch.

That night was spent melting snow in the jet boil.

The next morning we where up early......ish.

After traversing the 4th class section to the beginning of the route Neil had first lead. He spent half the day leading the first pitch while i froze my average to small penis off. It was COOOOOLD the sun doesn't even touch a 1/4 of the whole wall in winter and it sure as shit didn't come anywhere near us. Big walling is a massive colossal nightmare, x10 and you have climbing the Diamond in winter. The one saving grace was we didn't have to haul.

(couple of pitches up)

There where no major epics in the hours that followed, the route follows a number of crack systems with a lot of really old pitons. Everything just took forever. When Neil got to the belays i would try and clean the pitch as quick as possible setting off jugging at light speed, only to collapse onto my daisy chains after 5 meters gasping for air.

At about 2pm the winded picked up and the temperature dropped even more.....if that where possible. I was wearing 2 base layers, my belay jacket, down jacket and my rain coat and was only just warm enough.

The wind brought in some cloud that swirled around in the valley below, it really was a magical place to be.

We got to the Table ledge (where a lot of routes finish) just after dark. There are five 150+ ft abseils back to broardway and the bivi bags, the belays on the route where natural with quite a bit of fixed tat, the ab stations where all double bolts. Although quite hard to find in the dark.


(At Chasm Lake, soooo much warmer down here)

The next morning we packed up and abed down the North chimney to the glacier below, then began trudge back to the trail head.

The next few day where spent eating donuts and drinking tea.

In conclusion:

• I found hard to believe was that we where the only people on the Diamond, which was mad as we had such a good spell of weather. If we had been in the UK it would have been packed up there.



• I still hate the cold