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Machete Ridge traverse (Old Original) 2008
Posted on Tuesday, March 11 @ 13:32:14 EDT by squishy |
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by A_requiem
The weather at Pinnacles National Monument over President's Day Weekend (Feb 16-18, 2008) was clear and dry and almost too warm in the sun; the nights were chilly, with frost in the morning and ice in the water bottles when we woke up on Sunday. Monday morning there was fog through the campsite until the sun rose over the ridge to chase it away. The climbing at Discovery Wall, the most popular climbing area at Pinnacles due to its proximity to parking and concentration of good routes with (relatively) solid rock, was a bit crowded but the local climbers were quite friendly and open with their beta. Machete Ridge was an adventure and a trial of our mountaineering skills: elusive, quiet, airy, and quick to turn dark and unforgiving. A short hike to the Overlook afforded us views of Hawkins Peak and the High Peaks, which we relished over lunch before heading home. Click Read More on the bottom for a complete and very detailed trip report.
Old Original Gallery
We arrived at Pinnacles around 8:30AM Saturday and filled out the courtesy paperwork at the closed store by the East entrance to the park. We found our campsite, very close to the trail into the park and the water and restrooms (site #77, loop C), pitched our tents, snacked, and made lunch. We racked our gear for Discovery Wall and hiked 2 miles in from the campsite along Bench Trail and Bear Gulch Trail, past 2 parking lots and the Tourist Trap climbing area to get there. A couple of climbers on the wall were kind enough to give us valuable beta on routes as well as advice on climbing at Pinnacles (as it was our first time climbing longer routes), leading, and racking gear. Plus, after hearing about my lack of experience, they let us use their top rope and anchor so I didn't have to climb for the first time in Pinnacles on lead. Unnamed local climbers, you guys are awesome for not letting us die and allowing me to mock lead trad on your rope. You also said that the Machete Ridge route we were planning for the next day was scary, which gave us a bit more perspective on it.
We headed back as the sun was going down in a mass exodus with the other climbers, most of whom were parked near the wall, and when we got back to the campsite we built a fire and Lewcifer made beef stroganoff on an ancient but functional multi-fuel two-burner Coleman for dinner, while a raccoon the size of a @#$%&^er spaniel scouted our campsite. After we went to bed, wandering coyotes called out in the night maybe 100 yards from where we slept. I was awoken briefly by a rustling near my tent, which was the scouting raccoon making off with my pack containing a forgotten ProBar.
The next day we woke with the sun to chase our adventure on Machete Ridge, but got a somewhat late start after eating and racking out. I found my pack across the road in a ditch, covered in frost, zippers opened by raccoon hands and everything possibly edible (including my tupperware pillcase) strewn around and chewed on. The ProBar wrapper was excavated and left for dead.
We drove to the Old Pinnacles Trailhead parking lot and hiked to Machete Ridge, along the creek and through the Balconies caves from there. The approach to the start of Old Original from the Pinnacles main trail was difficult, taking us in the wrong direction twice before finally placing us at the Derringer route (NOT Old Original) for pitch 0. I led the climbs, and squishy led the rappels. While waiting for my turn to rap down pitch 5, I noticed a growing squall of birds circling above pitches 3 and 4 making a lot of noise; while sticking myself in the rap rope on pitch 6 I dropped my ATC (belay/rappel device), and as I watched it bounce down the gully below, I yelled thanks to Squishy for his foresight in loaning his figure 8 to the last person to rappel (me). My ATC landed in the gully not far from Lewcifer, so I got it back with a few new dings, and more importantly didn't hit anyone below with it!
At this point we were losing daylight fast, and regretfully passed on climbing Middle Tower in favor of getting down before dark. All the rope management took a lot of time, as did the approach! We tied our two 60m ropes together and threaded them through the chained bolt anchor, and that's when the adventure began.
We rapped southeast down another gully from the bolts near Middle Tower and found ourselves with a lot less visibility. At this point Squishy noticed he lost his hiking shoes. We carefully descended the moist, grassy gully in quickly fading sunlight, and after slipping and falling on my keester twice on soft, steep, yielding ground I stopped and put on my hiking boots. At that point we needed headlights to see anything useful, and couldn't see where we needed to go on the route ahead of us. We came to a flat meadow at which point we threw caution to the wind, tying a rap ring to a small (4 in. diameter trunk) tree with 21 feet of brown webbing. Squishy clipped his prusiks to his harness, turned his headlamp to high and rappelled into the black void below, luckily to solid ground. We waited for some time after noisy night hikers drowned out Squishy's call of “off rappel,” and we called out to see if he was still alive. He yelled back at us to come on down. We rappeled to dirt and boulders, and with Lewcifer's sharp eyed scouting we found a use trail to the Balconies Caves' bouldery roof. Downclimbing those boulders to the cave floor was the greatest feeling of relief I had all day. We caved our way back to the trail and hiked the 2.6 miles back to camp (which Squishy did in thin-soled climbing shoes).
That night we ate steak fajitas with bourbon and cabernet and chocolates from Holland, and toasted our success on Old Original.
Our final morning brought in fog, spookifying our surroundings; we had breakfast, broke down camp and loaded the car. We drove to the park store and learned from the ranger there that some people on Machete Ridge the day before had disturbed a bunch of raptors. We saw no raptors on or above Machete until we rapped down pitch 5, and I had been checking the Raptor Advisory every day until we left for Pinnacles Saturday, which said Machete Ridge was ok for climbing. After buying Young's 2007 climbing guide to Pinnacles and a brief history of Tiburcio Vasquez, a successful 19th century bandito who had a hideout in Pinnacles Nat'l Monument, we drove to the Bear Gulch visitor center and spoke with the rangers there, who said the local raptor biologist was getting ready to update the raptor advisory. According to Friends of Pinnacles, their current listing of sensitive raptor nesting areas lists Machete Ridge as closed as of 2/24/2008.
From the visitor center we strolled a mile up to the Overlook for some nice views of Hawkins Peak (2720 ft) and the High Peaks, had some lunch, and did some light bouldering. Then we bid farewell to Pinnacles and started back for home.
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Article Rating
Average Score: 5
Votes: 5
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