| Summary | |
| Owner | MITOC Gallery Administrator |
| Creation Date | 2006-05-29 17:55:31 UTC-0400 |
| Description | Lakeview 5.6 III
5.28.06 Steve Block, Christiaan Adams, Polly Anikeeva, Dan Walker Well, here we were again. Memorial day weekend and needing a fix. Saturday night we roll up to Camelot land. Holy crap there are a lot of people in the parking lot. I sure hope its not an exclusive rental. The gang heads inside while I decide to enjoy the nice weather outside. Having failed to bring a sleeping bag or any bonus clothes, I grab a pair of trashbags. No not the really big ones you can actually use as a bivy sack. I'm talking kitchen size. I stick my curled up legs in one, slit the other one open and wrap that up, then stick my head in my duffel bag. fortunately I brought my camelback/inflatable pillow. Such comfort! I manage to get in some sleep here and there, until it gets light at 4:30. Well, onto the good stuff. We head up to Cannon via D+D (where Steve partakes in an apparently much needed shave). We sign in at the register and head up the trail. A nice path through the forest up to the talus slope. Then its rock hopping to the base of the cliffs. Whoa! its 80F out. fortunately there is still some snow over on the other side of I93 - perfect for some mixed climbing (a.k.a. mix a bad idea and equally bad judgement). Anyway, we find the base-ish of the climb. Some moderate stuff. Steve likes a route a bit to the right, but I like a route a bit to the left. So we both head up. Steve gets up to a belay-ish ledge, while I am below on what is actually the belay ledge (in retrospect). I bring Christiaan up, who decides he's not feeling it, so he rolls down for some hiking. Then Polly and I head up to Steve's ledge. well at least its cozy... Steve leads up the second pitch, a giant diagonal crack to a belay at a pin. Steve and I decide to block out leads, so he takes the next pitch through a grass-filled finger crack, some runout slabs with a few tricky moves, then up a ramp with quality foliage. Next pitch is an easy traverse on a trail, so Steve heads up above for some more interesting terrain. Belay is supposed to be at a wide dirt ledge, but most of it washed out, removing most of the wide and most of the dirt. He then heads up through some ledges, but we're not sure the best route through the stuff. well, we pick wrong and head up through some moderate stuff, but they are dirt-covered and runout with a capital R. Steve makes it to the headwall, but the rope is stuck! a bit of rap-fixing and everything is good. I take the next bit on a traverse/walk at the top of the dirt to the base of some climable terrain. We have a dihedral/dike on the right, and something slabbier around on the left. Even though the left route had a super-nice grassy belay ledge, I head up the right route. Its some nice vertical climbing with decent pro. Up to a ledge under some overhang. Well, we figure the overhang is not happening, and straight up is mildly overhanging and rotten. So I traverse around to some features. Then up a neato, possibly falling-off flake with a dyno and up a maze of short hand cracks to a super-awesome belay seat. Seemed a bit dicy for the grade, but the pro was abundant and mostly solid. Steve scores a prussik loop on the way up. sketchy. Then I finish it off up a slab and to the archival flake. I already knew it wasn't gonna be elegant, so I squirmed up, just barely not getting my fat thigh permanently stuck. Then up a dihedral with the worst rope drag ever. (a 120deg bend followed by a 90deg bend - doh!) Steve tries some fancy face work on the flake, but almost bites it. Polly can pratically chimney the flake, so she just hooks a leg and rides it up. Woohoo. we're up. time to drink some much appreciated water. we check out the weirdness that is holding the leftovers of the NH's favoite old man. then a jog up to see if we're near the top of cannon. nope. then down the trail to the lake. its a bit to shallow on the north end for swimming, so we cool off the feet and roll to the car. Echo lake sez no swimming, so we head back down to the cannon parking lot, sign out, then go for a quick dip. chilly! -dw p.s. after looking at the chauvin site and some old trip reports, I'm pretty sure we either took a more exciting route, or the old route fell off. |