EISPIRATEN

Marc and I headed up here to go check out the headwall some more. We were pleased. Icehouse parking lot was CROWDED. Loads of people here today. We walked past an older couple, a White male with an Asian female. He asked if we were climbing, and we both said yes. He said "OK don't talk to me". I guess he didn't hear us. It's a bit hard to talk when you're moving up the trail with alotta weight at a high speed.

We met Christopher Brennen and his wife, Barbara! Very cool! He led us to a better approach to the headwall, instead of crossing the creek and whatnot.

Heading up:


Marc


What kinda flower?



Looking at the headwall




Good spot for a break.


Yo Soy El Army, yours truly.


Marc moving up

Did a couple of routes. The latter was just up the split up Sheep Canyon's Headwall, which went in steps. We only got about three pitches up, and I reckon one could rate it around 5.7ish, though it's not too hard. Protection was rather easy to come by, and one could thread runners around chockstones. It got loose further up, where I couldn't set a decent (any) belay anchor to bring Marc up, so I bailed off a sling. Pro got worse higher up, though I did get one extremely shallow #1 nut to hold very well. Very uni-directional.


Setting up belay station






On the route


Marc rapping off the route



Ze #1 nut

Rapped off some natural anchors and headed home.

The best part of the trip was "Optical Illusion", which we feel is about 5.8 R/X. Looks cool when you walk up, easy when you reach it, and rather horrifying when you climb it. I sent it to the crux, and was only able to get a half-assed #6 or so hex to hold. Everything else blew. I couldn't get up the crux, so after much of nothing, I very carefully downclimbed and had Marc send it. He passed the crux, and was able to set a bomber #2 Tricam(love these things) at the top fo the pitch. He rapped/downclimbed the pitch, with the #6 hex coming out easily upon cleaning on his way down. If anyone is on this headwall, and finds themselves on this route for whatever damn reason, that #2 is yours! Says Taco on it.


Marc moving to set up belay station for "Optical Illusion"


Myseff




"Having fun"



Route from below. Follow the purple rope up. 1 pitch.


Post-route


Ooh, auto-locking Petzl Freino (for use with GriGri)


Looking around

We then headed home. Easy hike down, some class 4 scrambling, which would be fun if I didn't have an 50lb rucksack. (This made things harder) Dumped most of the excess so it was light on the way down.







Marc on the unfriendly rappel below "Optical Illusion". Bigass chockstones meant you rapped into a cave... not cool.


Pretty picture


Shot before I rapp down



Looking back at what we did today.


We ran the last mile out of the canyon to the car, stopping a few times for the rocks, and because I was getting tired.

We had a great day. While we didn't reach the highest of any one point, we had fun (which is why we went in the first place). We walked through some plants that sting like crazy on mutliple occasions. My leg is still "humming" from it.

TacoDelRio wrote:We met Christopher Brennen and his wife, Barbara! Very cool! He led us to a better approach to the headwall, instead of crossing the creek and whatnot.

FTW!!!

Too cool. Amazing stuff. Thx for the pix.

Cool deal...thats where I was hoping you guys would go. One of the photos is about 10ft below the 2nd stage rappel station.

PFC (Pretty Freakin' Cool) to meet Christopher Brennan. Great write ups on his site.

Too bad I wasn't there. I could have asked him about one of the greatest San Gabriel Mtns related mysteries of all time. Which mystery is that? Why, "what does 'Dankat' stand for?" of course.

So, about how old is he anyway? Must be a heckuva climba. Whenever he describes something as "easy class three," I know I'll be gettin' a work out.

Thanks HikeUp!

AW, we came across multiple lengths of webbing, one tan which we rapped off after fixing it (had been split by rockfall). A large green one as well, which looked like backpack webbing.

Jim, he looked about 55-65 or so. Christopher, I apologise if I get this wrong. 8)

Route page is up: http://www.summitpost.org/route/416380/ ... 8-R-X.html

The mention of Christopher Brennan inspired me to dig out an old piece he wrote about one of his adventures. By coincidence, the newspaper article he mentioned at the end said he was 48 in 1989. Of course the newspaper story got his location wrong, so who really knows?

Outstanding Ryan. You guys know how to adventure. Great pics.

Thanks Augie.

I told Christopher to check zees site out...

AlanK wrote:The mention of Christopher Brennan inspired me to dig out an old piece he wrote about one of his adventures. By coincidence, the newspaper article he mentioned at the end said he was 48 in 1989. Of course the newspaper story got his location wrong, so who really knows?

Then he'd be about 67. Good for him! That's my goal (a goal fast approaching!) to still be out hiking when (God willing) I retire. Only 22 more years, but who's counting?

Interesting story that you linked to, Alan. He went through what I think could count as the "classic" Southern California SAR incident: getting caught out after dark. Interesting to see how he reacted and how useful that one small item was (the lighter) in the hands of someone who reacted well. Based on my experience, that was a very honest comment, that bit about how hard it was for him to stop and not press on in the dark.

Great report! I gotta try climbing someday.

Thanks Mike. You're welcome to come along with us one of these days.

Vijja

I was looking at that nut placement picture and debating if I should call "sketchy place bro" on the forum moderator, but I noticed in the text that you knew that.

Looks like a real adventure!

Well... that was actually one of the BEST placements that day. Unidirectional... was intended to be part of a belay anchor, bringing my buddy up.