A new perspective

After vis­it­ing the place many times over rough­ly a year and a half and climb­ing there for near­ly as long, the one thing that was miss­ing from my Bernal expe­ri­ence was actu­al­ly climb­ing up the whole damn thing. Well check that off my list in a most pleas­ant way. We picked one of the clas­sic and relaxed mul­ti-pitch routes up. It was 6 delight­ful pitch­es on a beau­ti­ful, but very hot Decem­ber day. The only unfor­tu­nate part is that I can’t call it an orig­i­nal Dawn Patrol/Local Crag Sun­day entry because Sarah and I nev­er climbed it togeth­er, as we should have before she left. Zero com­plaints about my cur­rent climb­ing part­ner. I love get­ting to laugh at him tak­ing a call at the anchor for pitch 4.

What a great day. So sat­is­fy­ing to final­ly say that I have climbed Bernal.

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Bor­ing pic of the first pitch

Just get­ting start­ed in the nice morn­ing light

Sec­ond pitch from the belay posi­tion

How I’ve missed mul­ti-pitch and get­ting to use all my gear.

A ven­dor on the (cough) path wait­ing for the crowds. Using the path. How gauche.

First small pano of the day

Some ear­ly morn­ing cer­e­mo­ny on the sacred mono­lith.

I for­get which pitch, but I had some time.

The real bird’s eye view

Slight­ly larg­er pano from mid-way.

Must be the third pitch

Hap­py at an anchor before it got way too hot.

Bor­ing pic of the fourth pitch

That’s right. Some­times you just have to take the call.

Fifth pitch

At the top

Very sat­is­fy­ing

Tee­ny tiny Bernal town

Rap­pelling all the way down.

We basi­cal­ly did the left side of the wall to the arete and up.

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