On the fourth of July, we realized that Bennett and Gwyenn were both off of work for the holiday, so we decided to see if they wanted to go climbing with us. They did and we decided to head up to Holcomb Valley Pinnacles. Amy already had some plans for that afternoon and evening, so we didn't have a ton of time, and Bennett and Gwyenn wanted to check out Lost Orbit Rock, so we decided to head there.
Amy and I made it up to Holcomb Valley before Bennett and Gwyenn, so we decided to do a quick route on Parking Lot Rock while we waited for them. The route was a 5.6 called "Nice Cleavage". I ran up the route quickly, then Bennett and Gwyenn showed up while Amy was getting ready to TR the route, so she ran up and cleaned the route, then we headed over to Lost Orbit Rock.
When Amy and I had gone to Lost Orbit Rock the week before, we had stayed on the east face, so we decided to change things up and start out on the west face. Both Bennett and I were in the mood for some trad climbing, so we decided to start out with a 5.7 crack called "Bear's Choice". I lead the route onsight, then I belayed both Amy and Gwyenn from the top. Bennett wanted to lead the route, so I walked off and belayed Bennett while he climbed the route. When he got to the top we realized that someone needed to second the route to clean it, so I ran up it again on TR then Bennett and I both walked off.
For our next route I just looked for something that looked fun and ended up choosing a 5.10c called "Ursa Major". Ursa Major was a pretty fun route that had the crux pretty much right off the ground. Bennett took the lead and did pretty good. He fell off a couple of times before figuring out the crux moves, but he got them eventually and didn't have any more trouble with the route. After Bennett finished I gave it a go and ended up getting the redpoint without any problems. Once I got down, Amy and Gwyenn took turns belaying each other while Bennett and I moved one route over to a 5.8 called "Benevolent Bruin"
Benevolent Bruin pretty much felt like an easier version of Ursa Major, but it was fun nonetheless. I onsighted the route, then Bennett redpointed the route, then the girls took turns TRing it. Just as the girls were finishing the route it started raining on us, so we took cover under a rock to try and wait out the storm. Once we thought the storm was dying off Bennett and I headed around to the east face of the rock to give Lost Orbit a go, but just as we got over to the route it started raining hard again. We hung out with a couple of other people who were waiting under an overhang for the rain to stop, but it didn't seem to want to stop. Eventually the rain died down a bit, so I decided to just climb the route in the rain since I wanted to do it.
I didn't really have any problems with the route, but I think the crux was a bit harder than 5.10b since I couldn't use my wet shoes on the wet rock at all. I ended up just campusing through the first few moves to get to the first bolt, then after that it was nice and easy to the top.
I guess no one else in our group is a crazy as I am because no one else wanted to climb the route in the rain, so we just packed up and headed out. It ended up being almost perfect timing getting to the 4th of July party that Amy had planned, so it was probably good that the rain forced us to leave. Unfortunately, we didn't take any pictures on this trip, so sorry about the boring post.
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