Trip Reports

• Summer School: John, Sid, Ian, Elizabeth, Anne, Kara, Connor, and Jim, 8/08
  The grandchildren spent an educational week engaged in age appropriate enrichment activities. more...

• A Triple Play: Erika, John, Sid, Ian, Elizabeth, Kara, and Jim, 7/08
  Spent a glorious week in Yosemite -- albeit on three separate trips. As a gentleman of a certain age I can assure you three times in a week takes stamina. more...

• Snake Dike /w the kids: John, Sid, Ian, Elizabeth, Kara, and Jim, 6/8/08
  

• Learning the Ropes: Lenny Ferreira, Erika Monahan & Jim, 5/08
  One might reasonably assume that these kiss and tell trip reports would have a 'dampening' effect on my willing partner pool. True enough. But those few, undeterred, indomitable spirits, whose only take home lesson from such is that to climb the Valley's biggest you simply need to not wear your climbing shoe on your back, do make for some rather entertaining partners. more...

• The Long Road Back: Greg Murphy & Jim, 2/08
  In his seminal narrative "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat", Sack provocatively probes the depths of the human mind, if not the human condition itself. And yet it is eclipsed by the complete neurologically meltdown captured in his mind numbing sequel "The Man Who Mistook His Climbing Partner for An El Cap Vet." more...

• Valley Tots: Kara, Connor, Nicole, & Paris, 7/05
  While Piaget's four primary cognitive structures of child development have been rehashed ad nauseam in the literature, it is his little known fifth cognitive stage -- Valley granite -- that is certainly the most critical to early childhood development. Thus while it may seem unconscionable that we've waited six long years to introduce Kara to Yosemite climbing, it was vital that we not rush this crucial stage of her development. more...

• Robbed: Rob Moellering & Jim, 9/04
  It is highly unusual for a climbing partner to request, in this case plead, for anonymity in the weekly trip report. But then Rob Moellering is a highly unusual man. more...

• A Cold Nose: Greg Murphy & Jim, 1/02
  Darwin's mistake was in extrapolating from the complex finch to El Cap simpletons. Had he been a quiet observer in El Cap Meadows Sunday morning -- forecast high of 43 -- he would have had to concede that the Kansas Board of Education had a point. more...

• A Fast Nose + Salathe Headwall: Hans Florine & Jim, 10/01
  Coalition building makes for some strange bedfellows indeed. While our goals were wildly disparate our ultimate objectives were remarkably similar: to land on top of El Capitan early in the day. more...

• Lurking Fear + West Face linkup: Chandlee Harrell & Greg Murphy, 6/01
  Last weekend, Chan Harrell and I became the least fit team ever to link two El Capitan routes in one day. Lack of any real climbing or aerobic fitness was a significant factor contributing to our success. more...

• Realm of the Flying Monkeys: Chandlee Harrell & Greg Murphy, 9/00
  Oh ya, Chan and I headed back up to climb an El Cap route together. I guess it took 2 years for the memory of our parched experience on Horse Chute to fade. The usual late Friday night departure started us off. The conversation on the drive up, usually concerning the gear, route, etc., took an unexpected new turn - we discussed cribs, basinets, baby clothes, the advantages of cloth vs. paper diapers, etc. Apparently, Chan is taking his pending fatherhood a little more seriously than anyone would have thought. more...

• Black Smith Peak: Chandlee Harrell & Jim, 7/00
  Last week Michael Johnson's hamstring gave way in the 200M Olympic qualifiers. Similarly Jim's back crumbled while picking up a bag of cement at Home Depot. more...

• Angel Wings: Chandlee Harrell & Peter Coward, 8/00
  On August 12, a mere three weeks after swearing off marathon approaches, I found myself stumbling back to the car after another long day in the backcountry. Chan Harrell and I had just climbed the South Arete Direct on Angel Wings in Sequoia National Park, and, hungry and dehydrated as usual, we were hoping to end our little adventure as soon as possible. more...

• Edge Of Time Arete, The Cidadel: Peter Coward & Greg Murphy, 7/00
  On Saturday, Peter Coward and I climbed the "Edge of Time Arete", IV, 5.10 on The Citadal in the High Sierra. The most noteworthy aspect of this climb is its 16 mile approach, which unfortunately translates to a 16 mile hike back to the car once you've completed the climb. more...

• Astro-Hulk: Peter Coward & Greg Murphy, 7/00
  We've decided that using the whole weekend to get in a long climb is extravagant, self indulgent, and just isn't necessary. With a little more focus, motivation, and efficiency, most climbing objectives can be completed on Saturday, leaving all of Sunday to do house projects, laundry, shop for groceries, take care of the kids, etc. "In a day" now means leaving the house on Friday night and returning Saturday night. more...

• Rostrum+Astroman linkup: Chandlee Harrell & Peter Coward, 6/00
  Caught in a rut? Perhaps, but once again, Chan Harrell and I met in the parking lot of the Pleasanton Hilton, and together endured another Friday night drive up to Valley. more...

• A Hungry Nose: Greg Murphy & Jim, 5/00
  Did I mention Jim Herson forgot all his food on our Sunday climb of the Nose route? AND, he later confessed that the Nose is a much better route than the Salathe, even though he has spent most of the last four years of his life on the latter. more...

• Indian Creek, 2000: Greg Murphy & Jim, 3/00
  Jim Herson's phone calls were becoming increasingly frantic and desperate. I felt like I was working for a suicide prevention hotline. Jim needed a crack climbing fix to bring him back in from the window ledge and he needed it immediately. more...

• Crack of Doom: Chandlee Harrell & Greg Murphy, 10/99
  Chandlee Harrell and I stepped back into Yosemite free climbing history and climbed the appropriately-named "Crack of Doom" two weekends ago. When it was first freed by Chuck Pratt in 1961 it was something of a physical and psychological breakthrough. 38 years of improved gear, better technique, and climbing progress have not tamed this route one iota. more...

• Crack of Despair: Peter Coward & Greg Murphy, 10/01
  I am humbly honored that Greg, being totally incapacitated and whipped from his weekend flailfest, has asked me to step in and carry on the sacred tradition of the weekend Trip Report. The art of trip reporting is to capture the courage and vision that enables the human spirit to triumph over adversity. Thus this will be a very tiny trip report. more...

• Tis-sa-ack: Peter Coward, Chandlee Harrell & Greg Murphy, 8/99
  Another weekend update coming your way. This time around we somehow managed to drive past El Capitan and find our way to the other big stone in Yosemite Valley, Half Dome. more...

• An Embarrassing Half Dome: Hans Florine & Jim, 9/99
  Well, we were planning to do the RNWF on Half Dome and then go for some fun free climbing on the Zebra apres. more...

• A Fast Half Dome: Hans Florine & Jim, 10/99
  Climbing with Hans Florine is not unlike touring the Louvre in a bullet train. It is not the alpine, solitary, contemplative retreat you might expect. Nor is it the spiritual growth big wallers painstakingly undergo as doubt, fear, and self pity give way to confidence, courage, and self pity. No, climbing with Hans is to flaunt contempt for the length, difficulty, and historic significance of the Valley's tallest. Gosh, is it fun! more...

• Grotto/Triple Direct: Jeff Schoen, Jimmy Thornburg, and Anne / Peter Coward & Jim, 1/01
  For the first time since Kara was born two years ago, Anne and I had a climbing weekend to ourselves -- albeit separate days. more...

• Direct North Face Of Sentinal: Jeff Schoen & Jim, 6/97

• Thailand: Anne & Jim, 1/96

• Ego on Steroids: Tom Herbert, 9/95
  My 2nd ugliest climbing moment

• Tuolumne Summer '95: Anne & Jim, 8/95
  To minimize impact on important internet traffic, like Dilbert, and to cut our weary readers a break we've consolidated our summer's trip reports. This was achieved by confining our summer's flailing to three climbs. The same three with the same high points week after week after week.... Lest you think we've fallen into a rut the weekends were easily distinguished by Sat night's tasty pasta toppings: more...

• West Face: Anne & Jim, 6/94

• Cruxified: Anne & Jim, 5/94

• A humiliating Salathe: Peter Coward & Jim, 6/99
  I was totally dissed on my home turf! more...

• A Salathe + Nose Linkup: Chandlee Harrell & Jim, 7/99
  As a special wedding present to Jess I decided to introduce Chan, the man who always gets his way, to the concept of compromise. After back-to-back nerve wrecking weekends of buying bay area real estate (OUCH!) I was in desperate need of some R&R on the big stone. Chan, always eager to take advantage of my emotional vulnerability, insisted we climb the Nose. Any reprieve from the bay area housing market madness was fine with me. I was totally open to any climbing suggestion as long as it was the Salathe. So we compromised. We climbed both. more...

• A Half a Linkup: Greg Murphy & Hans Florine, 7/99
  I was starting to get a little frantic last Thursday with my only weekend off this month just 2 days away. Hans Florine and I had some vague agreement to climb together but no concrete plan was in place. Hans and I finally broke through the electronic barrier and actually talked to each other Thursday night. We adopted the Jim Herson approach to route selection - we were up for any climb as long as it was the Salathe on El Capitan. more...

• A Fast Salathe: Chandlee Harrell & Jim, 7/99
  Route selection as of late has not been all that mentally taxing. But this week was just too easy and fun. With no self-control when it comes to tweaking Greggie, Chan and I headed back to the Yosemite race track to smoke Greg and Hans' rather pokey time on the Salathe. more...

• An Expensive Salathe: Greg Murphy, Konstantin Zlatev & Jim, 6/01
  My resolve for a more rigorous partner screening notwithstanding -- they need a pulse -- I let Greg belay me last weekend. This monumental lapse of judgment... more...

• A Scary Salathe: Derek Powell & Jim, 7/01
  The Valley as viewed dangling upside down 20' below your partner and 2500' off the deck has an altogether different feel about it. To gain this prospective I simply zippered the last Headwall pitch landing with a full fall factor of two onto Derek's arm and leg. How Derek placed himself in harms way is a sad story involving an unseasonably cool weather forecast. more...

• A heartbreak Salathe: Chad Nichols & Jim, 7/01
  Isaac Newton in creating the mathematical discipline of calculus noted that by continuously halfing the distance to a goal you never actually achieve it. Isaac must have been working the Salathe. But at least Isaac salvaged something somewhat useful out of his flail fest. I've yet to see any good come of mine! more...

• Salathe + Half Dome linkup: Peter Coward & Jim, 6/01
  As they say you just don't want to know how sausages, laws, and climbing plans are made. Our co-opted democratic system requires dopey pet projects to be funded by tossing pork at the other guy's dopey pet projects. Unfettered by fiscal reality this system has worked just dandy and has given us such elegant documents as the US tax code among other gems. Climbing plans, on the other hand, are much more intricate. But the general principle of negotiating something utterly worthless and irrational by agreeing to something even sillier, while unconstrained by actual fitness, still applies. Thus Peteman and I did a Salathe/Half Dome link-up. more...

• A Cold, Wet Salathe: Chandlee Harrell & Jim, 5/02
  As Valley ancients Chandlee Harrell and I have seen it all. Or so we thought. We'd like to think we're not an easy bunch to rattle and yet we were somewhat taken back this weekend to find the Salathe's famed Hollow Flake is now the newest Valley clip-up. more...

• A Committing Salathe: Anne & Jim, 10/01
  While it's never a good idea to mix climbers with respectable friends and family this week's trip report warrants an exception. No offense intended to the latter. more...

• Salathe '03: Peter Coward, Derek Powell, Bill Wright, Greg Murphy, Deb Wolfe & Jim, Spring '03
  Theory suggests that a million monkeys furiously pounding at their keyboards will eventual produce the complete works of Shakespeare. Bolstered by these odds I returned to the Salathe. more...

• The Free Salathe: Hans Florine and Jim, 7/03
  If this was some interminable Tolstoy drival I'd have to wax ad nauseum on the agony of the unattainable. And then once the airhead aristocrat finally takes note of our sniveling little heroine, I'd have to wallow in self-pity on the disappointment of the mundane. But this isn't and unlike love, rock never disappoints. While indeed the fun was in the chase, actually redpointing the Free Salathe wasn't, in fact, all that unpleasant. more...