The Needles

After suffering various flight delays, and difficulties in us communicating, Katy and Ryan picked me up from LAX, where they had landed several hours previously. Sure, they initially drove off without me, thinking I was in Pete, vicky and Paul's car, but they promptly turned around on discovering that I had been temporarily abandoned. I had the pleasure of meeting Adam 8c Jee in the car also, a fellow mental health nurse who I had heard about but never met.
After a nocturnal shift behind the wheel, Ryan delivered us to the wild camping spot for the needles. Jet lagged and sleep deprived, the other 3 occupants of the car collapsed into a 16 hour slumber.
Jee was keen to climb with me the following day. We started with the 2 pitch classic Thin Ice (5.10b). This went smoothly, Jee even seemed to enjoy the odd jam, but avoided the thrutchy b-chimney using sport climbers laybacking and knee bars.
The next route, the Don Juan Wall (5.11b), features 5 pitches of crack climbing. Jee cope well with this, but after pitch 3 he was overtly nearing his capacity for adventure trad multipitching.
The next pitch was given the easiest grade, but conversely came close to spitting me off twice, only succumbing to an exciting swing way out left to a laybacking flake. Despite his obvious discomfort, Jee cope well with this pitch too, but shortly after I topped out, things began to go awry.
Due to a double roof and insufficient extending of my runners, the rope became jammed at the first roof. To make things more exciting, at this point the sun decided to race for the horizon. I abseiled down to free the rope, and belated Jee from an intermediate relay below the second roof. I re-lead tuition top out again. The rope re-jammed, this time at the second roof. I re-ab'd. When Jee joined me on the pre-summit ledgethe rope chose to snake into a crevice and wedge itself again. Impervious to any amount of pulling, and with darkness encroaching and two abseils ahead of us to descend, I opted to down-solo tion free this third jam. This required a moment of panic and a mighty heave for success, with visions of us being trapped on top filling my imagination.
We avoided any mistakes while descending and touched down in the post dusk gloom. Our lack of headtorches (punter error!) Made the complex scramble back to the trail more stressful than it needed to be, but the moon kindly illuminated the 2.5 mile walk back to our tents.
The latter part of the experience had obviously been emotional for Jee, and I felt bad for having dragged him through it. Nonetheless I was impressed by his resilience and determination, especially while navigating the complex scree and talus using the light from his phone.
Despite my years off narrowly escaping benighted, this certainly pushed me pretty far.
My impression of the adventurous nature of climbing at the needles was reinforced the following day. Perhaps I should have heeded greater warning from the gothic names of the formations: the magician, the sorcerer, and the warlock, duo not indicate amenable days out!
Pete and I climbed love potion #9, 5.10a, an exciting but steady route up run out slabs on scoop, chicken heads and knobs. To descend, the topography showed a bolt belay to aim for, from where we could ab again to the floor. I did a 50m ab, but no belay materialized, only ancient single bolts. I spotted an alternative belay, down to the right, and decided to take a gamble that the ropes would reach.
I ran out of rope with the bolts by my feet. Without other preferable options, I undid the knot in the end of the rope, clipped into the belay,and abseiled off the end of the rope. I actually abseiled off the end of the rope! Obviously I only did this as it was adequately controlled, but the ludicrous idea of it all made my giggle, in that way that getting away with silly risks often does.
That was all the climbing I did at the needles. I can see why its a backwater, even amongst the yanks. The combination of wild camping in a forest clearing without any supply of water, unreliable topos, exhausting approaches, long rougtes, tough jamming cracks and solitude appears to repel more people than it attracts.

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Sat on the coach to Heathrow, it struck me that I hadn't felt so nervous since I took my driving test, ten years ago to the month. It took me some time to identify the source of this anxiety. Sure, I was worried about finding someone to climb with, staying injury free, coping with loneliness, having enough money, and turning out of LAX onto an 8 lane highway in an automatic, but even the sum of these did not explain how I was feeling. More than these, for the next 9 months I am a full-time climber. I have no job and no fixed abode.
Obviously the best solution for this upheaval is to actually go climbing. I headed to yosemite and befriended David in camp 4. David is a softly spoken physicist from Seattle. Reserved, intelligent and astute, he also makes these mini-shrieks when he's trying hard, acting as a cue to increase encouragement.
Climbing with David, it soon became clear that I am Shit on granite.I have a lot to learn. I pull too hard with my arms, but if I put any more weight through my feet, they start to creep on the slick edges. In spite of this difficulty, climbs were climbed and progress was made.
This progress culminated in one of the best days cragging I've ever had. The cookie cliff: we started with waverly wafer (5.11a), hard because of a traditional wide section followed by some laybacking, which leaves you at a ledge from which two of the best pitches I've ever done depart. First we did butter balls (5.11c). David slayed a seasons-long project in doing this splinter finger crack, which I also just scraped up. Next up was wheat thin. If this flake-line was made from anything but the soundest granite it would have already crumbled to pieces, its just so thin. Laybacking this provides strenuous and exhilarating fun, just remember to pull gently!
We finished with another finger-crack, butter balls (5.11a), and the British style crack-a-go-go (5.11c), before the rain stopped play.
Pleasure in climbing manifests from many things, but classic routes, the feeling of progress and new friends is a sublime combination.
I'm meeting Katy and Ryan off their flight to LAX tmrw. I don't know where we're going yet, maybe tuolumne and the high sierra before they're too cold, or to the needles, which every American I've asked speaks so highly of, yet no one seems to have been there.