For the first time in my climbing career, I drove the five-plus hours to Yosemite Valley with the intention of NOT roping up, but bouldering. This goes against much of the tradly fibers in my hand-taped being, but I'm happy to say that I can finally commiserate with the punk-ass kids at the bouldering gym. In summary: the bouldering of Yosemite Valley is so superlatively good as to warrant a wholesale yard-sale of your cams.
Well, not really. I will never do that.
But Mary, Jake, and I had a blast pebble-wrestling on the warmish weekend of September 11th, and lest you think we forewent crack climbing altogether, we managed to find some exceptional solitary suffering on problems like Deliverance, a heinous roof finger-crack, and Cedar's Crack, an overhanging offwidth crack that offers quality harumph-ing for forty feet, then spits you off with a burly top-out. I snagged Cedar's Crack on my second go. Deliverance, however, is going to take multiple visits and a tolerance of pain that I have yet to obtain.
Contemplating the top-out (which you can't see) above me.
After a day of Valley activities (including negotiating swarms of late-summer tourists), we went back to Bass Lake and putzed around on the Lewis Creek boulders (equivalent of SB's Painted Cave in terms of convenience and concentration), then enjoyed the bro-tastic scene that is Bass Lake swimming. The Willow Creek waterslide was in good form:
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