Old Original Trip Report

Andrew and Avery planned our first climb for 2021 to be Old Original on Machete Ridge on the west side of Pinnacles. Andrew checked the weather to make sure that the rock would be dry for our first climb of the year.

We started out from the parking lot at 10am. Andrew made Morgan a rope backpack and ran circles around him to secure it.

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Approach

From the parking lot, we navigated to the base of Machete Ridge with no issues.

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On our way up to the start, we passed by the Bad Man Mezzanine where we climbed Corona two years ago. We followed guidance from Mountain Project and went much farther around Machete Ridge than we were anticipating. Eventually, we ended up at this tree and headed up the rock to the left.

Pitch 1

Morgan spotted the bolts for pitch 1. Avery and Morgan roped up first and started the climb. The climb went up and to the left. Avery couldn’t find bolt 2, but eventually found the anchors after wandering around on the ledge. Andrew suggested skipping the anchors since it was so short, but Avery didn’t extend her first draw, so there was too much rope drag to go over the ledge and onto pitch 2.

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Pitch 2

Pitch 2 was a short, but exposed jaunt down the top of the ridge. Avery walked down the ridge like it was a tightrope. Morgan practically ran down. Andrew scooted on his butt. Andrew caught up to Avery and Morgan who were waiting before they started pitch 3.

Pitch 3

Pitch 3 started with a unsettling drop down from the anchors to traverse a skinny ledge with a rock bulging out on top. The rest was another descending traverse with a short 5 ft climb up to a meadow. Avery and Morgan made themselves long rope leashes and explored the peaks while waiting for Andrew and Karissa to catch up.

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Pitch 4

Pitch 4 was a very straightforward down hill traverse that took up almost the entire 70 m rope. Avery clipped one bolt and thought she saw another – but then couldn’t find it when she got closer. Despite looking VERY carefully for bolts, Andrew didn’t find any of them and did the entire pitch without clipping bolts.

Pitch 5

After some scheming, Andrew determined that he and Avery would go down the rappels first to setup. Avery went first and untangled the ropes on the way down. It took forever.

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A proposal!

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She said Yes!

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Pitch 6

For pitch 6, Avery set a belayer’s anchor at the bottom (black and yellow metolius mastercams). Then she climbed up into the U notch and clipped into the bolt at the top of the down climb. After down climbing a few feet, she realized that if Morgan cleaned the alpine draw, he would be totally unprotected. She called over to the group that she wanted Morgan to leave the draw and Avery would lower him. After making it to the anchors, Avery had enough rope (70m) to lower Morgan into the meadow where he untied, pulled the rope, and then tied back in for the rest of the pitch. Andrew and Karissa fed their rope directly through the rap ring on the bolt.

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The Descent

Morgan rapped off Machete Ridge into the upper gully and down climbed all the way to the meadow. Avery did 2 rappels at Morgan’s suggestion (he suggested 3, but Avery didn’t see the last set of rappel rings). Andrew and Karissa rapped all 3 stations. Both groups roped up for the traverse to the lower gully.

Morgan made it down to the balconies trail first and reported back that the gate through the caves was LOCKED! Luckily, he had downloaded the map while we had service and saw that we could still take the Upper Balconies Trail to get back to the parking lot.

It was dark by the time we all made it to the cars. (6pm) Andrew and Karissa rescued a group of hikers that hiked from the east side and didn’t think they could make it back to their car in the dark.

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