Temple Crag — Venusian Blind Arete
17 July 2017
In what I am very pleased is starting to look like an annual tradition, Erik and I completed another fine climb in the High Sierra. (Last year it was the East Buttress on Mt Whitney.) Once again Erik led all the pitches, and I followed along for the ride. We had entertained the idea of pushing on to Mt Gayley and Mt Sill’s Swiss Arete, and with this long day in the back of our minds, we raced up the Venusian Blind.
I observed the key strategy to bull-rushing a Grade IV alpine route in half a day: place very little gear on lead, and build the anchors quickly. Erik exhibited a mastery of both these objectives. Often the gear was placed to prevent the rope from running over sharp edges, and in a straighter line to reduce drag, thereby extending the pitches. I forget how many pitches it took us exactly, maybe eight or nine — I don’t have the mind for such details while absorbing the esoteric movements and rhythms of the climb.
A variety of internet climber-posters have noted loose rock on the route:
“While VBA had excellent rock throughout (loose for crag-standards, but very clean for alpine standards), I admit that the last few pitches require some care. Chris & I reached pitch 13, we heard Jon & Thomas shouting “Rock! Rock! Rock!”
We watched as a watermelon-sized rock bounced off the arete and sailed through the air. And it kept sailing . . . and sailing . . . and sailing . . . and finally landed with a boom in the couloir below, ricocheting off the walls and sending down a whole cascade of rocks, sweeping down the garbage chute.
This really added some salience to just how steep, exposed, and high the aretes were from the neighboring gullies!”
–PellucidWombat, on Supertopo
And:
“Venusian Blind is another of the great, adventurous arete climbs on Temple Crag. Depending on your climbing tastes and personal experience on the route, this may be a dream climb or a nervous adventure bordering on epic. For my wife and I, it was a little of both as a 3 foot square block she was standing on ripped off the wall while leading the first roped pitch, nearly bringing a quick demise to both of us.”
–Michael Schneiter, on MountainProject
I got the distinct impression that at one time in the not so distant past, this route would have been littered with loose rock. However, my hypothesis goes like this: as climbers have ripped more and more loose rock off the route, it has cleaned up pretty gosh darn well, especially given the alpine setting. I wasn’t ever surprised by loose rock all day, and the cruxy steps up and down the ridge were clean, fresh, and carried exhilarating exposure! I think Erik’s impeccable navigation had something to do with the consistently solid rock we encountered en route.
The last few pitches traversed a flattening ridgeline and things turned more blocky and exposed. Let’s just say there is much ‘interesting’ downclimbing available to the intrepid follower. Maybe once or twice I called out to Erik,
‘Hey how did you do this?’
‘Just reach down, Jeff, it’s only third class, no problem, you can do it!’
‘Okay…just give me a sec here…hyah, [grunting] oh yah, OK, I see it now, phew well that was interesting…that would have been quite a fall…’ talking to myself…
One time at a sweet little notch gap in the ridge, I swung one of my legs over, but then reached down to grab the opposite side with my hands as well, for additional balance of course. However this put my body into the very intriguing position of facing directly downward, into an awkward lunging motion over the void.
‘That’s probably not the best way to do it, Jeff’
‘Yeah…couldn’t agree with you more man…hahahahaha’
We completed the route and reached the plateau in really good time. I couldn’t believe how fast we had moved on the ridge. It almost felt like my mind hadn’t caught up to what we had just accomplished. And as such I didn’t feel completely ready to blast the chossy-looking stretch over to Gayley.
After some back and forth we settled on the Type 1 Fun option, an easy descent back to Contact Pass, maybe a nap at camp, plenty of time to cook dinner and enjoy the sunset, you know the usual fare after a long day out in the mountains! We both saw the traverse to Gayley as a means to the primary end, that being a climb of the Swiss Arete on Mt Sill. However we reasoned it would have been pretty late in the day by the time we hit the Arete, I mean the good stuff, and mentally I was already fairly deranged from the exposure on the Venusian Blind, so my climbing stoke would have been vulnerable to, and further compromised by, the chossiness in front of us. Maybe I need to exercise my mental resistance to exposure, to become a stronger partner in the mountains!
Any which way you look at it, we had another really great day out. Descending Contact Pass was such a breeze through the snow that I would very much recommend taking on these celestial aretes in the early season, before it turns to talus crudfest. Not to mention, with the approach snowfield still in relatively snowy condition (rather than icy), we were both able to kick steps easily on the approach. (Although, Erik’s ancient crampons fell off a few times. As for me, I tip-toed up just fine with microspikes and approach shoes.)
To round out the full value experience, we skied a few turns through the slick corn snow on the way down.
Radical brah!
