Trip Report by John Peterson. From: John Peterson Subject: A Yosemite Trip Report (very little climbing!) When you're a local, you know better than to plan a hare-brained, epic-inducing trip. You know how far it is from here to there, what hidden dangers lurk, and, most importantly, when you should say no to a really stupid plan. But we weren't locals. Hector is a great guy, even if he's from MIT. It was yet another Internet blind date. We both happened to have a day free in Yosemite at the same time and through the magic of rec.climbing we linked up. Especially when I offered to pick him up at the SF airport and drive him to the Yosemite. Since I've climbed in the valley a little, Hector was fool enough to let me make a plan. My plans often involve the legendary 50 classic climbs and this was no exception. Since we had a single day, the burly climbs were ruled out, I had done Royal Arches many years ago; the only easy climb left for me was the Lost Arrow. But -- wait -- what if we do *both* of these climbs in a day? What a plan! And, to "save" time, why not link them by hiking from the top of Royal Arches over to the Arrow? After all, they look sort of close from the valley! Hector has never done aid before, but what the heck. You have to learn someday. With an amazing lack of research (other than an attempt to interest my friend Lincoln in this stupidity) we decided to go for it. I didn't have time to look at maps, read guidebooks, or ask the wisdom of rec.climbers. Such actions tend to ruin perfectly planned stupidity. Our only advanced preparation was to look at a few Lost Arrow trip reports and print a topo of Royal Arches. Our possibility of success was being shot down as we packed our packs but we didn't know it. We brought a battle rack capable of taking us up Half Dome. Since I read about a #3 camalot sized crack, we took a #3. And another. And another. And a 3.5 just in case. Any another one of those. And a #4. Any why not a full set of aliens? And lots and lots of biners. The only sensible thing we did was to bring a pair of 8mm ropes to get down with - these guys at least were light. Laden with the infamous battle rack (tucked away in my crappy pack) and extra pair of ropes, we finally headed out for Royal Arches around 9:30. There's not much to say about this route. if we had been carrying light packs we would have cruised in a couple of hours. It was fun. It was a hell of an intro to Yosemite for Hector. We were both climbing fast (relatively) and confidently and were able to simulclimb a number of pitches. Although I got lost (again!) on the first pitch (someday I'll have to learn where this route starts!) it was no big deal and we were fortunate that the party ahead of us let us pass. My original ascent was an epic involving an off route handcrack and potential death fall so doing the route again was a pleasure even with the the heavy packs. The only thing missing was the rotten log. So now it was 1:30. We were on top. Things looked good - maybe 2 miles to the Lost Arrow? Who knows. Maybe a couple of hours; we'll have plenty of time. Lots of daylight. Here was the other critical mistake: I was sitting next to the clearest, most refreshing spring of water in the world and I ignored it! I didn't swig a gallon of sweet clear water. I didn't refill my bottles. NO!! So on to the hike. Route finding was pretty easy - we managed to stay out of the manzanita and found the hiking to be fairly easy. But it was HOT! I was SLOW!! It was ALL UPHILL! Hector was too polite to just come out and call me an out of shape wiener but he should have. We staggered up carrying our tons of gear, looking for the right place to cross the canyon the divides the Royal Arches area from Yosemite Point. In retrospect we should have just headed up the ridge to the trail but we toughed it out cross country. Things were still under control when we came to the first creek crossing. Hector wanted to stop a second but I found myself in a tremendous cloud of mosquitos and started running from the creek. Once the bug attack subsided a bit we regrouped. On ahead to the final stream crossing. This time, though, the bugs didn't go away after we stepped over the water. We toiled up the steep slope while swatting furiously. We were both covered with blood from the squashed carcasses. I probably lost a couple of quarts of blood. I'm sure of it. Between not wanting to stop and being too tired to go we were having some kind of fun. Finally we hit the trail, the bugs disappeared, and we crested the hill, going 400 feet higher than needed, as the topo indicated when we returned. Finally we arrived at Yosemite Point. We looked over the edge expecting to see the Arrow but NO! It was GONE! It must have fallen down or something. So we walked down toward the falls and slowly crept out to the rim again. This time we hit it dead on - there was the classic view of the Arrow. OK - time to look at the watch. 5:30! 4 hours from the top of Royal Arches. What a shortcut. We went through the motions of discussing our options but really we both knew it wasn't going to happen. I was wasted. Hector was pretty tired too. But the damn thing was SO CLOSE! We had SO MUCH GEAR (except water!). And the route looked short. No big deal! So that was it. The tourists from the East Coast were defeated. Nothing left to do but shoot pictures and torture our feet coming down the Yosemite Falls trail. When we found out how painful the descent was without having done the spire, we rationalized away all remaining guilt. At Yosemite Village we ran into Lincoln. The first thing he said was "I told you that was a stupid plan!". Maybe he had said that earlier - I had forgotten. Anyway, at this point things became crystal clear: it wasn't our approach to the Arrow that was the problem. It would probably have been just as much effort to rap and climb up the trail. The problem was carrying too much crap for a simple climb. The problem was doing too much in one day. The problem was wanting to bag a 50 classics instead of some reasonable route down on the valley floor. The problem was that we were tourists in the great granite gymnasium. But now that it's over it was fun in some perverse way. Maybe it was just a long hike with heavy packs, but at least we got to go places no sane person would venture to. The uncertainty is really a lot of the fun - sometimes too much beta and advanced planning takes a bit of the adventure away. Or maybe I'm just rationalizing. John