The Adventure at Tenaja Falls

   Well I must say that I am happy that I got to establish another great climbing area near my hometown. But now it is time to go back to South Dakota for another year of college. Luckily I will be able to create more routes and climb in some great locations. I am planning a big summer trip for when I drive back to Murrieta, CA for the 2014 summer.

Anchor at the top of Stop 'n' Go

   Did a first ascent of the route Stop 'n' Go and routed five others: Triplets of Terror, El Vaquero, and Corte La Mano. There is still more that could be done at the falls but the venture of getting to the bottom and setting up top rope anchors is very time consuming.

   Great rock features exist at this secret spot from finger cracks that quickly leads into crimps and jugs to face climbing and sketchy moves that have you on edge. I think I would of had more fun on the one day that I was able to spend on the routes if I had stuck to my original plan of repelling down the rope I had set.

   But when your climbing partner ends up being your mom who is later in her years and a novice climber repelling down an unknown face is scary. So the trek started down the slick down climb of the opposite side of the falls. Originally I was set to start my repel when my mother yelled for help.

  My mother had started down the slick face of the waterfall area, a big mistake when wearing running shoes. She was sliding slowly down the 70 foot falls clinging for dear life to the rocks. I dropped what I was doing and ran over to help her. Grabbing her and getting her on her feet was the only thing that I could think of doing while I had slid slightly on the water worn rocks. The only real option for me was to help her all the way down to the bottom of the route that I had set up.
  After an hour and a half of negotiating tough down climbs on 5.6 type rocks we reached the base of the climbing face. Only a cactus stood in our way which we decided to climb around and get to the base of the climb. A quick break and re-fuel to start our climb when it occurred that my harness and some of the important gear was left at the top when I quickly went to help my mother.

  This next part of the adventure turned into an aid climb and free solo boulder problem at 70ft. In order to climb a little safer up the face I used a prussic knot and my mothers harness to provide an anchor while I climbed to the top. The part was swing out away from the wall on the rope in order to get onto a ledge which took a couple tries. This seemed equivalent to the swing on El Cap. and provided some fun on a stressful situation. When I got to the last 12 feet of the climb I found myself stuck.

   I originally had tried to climb the last section tied into the rope but the position of the anchor was pulling me off the face. After 10 minutes of trying to climb while being tied in I came to the realization that I would need to detach myself to get to an easier spot to climb. My choice not tell my mom what I was doing was for the best. I still actually wanted to climb these routes that I had set up and this probably would prompt her to stop the whole thing.

   Finally I negotiated the last section and could get my gear. I quickly repelled down and took a break before I started the first ascent; although it could be called the second ascent after what I had to do.