Yosemite Swan Slab Gully (with video)
This was our first climbing trip to the Valley and we decided to go easy at first, and so the Swan Slab it was!
We woke up EARLY, 3 a.m., to make sure that we would beat other climbers and tourists on Memorial Weekend. We arrived in Yosemite an hour or so after dawn and parked a bit east from the Swan Slab. Got ready and headed toward the crag. We heard that the normal 5.6 route up Swan Slab Gully wasn't very good and so we climbed the Hanging Flake, which looked better as well.
Pitch 1: many ways to get to the top of pitch one, we climbed up the hanging flake. Good hand jams and a few fist jams higher up lead to a scramble to a large ledge with a tree to belay off of. There was some webbing with a ring around the tree but I belayed using our own slings.
Pitch 2: Climb the gully with cracks up 70 - 80 feet or so until you see another tree around a corner and above on your right. Place a stopper or cam in a crack and traverse right and across an arete. You will see some cracks so place pro or run it out like we did. There is a tree where you belay. Use your own slings. (Communication is kinda hard on this pitch)
Pitch 3: From the tree head up the dirty gully unroped. You will see a left leaning crack on the left wall. Climb up this easy and really cool finger and hand crack to a small stance. You then head right across a slab unprotected and join in with another crack. When I lead I accidentally went left and traversed a slab which was maybe 5.7 or 5.8 (maybe easier I don't know, but its not really that hard). Gain access to a HUGE ledge and set an anchor either on some trees in the back or a large boulder sitting a few feet from the ledge. The views are really cool here.
Descent: Climb up and find a faint trail leading to the left (west) and descent down the gully back to the bottom of the Swan Slab.
Gear: I had a set of stoppers, a hex, and 5 BD cams from .5" - 3". Bring a bunch o' slings, the route wanders. All anchors are from trees (with the optional boulder on top of pitch 3).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2zVOy0uqio
