Fairview Dome, Regular Route - Saturday, June 22 - 25 Weeks Pregnant

After almost two months away from the Valley, my belly and I made the long trek out there last Saturday to tick off yet another classic route: the stellar 900', 12-pitch Regular Route of Fairview Dome.

My climbing partner Paul Hamblin and I, accompanied by Paul's beautiful wife Ciana and their adorable baby, took off on Friday night Tuolumne-bound.  It was definitely a perfect route for making for a family-style Tuolumne trip.  We slept in, rolled into the Tuolumne store around 9ish, had a leisurely breakfast, made a few friends, then sometime around 11 decided to head to Fairview Dome.  Paul kissed Ciana and his baby girl goodbye, then we headed up to see what the crowd situation looked like.  When we arrived at the base, we found a really friendly girl named Angie who was just about to finish belaying her partner and head up herself.  Perfect timing!

I took the first lead around 12:30 p.m. sporting my brand new Mountain Mama maternity harness (yes, finally outgrew my regular one) and my favorite Mountain Mama top and linked pitches 1 and 2.  For a 5.9, I admit that I felt a bit insecure in a couple spots, especially where the crack was wet.  Nonetheless, I got up all 230' using everything but two cams and a handful of stoppers (which happened to be just the gear I needed for the anchor.  Phew!).  I got to chat a little bit more with Angie while I belayed Paul up.

By the time Paul got up the massive pitch, he was out of breath so I volunteered to take the next pitch.  I quickly knocked out the next 205' link-up of pitch 3 and half of 4, but got a little held up when a super speedy party passed us.  After a bit of waiting, I led up past Crescent Ledge (and Angie's party) to the top of 5, where we ran into a three-person team methodically making their way up pitches 6 and 7.  Feeling crunched for time (we had told Ciana to come pick us up between 4:30 and 5:00, and it was already nearing 4:00), I  sped up pitches 6 and 7 past the three-person party, got slightly off route due to a dropped topo snafu, then after a short section of down climbing (argh!), got to the top of pitch 8.

When Paul joined me, we briefly relished the fact that we were the only climbers at the anchor, then simul-climbed the rest of the route with Paul in the lead, topping out around 6:00 p.m.

The descent was totally awesome--hiking off the back of the beautiful dome--and we reached the car about an hour later to a chipper Ciana who had just made dinner for us. Does it get any better than that?

As for the big debut of my new Mountain Mama harness, I must say that I really like it, especially compared to the Petzl full-body harness that I used during my last pregnancy.  It is way more comfortable and I was able to easily adjust it in lots of places to best fit my body and baby bump.  I particularly appreciated that there is padding on the leg loops, and that there is also a keeper strap on the leg loops ensuring maximum comfort while avoiding the possibility of the leg loops sliding down (which happened all the time with my other one).  I also found that the back support was excellent and really comfortable.

Overall, the Regular Route of Fairview was a great route in spite of the crowds with some really fun and casual pitches and a stellar top out!

Climbing at Lehn: Interlaken, Switzerland - 21 Weeks Pregnant

Thanks to Mountain Mama for the awesome climbing top! 

Gold Wall, Yosemite - Saturday, March 23, 2013 - 12 Weeks Pregnant

In late March, my good friend Brian Collet and I decided to tick a route that both of us had been eyeing for awhile.  Gold Wall (Silent Line), a 9-pitch, 900' 5.10 in the Ribbon Falls Area, seemed like the perfect way to kick off the 2013 Yosemite season.

Luckily for Team Christensen, Andrew's parents were in town and volunteered to stay home with Ainsley so that we could both get some climbing in for the weekend.  Andrew ended up blitzing the South Face of Mt. Watkins with our friend Vlad Sofiyev.  But I digress...

Overall, Gold Wall was a mixture of exactly what we expected at some points, and not at all what we expected in others.  For example, the topo we were using indicated that we were getting ourselves into a route with a poorly-maintained approach and anchors, but right off the bat we were surprised to find a well-groomed trail with probably 100 or so cairns the whole way.  We found that the route had similarly been taken care of, with loads of shiny new anchor bolts and rap rings.

We stuck to our plan of swapping leads the whole way using an 80 meter rope.  I took the sharp end first and linked pitches 1 and 2.  The first 5.9 section off the ground was way more awkward and insecure than I anticipated, which led to an easy bolt ladder (easy if you're stepping in slings) then an awkward 5.10/5.11 flaring crack in pitch 2.  The whole business took me way longer than I thought it would.  Brian then lucked out and got the tiny pitch 3 where the route traverses left to the free variation (Silent Line).  He banged that thing out in like 10 minutes. I was on the hook again for the next 200' pitch (technically pitches 4 and 5), and had a giant grin on my face the whole way up.  The entire thing was essentially a beautiful 5.10 splitter: jam after perfect jam.  Was I in Indian Creek?  My poor thumb muscles that were pumped from jamming seemed to think so every time I clipped a piece of gear.

Pitch 5 was Brian's.  This pitch was by far one of the wildest I've ever done, especially in Yosemite.  Just prior, Brian and I kept looking at the topo and scratching our heads about this pitch.  "Belly crawl?  Hmm.  Wonder what that means."  Turns out, it means exactly that! You climb up an awesome flaring chimney which pinches off at the top inside the rock, leading you to a perfect little hole that you have no choice but to crawl through on your belly until you pop out right back on the face, staring down at nothing but air. Definitely the coolest pitch on the route.

We knocked out the last couple pitches pretty quickly, but were underwhelmed by them and decided that pitch 9, a 5.9 offwidth/chimney didn't sound very enticing, especially as it is customary to rap the route after that pitch.  So after we finished pitch 8, we rapped down feeling extremely grateful that we had opted to take an 80 meter rope rather than a 70, as we used every last bit of the rope length for the last rappel.

We completed the route base-to-base in about 8 hours, starting the climb at 10:20 a.m. and finishing the last rappel at 6:30 p.m.

As for the pregnancy aspect, I admit that I was a bit worried how it would go, especially while I was on the approach.  I had puked just the week before sport climbing, and was feeling over-exhausted and a bit pukey on the hike up.  I ended up going r-e-a-l-l-y slowly the whole approach, and was afraid that my exhaustion would affect my climbing.  Luckily, the moment I lifted off on the first pitch, I felt totally great and continued to feel awesome the rest of the day.  Turns out that for me, pregnancy mainly affects my ability to hike.  (Maybe this is symptomatic of my overall fitness level? Hmm.)

Well, in the end, I found the route to be slightly challenging, a lot of fun, and overall a great way to open this year's Yosemite season.


PS-Sadly, we took almost no pictures on the route.

Wingsuiting in Lodi - March 2nd and 9th - Nine and Ten Weeks Pregnant

Hadn't been skydiving for awhile, and I realized that I only have a few more weeks to go before the end of my first trimester (which will mark the end of the time I allow myself to skydive)! We went two weekends in a row and had a blast.  The first Saturday I was able to get five wingsuit jumps in, and got to flock with a bunch of cool people. The next week I did another five wingsuit jumps, but also got to do my first helicopter jump!  It was crazy not being in a wingsuit for the first time in almost a year and a half, but the free fall factor was oh-so-awesome.  Needless to say, Team Christensen had a good time in Lodi, even Ainsley!  She had a ton of fun exploring all the weird things that the dropzone has to offer: giant pipes laying around, strange structures to climb on, dogs galore, airplanes to watch take off and land, couches all over the place to crawl on, etc.

Gold Wall, Sonora - Saturday, February 23 - Eight Weeks Pregnant

Headed out to Gold Wall in Sonora today, and luckily this time there was no puking involved.  Thank goodness! I got on Wicked Gold, 5.13a, a route I've tried one time before a couple weeks ago.  The stars must have aligned for me, because I somehow didn't feel very sick.  In fact, I felt really pretty normal!  I got on it once, figured out the beta on a few tricky sequences, then tried it again and amazingly got it!  My second 5.13a ever, and eight weeks pregnant!