Or was it (too hot)?
Having ditched everything except bear-bait at the base of the route we'd stumbled our way back down to the bridge. Erik (his ever cheery self) quickly informed us that we'd had terrible luck, the last day was scorching and far in excess of the temperatures we'd experienced only a few days earlier whilst sat gazing upwards.
We pondered this information whilst once again enjoying the chilled water of the Merced river, El Cap looming above (as ever).
A day or so more passed before it was decided that the indignity of walking back to the haul bags to simply fight them back to the valley floor was too much. Instead, we'd go up and re-fix (noting that we were idiots for NOT leaving the ropes fixed to P3) to get a feel for just how hot it really was. Yes, this is all sounding very familiar and very predictable.
Frustrations started showing through almost immediately and the playlist on my iPod had turned a distinct corner to music that can only be described as 'angry', yet we persisted. It certainly was hot but this time we made it to the base of the route with half of our water and promptly began re-fixing.
Things went to plan. In fact, given we both knew what was required (placements, ropework etc.) we made incredible time through the first three pitches and soon we were fixing our ropes back to the ground. We returned to the valley floor for a well earned rest, intent on eating our own bodyweight in pizza before we'd head up late one evening, bivi, then blast (all to beat the sun)!
Late evening, a few days later, we loaded the remainder of the water and all of the food (mostly pizza) into the smaller bags and started the oh-so-familiar walk for (hopefully) the final time. The light faded rapidly and we found ourself at the base of the route getting ready to sleep well after dark.
I don't know what caused it but for some reason I had the strong desire to check our ropes and bags were still OK, I didn't want any delays in the morning. What I saw left me destroyed; one empty gallon jug of water was hung from a limp branch. On it was a piece of finger tape reading "you've been beared, next time store your food properly - smiley bear face". I shouted down to Nat and she came to have a look herself. The anguish was palpable, ~50 litres of water had been ditched as a punishment for leaving our haul bags on the floor. WTF!
Nat cried and I was done (I spent a good while kicking the haul bag to make that point). The whole of Yosemite valley heard our frustrations.
A while passed before Nat (still in floods of tears) presented her plan, we'd load the food and water into one haul bag, jug and haul in the dark before descending to the valley floor for more water and knocking our start day back until the following day. This wasn't perfect, bad weather was heading into the valley and the effectiveness of our rest day was completely scrubbed (the haul bags would be a mess too), but it's better than being beaten by a Ranger, or over-zealous Yosemite-climber-type (and we really didn't have a choice with our flight date creeping up on us).
I jugged the first full rope length and began hauling. One thing I will say is that anger makes hauling fast (and therapeutic), I could even go 1:1.
We stumbled back to the bridge and happened upon a gathering of familiar, friendly faces a welcome end to the day.
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