Trailhead: Rancheria Creek
Elevation: 9622 ft
Route: Golden Tower Direct
Difficulty: 5.7 click here for topo
Hoffman Mountain is a great hunk of granite in the backcountry of the southern sierra. For an approach of about 3 miles you buy yourself solitude and impeccable rock with a number of cool looking multi-pitch trad routes to choose from. We liked it so much we went twice and learned a few lessons about bail anchors in the process.
Up until this weekend GG and I weren't the sort of people who bail off routes. Mostly we don't get on routes if we think there's a high enough chance of needing to retreat due to forces outside of our control. We tend towards a behavior we call "bailing upwards." This is based on the theory that for some peaks with a technical ascent route but an easy descent route it sometimes makes more sense, if a team is having trouble, to actually finish the route and make it to easier ground, than it would to try and retreat. For example, a number of years ago we discovered that we weren't 5.10 Yosemite climbers on the upper pitches of the 5.10 Yosemite route North East Buttress of Higher Cathedral (friends, I know the mp says 5.9+. This is 5.10). Dismayed, we decided to abandon all semblance of style and pull on gear and trees and anchors and generally grovel our way to the top, reaching the summit and easy ground shortly before darkness set in.
However on Hoffman Mountain, halfway up the first pitch we heard the unmistakable rumble of thunder from a dismayingly close thunderhead. Lightning is actually something we don't F*** around with. So GG brought me up to the first belay and we prepared to bail from a multi-pitch route for the first time in our climbing partnership.
This is the first pitch of the route, in case you're wondering how to find it
Now I've known climbers that build two piece bail anchors and let the first person rappel, weighting only one piece, and then have the second remove the redundant piece and bail on a single stopper. I have been that climber on one occasion, with a different partner. But I am too old for this kind of stress in my life so we built a 3 piece anchor out of nuts, equalized it with a cordallete, and rappelled to the ground (notably, you can reach the ground with a single 70m rope from the first belay on this route). I even heard on a podcast once that the professional climber Mark Smiley has offered to reimburse climbers for their back-up gear when they bail off of more than once piece, based on the idea that we need to all realize that our lives and limbs are more valuable than a $10 stopper.
Two of the stoppers in our bail anchor. We have girth hitched one to preserve a carabiner.
The third arm of our bail anchor.
I was about to send a message to Mr. Smiley about just this when GG decided he wanted to go back up to Hoffman Mountain a few days later and complete the route. I led the first pitch this time and realized we had the exceptional opportunity to examine our bail anchor shortly after using it to retreat!
I was not thrilled with what we found
Is this a good anchor? I'm a frayed knot!!!
Now, because our anchor had three pieces it was quite redundant. However, one arm of the cordallete had nearly been severed, likely by rubbing across the granite while one of us was descending. Another arm, which we had girth hitched around the wire of a stopper, had worn down over the hitched portion. This left one good arm connected to a golden stopper. So were were essentially left with one good piece of gear despite our efforts to the contrary.
What happened? The cord was quite old and thin in diameter. We replace our slings every 5 years but we hadn't thought to replace our cords, which we just keep around in case we need to bail. Further, I suspect that this was nylon cord and was getting degraded by UV light everytime we took it outside. BD does some fun tests from time to time on the strength of old gear and find that generally soft goods maintain strength for a long time. However they just load test gear, and in real life soft goods aren't just loaded they also can be abraded over sharp corners and rough rock. My take away is to replace my cord just like I would my slings, stop girth hitching wires, and keep being redundant! Oh, and stop bailing.
Besides the whole bailing fiasco the climb is amazing, clean gold granite full of cool face features, decent protection, and nice anchor stances all the way up. The only place where I worried about protection was the third pitch which has bolt protected slab up to and over a roof. However, there is a good cam placement in the crack below the first bolt and the rest of the pitch feels well protected in all the right spots. The roof is nifty! Once atop the third pitch there is maybe 500 feet of 3rd/4th class to the summit, culminating in a cool granite walkway.
The author heading over the roof on pitch 3. Fun!
Cool ridge approaching the summit. The obelisk in the background.
The only other thing worth noting is that on our first time out to Hoffman we took the approach recommended by mountainproject. This was horrible and I hated it. On our second time we approached from the 3rd class slabs to the west of the peak and it was much better. If you'd like to try our approach our GPX is below.
This is the approach up the gully suggested by mountainproject. Never again!
This is the way we went. Much better!
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