Swan Slab Gully
Sierra Nevada– Rock Climbing
Total Time: 3:00
Distance: 0.7 miles
Elevation Gain: 400′
Crux: 5.6
Pitches: 3
Protection: Single rack of cams 0.5-4, set of nuts
Companions: Holly
Trailhead: Swan Slabs, full services in the Valley
I was quickly running out of Valley multipitch climbs under 5.8. I either need to man up and push myself on a tougher grade or scrape the bottom of the barrel. For the start of 2021, I choose the latter. Without diving into Valley obscurity, the only two multipitch options remaining were Swan Slab Gully and Sunnyside Bench. I had wanted to do Sunnyside Bench when upper Yosemite Falls were in full force, creating a tier of pools at the top out of the climb. So that left me with Swan Slab Gully. Swan Slab is considered the prime top roping area in the Valley, and it’s where guiding services teach classes on the relatively short routes, many pitches only 40-50′. Holly and I have ticked off a number of the single pitch lines in the area, along with a link up of Oak Tree Flake to Bay Tree crack our first time ever climbing in Yosemite. But Swan Slab Gully is the longest route at the crag, 3 pitches leading to a tier at the top of the cliff with an easy walk off. We purposefully arrived to the park late in hopes the valley would warm up on a cold January morning. The park was nearly empty thanks to regional stay at home orders and we had the entire crag to ourselves.
It was almost 10 AM by the time we racked up at the base in hopes of the sun warming the first pitch. No such luck, with a tree blocking the sun on everything below the first belay tree. I had debated climbing Penelope’s Problem to the left, a 5.7 lieback that leads to the same anchors and avoids the awkward polished chimney to start the first pitch. But I knew from experience that I was particularly bad at lieback cracks when it was cold and my shoes didn’t stick well, so I started up the traditional first pitch. I wasn’t far off the ground before I began to agree with the consensus that this pitch was awkward and not much fun, although it was made much worse by water running down the polished granite and my hands quickly growing numb in the wet crack. At good stances, I would pause to try and warm up my hands before plunging them back into the frigid crack. I hit the warming sun about 2/3rds of the way up, at that point on very easy fifth class terrain with easy climbing up to the tree belay. I built a quick anchor off the tree, and Holly called out from below that she wanted to wait a bit longer to start up, the sun just starting to peer out around from the tree.
With no one around I was in no hurry, and we waited about 15 minutes before Holly started up, the rock still very cold but I’m sure better than it had been when I started up. I held out hope that the subsequent pitches would make up for the cold and wet start. To climb the second pitch, I climbed through a large tree to avoid the wet crack to my right finding drier rock not much further up above. This pitch was much more enjoyable, a dual crack system that allowed for near limitless protection options and would be an excellent first trad lead for a budding climber.
The upper half of the pitch cut out to the right, and I worked up a groove and third classed it to a huge tree and second belay station. Now in full sun, it was quite warm and I radioed down to Holly to lose her fleece before starting up. She made short work of the easy pitch, the two of us now enjoying the warmer and dry rock.
From the second belay, it was unclear where the third pitch actually started. I went through the tree and walked back and to the right for about 50′, reaching the base of a beautiful low angled 5.5 crack, looking like a lightning bolt from below. I was a little surprised by how aesthetic it was as I started up, plenty of knobs for feet and extra hands as I climbed up.
There was a short traverse to the right where the crack began to end (basically walking on a ledge) finishing on a tighter crack and up to the final tree belay. Topping out, I was quite pleased with the final pitch, and felt like the entire climb was worth it for that alone. I brought up Holly to the top of the route and the two of us had a small lunch with views of Half Dome to the southeast, Royal Arches directly up canyon, and Cathedral Rocks and Spires to the west.
The climb had only taken us a bit over 2 hours even with Holly waiting for sun at the base, and assuming a smooth walk off, we would have time for some cragging in the afternoon. So we started down the climbers trail, heading straight back from the cliff on a well worn trail, ignoring the first scrambly turn off to the left and continuing on the main path through manzanita.
This continued down some easy class 2 slabs and back to the base near Penthouse Cracks. Another easy walk off. There were a few more climbers at Swan Slabs now that it had warmed up, and we decided to check out Claude’s Delight (5.7) and Lena’s Lieback (5.9) at the far end of the crag to distance ourselves from the others. I led the very fun Claude’s Delight with interesting stemming, allowing us to top rope Lena’s Lieback and Goat For It (5.10a) before packing our ropes and heading into Oakhurst for dinner.
