Wayne Burleson and I wasted little time - the weather broke on Wednesday
and we drove up on Thursday night to fit in a Valley weekend before
his return to Mass on Sunday.  Initially, we did enjoy some of 
the fruits of clean living - for example, we got the "primo"
river site in El Portal both nights and enjoyed sunny, balmy
weather in the lower Valley on Friday.  We did Gripper,
Leanie Meanie, and Supplication on Arch (Wayne led all, also
did 1st of New D.), then ventured up to Reed's for Lunatic
Fringe (I led) and Stone Groove (Wayne's).  Still had time
to check out the sunset on a snow-capped Half Dome from Sentinel
Bridge (counted *only* 10 tripods, early season).  The West Face of 
Sentinel looked like the Dru!  Guess we must
have been bad boys as well, for on Saturday our luck was not so
good.  Outer Limits was obviously wet and Wayne started Bev's and the Wafer
before discovering their lining of moisture; we had to settle
for Catchy.  Up Valley - I led Knob Job, but Wayne found major
wetness on the Tube.  Wayne settled for Sherrie's Crack (he's
soloed it) and decided to settle his karma score with penalty
laps on the Generator Crack.  His first attempt in slippers must
have mightily pleased the gods, so great was his suffering, but
his second borrowing my new ballets didn't hurt so much.  I was
even inspired to try myself and made a little progress with
kneebars and gastoning.  Didn't seem too heinous, but I wouldn't say
I enjoyed it.  So Wayne's back in Mass, his dreams a mix of elegant 
sport crux "seqs" and the manly combat of wide crack climbing and I'm
looking forward to yet another granite season.

Joel