Valley - Perfect Vision + base of El Cap   4/29-30/89

Joel and I worked on Perfect Vision again (our new route right of the Braille
Book).  After gaining our high point (good ledge atop pitch 4), it got cloudy
and belaying was fairly cold.  It looked pretty hard above us.  I tried going
up to a "bathtub" pocked above my previous intended traverse point.  I got some
tiny stoppers in, but the moves looked too hard, so I came down and let Joel
take the warm lead.  He checked out a crack further left, which went on aid and
looked very hard to free.  He made a few moves on the slab after the crack, but
then had to carefully reverse them when his handholds ran out!  My way was
starting to seem a lot more feasible, so I went back up there and placed a bolt
from the stoppers.  Then I traversed a dike to the arete.  By this time it was
past 6:30, so we had to go down.  The ground above looks tough, with no obvious
good knobs like before, so we may have to start drilling smaller bolts from
dicier stances.  We're only 40 feet from a roof traverse to the exit cracks or
perhaps a direct line up the vertical headwall (if the knobs get larger).  We
didn't leave fixed lines, because the weather looked fairly dubious.
     We spent Sunday doing routes at the base of El Cap with Nancy, Alice and
Sean.  They had TR'd at Manure Pile Buttress on Saturday.  Joel led La Cosita
Right, Sacherer Cracker, and TR'd Short But Thin (no falls).  I led the corner
right of Mark of Art (5.10a), and put in a 5/16" belay bolt.  I was up there
for several hours drilling, but did not complete my second hole (3/8").  My
drill bit was spinning in my holder again...  I tried Short But Thin, which
I've done before, but I blew the last crux moves.  Ran into some people who
TR'd my Thread of Life route (just left of the Salathe').  They thought it was
way runout!  Very strange -- I told them I don't do those kind of leads...

Clint