Serenity Crack to Sons of Yesterday

Polly Anikeeva

Woody Hoburg

Royal Arches Area, Yosemite Valley, CA

Serenity Crack, 5.10d

Sons of Yesterday, 5.10a
What a great line. Piton scars, finger crack, and handcrack for 8 amazing pitches right above the Ahwahnee Hotel. When we got up to it, it scared the daylights out of me. The climb would definitely be pushing my grade, and the first 30 feet or so had flaring pin scars that wouldn't take pro. I sheepishly accepted the the offer of the party ahead of us to place a piece at 30 feet and clip my rope through it, putting me on top rope for the first 30 feet. I also fell on the crux section of Serenity before getting it, and we skipped the last pitch of Sons because it was getting late and we had learned last time to start rappels early. SO, in my book I still haven't climbed either of these climbs. Getting on them again will not be a disappointment.
And sure enough, on one of the middle rappels my rope gets snagged on some gear deep in a flake and... can't pull it. Can't climb it either of course, in case it would break free. I free climb up to where it is stuck placing tons of pro (using another end of the rope), retreive the rope, then down climb french freeing on all the pro I placed. A good safe retrieval. We rap the rest of the way before it's dark.
What an awesome climb. I can't wait to do it again. Polly really pushed herself on this one, and I feel upped her climbing a full grade in this one climb. Nice work.
Polly's comments:

Somehow I always thought that I would really like crack climbing, but this one is just beyond description. My favorite climb ever, absolutely beautifull.

Woody, thanks for leading!