I decided to do this route because I remembered enjoying Coffin Nail so much the first time, and because I remembered it having so much good crack climbing, which I thought would be a good learning experience for Shanjean. Kayden and Drew decided to do Fingertrip, just next door. It was getting late in the afternoon, so we all knew we'd have to hurry a bit, but I was pretty sure we would all be okay. We scrambled up the third and fourth class stuff to the large alcove at the base of the first pitch before roping up. I wasn't sure how Shanjean would feel about this, but she didn't seem to mind at all.
I led the first pitch, and even though I wasn't even wearing tape gloves, I almost wanted to sing as I jammed the beautiful cracks. Shanjean followed this pitch admirably, for someone with little crack climbing experience. She did fall once, when her foot slipped, but she made it through the roof (probably the crux of the pitch) without falling.
Leading out onto and over the horn on the second pitch (the crux section of Traitor Horn) felt trickier than I had remembered, but I realized that I had never actually led that particular bit before. The first time I did this, with Corinne, I took the 10a variation up the crack, instead of going out onto the horn. The second time, Aaron had led. But once I found the jugs (they're there, you've just got to find them) it was no problem. And of course, this time I only went about twenty feet above the horn before setting an anchor, to avoid any acoustic difficulties like I'd had with Corinne. But Shanjean handled this crux perfectly smoothly, although I could tell it felt difficult and a bit sketchy to her. Hell, it felt tricky to me too.
I knew the last pitch was trivial, and had good gear possibilities, so I asked Shanjean if she wanted to lead. I might not have even offered, but she had said earlier that she wanted to try leading something easy that day. When I described the pitch, she decided it sounded good. She took the rack, I gave her a few tips about placing gear, and she set off. It was getting late by this point. When she finished the second pitch, the sun was just about to set, so by the time she started her lead, it already had. Fortunately, there was still plenty of light for most of her lead. Of course, it took her a while to build an anchor and put me on belay, so by the time I started following, it was mostly dark. But in the meantime, we both got to enjoy a beautiful view, with the western horizon burning in shades of red and orange. I realized it was probably better to have me following in the dark than Shanjean, so it was probably a good thing that I let her lead. I put on my headlamp and cruised up the pitch, checking out her gear placements as I went. Several of them were quite good, especially the first one, which was a bomber horn slung with a girth hitch. (I had spotted the knob and suggested this, and I talked her through how to do it, but it's still pretty cool that her first placement was so truly traditional and old school.) Some of her nut placements were pretty good, but some of them were quite loose. They probably would have been great if she had set them with a good tug. Of course, such loose placements can risk getting a piece stuck if it manages to work itself into a different position, and this is exactly what happened with the last one, just fifteen or twenty feet below her anchor. The piece was my #12 stopper, placed sideways. She didn't remember placing it sideways, so it may have been placed differently, and actually turned itself sideways later! In any event, it was in a pretty bad position. I was able to move it around a lot, but I couldn't figure out any way to get it out at first. Finally, after examining the crack thoroughly, I decided that my best hope would be to move it up the crack, to where it looked a little wider. I spent at least ten minutes, maybe fifteen or more, moving that stopper up about five inches, until I finally got the widest part of it very close to the edge of the crack. I then gave it one last sharp tug, and it pulled free! I was amazed (as was Shanjean), especially considering that several times throughout this, I had been convinced that I wouldn't get it out at all.
By this point, both of the other parties in our group had finished their climbs, and they were all waiting for us on the summit. Will Hobbs had even come down and talked to us for a minute, just to see where we were and how much longer we would be. After triumphantly claiming victory over the stuck nut, I quickly scrambled the fifteen remaining feet to Shanjean's belay, congratulated her on a good lead, and we started cleaning up the anchor and coiling the rope. I also replaced the batteries in my waning headlamp and gave it to Shanjean, since she had left hers at the base of the climb. Of course, by the time we joined our friends on the summit, there had been much speculating and joking about just what the two of us were doing down there for so long....
The six of us, me and Shanjean, Will and Corinne, and Kayden and Drew, all started the descent together, with three headlamps among us. I've done the descent in the dark before, even without a headlamp, so I knew I could handle it okay. When we reached Shanjean's pack, she put on her headlamp and gave mine back to me, so we now had only two people without lights, Will and Corinne. (Have I yet been climbing with Corinne when she actually remembered to bring her headlamp?) The rest of the hike down was straightforward, and actually pleasant for once, just because of a lot of joking and stories and good conversations. All in all, I have to say this was one of my most fun trips to Tahquitz, just because of the camaraderie, and the easy but stellar climbing. Also, it was the first time Kayden and Drew had been to Tahquitz (not to mention Drew's first real trad experience) so I enjoyed showing them around and suggesting some of the classics for them to climb. They started the day with Left Ski Track, and did the direct finish to it (the best and most aesthetic finish), then did Fingertrip, although they may have gotten off route with that one. Will and Corinne climbed The Open Book, with Will leading the first two 5.9 pitches and Corinne leading the last 5.6 pitch. They took quite a while on this one, so afterwards they just had time to free-solo Fingertip Traverse, a classic 5.3 that I haven't done, but have thought about soloing before.
After hiking back down to the cars, we drove into Idyllwild hoping to find some good cheap Mexican food and maybe even a beer. Though I was sure our search would be in vain, Hobbs had stories of a crazy L.A./cowboy bar that he had found with Tung. We tried the Mexican place and Hobbs's bar, but both were closed (it was the late late hour of 9:30, and it was a Sunday.) But seriously, one of these days I'll have to find some place to eat around there. We ended up heading back to the highway as usual, and we all met up for dinner at Del Taco, the closest thing to Mexican food we could find.