Climbing Road Trip: Yosemite WALLS!!!!

Yosemite granite has to be the best climbing on the planet and the setting couldn’t be better. Yosemite is my last stop, or could be my last stop before heading home at the end of this month. Yosemite is also the place I have climbed the most and I am here for peak season. Put the two together and you have a great combination of familiar faces both rock and human. Right off the bat I hooked up with a friend of a friend that I had made along the way and we got on some of the super classic routes in the Valley. Greg and I hit the East Buttress of Middle Cathedral Rock (1 of the 50 classics), Generator Crack, Commitment and Salginela in the 1^st few days. Soon after that a former Tennessean, Ben Ricketts showed up in camp and he and I managed to keep the momentum going by getting on Serenity Crack and Sons of Yesterday. All in all it was a great 1^st run at the Valley’s classics routes.

A planned visit from another Tennessean, John Bass, got Ben and I to scheming on something big that we could all do together. It seemed that the southern contingent needed to do a wall, a first wall, and what better a target than the Nose of El Captain. The team while not experienced at Big Wall climbing was perfect for a good solid go at their 1^st wall. Ben has spent many seasons in Yosemite and is climbing hard and fast on granite. John of course is superman, capable of climbing just about anything off the couch. And then there’s me, let’s just say I was there for the hauling and the aid climbing. I have done a few solo aid routes, a grade IV and had a good solo run on Washington Column in the spring. Done, we are committed. Ben and I set out gathering food, water bottles, and waste containers in preparation.

The plan is 3 days and 2 nights plus one day fixing lines. Ben and I will climb, haul and fix lines to Sickle Ledge (5 pitches, ~400’) and rap down to meet John on Wednesday evening. All goes well except that it takes Ben and I all day instead of the 5 hours we thought it would take to fix to Sickle. Traffic killed us. The route is really crowded and it’s hot. Regardless we get the pitches in, haul “Lewis” (our 80+ pound haul bag) to Sickle, fix and rappel to the ground. After hooking up with John we set in on final preparation with a little celebration, finish packing another haul bag and head to beg for an early start.

We start the morning by running 2 bears off at our fixed lines and one by one we begin jugging the 3 fixed ropes to our high point; Ben first, then John w/ the haul bag and lastly me with a small pack retrieving ropes on the way. We arrived in time for the traffic jam that we left the afternoon before and for a sunrise that was already warming the wall up. The next 3 pitches went slow. Not the climbing but the overall moving from pitch to pitch. Sickle was also the last flat stance we would have until Dolt Tower, everything in between was hanging. The process of waiting, then climbing, fixing, lowering out the haul bag, jugging, cleaning and hauling took much longer on the 2 traversing pitches into the Stove Legs than it should have but we were improving our system as we went. Getting into and then up a pitch of the Stove Legs killed us. We had spent most of the day waiting around and on perfecting our system and had neglected to take in enough food and water. When would get a chance to move we took it and by late afternoon the heat had gotten the best of us. Then we had one last hold up before dusk. The team of 3 ahead of us decided to bail and had to rappel through my anchor. It was so uncomfortable that is was funny. There I was with my 2 haul bags (Lewis & Jamie) on a 2 bolt, 1 cam hanging anchor with 3 matching Koreans and their haul bags. Nice guys but the matching outfits and 2-way radios were a little too much.

(This Ben leading over to the Stove Legs Crack and traffic)

Now we are free to move but its getting dark and we are somewhat wasted from the day. Just three hundred feet to Dolt Tower, our bivy, well short of our intended bivy at El Cap Tower but a welcome break for hanging in our harnesses and it’s my turn to lead. I have always wanted to climb in the dark and it turns out that El Cap would be my 1^st chance. I sent the next 3 pitches of perfect crack climbing completely on aid. I may have made a free move or 2 but mostly I walked 1”, 2”, 3”, 3.5”, 4” and even 4.5” (thanks Greg) cams to top of Dolt Tower is a record 6+ hours (sarcasm). We managed to get all of us along with Lewis and Jamie (haul bags) to the ledge by 3 AM and we set into devouring cans of fruit and jugs of Gatorade. A lot folks wonder how you sleep on a wall. I too would like to know because I don’t remember any of it. I laid down (tied in of course) and pasted out only to be resurrected by the sun a few hours later.

(Bivy on Dolt Tower)

So this was our high point and the decision was made to bail. El Cap tower, 4 pitches above us hosted 2 teams we knew of and possibly a third, it wasn’t getting any cooler and we had to face the fact that we were slow. So we bailed from Dolt Tower, 11 pitches up @ ~ 1000’ of the 3000’ face. Rappelling was no small task even after we had dumped most of the water. The eight double rope rappels put us on the ground a little after 2 PM on day 2.

(John rapping with haul bag)