Freerider 1

For me, free climbing El Capitan is such a horribly obvious big ambition that it has probably been lurking at the back of my mind for the last 18 years, pretty much since I started climbing. Three years ago I had a really good trip to Yosemite with Dan which only made this ambition more immediately obvious. And now I've had the past two months climbing on granite, I'm in the Valley with Dan, and the forecast is for 30c and full sun. Good enough.


Tuesday
Today we pack and pre-haul the bag to Heart Ledges up the fixed ropes. A pair who are also hauling up the fixed lines drop their spare hauling device (who carries a spare hauling device anyway? only people who are likely to drop their hauling device...), and a team on an aid route above us knock off a basket ball sized rock which explodes into gravel just above us, but the trip to stash our bag is otherwise uneventful and we return back to camp 4 for a days rest.


Wednesday
The days rest is actually a days dread. I'm nauseatingly aware that in twenty four hours time, we'll be part way through a rather big day. Our plan is to climb 20 pitches tomorrow. This includes the slick slabs of the free blast, a bunch of chimneys, a couple of long down-climbs which connect features on the wall, and finishes off with the monster offwidth. The Monster Offwidth. That's right, as if a 50 meter offwidth isn't bad enough as it is, it is named to intimidate. As Dan has climbed it three times already he kindly offers me the priviledge of leading it. How can I refuse? (I didn't mean that rhetorically, I desperately searched for a way to refuse but the only words which left my mouth were 'yeah, great'. Idiot.)
In the village store I bump into Andy, one of the pair who was dropping gear whilst hauling yesterday. I ask him what he's doing down here, as they are meant to be aiding their way up Salathe and should be halfway up El Cap. Andy shakes his head and explains that his partner dropped their entire rack down the hollow flake as he was chimneying! Unbelievable. So they have temporarily retreated to collect their spare rack. Yep, an entire spare rack. Who owns an entire spare rack anyway? oh...

Thursday
Today is the day. It doesn't feel like any exaggeration to say that the combination of length, difficulty, and how much I want to do this route will make today the biggest day out climbing I've ever tried. Dan seems much cooler about it all than me, but then he's free'd El Cap twice already and knows most of this route already.
Despite all this talk of dread, as soon as we start climbing at 3am I'm immersed in the fun of it all. The freeblast goes smoothly except for a slip at the crux on my part (bloody granite friction slabs) and we even manage what James Lucas calls "the hardest move on rock". By 10am however the sun comes round onto our face, and for the next 6 hours we get fairly fried, drink more than our ration of water, and climb a lot of chimneys.

Dan leading the Hollow Flake pitch. There's a whole rack wedged somewhere deep inside El Cap there.

I'm surprisingly successful at blocking out the thought of the M.O., and so I feel a little surprised when I find myself racking up for it. My preconception is of its notoriety, but this is to miss out the fact that it is also an incredibly cool pitch. I step off the ledge and straight into a wild undercutting down climb to access the crack proper. Much of the route to here has been slabs, chimneys and grooves, which all offer protection from the feeling of height or exposure. No such protection here though!

Getting psyched just before the M.O. Climbing with Dan is always a serious business, and no pitch should be taken more seriously than this one

I feel so hyped up I just punch out the moves until I reach the edge of the crack and can throw myself as far inside the crack as I can fit. And so it begins. 50m of struggle, broken only by a few footholds. I find the first section a real battle, but Dan tells me to not worry as that's how it is meant to feel. Great. It's a beautiful evening, with the whole West side of El Cap glowing orange as the sun sets. For a short while things seem to go well. Painfully, laboriously, skin shreddingly and slowly, but enjoyable because of this. I get to the final rest foothold, but I know I'm tired. I'm really tired. It's getting dark, the moment of enjoyment has passed, and I'm scared of the possibility of failure. There's no such thing as trying again if you fail at the top of a 50m pitch which has just taken you over an hour already. With the dusk turning to night, I set off on the final few meters. The foot cams which seemed secure when I was fresh start skidding. I over grip with my arms, pushing and squeezing ineffectually. Panic sets in, and I helplessly slide out of the crack. Almost as a passive observer, I see my chance at climbing Freerider slip. I sit on the rope in partial disbelief. The exhaustion, tiredness, pain and dejection mix together. I don't want to be here any more. I hate this stupid crack. I want to be back in camp 4 with Lindy. I want to swear my head off but it takes a while before I can catch my breath and muster the energy to do so, but when I do, I start in earnest: "You BASTARD stupid fucking good-for-nothing piece-of-shit crack!!".
It takes me a long time to frig my way up the final 5 meters, and it's definitely nighttime as Dan seconds the pitch cleanly. One more half-pitch sees us at the Alcove, where we'll bivvy for the night. We eat and go to sleep straight after, but I wake intermittently through the night, usually having slid down the ledge into some rocks. It's a clear starry night, and the moon partially illuminates the Cathedral rocks opposite El Cap. It's a beautiful place to stir intermittently, but I can't escape the thought that I've fallen off the Monster and screwed it up.

My elbow the day after the Monster - ouch!

Friday
The dawn of a new day brings with it an acceptance that I'm not freeing El Cap, a multitude of aches and pains throughout my body, and a dearth of skin on my elbow thanks to the M.O. Fortunately however, today only has 5 pitches to the next bivvy. These are mostly straight forward (although of course, they don't feel it to me given the beating I received yesterday), except for the crux of the route, the boulder problem pitch. Dan flashed this pitch when he was here in May, but today, in the scorching heat, he can't even redpoint it. Dan gives up on his all-free ascent of Freerider and we continue to the Block, where we chill out to the entertainment provided by Team Butterfingers, who are having a tough time aiding the pitch above us. We hear a warning shout of "rock!", but in actual fact it's just another cam being cast earthwards. Later, shouts of "man, why don't we have enough small cams" can be heard. It might be uncharitable, but I can't help thinking that the reason for that is pretty self-evident. Whilst chaos ensues above, we sit out the head wave. Later, as if we needed any confirmation of the suitability of their nickname, Butterfingers drop their hash pipe onto the ledge. The last we hear from them is a distressed shout of "man I don't know how to clean a pendulum, this is the kinda crap I wanted to practice on the ground!" followed by a whole lot more yelling.

Saturday
I'm still dehydrated and my finger skin is trashed, but we'll top out today. I pull on at least one piece of gear on almost every pitch. Free'ing an isolated pitch doesn't really matter to me right now, and my elbow is in a bit of a state. I just want to get down to drink some water. Where Dan is still energetic and pulls out some tough leads, I manage one of my worst ever on one of the enduro corner pitches.
We top out in the late afternoon. Frigrider it may be, but we've still topped out on El Cap, so despite my disappointment at not freeing the route I'm still chuffed.