When I was 16 I was given an old On The Edge magazine, OTE 39. Aside from a fantastic bio of big Ron, the best article in it was "you want to climb the nose in a day?". This was both a how to guide, and an aspirational peice. The same day that I was given this magazine, I was happy to climb Tiger at burbage south, which, if you know the problem may give you an impression of how far removed my ability or ambition was from being able to climb the nose at all, let alone in 24 hours. In spite of its lack of immediate relevance to me at the time, the article obviously struck a chord as I remembered to tear out the pages and bring them with me.
Dan pointed out to me that the number of pitches we were doing per day had increased, from 8, to 12, to 19. With this observation combined with the seed planted years before, it became inevitable what we would try next.
After considering almost every point over the 24 hour clock, Dan began climbing the nose at 0320. Climbing by a full moon was eerie but exciting. Making fast progress meant we passed a sleeping team in the night, and two more pairs just as they were waking on dolt tower, 11 pitches up. At this point we stashed our abseil cord on the ledge to collect it another day. No retreat would be possible from now on, no discussion was needed. We were committed to the top.
We climbed doing everything we could to maintain momentum. Free climbing, pulling on gear or bolts, aid, standing in slings or on each other, anything was fair game. By 1130 we had climbed 20 of the 31 pitches, although this point is often regarded as the half way mark timewise.
Then the sun turned on us. Every surface reflected the heat onto us, our fingers and toes stung, our mouths dried up and our progress slowed. Some pitches, like the great roof, are inherently slow to climb, but others that should have been quick free climbs became protracted frigging exercises. We lost our drive to go fast, only continuing as we had no choice. Darkness eventually gave us some respite from the heat, but we remained toasted by it. Even though the climbing looked world class, it was with a weary obligation that we continued through constant pain. Every action was coloured by dehydration. We knew at this point that we would complete the route within 24 hours due to our earlier speed, but just getting off the route was the only goal we now cared for.
We found some water, which is sometimes left by big wall parties who have more than they need. We both greedily drank a litre but our mouths were dry again within a minute. 3 pitches from the top, I told Dan that I would happily abseil 28 pitches in preference to continue, if only we had the option.
On topping out at 2300 we shook hands, out of habit rather than celebration. We descended by the eastern ledges, bitching about the whole experience. We were interrupted at one time by Dan's watch alarm, informing us that we had now been awake for 24 hours.
The next day my body was in tatters. My fingers were too swollen to make a fist. We hitched to el cap to retrieve some kit. Stood in the meadow, I could barely comprehend what I could see with the previous days experience. Features that I had seen before now had a new meaning and context. My internal monologue was screaming "i damm well climbed that!" On repeat. It was really hard to reconcile the vast scale of El Capitan with, well, me.
Dan and I had been quite coy about out objective of the nose in a day whilst around camp 4. Inevitably however, lots of people knew our plans. Their kind congratulations, and knowing that some of them had driven to the meadow to watch our progress, all helped erode the memories of discomfort, and allow their replacement with a deep and personal satisfaction.
Although the praise from others his always nice to hear, and I think it is important in itself, it also helped me to put the day into perspective. Our friends helped me to refocus my thoughts on the good parts, rather than dwell exclusively on the discomfort and pain we endured to get there.
Doing the nose was amazing. It just took a little while for it to sink in.
Monday, 17 October 2011
Sunday, 16 October 2011
The 5.11c trilogy
It seems that a lot of climbing areas have trios of routes to aspire to. There's the Yorkshire limestone triple crown, three bold aretes at Stanage Plantation, the alpine trilogy of f8b+'s... similarly, yosemite has three long adventure routes, all graded 5.11c (as in the previous post, trying to convert this grade into British money will not give an accurate indication of what these routes are about.)
First up was the Rostrum. 8 pitches of sustained and strenuous crack climbing, with a few cruxes and two off-widths thrown in for good measure. We again played paper scissors stone for first lead. I was initially exuberant at losing to Dan, as it meant he would lead the crux and both off-widths. This glee quickly disappeared when I checked the topo and realised that actually all the cruxes abnd off-widths were on my pitches. I made Dan promise to lead the second offwidth, to give me a break.
The crux went swiftly, the harder offwidth was like watching a wild animal trying to escape from a vice, Dan got some tough pitches to keep things fair, and the top offwifth turned out to be easy (disappointing so, as I wanted to see Dan struggle like I had on the first one).
Second up was Astroman, a classic amongst classics, abnd deservedly so. So many famous pitches, with some evocative names: the endurance corner, the boulder problem, changing corners, and the Harding slot. Oh the Harding slot! Or Harding slut, which seems a more accurate name to me, given how's much of a whore it is to squirm through this narrow fissure. I am certainly no Tom Randall. I unashamedly slumped onto the rope 3 times before handing over the lead to Dan, having failed to gain entry to the narrow slot. Dan succeeded on his fourth attempt, and with a tight rope talked me through the series of jams and pressure moves to make progress. The upper part of the slot is too tight to fall out of, but almost too tight to make any measurable upwards progress. Now I'm pretty slight, but the possibility of becoming a permanent fixture seemed very real from within its confines.
The rest of the route went without incident, but continued in the vein of stout and strenuous crack climbing until you are sat on the very top of the cliff.
With 2 down and one to go, we hiked into the west face of el capitan. In some ways this doesn't feel like a proper el cap route, it certainly is not a big wall. Still, it comes in at about 600 metres of climbing, but atypically for yosemite, little of this is pure crack climbing.
Being carless, we decided to walk in and bivvy the night before. The base of the route is high above the valley floor and makes for a great spot to bed down. Embarrassing though, we were still beaten onto the route by Neil M and Hazel F. They arrived warm from the steep hike as we struggled to coordinate cold limbs. We matched their pace until high on the route where two pitches were soaked by drainage from recent rain. This wetness cost both teams time, and it was with some alarm that I realised we had 30 minutes of light left and four pitches above us. Dan and I simul-climbed to try and heat the encroaching darkness. Despite running out 100m of the route we still lost, and finished the final 100m by headtorch. My second benightment in 5 weeks.
On topping out el catp we took the 8 mile trail back to camp 4, unsure if we could find the much faster east ledges descent in the darkness.
As well as giving great climbing and a thought challenge, these routes were great training. That's a total of 39 pitches of extra granite climbing on everything from finger crack to full body squirm, thin slabs and thuggy roofs, leading I'm blocks, efficient change overs and hauling a day bag. In spite of my previous post full of amateur philosophizing about searching for lessons in failure, I've had a lot more fun improving myself whilst ticking does great classics!
First up was the Rostrum. 8 pitches of sustained and strenuous crack climbing, with a few cruxes and two off-widths thrown in for good measure. We again played paper scissors stone for first lead. I was initially exuberant at losing to Dan, as it meant he would lead the crux and both off-widths. This glee quickly disappeared when I checked the topo and realised that actually all the cruxes abnd off-widths were on my pitches. I made Dan promise to lead the second offwidth, to give me a break.
The crux went swiftly, the harder offwidth was like watching a wild animal trying to escape from a vice, Dan got some tough pitches to keep things fair, and the top offwifth turned out to be easy (disappointing so, as I wanted to see Dan struggle like I had on the first one).
Second up was Astroman, a classic amongst classics, abnd deservedly so. So many famous pitches, with some evocative names: the endurance corner, the boulder problem, changing corners, and the Harding slot. Oh the Harding slot! Or Harding slut, which seems a more accurate name to me, given how's much of a whore it is to squirm through this narrow fissure. I am certainly no Tom Randall. I unashamedly slumped onto the rope 3 times before handing over the lead to Dan, having failed to gain entry to the narrow slot. Dan succeeded on his fourth attempt, and with a tight rope talked me through the series of jams and pressure moves to make progress. The upper part of the slot is too tight to fall out of, but almost too tight to make any measurable upwards progress. Now I'm pretty slight, but the possibility of becoming a permanent fixture seemed very real from within its confines.
The rest of the route went without incident, but continued in the vein of stout and strenuous crack climbing until you are sat on the very top of the cliff.
With 2 down and one to go, we hiked into the west face of el capitan. In some ways this doesn't feel like a proper el cap route, it certainly is not a big wall. Still, it comes in at about 600 metres of climbing, but atypically for yosemite, little of this is pure crack climbing.
Being carless, we decided to walk in and bivvy the night before. The base of the route is high above the valley floor and makes for a great spot to bed down. Embarrassing though, we were still beaten onto the route by Neil M and Hazel F. They arrived warm from the steep hike as we struggled to coordinate cold limbs. We matched their pace until high on the route where two pitches were soaked by drainage from recent rain. This wetness cost both teams time, and it was with some alarm that I realised we had 30 minutes of light left and four pitches above us. Dan and I simul-climbed to try and heat the encroaching darkness. Despite running out 100m of the route we still lost, and finished the final 100m by headtorch. My second benightment in 5 weeks.
On topping out el catp we took the 8 mile trail back to camp 4, unsure if we could find the much faster east ledges descent in the darkness.
As well as giving great climbing and a thought challenge, these routes were great training. That's a total of 39 pitches of extra granite climbing on everything from finger crack to full body squirm, thin slabs and thuggy roofs, leading I'm blocks, efficient change overs and hauling a day bag. In spite of my previous post full of amateur philosophizing about searching for lessons in failure, I've had a lot more fun improving myself whilst ticking does great classics!
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
Not the B-Y
The Bachar-Yerian, for those who don't know, is regarded as the classic hard frightener of California, if not the usa. Despite some effort, Dan and I did not climb this. Which came as quite a surprise to us, given the bold wall climbing we've done and the handy supertopo grade table making it sound about French 6c. This goes to show how wrong I can be.
Persuaded by the guide that the sun would be on the wall from mid morning, we decided an early start would not provide any better conditions. The sun was just coming onto the wall when we arrived at 11.30, having evidently wasted the primo conditions of the day. Dan won paper scissors stone and took the first pitch. He split a tip (more a surgical gash than a split) and had to lower off. Using Dan's beta I got through the crux and kept going through the dangerous part, which felt a good E6 in its own right. I lowered off the second pitch, having climbed down after scaring myself high above a bolt, lost in a sea pc knobs. Some of these weird identical protrusions are tiny crimps, but most are only there to deceive you into thinking they may offer a hold. Ryan P, we later found out, took a 70ft fall from this pitch when he went off route and snapped a hold. We beat a hasty retreat.
Neither Dan nor I took this particular failure particularly well. It's obvious that failure is the essential contrast that makes success meaningful and stops victory from being hollow, but i find this cold comfort when I want to do a route. For me, post failure blues is brought on because I assessing my climbing ability as not good enough. However, sat in camp 4, I realised the futility of basing an evaluation on a route I have no prior experience of. It's a bit like choosing the yardstick against which to measure yourself without knowing how long a yard is. By getting on the route I learnt some of its idiosyncratic challenges. If the route then turns out to be too hard for you, it only disproved your preconceptions. Our perception of the B-Y was wrong from the start, and we are still the same climbers.
That route deserves some respect, and I have been left strangely proud to have been on it. It was still a great experience, but one that starved the ego to feed the soul.
Persuaded by the guide that the sun would be on the wall from mid morning, we decided an early start would not provide any better conditions. The sun was just coming onto the wall when we arrived at 11.30, having evidently wasted the primo conditions of the day. Dan won paper scissors stone and took the first pitch. He split a tip (more a surgical gash than a split) and had to lower off. Using Dan's beta I got through the crux and kept going through the dangerous part, which felt a good E6 in its own right. I lowered off the second pitch, having climbed down after scaring myself high above a bolt, lost in a sea pc knobs. Some of these weird identical protrusions are tiny crimps, but most are only there to deceive you into thinking they may offer a hold. Ryan P, we later found out, took a 70ft fall from this pitch when he went off route and snapped a hold. We beat a hasty retreat.
Neither Dan nor I took this particular failure particularly well. It's obvious that failure is the essential contrast that makes success meaningful and stops victory from being hollow, but i find this cold comfort when I want to do a route. For me, post failure blues is brought on because I assessing my climbing ability as not good enough. However, sat in camp 4, I realised the futility of basing an evaluation on a route I have no prior experience of. It's a bit like choosing the yardstick against which to measure yourself without knowing how long a yard is. By getting on the route I learnt some of its idiosyncratic challenges. If the route then turns out to be too hard for you, it only disproved your preconceptions. Our perception of the B-Y was wrong from the start, and we are still the same climbers.
That route deserves some respect, and I have been left strangely proud to have been on it. It was still a great experience, but one that starved the ego to feed the soul.
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