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shipoopoi
Big Wall climber
oakland
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Topic Author's Original Post - Sep 28, 2009 - 11:39pm PT
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so, kurt's thread about the house burning down got me thinking about my other fa on fairview, a route called Le coup de Gras, that i did with scott burke in the summer of 1986. This route, as oppossed to burning down the house, has only one runout on hard ground, the rest of the route is fairly well protected, the idea being that we did not want the route to be super scary, just hard. and hard it is...two pitches of 12a, and one 11d pitch.
it was burke's baby, and he recruited me, a fellow member of the famed tuolume rescue team(where we specialized in searches for little girls!). he took me to some open territory left of toad's and we were off. the first pitch, which i've done a few times, is runout to the belay, almost always has a bail sling there, but is an easy runout for an experinced tuolumne climber. a couple more pitches led us to an impasse. we probed up a line that i think would go now, but it was too much for us then. we traversed to an anchor on toad's and then found a line ascending upwards, and...well you never knew if it was going to go or not in those days. burke drilled his way up increasingly hard ground on increasinglly hardewr stances. The pro on this pitch is good, burke laced it up. scotty got to the dike and traversed right to a suitable belay ledge. above it looked improbable to say the least.
i could see no stances, nothing to go for, none of the usual little ledges to pimp out a hand drilled 1'4" bolt from. being either blonde or brave, i just said f@$k it, i'm going to run it out 10 feet as fast as i can, and THEN look for a stance. so, i go for it, and get to where there's no way i can justify going any farther, find a couple of sick edges to dig in on, and over the next half hour tap tap my way to a bolt placement. above is the same, i go for it again, and desparetely find another psycho stance from which to tap tap another bolt in. Through the hardest section of the climb now, occasional mini ledges provide ample comfort for bolt drilling, althouogh at one place i run it out just to add some spice.
burke gets on the pitch and just gets spanked, he can't put it together on toprope, which, of course, torques scotty who is already wound up pretty darn tight. he then notices that there is a possibly easier line to the right(which was impossible to see frojm below), and he then informs me that"Stevie, you blew it". i was so pissed, i had just done the lead of a life time, and here little scotty was telling me i did not know what routefinding was. it was volatile like that with scotty, he, like me was passionate about his climbinmg.
on our final day of putting up the route, burke forgets the drill holder, and i yell at him to go up there anyway, he does, and drills a shallow hole while just holding onto a drill bit, no holder, until its stuck in the rock and he can't twist it out so he ties it off and just goes for it on 5.11 territory. totally awesome!
and so we go and redpoint the thing, and i even fall a couple times on the crux where i hadn't before, but we send it. this time scotty cranks my pitch and because he can climb it my "routefinding error" is forgotten and now it is like, the best line ever. the route logically joins heart of stone at this point for a couple hundred more feet to the summit. we took six days to establish and redpoint the route. to my best knowledge, it has never even had an attempt at an second ascent, although i do the first pitch once in a awile.
This route epitomizes our stlye of the day, hand drilling from tiny(i mean tiny) stances, including some of the hardest stances i have ever made , all the while looking at a nasty thirty foot fall. i remember it as a quality climb, and there are probably enough bolts that it would be reasonable to complete it on the original bolts as i don't believe they haved been replaced. I would, however, back up the belay on the dike with a modern bolt. this route should not be fading into obscurity, it's just too good.
BOB J - this might be a good warmup for you to do the house
and that the way it went down...steve schneider
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Jerry Dodrill
climber
Sebastopol, CA
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Sep 29, 2009 - 12:45am PT
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Great story. Thanks Steve.
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Redlands
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Sep 29, 2009 - 12:55am PT
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Awesome. Thanks.
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Jay Wood
Trad climber
Fairfax, CA
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Sep 29, 2009 - 01:07am PT
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I hurt all over just thinking about those 1/2 hr. tap tap taps.
Thanks for that.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Sep 29, 2009 - 01:15am PT
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nice, Steve, keep'em coming.
What was the 2nd ascent of B/Y like?
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Zander
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Sep 29, 2009 - 01:28am PT
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Great, great story.
thanks,
Zander
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Rhodo-Router
Gym climber
ticking up the good holds on After 6
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Sep 29, 2009 - 01:40am PT
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Makes my feet hurt just thinking about it...thanks!
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Sep 29, 2009 - 01:56am PT
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Thanks for sharing that. Recording the FA stories is history that's both interesting, fun, and useful.
I'd encourage folks to write down and post their FA stories of note.
Peace
Karl
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bob
climber
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Sep 29, 2009 - 06:37am PT
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Well its 3:30 where I'm at. I can't sleep cuz I have to do a bunch of work on a composite sea kayak for a guy I respect so......I gotta do it right. I'm nervous and wanted a read. Dammit Steve I need this to be longer!!!!!!!! Thanks for it though!
Those bolts look a lot better than all the other 1/4 inch sh#t I've seen up there. Are u sure they are 1/4 inchers?
As I said before my buddy and I were quite impressed looking down and up at Le Coup de Gras from Separation Anxiety. All we pretty much said was how rad it looked! There's still a bunch of routes I'd like to do up on Fairview.
Anybody done Playing with Fire? Arete left of Plastic Exploding. Super contrived start that is dangerous looking so....why? But the arete looks great cept for the two sheeeite bolts that protect it.
Steve, have you done Jeff's route going up right of Plastic, crossing it to the left from the corner then shooting up through the enormous roof? That's a fun route and quite well protected.
Again, thanks for sharing.
And one last thing. What constitutes a runout on "hard" ground? Sounds like the RO's on BDH are on 10+ ish ground. How bout Coup de Gras?
Bob J.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Sep 29, 2009 - 08:19am PT
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Steve,
Did you guys really mean to call the route, "Coup de Gras" and not Coup de Grace"? "Gras" is "fat" in french.
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David Wilson
climber
CA
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Sep 29, 2009 - 11:50am PT
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Steve - that's a great story! Thanks for posting.
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MisterE
Trad climber
Canoga Bark! CA
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Sep 29, 2009 - 12:41pm PT
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Great story, Steve. Maybe repost this in the Trip Report forum, as well? Hate to see it get lost here.
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Jack Burns
climber
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Sep 29, 2009 - 12:48pm PT
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Is the drill bit still up there?
Cool story, I agree it should go in the TR section so it doesn't get shitposted down into obscurity.
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drljefe
climber
Old Pueblo, AZ
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Sep 29, 2009 - 02:55pm PT
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RAD
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shipoopoi
Big Wall climber
oakland
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 29, 2009 - 03:11pm PT
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hey peter, i wanted to call it le coup de grace, but was too blonde to know the spelling. cup of fat? is that what it means as is?
the drill bit is no longer there, we pried it out and put in a real bolt when we did the redpoint.
This route, at the very least, needs an extra belay bolt on the dike belay.
the runout on the 12a pitch above the dike is probably 10a or b, maybe its 25 feet long...don't blow the finish mantel kind of thing.
and about the second ascent of the bachar-yerian, there i was, on the second pitch, 15 feet out on knobs, and still 15 feet away from a bolt with a black hanger that i couldn't even see...ah, nobody realy wants to hear about the second ascent, do they?
bob j any second ascent of separation anxiety yet? i still would love to do it, i should recruit stanley, huh?
shipoopoi out
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aldude
climber
Monument Manor
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Sep 29, 2009 - 05:14pm PT
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I can picture Scotty......arcin & wiggy !!
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Studly
Trad climber
WA
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Sep 29, 2009 - 06:46pm PT
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Would not the second ascent of the Bachar Yerian be the first true onsite??? OF COURSE WE WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT!!!
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the kid
Trad climber
fayetteville, wv
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Sep 30, 2009 - 03:39pm PT
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solid steve!
keep the stories coming..
and scan some old slides..
kurt
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tom woods
Gym climber
Bishop, CA
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Sep 30, 2009 - 05:50pm PT
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I'd be a little interested to read about the second on Bachar Yerian.
I was reading a thread on the mountain project. Much slander of Bachar for the route and the ego bs. No respect, I tell ya.
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Dec 31, 2014 - 04:19am PT
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why it's from Sha poop e
this tall bump is no masa
ka passa?
B U M P!
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