Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
eddie7
Trad climber
London, Ontario, Canada, eh?
|
|
|
Topic Author's Original Post - Mar 6, 2008 - 08:39pm PT
|
Dudes, word just came down that the big wall camping, sun-loving Dr. Piton got off his lazy wintertime lard-ass to make a push ascent of El Cap with Rich Copeland [Darnell] and Erik Sloan [Nanook].
Not sure what route they did, but I heard it was an all-nighter and they were pelted with deluges of frigid meltwater pouring off the summit.
Pete was too knackered to say much more, but he did mention something about leading through a quarter-inch-thick coating of ice on the rock! Apparently it was pretty darn cold at night....
cheers,
bp.
|
|
brat
climber
El Portal
|
|
There were people on the Nose on Sunday.
|
|
'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
|
|
I wish to assure you that the preposterous myth is true.
I was in the Valley for a few days after a week of skiing at Squaw, and managed to coerce speed-climbing demon Erik Sloan and die-hard winter ascensionist Rich Copeland into a quick trip up the Big Stone. I’ve never repeated a route on El Cap, but if I figured if I were to do so, we might as well make it a bit more sporting by attempting an off-the-couch winter push. As Blaine correctly notes, I am more of a big wall camper than a big wall climber, so the push ascent thing was totally new to me.
Fortunately, things had warmed up a bit after the storm of the previous week.
Pretty cold looking, eh?
So with sherpa support from B_Brenda, Rich and I headed up the base the night before and tried to hide from the huge quantities of water pouring off the summit. The next morning the alarm went off at 5:30 am – I don’t even get up that early to go fishin’, fer cryin’ out loud – and we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and a few presses of coffee while racking our gear, which we could have done the night before.
Our day began clear and sunny and actually reasonably warm, at least when looking to the west.
To the east, however, things were looking a little more dire.
There wasn’t much else to do but put on our Goretex, and hope for the west wind to pick up a bit, and hopefully blow most of the water clear of us. Erik had warned us that we would have to move quickly through the second and third belays, where we were most likely to get pounded, and try to get across the leftward traverse on the fourth pitch as quickly as possible.
You can see that most of the water is missing Rich above – at least when I happened to snap the photo – but what’s harder to see is the substantial flow coming off the top of Zed-Em, which hit us whenever the breeze slackened. Erik's photo below is a bit more representative.
Rich led the first block, I was Jug and Haul Monkey, and Erik took care of the cleaning. We managed to dodge most, but not all, of the water. What do you think of Erik's moustache-less beard? Put him behind a horse and buggy and he could pass for Abe the Mennonite.
“Send it, Rich!”
“You’re lookin’ great, dude!”
We used only two ropes – a 60m lead rope and a 10mm x 70m static hauling and jugging line. The Leader wore the entire lead rack, and upon reaching the belay station, the first thing he did was to fix the haul line through the hauling device and back it up with a knot so that the Jug Monkey could get up right away. The Leader next pulled through a bit of lead rope to short fix and start soloing the next pitch. We tried to keep the down time to a minimum, and keep the leader ever moving upwards.
A different twist on things was the requirement that the Jug Monkey put his ascenders on the weighted haul line, and jug above the pig. Our pig was fairly lightweight – just extra clothes and a bit of food and water – so it wasn’t like you were jugging on rebar, though it was exciting being lowered out on top of the bag! Meanwhile the Cleaner took off up the pitch, and upon reaching the next belay station, the Cleaner would tag up the cleaned gear to the Leader using the haul line.
Rich was keen to keep leading, but Erik said, “I can do this next pitch pretty fast, guys…” and he quickly jumped into the lead. I believe this was Erik’s sixteenth time up Zodiac and sixtieth ascent of El Cap, and his skill and experience sure showed – buddy flew up the next two pitches, linking them together. Thank goodness Erik wasn’t doing those insanely huge runouts I saw him making when he and I and Mike Shaeffer attempted a speed ascent of Magic Mushroom some years ago. Here I use my Froggy jug system while Rich cleans the pitch below me.
Continuing our gentlemanly pace, Erik got us up to the base of the White Circle just before nightfall. “I’m pretty psyched in the daylight,” Erik declared, “but I’ll whine like a baby once it gets dark. And in spite of the fact that Rich might fall asleep in the middle of the day, he worked the night shift for so many years I think he’s happier climbing in the dark.”
So the sun went down, and Rich took off up the White Circle and then knocked off the Nipple pitch. I tried to save my energy and doze a bit in my “butt bag”, but it was starting to get pretty darn cold. I wasn’t really looking forward to my block of leads, but it seemed better than hanging around the dark and shivering. Finally it was my turn to rack up.
Since I'm the caver, I took the sharp end in the wee morning hours and worked the Graveyard Shift. I can climb in the dark OK, just not as fast. My regular caving light had crapped out on me, the result of having put it away wet last time, and I was using a less bright borrowed lamp. It worked pretty well, but there were a couple times I spent a few minutes fiddle-farting around with a placement, only to make it, then look up and see a fixed pin within top-step reach.
“Way to hang the rope, dude!” shouted Rich in encouragement. “You can actually climb fast!”
“Not bad for a big wall camper, eh?” I managed to knock off a couple pitches in pretty quick time, but then the night and the exhaustion started to catch up with me. I figure that training or staying fit is cheating if you’re trying to make a legit off-the-couch ascent, and I was sure feeling it by this point. As I ended up in the drips with the meltwater starting to hit me, Rich and Erik were enduring a full-on Suffer Fest, hanging in their aiders and trying to survive the chill of the pre-dawn hours.
The pitch below Peanut Ledge kind of knocked it out of me. At the end of the traverse to the right to reach the base of the left-leaning ramp, I got hammered by the water. It didn’t help a bit that in the depths of the night, the cleaner handed me a clusterf*ck of gear with cams attached to slings with no rhyme nor reason. In the daylight this wouldn’t be too much of a bother, but in the darkness this seemingly perplexing problem cost me a good twenty minutes trying to re-rack – much better to rack as you clean. To further complicate things, the rock was coated with a quarter-inch of ice where the waterfall had frozen overnight. I kept wondering if my cams would hold in iced-up cracks – the big ones seemed to do fine. I was under the full force of the water a good half-hour trying to get through that bit. It was just like caving – dark, but a helluva lot colder.
It started to get light as I tried to work my way up the ramp, only to find I had no cams in the red Alien size, exactly what you need for move after move. My dreams of a sub-24-hour ascent really began to evaporate, and I cursed my way up the crack. And of course I was fighting those first wall of the year cramps in my hands and arms, as were Erik and Rich.
Suddenly the sun came out and things warmed up, and I was able to turn my headlamp off. Every now and then I could hear shouts of encouragement from below – the poor buggers must have been freezing their asses off all night. Glad I was leading, and not belaying.
I crawled up onto Peanut Ledge exactly 24 hours after Rich left the ground, and nearly fell asleep in the sunshine. The view to the Meadows was glorious.
We had The Captain completely to ourselves – there wasn’t even any traffic since the north drive was closed. I’m sure this moment didn’t come soon enough for Rich – getting lowered out on top of the pig by Erik.
Here Erik struggles to free an orange Alien whose cams I managed to invert in the crack. Check out the base of Horsetail Falls beneath us - the stream draining the base froze overnight!
Erik looks a bit damp, eh?
Erik finally collapsed on the ledge, relieved to soak up some sun.
“These wintertime pushes of El Cap are the Real Deal,” said Erik.
Moments later Rich arrived on top of the pig, and the three of us crashed out on Peanut Ledge, soaking in the sunshine like a trio of iguanas on the beach after hitting the salad bar. We enjoyed a full three hours festering on the ledge – ya just gotta love it!
Above us, the waterfall coming off the top of Zed-Em kept us on our toes, so I buried my camera in ziplock bags never to bring it out again. Rich led the wide-crack pitch above Peanut using our extra large cams [the bolts have been removed] and then Erik led the final two pitches, which Rich cleaned.
Erik showed us a neat trick – after you get to the top of the diagonal crack on the slab which you can see in the photo above below Rich and to his left, but before you traverse left, Erik left a single cam on a long sling. He backcleaned the traverse left, then climbed up the corner. “Pete, you can lower down from the belay above and clean the piece later! Just remember to leave the end of the lead rope tied to the station so you can pull yourself over.”
“Are you nuts?! I’m leaving the end of the rope tied to the cam, dude – I’m not rapping one foot farther down than I have to!”
After I cleaned the left-facing corner, I was amazed and scared to see not a single piece of pro between me and the belay – about forty or fifty horizontal feet away to the right.
“You bastard! You backcleaned the whole traverse! How am I supposed to get across?”
“It’s casual,” promised Rich. “Just climb up onto the ledge, and kinda walk down the ramp.”
I couldn’t believe it – it worked. Last time across when I soloed some other route [Lunar Eclipse? Shortest Straw?] I had aided the whole damn thing.
Erik took us onward to the summit, where Rich beams in triumph.
We arrived on top thirty hours after leaving the ground – including our three hour sunshine break – and where we were too tired to remember to take any pictures. There was plenty of deep snow on the ground.
We packed up our gear in under thirty minutes – a new record – and began postholing our way down the East Ledges descent through soft corn snow, often plunging up to our thighs. Some of the time we were able to glissade on our asses – but carefully. There’s, like, a bit of a drop you don’t want to go over, eh?
Rich had fixed the rappels after his recent ascent of Zed-Em, and we reached the base an hour and a half later. Unfortunately we had to walk all the way from the picnic area to Middle Cathedral, but Brenda “rescued” us halfway with cheese, crackers and beer.
We had a blast for sure, and although we felt that speed climbs have their place, we all agreed we’d rather enjoy a more casual pace, camping out in our ledges and enjoying being up there.
For me, it was a fine finish to a superb trip out west, and the three of us had a glow on like this superb photo of Horsetail Falls that Erik captured.
See you all on the bridge in May!
Cheers,
Pete
[Photos by Pete and Erik]
|
|
John Moosie
climber
|
|
Berrrrrrrly man. Thanks for the report !!!
|
|
J. Werlin
climber
Cedaredge
|
|
excellent report. Well done.
|
|
elcap-pics
climber
Crestline CA
|
|
Nice stuff guys.... loved the shirts.. why can't you wear those colors in season?!!!
|
|
10b4me
climber
hanging by a thread
|
|
thanks for the tr Pete. way to go.
|
|
marky
climber
|
|
good pics, particularly of the meadow under snow
dastardly that there are no "feature shots" of Middle Cathedral, a real disfavor to those who have viewed that rock only from the ground
good TR.
|
|
Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
|
|
Dang and shitfire!
That is quite a salvo of supersweet pictures.
Maybe you's guys could do more of these during the winter: it would help keep the Taco fresh.
|
|
Euroford
Trad climber
chicago
|
|
totally f*#king badass guys!
rich is my gawdamn hero! cannot freekin believe last summer i sat with him in the hospital with his neck all busted to hell and back and now he's out sending it like that.
i was going to make it a point to climb a wall with him this summer, but now it seams like that might be cheating to bring him along!
|
|
Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
|
|
"I figure that training or staying fit is cheating if you’re trying to make a legit off-the-couch ascent"
True. Style and standards ist everything.
|
|
GhoulweJ
Trad climber
Sacramento, CA
|
|
Nice
|
|
GDavis
Trad climber
SoCal
|
|
Petes the man.
|
|
Ammon
Big Wall climber
El Cap
|
|
Nice guys!! Good to see you're getting use out of the jacket Rich.
OOOUUAAAUAHHH!!
|
|
Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
|
|
This appears to be a report from an impostor. A real Canuck would say "off the sofa". Who is impersonating Pete, and why? It seems like a lot of trouble to take. :-)
Nice report, eh?
|
|
rwedgee
Ice climber
canyon country,CA
|
|
|
Mar 10, 2008 - 12:20am PT
|
Most excellent!!! You did the 'alternate' 1st pitch ? It looks like there's some lines hanging down from the P1 belay to the left of the climber ?? Regardless, "Zat ez had core, feking had core" Quote from the clucking guy. What's next Pete NIAD ?? Cheers, Chris
PS Trip reoprts rule !! I'm psyched for spring break !! and I'm 42
|
|
Russ Walling
Social climber
Out on the sand.... man.....
|
|
|
Mar 10, 2008 - 01:10am PT
|
Nice stuff!
|
|
nutjob
Stoked OW climber
San Jose, CA
|
|
|
Mar 10, 2008 - 02:13am PT
|
that is some kewl stuff!
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Mar 10, 2008 - 02:37am PT
|
thanks for the trip report - inspirational!
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!