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Tork
climber
Yosemite
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World class????
The Silverback is in a class by himself!
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goatboy smellz
climber
लघिमा
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How much for a boulder problem Werner?
No pads.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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YMS is the only legal way to be guided up El Cap.
There is a lot of "under the radar" guiding on El Cap for several reasons. People like to climb with guides they have a relationship with, perhaps because they only speak French or Japanese and YMS doesn't have very multi-lingual guides. Others want to have a mentorship that lets them lead and take a greater role in the climb.
Other accomplished climbers do it to make some extra money. I'd caution those good climbers who aren't very experienced taking folks with no wall experience up El Cap to volunteer for a few hundred bucks or something. Pulling something like that off is about more than being a good climber, it's about anticipating potential newbie mistakes and errors, and having judgement about a myriad of other issues. It's a huge responsibility and those who do it repeatedly generally are cheaper than YMS but not really cheap cause its big big work.
That said, the OP has some strength and skills so who knows? Maybe he'll get lucky cause skills or not, over half the people bail on their first wall
Peace
Karl
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slevin
Trad climber
New York, NY
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Who was that and where? Sorry, but he will remain anonymous. I have to give him a benefit of a doubt, since for all I know he is a good guide who was having a lousy day. Starting a day from us both trying hard boulder problems was a bad idea, anyway.
Truth is I would certainly pay whatever X thousand dollars if someone was going to teach me how to do something. For example, I would pay for aid lessons, just like one pays for golf lessons. On the other hand, I would not pay to have me jug, clean and haul - one does not pay to work as a caddy, even to Tiger Woods. Instead, I'd need to spend more time learning how to aid and do it myself a bit later.
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xtrmecat
Big Wall climber
Kalispell, Montanagonia
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Natural thread drift. My Yosemite topo map says right at 1000 feet. Just enough to get a good warmup, right?
Bob
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mongrel
Trad climber
Truckee, CA
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There is definitely an appearance of unfairness about only allowing YMS to guide, and in principle I agree that people should have choice about it. But there are some very big practical consequences from the slippery slope of completely opening it up too. For NPS, there's the immediate one that if you have any number of additional guiding ventures advertising El Cap, there are going to be problems and rescues when bad weather hits. Language problems, the whole bit they deal with already, but magnified.
Then, as if the trade routes aren't already about as big of a cluster as can be at some times, imagine when the number of parties increases by a factor of 2 or 10 or more due to the inevitable increase when an El Cap ascent can be advertised all over the place. Well, what happens then? First thing, a limited number of available starts per day or week, and these have to be apportioned between commercial and the general public, and it's a really bad situation just like the rafting rivers. And you have to have someone standing around checking paperwork at the base, which costs money. If you've got a permit, you're going, no matter how ominous the weather, because you might wait years in a lottery before you get another one. And that's not a good situation, either for climbers or rescuers (well, good for Werner's wallet, which is fine with me).
This costs money to administer, so now there's a fee, and a bureaucrat or three in addition to the DNR management hierarchy. Well, now that it costs so much to set the system up and operate it, they'll want to increase the take to cover it, so why not just expand the permits and fees to all the other rocks?
All this wouldn't happen at once, but it would assuredly happen in due course, and it would suck; there are LOTS of examples that demonstrate it would. So, despite it being imperfect and slightly unfair, I would personally hope guiding in Yosemite stays as limited as possible for the foreseeable future.
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Fuzzywuzzy
climber
suspendedhappynation
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Go up there and guide it and tell me you would do it for less $$$.
As Coz states: "3.5 is chicken feed, it's a couple weeks of effort all said and done, and a very dangerous job."
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le_bruce
climber
Oakland: what's not to love?
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I have hired YMS guides maybe six times and they are great.
$21k. $21k??!
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TomT
Trad climber
Aptos.
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Go to the valley, climb a few days, ask around, meet people, find a partner who is motivated (you can tell), worked for me. Do a grade 4 together, then fix some pitches, it will get clear.
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David Wilson
climber
CA
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I've met Scott Stowe a few times at the crags. He'd be the guy to take you up the captain for YMS and I bet it would be a blast. He's a super nice guy and incredibly competent. As mentioned above though, perhaps you wouldn't be allowed to lead, and that's a downside.
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Melissa
Gym climber
berkeley, ca
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6 guided climbs isn't necessarily six guided climbs up El Cap. If Jeff and Jobee were his guides, then I'm sure his money was well spent.
YMS has a monopoly on guiding in the valley, which seems unfair in some ways, but is part of a system that keeps the parks from being a total free for all of commerce.
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nature
climber
Tucson, AZ
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And Curry is what?
j/k
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Melissa
Gym climber
berkeley, ca
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I know...but what if there were several Curries (or DNCs).
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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I'll pay 3.5 k for jobee to guide me up the Sea Of Dreams!
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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GE has the altitude at The Bridge to be 3955'
base of the nose 4125' (~ 200')
base of the zod 4750' (~ 800')
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Melissa
Gym climber
berkeley, ca
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I didn't say DNC was great, just that one of them is likely better than several of them. They have to answer for their impacts...not necessarily the way we'd all like, but there is some oversight to preserve the "wilderness experience" in the Valley.
If there was a taco truck in the meadows, I would totally buy a taco there if I saw it when I was hungry. But I'm still glad that taco trucks and trinket stands aren't allowed. It's probably not that hard to get away with illicit meadow taco sales, but at least the folks looking to ply their taco trade in the meadow have to do it on the DL.
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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$3500 in 2010 seems cheap. In 1976 I charged $2000 for the Nose. It was too hot and I forced us down from the Stovelegs. Client was disappointed and then allowed himself to get pissed after he had forgotten that we were baking up there. I kept the $1000 down payment. I would have guessed closer to $5000.
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nature
climber
Tucson, AZ
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what coz said.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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John Markton (original poster here): I have some comments for you if you are still around.
As far as guides are concerned, I am absolutely certain they don’t make enough money for what they do, what they face, what they might have to fix or endure on your behalf. Our guide association is stellar and rigorous too. For a climber to reach the level where he or she is actually, honestly and truly, a master guide, requires one hell of a lot of experience, skills and yeah, talent for sure, and to do this well, you can't really be doing much else.
Three thousand five hundred bucks is hardly enough for to be babied up a 34 pitch, highly populated line like the Nose. And the guide doesn't get the half of it. That is just a few hundred dollars a day or so (gross receipts) and we all know those days are not 9am-5‘ers but more like 5am to 10pm’ers----17 hour days, when you are guiding someone up a long strenuous climb for days on end with all his problems and with everything getting slowly worse. That you would appeal to this group for the cheapest guide is repugnant--- guides feed themselves with this money; they don't buy Movado watches instead. Someone who can guide The Nose really competently and with style is not going to have many zeros in his checking account, believe me. He might not even HAVE a bank account. He/she is a professional climber and in all likelihood struggles like a son of a bitch to make ends meet, year after year. We must honor these men and women and not begrudge them a livelihood, even in the slightest.
Peter Haan
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Melissa
Gym climber
berkeley, ca
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Thanks, TR. I appreciate the note. I was arguing re: my own vocation, so clearly I am sensitive about the issue too.
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