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bmacd
Boulder climber
100% Canadian
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Feb 23, 2012 - 12:10am PT
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I was somewhat under the impression that all those corners were expanding to the point that most of the pieces would pull out in the event of a free climbing fall.
Don't forget that the Split Pillar and the Sword are expando pitches too if you nail them and no one thinks twice about plugging in a cam. Those fixed pins in the photo are nearly 1/2 inch angles, thats a cam placement for sure. A cam will also expand ...
Peter Croft and Greg Foweraker continued the Ten Years After line, joining it from the top of the left side of the Sword. This immediaty became the way to complete TYA. I forget their name for it or who climbed it next from the TYA approach. I honestly can't remember too many details from our ten years after ascent but I recorded that Mike Beaubien and I did the second complete ascent so whomever did the first would have had to have done it before July of '82 although Grinning weasel is not 10 yrs after, and if gf and pc pioneered the finish, who got on it before Mike and I but after gf ? Beaubien would know.
I am strongly against trading a classic nondeath nail up wall like 10yr for a bolted free climb.
A good number of hard core Yosemite pioneers learned their skills on the Chief on routes like this. Squamish has proven itself over and over again as a supplier of top quality talent and it's because of the diversity of opportunity the Chief has to offer in terms of hardening the aspirant. We must preserve some of these classic opportunities. In fact I would definitely do the route again as an aid climb.
Station bolts, yes, but thats it boys, please make this an example of harmony between the disciplines of free vs aid, not another ego driven travesty like what Dean did to the Black Dyke.
Welcome Will !
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Scrubber
climber
Straight outta Squampton
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Feb 23, 2012 - 12:12am PT
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This looks sick! I wonder if those pins would hold a fall? I have my doubts, I generally don't like to, or condone the idea of replacing pins with bolts. But I wonder if replacing just one with a free climbing bolt, so a falling leader doesn't rip the entire pitch would be acceptable. What do others think on this kind of issue? I would like to hear what you have to say.
You'll undoubtedly open a big can of worms with that one... Consensus will be impossible, so here's my $.02 to ad to the BS pile
If that awesome looking pitch is accessible via free climbing, and actually leads to more climbable terrain, and if it is truly so expanding that it couldn't keep a cam in it under the shock load of a falling climber, then you may have reached the point of justifying the dreaded "BOLT BESIDE THE CRACK" Nooooooo!!!
There are certainly other examples of routes like that, even in strongholds of traditional ethics like Yosemite. Wheat Thin comes to mind for one. I've climbed a few others, but I can't think of the names.
If you ever want to have a dangle from long lines off of Bellygood to check it out, let me know. I'm always up for that kind of exploration. (My bolting on lead ends mid-5.10, so you're on your own in that department!)
I'm going to go put my old computer on life support so I can dig up some photos to share.
K
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hamish f
Social climber
squamish
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Feb 23, 2012 - 12:31am PT
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Hi Will.
Judging by the videos I've seen of you guys climbing, I don't think your group will be having too much trouble with genus-loci.
You guys will likely use double ropes and run the first 2 pitches together. Then you'll do the same with pitches 3 and 4.
Then you'll grab the long rope and lead the 5th pitch as an approach to the underfling pitch.
I wouldn't put it past you guys at all.
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Scrubber
climber
Straight outta Squampton
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Feb 23, 2012 - 12:35am PT
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True, true...
Maybe if they layback it hard enough, it'll just break off, taking the whole debate with it.
(I just keep telling myself that's why I don't try to free 5.15q routes that used to be aid test pieces. All that controversy is bad for my complexion. I'll stick to 5.10 dirt troughs.)
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bmacd
Boulder climber
100% Canadian
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Feb 23, 2012 - 12:58am PT
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Be creative young men, and get up on 10yrs with a hundred meter rope to minimize the shock load concerns off of stations higher up. Belay from the traverse at the same height as the top of the Left side and climb from there to Perry's lieback in one pitch. No new protection bolts needed my friends ... :)
Of course Chief would have grabbed to opportunity to bag the 1st complete ascent ... what was I thinking ? Duoh !
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micro_marc
Trad climber
Squamish
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Feb 23, 2012 - 01:10am PT
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cool, a lot of the stories in this thread have been super inspiring, just can't wait for spring and some dry weather to actually go climbing, not just talk about climbing. 100m ropes is getting pretty creative....
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bmacd
Boulder climber
100% Canadian
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Feb 23, 2012 - 01:12am PT
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In a day Bruce ? That sounds really cool.
gf sez:
Now folks lets try to keep politics, religion and the climbing equivalent of throwing a pork chop into a synagogue; adding bolts to existing routes, aid or not, clear of this thread-I'm not sure consensus will be achieved......
But gf you publicly proposed chopping Perrys lieback bolts on stage last Saturday night during your introduction for Kruk. And now you dont want to be political ? Uhm this is inconsistent behaviour
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Scrubber
climber
Straight outta Squampton
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Feb 23, 2012 - 01:23am PT
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Ok, here's some pics from the late 90's. Sorry the colours are so blah, my slides weren't always cared for in the best way.
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MH2
climber
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Feb 23, 2012 - 01:31am PT
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"Time eventually positions most photographs, even the most amateurish, at the level of art."
in On Photography
Susan Sontag
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hamish f
Social climber
squamish
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Feb 23, 2012 - 01:46am PT
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Big Jim asked me to write some kind of solo story and I can't really come up with much. There I was, I did it, I lived, how hard do you want me to beat my chest?
One fine squamish day, back about 50 years (well, 20-25 anyway), I was on a roll. Fresh off a j.t. trip where 98% of the pitches have easy scrambles to get back down. I'd also scored this great pair of (used) five-tennie runners/climbing shoes. It was my first footwear with the five-ten sticky rubber and they were great. A little funky because they were like a runner, low cut etc.. I was loving them. Hike up and climb; all with one pair of shoes. Just had to rub them clean at the base of each route if one was in squamish.
Early season in those flinstone days meant there was no one around. I mean no one. I climbed a bunch at murrin, a pitch at nightmare, then down to the malemute for a couple primo pitches, then up to the base of the chief for more thrills.
I blitzed up the trail and did Ander's crack (it had a different name back then; not fitting here), then back over and up apron-strings. Nice little hike down the flake backside trail and I'm at the base of exasperator.
I'd climbed that first pitch by myself a few times before but never the second. I headed up and figured I'd just have to see how I was feeling at the end of the first pitch.
Well those runners were sticking like glue in the cold weather and I was feeling great. How bad can it be up there? I started making my way up there. Those shoes were working great, glomming (is that a word?) onto everything. Soon enough I'm sitting up at the top on that little tree.
I actually sat there for a long time, absorbing the remoteness and lack of anything around... like people. I remember thinking how nice I had had it in j.t., all those beautiful routes and never any stress about downclimbing.
Fortunately I learned from Peter (Croft) the first rule of climbing alone was to make damn sure you could climb down whatever you were climbing up. I kept sitting there, on that little tree, with all sorts of thoughts running through my head. Memories of trying to lead the first pitch on my first trip to squamish, when I was 13. I didn't have a hope and only made it twenty feet before lowering off some stopper called a taperlock.
Eventually it was time to face the music and all that downclimbing was just fine. Those shoes were a breakthrough and my head was in the right place for that deep, mental challenge.
Is that on the right track, Jim? Were your fingers sweating?
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bmacd
Boulder climber
100% Canadian
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Feb 23, 2012 - 02:17am PT
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Jim have you been drinking tonight ?
Edit downthread: Anders please - no masterbation stories - thanks
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Feb 23, 2012 - 02:25am PT
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I'm greatly enjoying all this, and taking lots of notes. And glad that Will has now joined us as a poster. But we may be misleading our Yankee friends, with the relative absence of slander. Perhaps as guests we're on our best behaviour or something?
A modest climber, with much to be modest (quiet) about. My sort of motto. But I've had a few adventures and misadventures, some soloing. A good friend once said soloing was somewhat like masturbation - most do it, but not something to talk about in polite company. (In other words, you should do it for yourself only.) But maybe I could tell a few stories...
Anyway, it's nice that you like all my new avatars. They take some work, especially the hamish f one.
ps I sent Peter an incomplete avatar/name summary, at least for those who frequently post to Canadian threads. A guide, of sorts. If anyone else needs it, just ask. IMHO, legitimate posters who choose to use an avatar deserve their privacy, and so I very rarely use anything but their avatar or first name in public.
pps Does the Split Pillar and/or Sword expand under normal activity? I first did it in 1974 with Steve Morgan, about 1/2 pins, 1/2 nuts. Probably one of the later parties to use a significant number of pins. We didn't notice any expansion.
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Relic
Social climber
Vancouver, BC
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Feb 23, 2012 - 03:38am PT
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I can't help thinking the killer mission will be the linkup and of course the inevitable onsight of GL to underfling and then the chief traverse , fully worthy.
Don't forget about starting it off with Los Zapatos. That would be a nice spicy appetizer for the rest of the slab of meat.
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hamish f
Social climber
squamish
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Feb 23, 2012 - 10:06am PT
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I'm thinking Jim and Anders are right; these solo stories aren't going to work out. I'm just going to be spinning the same thirty words around and around.
If I could get a hold of g.f.'s vocabulary, I might be able to make it more interesting...
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hamish f
Social climber
squamish
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Feb 23, 2012 - 10:08am PT
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Now that's a story. Oh man, really glad you're still with us Jim.
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tarek
climber
berkeley
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Feb 23, 2012 - 10:56am PT
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great thread. gotta hear the caboose solo story. wrote this somewhere else on st. 1989 when i'd lead <10 routes I got on that one with a rack of nuts. Got super tired placing a few and, silly from the effort, punched it to a lone pin. Was so blown at the pin that lowering there did not occur to me. only option in addled brain was continuing to lieback. I watched my fingers uncurl when my feet were maybe 6 feet above the pin and my belayer caught me a few feet above that ramp. My nuts (just the ones in the rock) held though, through the sideways pull. Bailed.
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tarek
climber
berkeley
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Feb 23, 2012 - 11:57am PT
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fair enough, thanks Jim.
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scuffy b
climber
heading slowly NNW
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Feb 23, 2012 - 12:25pm PT
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Tami, where what??
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 23, 2012 - 02:25pm PT
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Please oh Please don't chop the bolts on Perry's or any of the aid bolts! I wanna finally get up there this summer and if that happens ain't no way I'll be getting up without my jumars and a ropegun. Or placing a few bolts I guess :)
As to adding bolts to aid pitches it's not really my place to say, but maybe an extra bolt off to the side of the belay, bag hanger style could double as a first protection bolt?
Kris- Wow! thanks for the pics! FA of UE left, I love that pitch!
Hamish F- That list you posted made my fingers sweat. It would be a good day for me to lead all those pitches!
Luke posted a nice little video of him on Wrist Twister this morning.
http://www.supertopo.com/tr/Wrist-Twister-The-Slowest-Recorded-Ascent/t11354n.html
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