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John Mac
Trad climber
Littleton, CO
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Congrats on another fine effort!
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deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
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Awesome job guys! Appreciate the appreciation of the route!!
Anybody got a topo to post up? I don't have any Yosemite guides, and would like to reminisce of the pitches Max and Mark are talking about.
My only regret of that route was not doing the direct finish--I had mapped it out in my notes--I think Gerberding later did the upper pitches as part of one of his routes--back in the day we brought limited bolting supplies to keep things honest and were running low when we crossed Iron Hawk. We placed 58 rivets and bolts, and topped out with only a few left in the bag.
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deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
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Here's some notes taken on the FA and before to help us find the way.
(I think the pages marked I, II, III, IV, V, and VI were drawn prior to the route with the aid of high powered binoculars, with purely speculative ratings and expected holes).
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
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Do you still owe Fish $180 or just $80?
LOL
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Deucey, we want you to publish all underground Camp 4 cartoons.
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deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
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Here's the cover of the book Mark's mentioned--same book the above notes came from... (Trango sticker added later)
But I looked at my scans of the "topo" pages, busted out laughing thinking of the times we had (and what we found funny), but not one of them could be posted without some jepordizing Chris's "PG" rating of the supertopo site.
Then there's the "A5 Shop Copy" of the Big Wall Tech Manual, mercilessly edited when Willie Joe and Fish came to visit Flagstaff. Here's a milder page from it:
"Sub man" was the moniker to avoid in those days... (We named a base route on El Cap that once...)
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Awesome Mark and Max and what a blast from the past from deuce4 sending us reflections from Tasmania. ST doesn't get much better than this.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
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Buahahaa, oh man. Literary critics trying to rewrite the manual. ha!
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MisterE
climber
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Those scans are such an amazing link to the past Deuce - thanks for the full monty.
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Mark Hudon
Trad climber
Hood River, OR
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 5, 2013 - 01:37am PT
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Deuce, you're topo shows the cracks below the Timebomb Hourglass (which isn't there anymore) as A1!!!!! Dang! Aiding it with pins looked like it would have been A15! The thing was expanding so much with just cams that Max had to expand the crack with cam hooks to get them out! The whole Tea Party ledge moved so much that I had to use a hammer on the cam I placed behind it to remove it.
Awesome route, I'll post up some photos soon.
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deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
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Hi Mark-
We did have cams, just nothing smaller than an old rigid stemmed Jardine original #1's, so maybe that A1 rating reflected having a nice cam in the crack somewhere. I think after climbing the lower expando pitch which was too small for #1's, all the other expando seemed easy! Hope that pitch wasn't a sandbag.
I recall one section where everything just fell out as I progressed. As I started tapping in the next piton, the piece I was standing on started to shift, and had to give the top piton (clipped into with a tight daisy) the most forceful well placed single hit I could muster, resulting in a tiny shock fall on the new piece as the lower piece fully pulled. Sometimes it was a hex, which would shift down the crack and also cause the lower piece to pull, but then held. This went on for multiple placements in a row all looking at a nasty fall if any of the pieces didn't hold. It was a bit dynamic.
Good job on the ascent! I think fondly of you guys up on the big stone. Back around 1978 when I was at Dartmouth, we met at Cathedral ledges one day on those short climbs on the upper tiers up on the left. I think I was there with Thom Englebach or Neil Cannon and we were doing a 5.10 and you guys were on a 5.11. It's really heartening to see you guys getting after the wall stuff after your significant accomplishments pushing the free. Definitely inspiration for when I get back to my roots and climb El Cap again someday in the future--maybe with my son (now 6 yrs old) if he gets into it. We went climbing today, in fact!
Cheers
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Delhi Dog
climber
Good Question...
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Wow!
What a gem of a thread.
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Mark Hudon
Trad climber
Hood River, OR
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 5, 2013 - 10:11am PT
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Max and I understand that the ratings are only a guide. We didn't feel sandbagged. We didn't feel that there was technically any A4 on the route but that you certainly needed to have an A4 head the climb it. The A3+ pitches are as difficult as A3+ should ever be though!
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Lambone
Big Wall climber
Ashland, Or
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I dunno how you guys use to climb with those monster pin racks deucey!?!?
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Mark Hudon
Trad climber
Hood River, OR
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 5, 2013 - 12:47pm PT
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On top.
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Maysho
climber
Soda Springs, CA
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Big congrats Guys!
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Mark Hudon
Trad climber
Hood River, OR
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 5, 2013 - 02:02pm PT
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The A3r heads above the Tea Party Ledge.
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Gagner
climber
Boulder
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Weather looks splitter - and it's suppose to continue that way ..... dang:(
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Mark Hudon
Trad climber
Hood River, OR
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 5, 2013 - 02:51pm PT
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The weather was awesome, never too hot or cold although the last two days got windy and cool later in the day.
The Time bomb Hourglass pitch. Using pitons on these flakes would have been beyond nerve-wracking!
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deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
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I don't recall having to use too many pitons on the hourglass timebombs--they look like #1 or bigger cam size, which we had back in the day. It was just the smaller than #1 cams that we didn't have.
Looking at your pic, I have a notion that it was a combination of free, dicey cam, delicate hex placement, etc. I do recall a large cam in that section somewhere which flexed like a nobody's mojo.
Back in the day, I was pretty good at switching into free and back into aid--it's what I did best, probably. (like a 5.9x mantle on Kali Yuga that a 5.13 climber had to drill on--heh heh).
Here's a photo of what I'm talking about in action on the AO. Luckily I don't have a lot of photos of my free/aid technique because I was always hoping my belayer was fully on it (and not taking pictures).
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