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JerryA
Mountain climber
Sacramento,CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - May 19, 2014 - 11:25am PT
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The last time I crossed the Royal Arches rotten log ,I came on a leader who was clipping in to a sling that he had tied around the middle of the log. I had never seen anyone do that before. I told him that I thought that if it broke it would take him and his poorly anchored belayer with it ! He would not lead it without that protection so I did . It was always a unique & exciting lead.
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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May 19, 2014 - 01:30pm PT
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Twas my lead and my belayer begged me to add the sling and 'biner. I recall that I did. The log was pretty solid back then had just survived another winter and didn't feel particularly wobbly since I had grown up climbing trees. That pitch is much harder now, especially when wet! (Or did I go the wrong way last time?)
Funny Mike
You and I have different recollections. The traverse to the Jungle scared the bejebus outta me.
We made such slow progress we ended up bivvying right at the top of NDGully. In May. A cold night out.
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Mike Bolte
Trad climber
Planet Earth
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May 19, 2014 - 01:54pm PT
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I led that pitch in maybe 1977. That log was really, exceptionally rotten. It was way scarier than anything else on the route including the wet traverse slab covered with pine needles at the top.
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Barbarian
climber
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May 19, 2014 - 02:02pm PT
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The rotten log always got my attention when soloing the route. Committing to a rotten, shaky piece of wood several hundred feet above the ground seems like insanity to me now. But I did it..several times.
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Gene
climber
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May 19, 2014 - 02:39pm PT
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Why sling the Rotten Log? I just clipped the pin someone fixed to it.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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May 19, 2014 - 02:44pm PT
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Ride it down in style would have been the mode.......
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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May 19, 2014 - 02:47pm PT
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Why sling the Rotten Log? I just clipped the pin someone fixed to it.
I love it! The pin scars made great hand- and footholds.
I crossed it many times and was far more fearful of it falling than of me falling from it, as were my partners, so we have no tales of slinging. I do, however, remember heading up the Arches as a conditioning climb in 1984, not realizing that the Log finally fell. We didn't think about it until about a pitch below the pendulum, when my partner and I looked to the west and simultaneously said "What's wrong with this picture?"
While the Log Bypass doesn't have the greatest rock, it does have better rock than the section just above the top of the Log; it just doesn't provide the same experience that climbing a vibrating, 45-degree wooden, rotting stairway perched over the abyss provided.
John
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Norwegian
Trad climber
dancin on the tip of god's middle finger
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May 19, 2014 - 08:13pm PT
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if you wander long enough
down the halls of false hope
eventually you collide with
the outer limits of a good journey
and when my shoulder hits
the periphery of my time
newtons third law maintains our course
and my heart crashes into
the inside of my rib cage
and my heart is on-the-mohs-scale
harder than bone
so my ribs get bruised
from the inside out
and the hope within me
dies a little bit more
with every collision;
but, like that mathematical
paradox where you take
a 1/2 step shorter with
every stride so's you never arrive;
love is never extinguished
because fear ever entices it onward.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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May 19, 2014 - 08:26pm PT
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I have done the Arches route three, four times, all prior to 1972. I recall no rotten log, but I'm nearly 66, so I suppose my memories are selective. Try as I may, I can't remember the log!
It certainly wasn't there in the eighties, the last time I did the climb.
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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May 19, 2014 - 09:16pm PT
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I first climbed it in '76 and again about 3 years later. Log was there both trips. Came down sometime in early 80s when I wasn't doing much climbing. Someone around here must know which year.
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Rick Linkert
Trad climber
El Dorado Hills CA
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May 19, 2014 - 09:34pm PT
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In my mid-teens, I watched Sierra Club leaders screwing the old Salewa "coat hanger" ice screws into the a Rotten Log. Seemed like a really bad idea- but what did I know?
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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May 19, 2014 - 09:43pm PT
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Back in the era when men were men and logs were logs, some excerpts from the original Royal Arches Register, courtesy of the Bancroft Library, Mountain Registers etc etc etc......................................Cast of thousands........
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thedogfather
Trad climber
Somewhere near Red Rocks
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May 19, 2014 - 09:56pm PT
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Gene
climber
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May 19, 2014 - 10:05pm PT
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Guido,
You'd know this. Isn't it Ricardo Cassin on the Rotten Log in Roper's 50 Classic Climbs of NA?
g
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Norwegian
Trad climber
dancin on the tip of god's middle finger
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May 19, 2014 - 10:35pm PT
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yea tat was it.
the log remained
and the arches rotted away
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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May 19, 2014 - 10:35pm PT
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I believe it is Cassin, the famous Italian arborist.
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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May 19, 2014 - 11:01pm PT
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Is this where the log was??? The current pendlum is up and right.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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May 20, 2014 - 02:13am PT
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No, the log was about 130' left of the current pendulum.
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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May 20, 2014 - 02:32pm PT
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The other side of the big water slide. It bridged the lower end of the large right facing corner. The base was on the ledge system and the top diagonalled up and left. The pic of Cassin shows it well.
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Sierra Ledge Rat
Mountain climber
Old and Broken Down in Appalachia
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May 20, 2014 - 02:52pm PT
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Did I ever tell you guys the story of the day I went up there with a come-along and pulled that log down?
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