Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
| Messages 1 - 36 of total 36 in this topic |
JerryA
Mountain climber
Sacramento,CA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Original Post - May 19, 2014 - 11:25am PT
|
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.
|
|
HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
|
|
|
May 19, 2014 - 01:30pm PT
|
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.
|
|
Mike Bolte
Trad climber
Planet Earth
|
|
|
May 19, 2014 - 01:54pm PT
|
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.
|
|
Barbarian
climber
|
|
|
May 19, 2014 - 02:02pm PT
|
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.
|
|
Gene
climber
|
|
|
May 19, 2014 - 02:39pm PT
|
Why sling the Rotten Log? I just clipped the pin someone fixed to it.
|
|
guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
|
|
|
May 19, 2014 - 02:44pm PT
|
Ride it down in style would have been the mode.......
[Click to View YouTube Video]
|
|
JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
|
|
|
May 19, 2014 - 02:47pm PT
|
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
|
|
Norwegian
Trad climber
dancin on the tip of god's middle finger
|
|
|
May 19, 2014 - 08:13pm PT
|
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.
|
|
mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
|
|
|
May 19, 2014 - 08:26pm PT
|
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.
|
|
HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
|
|
|
May 19, 2014 - 09:16pm PT
|
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.
|
|
Rick Linkert
Trad climber
El Dorado Hills CA
|
|
|
May 19, 2014 - 09:34pm PT
|
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?
|
|
guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
|
|
|
May 19, 2014 - 09:43pm PT
|
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........
|
|
thedogfather
Trad climber
Somewhere near Red Rocks
|
|
|
May 19, 2014 - 09:56pm PT
|
|
|
Gene
climber
|
|
|
May 19, 2014 - 10:05pm PT
|
Guido,
You'd know this. Isn't it Ricardo Cassin on the Rotten Log in Roper's 50 Classic Climbs of NA?
g
|
|
Norwegian
Trad climber
dancin on the tip of god's middle finger
|
|
|
May 19, 2014 - 10:35pm PT
|
yea tat was it.
the log remained
and the arches rotted away
|
|
guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
|
|
|
May 19, 2014 - 10:35pm PT
|
I believe it is Cassin, the famous Italian arborist.
|
|
Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
|
|
|
May 19, 2014 - 11:01pm PT
|
Is this where the log was??? The current pendlum is up and right.
|
|
Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
|
|
|
May 20, 2014 - 02:13am PT
|
No, the log was about 130' left of the current pendulum.
|
|
HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
|
|
|
May 20, 2014 - 02:32pm PT
|
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.
|
|
Sierra Ledge Rat
Mountain climber
Old and Broken Down in Appalachia
|
|
|
May 20, 2014 - 02:52pm PT
|
Did I ever tell you guys the story of the day I went up there with a come-along and pulled that log down?
|
|
JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
|
|
|
May 20, 2014 - 04:01pm PT
|
The Log fell in 1984. The last time I climbed it was in 1981, and it was vibrating quite wildly then.
I'm told (I can't remember if it was by Galen Rowell or Wally Upton) that a group allegedly went up with the announced intent of knocking it down in the early 1960's, and some forerunners of our modern "tree sitters" stationed themselves in the fall line below it.
Guido, you must have some insight on whether this is true.
John
|
|
mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
|
|
|
May 20, 2014 - 04:40pm PT
|
What kind of tree was this long-lost log? Where did it originally grow? What caused it to be where it was on the route? Are there bits left below?
These are all questions which historians (and enterprising relic hunters) would like to hear answered.
It could spawn a cottage industry like unto splinters from the True Cross.
Donini might have some insight.
Mouse :0)
Thank you, John.
|
|
gunsmoke
Mountain climber
Clackamas, Oregon
|
|
|
May 20, 2014 - 05:11pm PT
|
Just a standard pine. It fell where it grew. Miraculously when it fell over, the top hit a ledge across a chasm, ending up at about a 45 degree angle. When it was pushed off in the 80's it would have taken a nearly vertical fall for hundreds of feet. Finding what was left of it, even back then 30 years ago, would have been hard.
|
|
TwistedCrank
climber
Bungwater Hollow, Ida-ho
|
|
|
May 20, 2014 - 05:12pm PT
|
The log - or its remains - belongs in the museum.
Here's my story:
My first climb in the valley, 1980. 3 humans, 2 45m ropes. Two of us crossed the log without problems, laughing and giggling, pondering 5.4 or so difficulty of the moves and how it was not at all like crossing a raging creek on a horizontal moss-covered log carrying a backpack.
We looked back and our third was sitting on the ledge shaking and trying not to make eye contact with us.
"C'mon up, Johan, it's pretty cool!"
"No f*cking way, man. No f*cking way. Let's rap. There's no f*cking way I'm going up that, I can't do it."
"It's not that bad. It's fun, really."
"No f*cking way, man. No f*cking way in hell."
"It's cruising to the rim from here. We need to get down North Dome Gully. It's getting late."
Johan was visibly shaking. "F*ck. I can't do that. That's f*cking crazy. F*ck. F*ck. F*ck."
(Narrator's sidebar: I don't recall the exact conversation, but I do recall Johan saying "f*ck" more times than you can shake a stick at.)
"We can't rap. We're on different sides of the log! We've got you on a solid belay. Let's do this."
At which point Johan started untying from his end of the rope and mumbling something about down climbing on his own. (Insert multiple "f*cks" here.)
This compelled us to untie the chord connecting us to Johan and informing him that he was on his own and asking him to be careful rapping. I'm not sure, but I think this entire event must have taken a couple of hours. Time is not linear at times like these. We two remaining climbers made dash to for rim. And, of course, we only made it to the shady grove bivi one pine needle-covered traverse away from the end of difficulties and a spring. It's my understanding that we were not the first - or last - to spend the night at that location. Ah, the life of a gumby.
I don't recall North Dome Gully being particularly trying, but this was the fall after I had spent the summer scampering about on Class 4 terrain for money. And it was before global warming, so maybe it was a bit more solid back then. Back in C4 I peaked into Johan's tent where I saw him face down and palms up after a night of making a damn fool of himself at the Mountain Room Bar and Grill. Or so the story went.
Johan split the valley shortly thereafter, and I hung out for another year or so, finally achieving my nebulous goal of being solid groveling up 5.9 off width.
|
|
TGT
Social climber
So Cal
|
|
|
May 20, 2014 - 05:30pm PT
|
Shinnied up it in 72.
I had just recently acquired a real piton hammer, a Chouinard alpine hammer.
Sunk it in once and then decided that wasn't really a good idea considering that it had been deemed "rotten" for forty years already.
It was in about the condition in the Dogfathers photo already.
|
|
Sierra Ledge Rat
Mountain climber
Old and Broken Down in Appalachia
|
|
|
May 21, 2014 - 05:58pm PT
|
...like crossing a raging creek on a horizontal moss-covered log carrying a backpack...
Crank, that's a fuking hilarious story. Thanks.
|
|
Kalimon
Social climber
Ridgway, CO
|
|
|
May 21, 2014 - 10:54pm PT
|
Thanks for the archival images Guido . . . thedogfather, nice shot of the climber on the log in '76 . . . brings back the memory of climbing the route as my first Valley climb in '77, thanks man.
|
|
KP Ariza
climber
SCC
|
|
|
May 22, 2014 - 12:05am PT
|
I did the route in '82, Shultz thankfully booted the log in '83/'84?
I was too much of rook to know how sketch it actually was, but I do recall being a little gripped.
|
|
Todd Gordon
Trad climber
Joshua Tree, Cal
|
|
|
May 22, 2014 - 12:10am PT
|
Climbed the log in 1977;...my partner was fearful and didn't wish to climb across it;...he said that if we bailed from there, he would pay for all the hexes and stoppers we left behind. Eventually, he made it across. We didn't want to do the N. Gully descent, so we walked, in our rock shoes, to the falls trail and hiked down;...it was a long day....
|
|
mark miller
Social climber
Reno
|
|
|
May 22, 2014 - 01:36am PT
|
The first time I did it was about 80' and the last time was about 83' it had gotten down to about less then a 2"x4" and was a little sketchy. Almost wish the powers that be reestablished that route because it was so classic.
There are currently some better climbing options up the corner but it isn't the same.
The Lovers Leap style pitch up the corner through the typically wet or the burly wide fist crack direct.
Somehow they all lose the beauty and innocence of the "rotten log pitch" presented in 50 Classic Climbs.
|
|
cliffhanger
Trad climber
California
|
|
|
May 22, 2014 - 02:05am PT
|
High Traverse - "The traverse to the Jungle scared the bejebus outta me."
Most people take what seems to be the obvious way, the low traverse, which involves a poorly protected, dangerous, slick, often wet 50' final section across the water course and is all off route. The high traverse is the on route way to go; stay very high. It involves easy 3rd class thru blocky terrain, with a well protected 5.4 traverse across the water course to the forest.
|
|
JerryA
Mountain climber
Sacramento,CA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - May 22, 2014 - 11:43am PT
|
Al Rouse,first Brit to summit K2, was guiding at PSOM in 1976 & described the Royal Arches route with the Rotten Log pitch & Jungle finish as among the mellowest climbs in the Valley.
|
|
Floyd Hayes
Trad climber
Hidden Valley Lake, CA
|
|
|
May 22, 2014 - 12:02pm PT
|
In retrospect I'm very happy that my much more experienced partner talked me into leading it during my third roped climb on August 4, 1982. I was scared and started shimmying up it, but my partner said it was easy and urged me to climb it like a rock because it had handholds and footholds like a rock, so I did.
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
|
|
May 22, 2014 - 12:18pm PT
|
Randisi, I assume those are Confucian rhetorical questions?
|
|
| Messages 1 - 36 of total 36 in this topic |
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!