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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Oregon
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^^ not close.
The Nose took 47 days during the final push, and weren't lines fixed above the stovelegs by then?
They haven't even gotten to the 28 days of the original Dawn wall ascent.
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Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
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Free the Dawn and your ass will follow.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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The Down Wall? That's a lot of loft.
Definitely a lot of loft aloft.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Piton Ron, I think that new belay stance of theirs is justified as it is at a no-hands rest, they have stated. I don't think anyone is going to catch Tommy and Kevin in any kind of fakery.
When Bridwell established a sling belay at the start of the crux roof on left side of the Hourglass (about 35 feet off the ground) on his second ascent circa 1973-ish, that was what we are talking about today, facetious evasion of a crux.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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It's kind of a weird style...
I think it's just a matter of we're bumping up against diminishing returns and the 'limit of the possible'.
The '99 record for running a mile still stands today at 3:43.13. The odds of anyone doing a sub 3-minute mile are vanishingly small. Ditto a sub 1-hour Nose.
What Tommy and Kevin are doing is simultaneously the world's tallest headpoint and like trying to run a 3:30:00 mile, but in 330ft intervals over the span of a few weeks. Personally I suspect it ain't never going to go as an uninterrupted redpoint flow from bottom to top.
And those descriptions aren't a matter of taking anything away from the accomplishment, but more a statement that the boys are cruising at or near the absolute limits of the human body with this venture.
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WBraun
climber
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When Bridwell established a sling belay at the start of the crux roof
on left side of the Hourglass (about 35 feet off the ground)
He did that??? He belayed there?
That's outright bullsh!t.
Why even bother going there and doing bullsh!t like that!!
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MisterE
Gym climber
Bishop, CA
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Cool graph, Clint - it really speaks volumes on the rare place of top performers and how the work pays off less and less.
However, this:
Personally I suspect it ain't never going to go as an uninterrupted redpoint flow from bottom to top.
Reminds me to "never say never".
Cheers, Erik
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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So, should I take that to mean you'd be willing to make a substantial wager on a sub 1-hour Nose?
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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Oregon
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I'm not sure the pretty chart really tells you what you think is does. It's quite possible almost all the gains you see are from changes in rules and technology. The chart mostly documents when these changes happened, and I doubt we are done improving technology.
I'm not the only one who thinks that might be the case. Watch this:
http://www.ted.com/talks/david_epstein_are_athletes_really_getting_faster_better_stronger
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Adjusted for changes in training and technology, he thinks Jesse Owens would have finished second only to Usain Bolt in the last olympics.
He also points out that athletes are changing their bodies or selecting their sports to suit their bodies. I don't think we are done with that, either.
And if you think that isn't so in climbing, I'll lend you a pair of jstan's old RD's and send you up glacier point apron.
I still have an old pair he gave me so I could understand what climbing on them was like.
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hamie
Social climber
Thekoots
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Lorenzo
The original Wall of EML was not a seige. It was a continuos upward ascent, with no fixed ropes down to the ground. Or the top either!
It's curious that after the WEML, Harding was critized for being a publicity hound.
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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Oregon
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Yeah and I recall the criticisms of the style of the ascent as being outside the norms of climbing at the time...so much so that the second ascent party went up with the intent of removing the route.
It might just show that today's gurus aren't always in tune with where the sport will go. Who ever thought there would be sport routes? I remember when Buddy Guthrie put in the first bolt at Seneca. People tried to crucify him.
The bolt stayed, but the better climbers went up on the pretty sketchy route and did it without the bolt.
And at almost exactly the same time as WOTEML, Charles Kroger and Scott Davis put up the Heart Route in miles better style. That ascent went virtually un-noticed amid the Dawn wall hoopla. They did it in seven or eight days, I think, and had originally intended to do the Dawn Wall but found it occupied.
http://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/12197127500/Heart-Route-El-Capitan
Anybody on it today?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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And if you think that isn't so in climbing, I'll lend you a pair of jstan's old RD's and send you up glacier point apron.
I still have an old pair he gave me so I could understand what climbing on them was like.
Thanks, but I started in $16 JC Penney work boots. RDs were a step up,
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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Oregon
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Haha. I started with a pair of the purple Robbins boots, which I'm pretty sure were a step down from fishheads.
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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^^ not close.
The Nose took 47 days during the final push, and weren't lines fixed above the stovelegs by then?
They haven't even gotten to the 28 days of the original Dawn wall ascent.
How about if you count the years Tommy has been up there preparing for this?
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Tom Evans had a fantastic photo in the LA Times today. I mean REALLY SUPERB!
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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Oregon
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How about if you count the years Tommy has been up there preparing for this?
Then you'd have count Harding's years prepping, including all the wine drinking.
Nobody wants to go there.
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Not the same Lorenzo. Warren drinking wine in preparation and Tommy being up there for days, nights, weeks, months are truly different things.
I recognize that freeing the thing is infinitely more difficult than aiding it, but saying that there is no siege going on isn't true.
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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Oregon
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When did I say there is no siege going on?
And Harding climbed the Nose the whole summer before, until the Rangers made them stop for the season because of the hoopla. All told there were maybe a dozen people involved in that climb
Have you not read the history?
This isn't even close to the longest siege in history.
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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I'd like to see the numbers of how long Tommy's actually been up there.
We've been reading about it for years.
On the big graph paper of life, it's closer than you think to being the longest.
I didn't say it was the longest btw, since I don't actually know. But what I do know is that it's a pretty huge number of days.
I'm guessing that you don't know how many days he's actually invested either.
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Largo has mentioned about 800 days between the both of them. Thats pretty long.
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