Discussion Topic |
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supafly
Trad climber
vancouver, bc
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Topic Author's Original Post - Jan 7, 2015 - 12:55pm PT
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news to me.
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ß Î Ø T Ç H
Boulder climber
extraordinaire
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no - but I decided which juicer I'm gonna buy
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darkmagus
Mountain climber
San Diego, CA
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YEAH I GUESS THEYRE CLIMBING IT FREE HAND
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Port
Trad climber
Norwalk, CT
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Freehand means hiking the wall without ropes and wall hooks.
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supafly
Trad climber
vancouver, bc
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 7, 2015 - 01:25pm PT
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I HEARD IT'S THE HARDEST CLIMB TO BE SCALED WITHOUT GRAPPLING HOOKS
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chill
climber
between the flat part and the blue wobbly thing
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They are extreme hikers conquring a mountain without ropes, except for the ones they are obviously tied to in all the pictures.
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bvb
Social climber
flagstaff arizona
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How do they get the rope up there?
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moacman
Trad climber
Montuckyian Via Canada Eh!
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Dhey use pietons I tink....
Stevo
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anita514
Gym climber
Great White North
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Haven't heard about it.
Is that on Lembert Dome?
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coolrockclimberguy69
climber
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I heard they're not using any flexclamps or crampons to freehand up the sheer rock face
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ionlyski
Trad climber
Kalispell, Montana
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Oh the skin off the fingers must be incredible. It probably takes a lots of bottles of Second Skin and tape.
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this just in
climber
Justin Ross from North Fork
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Is he the guy on that National Geographic cover? I saw a TV special on him I think.
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MisterE
Gym climber
Bishop, CA
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FACT: There are at The Dawn Wall, which is a relentlessly smooth face with few cracks to penetrate or nubs to clench.
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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They get extremely exhausted from clenching their behinds, and the ice picks are hardly any use at all I heard.
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SicMic
climber
across the street from Marshall
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The Down Wall? That's a lot of loft.
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Bushman
Social climber
The island of Tristan da Cunha
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You guys are way stoopid, Elvis already did that wall in 1970!
He climbed it with all free with them peanut butter and nanner sandwiches.
Ask Priscilla.
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deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
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I heard they were climbing only using their hands and feet. No chimneys or offwidths.
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Gobi
Trad climber
Orange CA
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They must be training for Mount Everest.
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Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
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fingernail over fingernailing up this sheer face of the world's largest rock
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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who's tommy caldwell????
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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^ a nub clencher.
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Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
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I FOUND THIS PIC OF TOMMY CLIMBING THE ROUTE. I LOVE HIS HAIR
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kunlun_shan
Mountain climber
SF, CA
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^ "sure to make everyone's blood boil".
On the contrary, PolishClimber - some hilarious stuff there. TFPU!
edit:
Steve:
“Breaking down individual pitches on a big wall climb is to treat El Cap like a local crag or large rock gym. If you can’t do the climb as one continuous route, put off doing it until you get good enough.....
not surprised:
“I’ll be impressed when someone free solos this route....
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MisterE
Gym climber
Bishop, CA
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I got so much new "media" vernacular!
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Every day Tommy climbs a Kitten dies.
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Lambone
Big Wall climber
Ashland, Or
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Someone should notify Tom Evans.
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Lambone
Big Wall climber
Ashland, Or
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Btw, who was up there doing the Porch Swing naked? Dude is genius.
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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A bushman sighting!!
Happy new year!!
Distill this and the actual event into one thread!.
Call it - A Kick ToThe Head !!,
That should draw in the whole crowd.
Violence sells, best after, sex.
Sex sells anytime butt
Best after sex.
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John Mac
Trad climber
Littleton, CO
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From the comment section in the SFGate....
". . . scaling without aid Yosemite’s notoriously smooth granite cliff . . ."
what are the portaledges, if not "aid"?
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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I'm pretty sure that ain't Caldwell.. The only person I know who climbs that slow is Pete.
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pb
Sport climber
Sonora Ca
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wall of too much limelight
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Rhodo-Router
Gym climber
sawatch choss
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They actually published my comment!
Automated Comment Form For The Layman:
1. If you're not curing cancer, [insert endeavor] is obviously purely selfish and ego-driven.
2. My taxpayer dollars better not be going towards this nonsense??!!
3. Totally insane/obvious death wish/[your armchair DSM diagnosis].
4. Irresponsible!! What about the children?!
5. I can't even see the climbers from the meadow, but what's the deal with all those bolts??
6. If they have a smartphone up there, all possible motivations other than craven greed/attention-seeking are automatically invalidated.
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chill
climber
between the flat part and the blue wobbly thing
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My favorite reader comment in the whole Dawn Wall media frenzy:
UKsideofpond •6 hours ago -
Have been to Yosemite 3 or 4 times, it's lovely however, you wouldn't get me anywhere near climbing El Capitan. Imagine if you had an itch...
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Most of the comments are funny, and reflect just how ignorant Americans can be. But the guy who says they are breaking it up like a crag climb has a point.
While I think that it is exceptional that they are redpointing every pitch, many great climbers like Frank Sacherer, Jim Erikson, and even Bridwell point out that a strategically placed sling belay can compromise the challenge of doing that stretch "free".
It is a helluva accomplishment, but remains to be truly freed stance to stance.
But the comments about rescue and life insurance are pretty stupid, even rude.
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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Oregon
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Jan 7, 2015 - 04:22pm PT
The Down Wall? That's a lot of loft.
Climbing must be soft.
But if they don't make it, it could be the new name in the tradition of Stichter Quits.
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Don Paul
Big Wall climber
Denver, Colorado
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It's kind of a weird style, maybe the longest siege of any route ever. But who knows, maybe they're putting up a great route that will be a testpiece a lot of people will want to repeat. I'm more impressed with Markus Pucher's recent Cerro Torre storm solo, which seemed to have impressed almost no one on this forum. I doubt anyone will be repeating that anytime soon, or that storm soloing will catch on, just as Dean Potter's parachute soloing never really became the wave of the future. I think all these things are cool, and there's no way to really compare them.
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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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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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This isn't even close to the longest siege in history.
If Largo is correct about 800 days, it's getting pretty damn siegeful up there.
I still admire the hell out of them.
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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Oregon
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If Largo is correct about 800 days, it's getting pretty damn siegeful up there.
I still admire the hell out of them.
Me too. The whole thing boggles.
I think people are measuring siege days differently.
Did Largo say how many days he spent on the One Day ascent of the Nose? ;)
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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I recognize that freeing the thing is infinitely more difficult than aiding it, I dont. different skill sets. is there one person who can do both modes?
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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is there one person who can do both modes?
Of course. Surely you know that. I have lead some 11s and 12s, but I've been best suited to starting out on the ground with a good partner and grinding our way up wall routes, aid included.
What about guys like Steve Schneider? Surely you consider him skilled in both modes. Bridwell etc etc etc etc....
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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I don't see the Bird, iconclast that he is, freeing this...
im just saying, dont be belittleing aid climbing. it's not just any one, even if they climb 5.14 all day, who could walk up to the base of something like this and figure out how to aid up it, as a first ascent.
Shipoopi, may be as close as it gets, in bridging these two worlds at that level. Free climbing is more in vogue right now, but saying its "infinitly harder" to free climb this, than to consider having the Chutzpah, to pick out the line, with the gear of the time,and considering rescue potential, etc, is disingenuous.
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Andy Fielding
Trad climber
UK
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It's even been reported in the British press. Oh hang on it appears the big stone has changed shape over night!!
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Disingenuous? Not at all.
Disingenuous: not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does.
The aid climb was a first ascent. The free climb is not. But there are deviations from the line that Harding wouldn't/couldn't have dreamed of.
So they're really two completely separate things.
Exhibit A: I can aid climb damn near anything.
Exhibit B: I cannot even come close to free climbing damn near anything.
Disingenuous? No. Number one, I did not pretend that I know less about the topic than I actually do. Number two, I was absolutely sincere.
How is that disingenuous?
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Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
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Personally I suspect it ain't never going to go as an uninterrupted redpoint flow from bottom to top.
The wonder kid redpointed a 400 m 5.14b on granite on his second day on it after taking two falls the previous day, did another 700m 14b route nearby, and he's onsighted 14d and redpointed 15c since then on granite. Climbing the Dawn Wall in a single-push redpoint is well within his abilities. I expect he'll send it in the next few years and you'll have egg on your face then.
http://www.planetmountain.com/english/News/shownews1.lasso?keyid=37647
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Don Paul
Big Wall climber
Denver, Colorado
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^ that's just it. There's no indication that any limits have been reached, like the comparison to running the mile, particularly because new tricks and techniques are constantly being invented. Maybe someday there will be 5.14s all over el Cap, with all the holds marked by chalk and no attempt ever to place gear on lead. That's ok, it just doesn't capture my imagination. I think the Fitz traverse in Patagonia is a far more interesting project. Also, and this may annoy some people, I think their style is more like sport climbing, despite the runouts and apparently taking whippers onto birdbeaks and other aid gear. If it was that dangerous, one or both would already be dead. I'll bet it will be repeated, however hard it is, and that people will try to beat their style. That's the nature of the game.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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So they're really two completely separate things.
My point exactly!
And, as far as my use of the word "disingenuous", i probably should have said disrespectful, but disingenuous works, by the definition you posted, Survival, or the more widely used used colloquial definition meaning more, say, "condescending."
When you say, " I could get up anything on aid" and
"the free climbing is infinitly harder than aid climbing the route" -paraphrase-
Your'e lumping all aid climbing, whether its climbing a bolt ladder, hanging on pieces of a free climb, or delicate hooking, beaking etc, into the same basket. As you know, with all the walls you've done, there are different levels of aid climbing. At its extreme end it is a fine craft with dire consequences for failure. The statement you made implies the same assumption that Royal Robbins made about this very route, when he assumed it was a trivial bolt-up worthy of chopping. As we all know, when he got up there, he changed his mind.
When I said disingenuous, I meant it in the sense, that you were dissing the difficulty in aid climbing, when you knew better. I assume this was out of carelessness, rather than intentional avarice, but again, i think that, you knowing more about aid climbing than your statement lets on, you did, indeed, make a statement that can be defined as disingenuous.
Then, also, there is the fact that the aid route and the free route don't cover exactly the same ground, so it's impossible to declare one, harder or easier, than the other.
Cheers'n sh#t, and lets go climbing!
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Sula
Trad climber
Pennsylvania
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From Rhodo-Router:
Automated Comment Form For The Layman:
1. If you're not curing cancer, [insert endeavor] is obviously purely selfish and ego-driven.
2. My taxpayer dollars better not be going towards this nonsense??!!
3. Totally insane/obvious death wish/[your armchair DSM diagnosis].
4. Irresponsible!! What about the children?!
5. I can't even see the climbers from the meadow, but what's the deal with all those bolts??
6. If they have a smartphone up there, all possible motivations other than craven greed/attention-seeking are automatically invalidated. Excellent. You could add:
7. Anyone not using the Park exactly as I do is obviously irresponsible and possibly crazy.
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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Oregon
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Btw, who was up there doing the Porch Swing naked? Dude is genius.
I figured it was Eric.
Dude hasn't denied it.
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MisterE
Gym climber
Bishop, CA
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have you guys heard Tommy Caldwell is climbing the DAWN WALL
Isn't there another guy up there with him? Kurt or Kevin?
;-)
Beasts!
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