East Face of Lower (The Accomazzo Wall)

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survival

Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
Jun 22, 2011 - 05:56pm PT
Gaak !! Another climbing thread? What shall we do??
Largo

Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
Jun 22, 2011 - 09:38pm PT
In answering Steve's description of another Accomazzo mammoth run out testpiece - the obscure but legendary Mouth to Perhaps, I remember it fondly. Ricky and I were climbing a ton of face stuff that summer (74) and Fig (Mike Britenbach) recruited us to join him for a route he had tried several times before - Mouth to Perhaps - with Tim Harrison.

We climbed to the high point and were still a few pitches below to top of Perhaps Pinnacle. We had no idea which of the remaining leads would be the crux. It all looked pretty sketchy and unprotected.

Rick took off on the first new pitch and ran the rope off one bolt for a mile on what felt like continuous 5.11 in the old EBs. Fig fell a few times while following and had he been leading he would have gone for a 100 footer, at least. Fig thought Rick's flash on-sight lead was the boldest face adventure he had ever seen in his life. He just couldn't get over the fact that Ricky hiked the thing without hesitation. I can tell you that a top rope never felt so good.

The next pitch was not a whole lot better, with more hard climbing and only a few points of pro. There was about 200 foot section there - the last bit before reaching the Perhaps Pinnacle - where the climbing was mostly 5.10 and 5.11 and there couldn't have been more than 4 or 5 pieces of pro. I thought with the new sticky rubber that route would be an instant classic, but apparently it never caught on.

But the "Accomazzo Wall" is no slab, like the Apron, and from what I heard, the pro was not much better than what we had on Mouth to Perhaps, so I'd be interested in hearing about those "old" routes.

I'd also be glad to hear Ricky tell us about rope soloing Freewheelin', Quicksilver, and all those routes on the North Face Apron of Middle. I think I did the 2nd ascent of those routes and was not only pissed off that Kevin did them without me, but was later amazed that Ricky did them sans partner. That's a spooky place to be up there by yourself, chucking off big loops of slack and running the line on that greasy shite. The old method of roped soloing was super crude and dangerous, and involved loops of rope clove hitched to biners on your swami belt, which you would toss off at various intervals. I think Ricky either came up with this technique himself, or was the first to bust it out on world class face routes. I tired it out a few times on a few testpieces down at Suicide Rock and scared the crap out of myself.

We also need Ricky to tell us about the "Cool, but concerned" mien that he used to try and sustain on the big run outs.

Gee Wilikers!

JL

k-man

Gym climber
SCruz
Jun 22, 2011 - 09:44pm PT
Hahahahahahahahahaha.

I can't wait to sic my partner on that thing, what a description.

Thanks for the laugh Warbler. Get my Summer started in Style!
hobo_dan

Social climber
Minnesota
Jul 30, 2011 - 07:31pm PT
gotta bump this for the rope solo story
Rick A

climber
Boulder, Colorado
Dec 13, 2015 - 09:01am PT
What a surprise. I found a copy of Richard's topo, shown in the photo above from Yosemite Climber. I was looking through some old, loose leaf guides in a box in a closet, and I had stuck it in Rossiter's 1981 Boulder Topographics guide.


It is pretty faded, so I traced the lines a bit to make it more readable.

Still somewhat vague, but an improvement over the one above!

SteveW

Trad climber
The state of confusion
Dec 13, 2015 - 09:16am PT
WOW!
Looks scary as can be!

Edit
Rick, I base my observation on what Largo said!!!
Rollover

climber
Gross Vegas
Dec 13, 2015 - 09:44am PT
F*#king cool find Rick!
Rick A

climber
Boulder, Colorado
Dec 13, 2015 - 09:45am PT
Steve,

As I said above, I am not sure that it deserves that reputation; but then I am not sure that it does not. Such is my memory. The topo shows pin and bolt placements, but there was other protection besides what is indicated.

Correction: where it indicates "white roof" on the second pitch of Shake and Bake, it should say, "white scar".

Steve Grossman

Trad climber
Seattle, WA
Dec 13, 2015 - 02:58pm PT
Great find Rick!

Adventure climbing at its finest on Middle Rock.
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