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yo
climber
The Eye of the Snail
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Oct 28, 2007 - 06:32pm PT
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Very proud tick right there. Thanks for the TR, Mr. Bill.
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Gene
climber
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Oct 28, 2007 - 11:28pm PT
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Bump
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 28, 2007 - 11:33pm PT
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Beautiful, just beautiful.
Thanks Levy
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duncan
Trad climber
London, UK
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Oct 29, 2007 - 08:59am PT
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Many thanks to the OP for those amazing pictures. Good effort by Erik and Bill, and Steve and Charles of course. I also feel a tiny bit of sadness looking at them as JR is the best El Cap route I never did. I had a peek at bits of it from Sunkist, and it looks even better than these fabulous photos suggest. I love the idea of the gnarly free-climbing on it too …and it keeps the riff-raff off! One of the reasons why it’s still in very good shape, by the sound of it, for a 28 year old super-classic?
As Raymond says, when Aishan Rupp first tried JR he got half-way through the mantel, thought better of it, and down-climbed the whole pitch. He went back with Odd-Roar Wilk and finished the job in ’96. Aishan died descending easy ground on the Matterhorn that winter. He had just simul-soloed the North Face with a good pal of mine, my 90s Yosemite climbing partner. Aishan had critics here but he was a generous friend to us. I badly wanted to try JR, but other things intervened and it didn’t happen. I still have Aishan’s very detailed topo and can remember his pantomime performances of that blind move with hook taped to hammer. I planned to take a shaving mirror to periscope the placement! Aishan was also very impressed with the A5 corner of the 17th. I think the “You break every bone in your body if you fall off that pitch” comment might have been his originally; I can hear it in his Schwarzenegger accent.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Oct 29, 2007 - 11:17am PT
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Awesome pictures. Made my day so far.
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TKingsbury
Trad climber
MT
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Oct 29, 2007 - 11:45am PT
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Wow. This is a rad thread.
Great TR
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Oct 29, 2007 - 12:26pm PT
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Compared to a lot of the free climbing that I have done on my other El Cap routes, at 5.9, that mantle is really pretty trivial. It has a reputation mostly because of an inaccurate topo that Charles released early on that showed a big swing over to the field of bumps rather than a short section of thin face climbing protected by a bolt (right near Galleon Ledge) leading to a long horizontal traversing weakness that actually has some gear placements at its end. Rusty Reno did the big swing indicated, climbed right past the protection and popped off the move, leading to his now famous 100' dive. Nothing against Rusty but Alex Lowe, his partner, would not have had any trouble with that mantle move and those guys would probably have bagged the second ascent.
When they came down, Rusty was giving Charles a ribbing over a couple of drilled hook holes that they encountered on the lower section of the route. It became obvious immediately that Team Arctic Sea (Duane Raleigh and Tom Cosgriff) had buggered the route on their attempt the previous season. They got to the base of the Gold Doubloon pitch and finally realized that they were in over their heads. When I excitedly confronted Duane about his experience to their high point, he wouldn't make eye contact and down played everything about the climbing. Something clearly was wrong. When I asked him why they had retreated, he replied that the "rock was wet." As Bill and Erik can attest, that is rather unlikely in that awesome spot and wouldn't matter anyway.
A lot of route buggering was going on at that point in time by aspiring parties that were too good in their own minds to fail or retreat with any sense of humility when a proud route got the best of them. Pretty disgusting really and I decided to stop releasing topos because I felt that they take the mystery and hence the respect away from wall routes and encourage people overreaching their abilities.
I am sure that many people think that I am a jerk for that position but that was the situation. I have very little respect for parties that are willing to lower the bar and needlessly chisel or drill while on a repeat.
Duane and Tom were willing to drill a couple of pitches up rather that find Charles or I to find out about the route. They came back to camp and began to start rumors that we had used cheater sticks once they were stymied by the climbing that eluded them and chose to drill past it. Duane and Tom never did another ascent of note in Yosemite that I can recall after folding on the JR.
"Better we raise ourselves than lower the climbs" has always been the core of my traditional climbing ethic.
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NBB
Social climber
Boulder
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Oct 29, 2007 - 02:30pm PT
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I am also a little interested in the beaks thing on that ramp pitch. I feared one day that thing would be A1 for someone with a string of fixed heads. Makes me wonder if they were hooking dead heads with those beaks. My partner worked hard on cleaning that crack. We left that pitch with a lone dead-head, better than we found it. It wasn't one of ours. There weren't any drilled holes on the ramp that I recall. I do recall some free climbing around there.
It's a pretty fun route. Not the hardest thing around, not the easiest either. Kind of hard to find interesting and sustained aid on El Cap w/o also climbing a bunch of choss, but this route seemed to be an exception.
Can't wait for this rig to get Supertopo'd - ha!
Brings back some memories! Thanks for the comments, Steve.
 Nate
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Oct 29, 2007 - 04:54pm PT
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Hey Nate,
Welcome aboard. Been lurking long?
I'm glad to hear that the hook move above the pinnacle was one of the most exciting ever for both Steve and Aischann.
Haven't seen Odd Roar Wiik in a while - what's he up to these days?
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Quaken
Trad climber
Las Vegas
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Oct 29, 2007 - 05:15pm PT
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Does anybody know if Continental Drift has had a second yet?
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E
Social climber
Tujunga CA.
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Oct 29, 2007 - 06:47pm PT
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I thought this route was cool so I'm postng up on this one
from my notes on the pitches that I lead.
#2 pretty decent A4 with shitty z-mac rivits for pro guys crawling all over you on the heart rappels.
#4 1 enhanced hook, no duct tape.
#7 short to heart ledge,no big deal.
#9 no 5.11, took the pitch down low and aided thru the "5.11 handslaps" no problem.At least 200' long this one.
#11 fully reached all hook moves without assisted reaching apparatus(longest ever thou) "body cleaving pillar"? pure hype!
#12 Modern A4, this ones sweet.
#17 Ramp pitch-no enhanced hooks,200' long,2 bolts only low on ramp. Upper corner was devoid of a single copperhead when i led thru this section(used many beaks here driven into old copper and aluminum blown swedges) 18 beaks cleaned from this lead.
#19 continuous pitch with hard swing right to a hand placed beak. the end of this pitch is NOT A2.
#21 Lots of 1.5 and 2" cams on this pitch.
#22 another long pitch with hard to see rivits, pretty run hooks and reamer finish to get to the anchor.
#23 10 feet of aid then 5.6 freeclimbing to perfect summit tree.
This route is one of the better quality routes on el cap,Sea of Dreams my be more continuous and therefor slightly harder IMO.
Erik Eriksson
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yo
climber
The Eye of the Snail
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Oct 29, 2007 - 08:37pm PT
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Well damn, I was about to get worried until I read #23.
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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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Oct 29, 2007 - 11:16pm PT
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Great looking route and very nicely done.
Hi Erik, long time. Great to see you getting out, and in a big way!
Rick
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marty(r)
climber
beneath the valley of ultravegans
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Oct 30, 2007 - 12:48am PT
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Not bad:
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Lambone
Ice climber
Ashland, Or
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Oct 30, 2007 - 01:42pm PT
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Hey Levy and E, I'm still curious what kind of camera you are shooting with?
I am in the market for a new one and your pics came out sweet. Is is a point'n shoot or SLR?
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Levy
Big Wall climber
So Cal
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 30, 2007 - 10:45pm PT
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Lambone- I'm shooting with a Cannon Powershot, I'm not sure what model, I'll check later but it's a 7.1 MP unit and I find that shooting on the manual settings produces better pics in the "vivid" mode. It really makes the colors jump out.
B W Kate- I like to use the 9/16" webbing for tie offs for the higher strength. The 1/2" cuts too easily when jammed against the rock by a pin and hammered in, which I sometimes rig before hammering the pin. I do use 1/2" as well but mostly for keeper slings or for equalizing beaks, heads or other body weight palcements. For anything that might catch a fall, I try to use the 9/16".
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Oct 30, 2007 - 10:53pm PT
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The main reason Bill's photos look so good is that not only are they big on the page, but they are also huge in the memory - lots are 4-500K in size. Many of the photos around here are one-tenth that.
And her name is "Batgirl" now!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Oct 31, 2007 - 12:12am PT
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Erik- Glad that you had good time up there. As per your notes...
#2 Don't know where the Zmacs came from because we sure didn't use them and neither should anybody else. They are designed to hold signs not climbers.
#4 My first lead on the route and the second place that Team Arctic Sea chose to drill when a Logan hook on my hammer pick one move out from a keyhole stud was the ticket. Where was the enhancement because TAS worked a couple of edges higher up too?
#9 Lead this one before evacuating Charles in 110 degree heatwave. Don't recall desperate freeclimbing but the rest of the pitch went at C4 because I had time to fiddle with it while Charles languished.
Charles chose to carry Coke instead of water on a lot of his routes and the caffeine kicked his ass on this one. He kept babbling and pointing up toward the rim as I carefully got him down to the ground. He was convinced that a spaceship was coming over the rim and was going to vaporize us with a deathray. All that from a little nosecone shaped block way up there! Truly scary episode. When we climbed back up to Mammoth Terraces, we found that the rats we had been battling almost won the contest by chewing clear through one of the two 1" webbing straps on the haulbag!
#11 Body cleaving pillar LOL what a bunch of hooey. What wimp came up with that alternate name for a belay stance!
#12 Golden...Was the rurp still there just before the lone bolt connecting the cracks? Charles was almost finished drilling a hole and snapped the bit sitting on that rurp! He realy wanted to melt down and have a good thrash but he would lost a day's work if the delicate, novel thick end of the Doubloon had also crumbled! He calmed down with a little patient encouragement and finished the hole. Once he could actually see into the upper crack, he suddenly found religion and blurted out,"these copperhead placements were made by God!" A couple of godly little heads higher the crack finally opened up to good stopper size but he was so in the zone that he placed only a single dainty little wire before moving on. I guess he just didn't want the party to end and it wouldn't until he drilled his first 3/8" bolt at the impossibly steep belay station. The rope was so tight that I had to down jumar the entire pitch after cleaning it and didn't even look at the next section of hanging flakes above, which was the most uncertain area of the route scoping from the ground. Tomorrow would come soon enough!
#13 Relatively straightforward cam placements in and among the looseness but I didn't like the prospect of travelling alongside any of the flakes and so didn't clip into anything until I drilled a bolt to protect a dandy little rurp seam and had the first rurp chip out leaving only about 1/8" of contact depth on one side! The Captain's Quarters on Sunkist was sweet relief from the yawning depths below.
#17 Made to order hooking pitch with only one Leeper buttonhead, as I recall, leading to a huge corner with an incipient little crack in the joint. "Oh God, well just go until you get stopped," I thought while I hung a bunch of clearly useless gear weight from a claw on the last big flake for no good reason. Nothing better that a single #3 head for pro but mostly microwires and a few tiny heads almost all the way to the belay. A5 with a bad landing, the real deal and my best lead ever on aid. No less frightening working a bunch of deadheads with beaks for you guys! Yikes!
#19 The double pendulum pitch that could actually be a quad if you did the two to reach Chickenhead Ledge on the Magic Mushroom! So steep was the stone, that in order to drill a 3/8" bolt for the belay at the Crow's Nest, I had to take off all the racks and push them against the wall to provide a tiny bit of resistance while I stood on the toetips of my Robbins boots, heels in the air, trying not to flap off sideways into space with a raucous clamor in tow!
#21 The Seven C's are the multiple rooflets on this fine pitch that took only one hammered placement.
#22 We were getting really antsy to get off by this point and Charles did a beautiful lead on tiny heads. He still feels that he messed up yet another A5 pitch by drilling prematurely but we were out of food and running low on patience. Charles lowered off before completing the lead and we spent a hard night. Charles told me the next morning that he usually dreamt of sex but that night he dreamt of food. I wept to see him so reduced LOL.
All of our drilling equipment was jammed with broken bits and the next morning we knew that we were in trouble. Only one fragment of a drift pin remained and if we were not able to clear a driver, we couldn't finish the pitch. I had the better hammer arm and we carefully huddled around the least hopeless looking Rawl driver tucked into a tiny weakness lest we drop it. With a couple of solid blows suddenly the tapered shard fell away into space and the morning hush exploded into a loud roar. Now we had chance!
I went up to finish the lead in my freeclimbing shoes and promptly took a 30' dive onto a keyhole hanger when my sealegs wobbled out of a dirty scoop! All that air went rushing by but it woke me right up and I battled to the belay and promptly placed three 1/4" bolts knowing that I could manage the rest of the slab above. I lead through and we were both stumbling around punch drunk on the top in short order. We had done our best and been rewarded by the Captain's good grace.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Oct 31, 2007 - 12:54am PT
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Steve: Thank you! Excellent story. Got any more?
I dream of having everyone around a big campfire some time, maybe at the FaceLift, telling all their wonderful stories.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Oct 31, 2007 - 01:04am PT
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Tales of Sunkist stone and Big Wall Pete......
This classic shot features the Gangplank and dihedral on pitch 17 below and right of Pete. Sunkist looked like a knifestroke from below. Bring back any memories Duncan?
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