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| Messages 1 - 31 of total 31 in this topic |
Roger Brown
climber
Oceano, California
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Topic Author's Original Post - Apr 24, 2008 - 10:42pm PT
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Heard someone is on it.
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elcap-pics
climber
Crestline CA
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Apr 24, 2008 - 11:44pm PT
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Yo Roger... are you coming to the valley to do some fixing this spring? Hope so... enjoy hearing your stories and adventures...
Tom
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Roger Brown
climber
Oceano, California
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 25, 2008 - 09:16pm PT
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Tom,
See you 1st Week of June. Most likely GPA again :-)
Roger
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Brandon
Trad climber
Santa Maria, CA
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Yeah, Dave Nettle and I were on the Harding route last weekend. It took us 4 days. Very nice rock on the upper dome. Modified hooks are manditory for the hooking pitches. There's also quite a bit of nailing starting with pitch 7. Roger Brown did a huge public service by replacing the original FA bolts with ASCA 3/8" SS. One of the exciting parts of the route was that it has the rescue/epic stigma that I kept in the back of my mind the whole time. Also descending the cables hand-over-hand with a 80lb haulbag was exciting too. I wonder how many ascents this route has? Roger said he got the 7th back in 1997.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Thanks for the report Brandon. Hard to believe even the Harding route has been done so little. How much of that thing do you think would go free for a Huber or Caldwell?
peace
karl
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chossyslab
climber
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know where i can find a topo for that route?
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james Colborn
Trad climber
Truckee, Ca
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Huber and Caldwell?
Brandon, did you guys free many of the pitches?
Three Cheers for the unsponsored climbers that kick ass. I know a few people that climb so freaking hard and have a family or work during the week. I can only imagine if they climbed everyday what they could achieve. They seem to squeeze every second out of free time and when its time to climb they are on.
Nice one!
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Brandon
Trad climber
Santa Maria, CA
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We used both topos from the Reid and the Meyers books. The Reid topo seemed to be more accurate. As far as free climbing on the route: Pitches 1-5 were freed by Sean Jones(.10a, .10c, .11c, .12c, .12a). Pitches 6 & 7 have too much lichen on them to be freed, plus you would need to hammer pins for pro, I seriously doubt they will go free. There is a possibility that the Great Escape Hatch(pitch 8) would go free. It would require insane chimney skills to do the traversing bombay chimney. Once again the pro is predominately pins. I liked this pitch the best.
Pitches 9, 10, & 19 would go free for sure. I bet a few other pitches above pitch 10 would go free, but there is no pro for free attempts. You aren't going to feel too good about doing free moves off a fixed bathook or rivet.
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Flanders!
Trad climber
June Lake, CA
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Hey Roger,
Didn't you and I do the 5th ascent, just after Walt's solo? That was a great route, typical of Harding & Rowell. I remember the bat hook holes being covered with "corn flake" lichen and needing to brush the wall to find the holes. It was a good time with you on that one!
Doug
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Hey Brandon--any pix of your ascent? Would love
to see them and more details. . .Thx!
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Roger Brown
climber
Oceano, California
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Topic Author's Reply - May 3, 2008 - 10:41pm PT
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Doug,
Yea, it was the 5th. It was starting to sprinkle a little as I followed you up that first pitch. The first pitch of a great adventure. I remember Walt telling us how to modify the hooks. Told the story about how he got up out of the arch and realized he had the wrong hooks. Back in the Vally that same night making hooks, then back to finish the route. But, that was Walt:-) I let Brandon and Dave use our hooks.
Roger
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WBraun
climber
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Jody
You don't know klaus or coz. I'm not going to get into this argument, but it goes far deeper than you will ever understand from this Internet discussion.
I've lived with these guys for years and my life depended on them at times, more so with coz.
Try not to be so hard on them as it's not what you think .....
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Flanders!
Trad climber
June Lake, CA
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Roger,
what do you make of all this SFHD discussion? A few ego's? A few thoughtful comments? Somewhat amazing that folks spent this much time discussing this. Maybe you and I need to go up and check out these routes for ourselves? Got any time?
Doug
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Roger Brown
climber
Oceano, California
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Topic Author's Reply - May 3, 2008 - 11:27pm PT
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Doug,
The present deal is for me to work 2 more weeks, then get the "lay-off". My boss is cool, I can go whenever I want. So I guess anytime. Whatcha got in mind?
Roger
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WBraun
climber
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Jody, I don't have very good command of english language nor how to speak like most here. But it's in here below and you'll have to do the best you can to understand what I'm trying to say.
Maybe it makes no sense.
In the beginning the pure waters of the river flowed freely into the ocean. All the citizens along that river understood to keep it clean and respect it because all the denizens along that river depended upon that pure water for their lively hood and strength.
They had great faith in that understanding the greater deeper knowledge of why the river needed to stay pure.
In time due to degeneration and loss of this great knowledge the denizens began to fight over that purity in that clean spirit of life force within that water.
It became all about the "I" "Me" more and more. The river became damned, and it's spirit and life force became subdued just as ones own blood lost it's own oxygen rich blood cells and disease could take hold. The arm told the head it wanted to become independent. The legs started to fight with the upper body, and so on.
The denizens became weaker and weaker along with their clear thinking due to the river losing it's spirit.
Men and women of great vision could "see" what the future would bring by losing that pure clean spirit within that water.
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jstan
climber
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Very thoughtful indeed.
I read this as:
That river is the life itself that we ride while searching for those things that make us weak. If we but find them, we will arrive at the ocean whole and young.
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Brandon
Trad climber
Santa Maria, CA
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Doug, I was mixed up. Yes, Roger told me that you guys got the 5th ascent and that he knew of at least 7 ascents so far.
Below are a few pictures.
Cleaning the 4th pitch
Looking back at the belay while leading the Great Escape Hatch.
Another shot looking down on pitch 8.
Clean open face on the upper half of the route.
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bachar
Gym climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Creating "routes" on rap is like the Federal Reserve creating "money".
Pure knavery...
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Blowboarder
Boulder climber
Back in the mix
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" Creating "routes" on rap is like the Federal Reserve creating "money".
Pure knavery..."
John, I have no more business discussing rock climbing with you than I have discussing economics with Milton Freidman but I see one major difference in your analogy.
A rap bolted "route" doesn't harm anybody. The idea of such "routes" obviously harms those who don't agree with the stylistic ethics upon which it was created but the route itself does not. It just sits there, waiting to be climbed, chopped, or not.
The Fed, on the other hand, is responsible for more pain and angst among American citizens than all the terrorists in the world.
Great Depression...Check.
70's Era Inflation...Check
Current SubPrime Crisis....we'll wait to Check that one as all the ingredients in this vile stew boil up.
Cheers,
Pasha
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wildone
climber
Where you want to be
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Awesome photos, Brandon. Do you have any more?
As an aside, I went up a year or two ago to drop ropes from the rim for Brandon and my buddy T-Balls. The next day, I could see him moving up those two consecutive pitches of OW/chimney with my naked eye from over by the lodge! The first pitch of OW took me like 2-2.5 hrs. He did it in like 10-15 mins.
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bachar
Gym climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Blow - I was just kidding....
Gotta go for now - back to my printing press to make some more "money".
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marty(r)
climber
beneath the valley of ultravegans
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Brandon,
Thanks for sharing. How feasible did it seem (if at all) to climb pitch 8 without pins? Just curious. Those photos are great. Made me go re-read Rowell's account of the big rescue. Thanks again.
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Blowboarder
Boulder climber
Back in the mix
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JB, take the fishhook please. Or at least go trolling barbless next time.
:)
Your post did lead to some reading on the Fed, we the people, one suckers under the few....
Send me up some fresh bills when you get the chance, this work sh#t is overrated.
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wildone
climber
Where you want to be
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...which brings up a funny tidbit of info-from what I've heard, the reason we keep changing the small denominations (1, 5, etc) is that counterfitters have scrapped trying to mimic the fiber on bills and have gone to bleaching actual 1s and 5s to print tens and twenties. Apparently, those funky colors in the corners are harder to bleach.
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Brandon
Trad climber
Santa Maria, CA
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Yes, there are a lot more pics, too many to post.
Regarding the chimney pitch going clean, no way. I couldn't fit micro nuts or cam hooks in there. Hand placed beaks wouldn't work either since most of the pins are getting slammed upwards.
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Brandon
Thanks for the pix. You certainly whetted our appetites.
Would love to see more!
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couchmaster
climber
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Coz says: Can they be reached on their cell to swing over and chop growing up, I'll pay ten bucks a bolt.
Holy crap, major misunderstanding! I guess that they thought you wanted the South Face chopped so they wacked all of Galens and Hardings bolts and are now looking to get $3,000 from you Coz. They yanked the original 180 protection bolts on the upper part of the route, all the new chicken bolts added - and got all of the belay and anchor bolts as well from the entire route.
The bolt count dropped but the hole count went up.
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couchmaster
climber
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ps, side note: @300 slightly used hangers are now available for sale, and the first boltless ascent of the true original South Face route is now waiting for the first person with Gecko skin shoes. The route, however, is said to be impossible without the bolts or the shoes.
No word if the choppers even saw the sparse GU bolts past all the bolts (read cash) they saw on the South Face.
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alpinist
Trad climber
tahoe city
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The south face (harding-rowell) is a fantastic route with a solid approach, great views and a variety of climbing with nothing but the sound of Nevada Falls and the snow covered high country around you. (and a colorful history!)
The first 900 feet is in a steep and mostly clean corner with potential for a lot of free climbing and most of the aid is straightforward C1-2. Once you bust out of the great escape pitch (awesome!) the upper face has a lot of potential for free climbing, however you probably wouldn't choose to follow the original route which aimed for linking thin nailing features. Southern Belle already exists free right next door and is a visionary line up some steep but featured face climbing. You could free up some parts of the original bat hooking pitches but you would have to add a significant number of bolts to protect it...don't do it. If you get a hankering to drill bolts find another line on the mile wide face (or not). On the upper bat hook pitches you do mix free moves with bat hooking making for some very committing moments.
There seems to be an impression that the upper part of the route has hundreds of bolts...not. Every bolt you clip is a virtual island in the middle of long stretches of free moves, bat hooking and occasional rivets. I'd say there's an average of 2 or 3 protection bolts on each 120 foot hooking pitch and every 3/8" bolt we clipped that Roger replaced (only replacing the FIRST ascent bolts) we thanked him with a sigh. the holes do not need to be any deeper, just be sure you have long nosed custom hooks (thanks again Roger!) and ultra thin rivet hanger wires. My impression was that there were only a couple of non first ascent chicken bolts. The route has virtually no fixed gear yet all the belay/porta ledge anchors are gold. Brandon and I had a blast and felt far away form any form of controversy...Ahhhh.
cheers!
Dave Nettle
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ß Î Ø T Ç H
Boulder climber
the greasewood ghetto
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Apr 13, 2009 - 03:37am PT
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bump
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