Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Dirk
Trad climber
...and now, Manhattan
|
|
essentially, the crack gets smaller, whereas the leader does not.
|
|
Fuzzywuzzy
climber
suspendedhappynation
|
|
Nice piece of history Werner.
Roy - let's hear it.
|
|
BG
Trad climber
JTree & Idyllwild
|
|
|
|
Stephen McCabe
Trad climber
near Santa Cruz, CA
|
|
Earlier in the thread somebody asked about hexes in 10.96.
Here’s my story about trying to use hexes in 10.96. I was a two to three weeks in the spring, a week in the fall, and some climbing on week-ends in summer type of a climber. I had spent a few or several days trying to work out the kinks after a winter of inactivity. Bob Locke put together a rack with no pitons and had us head out to 10.96. He wasn’t talking too much like he’d lead it. We got out there and took a look at the steeply overhanging, flared climb. He suggested top-roping it, but asked me if I’d like to lead it. I knew it had a least some reputation and it looked intimidating, particularly if you couldn’t get a good fist jam in the back. He scrambled up and set up the top rope.
Later in the day, Bob would confess, “I hope you don’t mind, but you are only climbing for a short time and I want to climb all summer. I hope you don’t mind me using you to lead things and get me in shape for climbing with the Big Boys this summer.” He went on to belay Dale Bard and Vern Clevenger and others on routes during two excellent summers that I was jealous of. He was on many first ascents, including Oz, Blues Riff, Step it up and Go (which I think he might have led), “Dreams (Screams)” and a number of other classics. He even won the Golden Belay Seat (Golden Butt Bag) Award, for meritorious service belaying on first ascents that summer or the next. It may have only been awarded once. I don’t know if the award was retired after Bob-o’s fatal fall on Mt Watkins.
On that day in 1975 (or 76), I climbed up into 10.96 and found a solid fist jam for one side and good knee bar on the outside. After a long ways of very similar moves the flare pinches off. Going from right side in in the overhanging flare to the lieback above the flare is a bizarre move that felt cool doing it and then several feet of liebacking up to the belay ledge.
After Bob-o did well taking a lap on it we were back on the ground and he said, “Why don’t you lead it.” I suggested back to him that he lead it. After resting a bit and looking at the rack he’d brought, I said, “Well, I’ll give it a shot.”
This was before Friends or other active camming units were sold. The crack where it was wider than a # 11 hex was downward flaring. Bob-o knew, but didn’t tell me: it had only been led all nuts once and that was a week earlier by Chris Falkenstein. (I never fact-checked this, but I think it is what Bob told me later that day.) When I was active climbing, I always remembered that Falkenstein was far stronger than I was, way out of my league. If Bob had told me that so far only Chris had led it on nuts and everybody else had used at least one bong for protection, I surely would have paused and maybe not have even started the lead.
As it went, I headed back into the crack, this time on the lead. It was a warm day, but at least inside the squeeze was in the shade, and I was pretty psyched. I climbed up into the bottom of the flare and placed a good #11 hexcentric. As I climbed back up the flare, one hand was fist jamming and the other was in a squeeze chimney arm-bar. Even though I’d already done it, the amount of overhang and the slope of the talus below are a bit disorienting, so it didn’t feel quite as steep as it really was. (The straight on photo of Phil Gleason in http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/161148/StoneMaster_Stories_Part_5_the_epic_continues
or the one of Roy makes it look like it’s not that steep either, though the photographers must have been standing somewhat under them to get those photos if I recall correctly.) I kept trying to get in another nut on the overhanging climb as I was climbing, but didn’t worry too much, because I mostly wanted to protect the move coming out into the lieback. I got right to the point where it appears Gleason had a bong above his head and I tried everything I had but I couldn’t get a nut to hold its own weight very well. I only had one each of the even-in-those-days “old style” more symmetrical # 10 and #11 hexes. I was facing a ground fall from pretty high up. Smaller hexes endwise didn’t fit either. I don’t know if I had a 4” tube, but it wouldn’t have helped. It didn’t seem smart at all to do the crux unprotected, so I downclimbed to the base of the main action, took out my one good hexcentric, replaced it with the more regular old style and headed back up for essentially my third lap of the off-width without a rest and fourth lap of the day. Along the way I briefly took a few more stabs at getting a hex in but I was sure the other hex would fit right at the crux. I got there and tried it one way, then the other, one way then the other. It just wasn’t good.
There are times when I use poor protection as “psychological protection” on a climb and times where it doesn’t help. I had made a decision sometime in my climbing career, after knocking out some horrible protection as I passed it, that I had to have at least some minimal hope that the protection would hold or it just made it worse to have something in that I knew would fall out as I passed it. I preferred to just know I was going for it if the pro was actually useless.
This climb had a reputation for being tiring and I was getting tired, fussing with the hexes. I decided to just keep climbing. I knew it was scary, but I thought it was feasible. I was tired, but the upper part had been ok on a top-rope. I reached up, using all the flexibility that a non-musclebound guy had, moved comfortably out into the lieback and immediately said, “Oh s@#!” Fist jams and knee bars were one thing, but I had no strength left for liebacking. Bob-o saw my arms go straight with no strength to bend at the elbows and started looking in vain for a plan to somehow have the rope stop me before I hit the talus. I had only the briefest of pauses before moving as fast as I could, essentially straight-armed, up what had been a manageable lieback fresh but that was now at or beyond my absolute limit. Sweating and stressed, the idea of a ground fall was moving a closer to the forefront. A few moves with just the precise correct body tension allowed me to move up a couple of inches at a time and to pull onto the ledge with no strength to spare and probably some choice vocabulary.
So to finally get back to whether or not it’s a climb to do with hexes: Maybe there are hex placements near the crux, but I could make a list of a lot of climbs that are far easier to protect with hexes.
|
|
survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
|
|
Holy Sh*t Stephen!!
I got snail eye just reading that!!
Damn, I've had some similar experiences, but I'm glad I wasn't you that day.
Survival is a strong motivator eh????
|
|
Gunkie
Trad climber
East Coast US
|
|
Bob-o saw my arms go straight with no strength to bend at the elbows and started looking in vain for a plan to somehow have the rope stop me before I hit the talus. I had only the briefest of pauses before moving as fast as I could, essentially straight-armed, up what had been a manageable lieback fresh but that was now at or beyond my absolute limit. Sweating and stressed, the idea of a ground fall was moving a closer to the forefront.
Thanks for the visceral Ex-Lax, now I can go poop.
|
|
Chief
climber
|
|
Jonny Woodward onsighted Hangdog Flyer on his first visit in 80-81.
Apparently he went balls out to what looked like a good jam and it wasn't. Tom Gilje told me he couldn't watch, had to look away till "The Beau Gester" finally clipped a piece while looking at a ground fall from WAY up there.
|
|
lucaskrajnik
Trad climber
Anchorage, AK
|
|
|
Apr 13, 2011 - 08:55pm PT
|
bump
|
|
BASE1361
climber
Yosemite Valley National Park
|
|
|
Apr 13, 2011 - 11:43pm PT
|
Is it true it's called 10.96 because that was a radio code BITD for :
Maniac on the loose??
|
|
CrackAddict
Trad climber
Joshua Tree
|
|
|
Apr 14, 2011 - 05:40pm PT
|
Hangdog is really good but very hard. Someone earlier said it is possible to stem, I couldn't see that. It basically has 2 cruxes which are the antitheses of each other - the first is just a pure layback, probably the hardest I have done in Yosemite. The crux there is getting a piece in while you are laying back upside down with 1 arm. It eases up slightly and then you get to the shelf, with a perfect rest before the technical crux, which I remember being something like the crux of "Starving in Stereo" at Woodson, maybe a little easier - very thin to a good hold/slot.
Haven't done 10.96 but you can TR it after Hangdog if you don't have big gear.
|
|
Mungeclimber
Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
|
|
|
Nov 15, 2013 - 02:18pm PT
|
Thx Willoghby for the bump!
McCabe! Damn! great write up
|
|
Byran
climber
Yosemite
|
|
|
Nov 15, 2013 - 11:10pm PT
|
|
|
ß Î Ø T Ç H
Boulder climber
extraordinaire
|
|
|
Nov 15, 2013 - 11:26pm PT
|
^^ woot!
|
|
StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
|
|
|
Nov 15, 2013 - 11:33pm PT
|
Love the Suzuki photo
|
|
clinker
Trad climber
California
|
|
|
Nov 16, 2013 - 12:51am PT
|
I'm gonna lay back on my 3 pillows and try to decide between ly- or lie- laybacking while eating a half a box of Mike and Ikes, right hand in.
|
|
RyanD
climber
Squamish
|
|
|
Nov 16, 2013 - 01:53am PT
|
Sick shots Bryan!
Hangdog flyer looks like a blast!!!!
|
|
tarallo
Trad climber
italy
|
|
|
Nov 16, 2013 - 05:18am PT
|
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!