Chris McNamara
SuperTopo staff member
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Correction to the guidebook Yosemite Big Walls: SuperTopos: Pitches 8 and 9 link with 50m rope (not pitches 7 and 8).
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Brandon in CA
Intermediate climber
Mill Valley, CA
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As of 10/02 TDA now has at least 2 good bolts at all belays. Still a couple of original 1/4'ers to clean off though. Lead bolts and rivets are ?'able. Traverse pitch is currently entirely fixed except for 3 placements (a fewrivets, then 8 circleheads in a row, then a hook, a LA, a sawed off 5/8, then more fixed junk to belay) .
Not all belays easily accomodate 2 ledges, and the 3 belays in the big corner will have you hanging in the air, they're steep. We hung one ledge below the other. There is a rivet off to the side of the belay at the end of the traverse for a ledge.
This route is fun. For 4 pitches in a row, the person jugging the free rope lowered way out in the air off the belay.
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macgyver
Social climber
Oregon, but now in Europe
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How to solo traversing pitches:
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?m=63985&f=0&b=0
Rock on
McG
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Spinmaster K-Rove
Trad climber
Stuck Under the Kor Roof
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Average time to climb this route is 3 days!?!? Does that include a day a of fixing or something? I would plan on 2 days for sure. The first pitch has some awkward 5.9 free climbing (which I had to climb again after we got off the route cause we dropped something...ugh) and I recall the 2 and 3rd pitches being kind of licheny but I climbed it back in 1998.
When I climbed it I blew out a little crystal that I had an offset behind and then fell on a #2 stopper that was *buried* in a placement on the 3rd pitch and broke the cable. Took a 35 footer and scared the absolute sh#t out of myself. If a cableless stopper is still buried in there I'd love to know!
This is a great route with some fun exposure. The corner is kind of awkward because it double-overhangs. Anchors are pretty good (though I suppose Chris has replaced a lot of the bolts...I had to add a bolt at the top of bitch 4 because of serious mank factor) and lots of rivets and heads on upper pitches.
The big down side is that you have to finish on the Prow. I've done those top pitches 3 times now and I swear to god if I ever do them again it will be because I'm completely insane.
Key beta for the traverse is to have a lower-out line and put your bag on a load-releasing hitch. My lower-out line was maybe 50 or 60 feet and so I just lowered the thing on a munter and my partner hauled it in as I went. I eventually had to cut it loose but everything was cool since it is so steep.
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Erik Sloan
Big Wall climber
Yosemite Big Wall
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Ten Days After is quality fun. Definitely a little harder than the more popular Column trade routes but short enough to make it a perfect intro to nailing.
As of 7/05 all belays look good(everyone has 2 3/8" bolts except the top of #1 which has one 5/16 buttonhead and one 3/8"). Most lead bolts/rivets were replaced. A few poor quality rivets remain.
The start of the route is not drawn accurately in the current book. The route starts at the base of the Prow, climbing cracks on the face eight feet to the right of the 10a corner. After about 40 feet of up to 5.9 you hit grassy terraces(and a bolt) and easier climbing to the belay. The pitch is 130' not 160'.
Pitch 2 felt more like A3 with 5 beak or head moves in a row. It looks grassy but the placements are cleaned out at regular intervals.
Pitch 5 is probably closer to C2+ or C3 with 12-14 ft. of arrows or thin clean gear before the belay.
Pitch 8 belay only has one bolt and a bunch of pins. The next pitch of the Prow is extremely short (and mostly fixed) so linking 8&9 is preferrable.
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Lambone
Big Wall climber
Ashland, Or
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Fun route, nice clean cracks, steep climbing! We placed 5 Arrows, mostly short and thick, 2 on p4 and 3 on p7. The route could go clean fairly easy now with soem delicate work with Ball-Nuts and/or cam hooks in those arrow scars. I chose the arrows for practice and tapped lightly.
As usual HB offsets (placed 4 green brassies in a row), offset aliens and cam hooks are the ticket for doing it mostly clean.
We brought up to 3.5 Camalot but never used it, only used a #2 and #3 once and could have probly skipped those placements. Beware on the upper pitches on the Prow you need a #4 and this isn't on the TDA gear rack. I'd say bring tripples up to Yellow Alien the doubles of sizes bigger then that is plenty.
The expanding sections on the topo are nothing to worry about, not much movement there. The last three pitches before hitting the Prow are pretty much clip and go since all the heads are fixed and many new fat "Nanook" lead bolts with hangers (why?).
We only needed two rivet hangers since we didn't clip any, just the bolts.
We rapped the Prow rather then do the NGD and it was a fun descent option.
go get 'er!
(also, some of the upper bivi ledge bolts on Tapir Terrace could stand to be replaced, I had a hard night sleeping on some old ones with a 40ft tie-in.)
Pitch Notes:
p1-Prow
p2-Prow -> don't deck on the ledge! above the C2F on the supertopo are two rivets that lead right to the TDA belay. Take this variation as it is easier then trying to swing around the corner from the top of the Prow's p2.
p3 - partner led clean at C3. small nust and cams
p4 - aliens off the belay, two crux pin scars in the roof that take good arrows.
p5 - nice thin clean crack, small nuts, camhooks, small cams, no pins! only C2.
p6 - almost all fixed, one funky alien or large sawed of placement.
p7 - thin clean gear off the bealy to a couple of bolts, a few arrows in a left leaning small roof corner thing, mostly fixed to the belay.
p8 + p9 - use long slings for rope drag at the top. p8 is easy and mostly fixed, p9(Prow) is fairly heads up because of a thin traverse above a ledge that yopu backclean to reduce rope drag. then a 30ft runout to the belay. hand placed a 3/4" sawed-off on the Prow.
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Minerals
Social climber
The Deli
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When are you people going to understand? This is all part of the SuperTopo marketing scheme. Are the masses going to buy a guidebook that includes a bunch of routes that are scary and dangerous, and that entail real climbing? Or would they prefer ‘soft’ routes that are safe and fun for everyone?
Were the first ascentionists contacted prior to bolt replacement? Well… no, but they were contacted after the fact, by someone who was opposed to what was done to the route. Eric Brand was not happy to hear that his route had been power-retro-bolted and he commented that John Barbella would most definitely feel the same way. So, why were those Zamac rivets replaced with 3/8” bolts with hangers? WHY?
Yes, your ST guidebook author, Erik Sloan was seen using a power drill on TDA last summer by one of my bros who was hanging out at the base. Stealth? Heh...
Erik, what’s it going to take to help you to realize that you are destroying Yosemite wall routes with your Hilti (or did ASCA donors pay for it?...), one route after another? When are you going to talk with FAists before embarking on your secret missions? When are you going to talk with the rest of the community? When are you going to stop your selfish destruction?
-Bryan
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Lambone
Big Wall climber
Ashland, Or
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btw- there is a bran new Yellow Alien on Pitch 4 that is not stuck. I f*#ked my partner in the roof. Go get it!
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billygoat
climber
Pees on beard to seek mates.
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Great route, but a bummer about the retrobolting. Again, Minerals has a very important point. What the phuck was Sloan doing replacing rivets with bomber bolts? A 3/8 inch button head (or were those 1/2 inch?) does not equal a zmack rivet. If the zmacks were going bad, replace them with a similar rivet. And get permission first!
Lambone...you should make your partner buy you a new yellow alien. It was easy to get from the bolt next to it. He (or she) could have easily removed the alien and lowered off the bolt. Also, that was a red alien placement. The yellow alien was way way undercammed and practically fell out. Thought you should know.
We nailed a total of three times (LA's). I regret the first time, though. I nailed out of haste because the cam hook was shifting and I failed to noticed I could have placed an RP instead. The other two times were in expanding sections. Most likely, they could be avoided as well, but watching cam lobes open up as I'm standing on them isn't my cup of tea... Although, Lambone is correct, the expando is pretty minimal.
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Lambone
Big Wall climber
Ashland, Or
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it was his Alien...
nice send!
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clustiere
Trad climber
berkeley ca
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Ahhh, if you want more of a challenge either go put up a new route or cut your runners half way. Thanks for all the hard work updating the Zamac schwag with new big fatties perhaps the crowds will shift away from the more popular rts here.
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Minerals
Social climber
The Deli
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Seems like parts of this discussion belong in the forum, rather than in route beta… But… we ARE discussing the route, after all…
So then…
Who decides which routes get changed and which routes are left in their original state (or close to their original state)? How long before all routes become easy bait? And then what are we left with? Lots of easy bait? No history of what was? Do the FAists have any say… or is this all up to the guidebook authors… or those willing to ‘replace’ fixed hardware?
Preservation?
How many new routes have yet to be sent? How many viable lines are left? Yeah, there’s plenty of the fresh outside of the Valley… but we’re talking Valley routes here.
Cut our runners halfway? Is that the future of dicey climbing… because the real ‘dice’ are gone? What happened to “Roll the Bones”? Yeah, we’ll make more crowds, and then ‘adjust’ the routes so that the crowds are ‘dispersed’… Modify the routes to suit the crowds, rather than educate the crowds to send the original lines? Where then, is the ‘flavor’ intended by those who took the time, energy, and motivation to seek out a new line, gear up, and climb what was never climbed before? Are these routes that have recently been ‘retro-bolted' now lost forever?
And… why does this whole bolt/rivet replacement stuff always come down to just ‘rivet ladders’ in the discussions around here? What about the rivets that connect sections of dicey climbing – the single rivet that connects a string of spicy hook moves, the two rivets that connect a pair of beautiful head seems, the rivet that connects a series of rotten beak seems…? Does a newly added 3/8” bolt (or several) not drastically alter the difficulty of technical climbing in such scenarios?
Why does our society have to reduce everything to suit the lowest common denominator? Is this the future of Yosemite wall climbing? Where will it all end? What will we be left with?
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clustiere
Trad climber
berkeley ca
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Hey people got smarter and made bigger stronger rivets not the old weaker ones. Natural evolution of any tool. Yo, I don't mow my lawn with that swinging stick with a blade on the end I use my kick ass toro lawn mower. Speaking of which I gotta go do that. We used to use goldline but we now use kernmantle ropes. Stubborness and reactivity are what most of these rebolters are running into not intelligence and rational process. Does an old rivet add some character to a route and historical sence of place sure, but the valley routes are becomming standardized or brought to equalibrium as Mac states in his guide. This is an enevitable process as valley climbing becomes more and more popular. Go to angel wings if you want to put up a scary route that wont get traffic enough to need updated gear for 20 years. You have ultimately no power in this issue aws the masses are headed towards using the best equipment possible and if your gonna drill a hole fill it with a good strong fat piece of metal eh. Thats how I see it anyway, could be wrong who knows?
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MBrown
Big Wall climber
The Eastside.... UUUUHHHHHHH!
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the second pitch of the prow as of late june was missing some fixed gear that made it easy. A bit spicy right now. the fixed heads are held on my just a couple strands and wont be useable much longer.
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Nick Zmyewski
Big Wall climber
Delaware
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Just went up this. All of the anchors seem good. Most are two or three bolts. The traverse pitch has one head missing, I cleaned out the head and was able to pass it with a micro beak placed horizontally. Everything else went fine without having to place any heads. Definitely don't need any cams larger than a #3. We only hammered four times and they were all beaks, possibly could have been hand placed.
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A series of steep corners lead to an exposed face.Photo: Chris McNamara
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