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426
Sport climber
Buzzard Point, TN
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Topic Author's Original Post - Apr 27, 2006 - 09:37am PT
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---Bones, drop me a line.
Jon Fox, a bro-brah from Berkeley. A 74’ Lincoln Mark IV Continental with no speedometer. 10/29. Around 10 pm, we leave the East Bay, Valley bound. Fox and I are headed to do the Nose... It’s a route deeply versed in history, from Warren Harding’s first steps on the moon in 1957-58, to Lynn Hill’s first free ascent that fall, at a stiff grade of 5.13c. I've gazed up at the headwall many a time--how long I had longed to become a "granite astronaut" in Longian vernacular.
I take over driving around midnight while Fox grabs some Z’s. I am really wondering if I am going 40 or 70, my exhaustion from work seeping into the reality of no working speedometer. The lines seem to be moving, but who knows? Jon’s Mark IV has an enormous trunk with all the wall sundries easily packed in and room for more.
I wake Fox after a while to take over helm. We stop for water at the entrance to the Valley. 1:30 a.m. Our mission won’t be complete for the night for a while…there’s 15 miles of curvy roads and then a short hike up to the base of El Cap, where we will sleep on a flat sandy bench beneath the Nose route.
We roll up to El Cap meadow, pack our haulbags, and hike. It’s a 10 minute hike at 2 in the morning. We arrive to find 4 other climbers nestled cozily in sleeping bags in "our" spot. Ugggh. Not only will we contend for space, but there will be a clusterf*#k in the morning. I tell Fox that we should camp 100’ away, get up earlier than them and pass them on the climb before they’ve left the ground.
4:17 am. "Pop." "Ping." These are the sounds on the outside of my sleeping bag. Jon is throwing small rocks at my head to wake me up. I find my headlamp and struggle to gain a purchase on conciousness. After 2 hours of sleep, I feel like I’ve been punched in the head. Repeatedly. By a cage fighter. It’s like a bad hangover, more accurately, replete with the "nerves of (near) vomit". We plan quietly, a couple of spies on the subterfuge hauling mission.
I tell Fox we will use fake European accents if we get caught. It is still pitch dark, but I’ve been up the first third of the route, and know it will go quickly, if we can only pass these four cocoons who are napping at the base right now.
I shoe up with climbing boots and step out on ledges above their small camp at the base of Pine Line. The rock is cool, and my beam shines on a small circle of illuminated granite. My sticky rubber soles edge their way above the other climbers in their sleeping bags. I shuffle and then hear:
"Whaddya homos think you are doing?" The agitated voice comes from one of the sleeping bags.
I reply in my best, brusque Austrian accent, "Yah, vee have twvoo sixty meeeter ropes und go veddy fast, yah!"
"Oh, you think so?" The sleeping bag asks.
"Yah, yah!" is my response.
There is silence from down below. What are they going to do, get up at 4:20 am and race us? I feel the slightest tinge of guilt and am curious about karmic reprecussions.
I free climb the 5.7 pitch in a few minutes, and, instead of hauling (normal procedure,) I rappel back down and give Fox the game plan.
He goes up the ropes.
"Eick vein oolen." Fox calls from above.
"Haulenshtien!" I keep up euro airs and we quickly pass, stealing 'quietly' through the night as I "escort" the scuffling bag up the slab.
Perhaps it was us blowing their psyche, or the other party just wasn't efficient, but around 8 in the morning, we are on Sickle and they are just starting. They retreat later that afternoon after doing 1/17th of El Capitan. We are goading them, yelling, "Yah, vat do uu homos tink uu are doink?!!!" Again, I think of karma and my micro debts.
The bottom half of the wall goes relatively smoothly. One night, I tell Fox several times to bring his headlamp because it’s getting dark, but he doesn’t. I bitch at him 40' up to "hang out for a sec" and haul it up, but he says "no can do, brah". After more than 1/2 the haul rope is out (and it's pitch black, virutally) he calls down for the lamp--no go, can't get the haul back, the pitch trends sideways. I get super pissed at his "in the dark" anchor system when I see two bolts a few feet away that he could have used. His belay constructed from gear is a huge, spaghettied tangle of ropes and slings. It’s okay, though, we are right on time (kinda) to the sleeping ledges..we get there around 11:30 at night.
The second day passes with King Swings, gripitude and finding a Halloween stash below 4. A tiny plastic pumpkin is clipped to the gear sling; this false idol must come with some curse in theme with Hallow's Eve. We snatched the few "Bit O Honeys" that came with the tiny jack'o. Thanks, random stashers.
The highlight of the day comes when we change out cylinders on the Gaz and fire it up. Didn't let the gas sit so it goes off like a flamethrower, threatening the whole matrix of anchors and ropes. Fox admonishes me as I "keep trying". Must look like kind of eerie from EC meadow...will o' wisps on the wall.
A fitful night is passed at 4, Fox used the "rule of bivy" to establish himself on the smallest but flattest part. I believe he referenced Greg Child's rule accurately, so I was not "shotgun". I rigged up a haulbag as a hammock, hovering all night, ready to smash Fox into oblivion.
On the third day, I wake up to see some storm activity far away, above the Pacific Ocean. It looks like a front, screaming in from the coast. I rub the sleep out of my eyes and start climbing at first light, after we brew up some java. I am clicking on all cylinders, climbing quickly and efficiently, with one eye on the rock and the other on the sky. Very worried about the storm. Everything has a hurried feel and makes the upper pitches less than enjoyable.
Chalk on the Great Roof (LH had been working on it) also made our "standing on good gear" efforts seem a bit light. I couldn't fathom a dude ever doing it free. I boldly made that prediction, but the more apt a man is to make declarative statements, the more likely he's to be proven a fool later. Tip O' the Hat to Mr. Caldwell.
200’ from the top, the clouds are flying overhead. The wind starts whipping loose nylon and clothing around. I am yelling at Jon to come up the ropes, preparing for the final section of El Cap. It’s dark now, so I strap on my headlamp. The round beam illuminates a 5’ swath of the golden granite. I check the anchors and get myself ready to climb. As soon as Jon arrives, I blast off, neglecting a tidy belay-rolling the summit fever.
The last pitch is an overhanging headwall. In 1958, Warren Harding drilled bolts throughout the night on this section, topping out at dawn, as his team had been out of food and water on the epic and the needed to finish. I clip my way up the headwall, poking my head out from the shelter. A few snowflakes fly when I do so. I am really worried, as two parties have ended their lives at this very spot.
A Japanese party was entombed in ice when the leader fell off the last moves and then hung in space without being able to ascend the rope back to the top. The belayer and leader froze to death and it was days before the search and rescue team could peel their lifeless corpses off the top and thaw them out. They were entombed in several feet of ice from what I've read. Another party of Euros passed in a similar manner.
I think of this grisly scene as I scream frantically for slack from Jon. I can’t move and snow is starting to stick on the slab, making the last pitch way scary. Later, he tells me that the ropes were tangled. He's paying inches at a time while the ghosts watch me writhe over the final slab. I am thundering "SLACK!" in between whimpers 'slack' as I desperately tug-o-war, considering the fall. Debts being paid? I can only hope.
The snow is now flying around me in every direction as the wind refuses to blow just one. It's disorienting and I keep feeling like I am slipping because I can't find a horizon line. I crawl to a pine tree and tie off the ropes. It’s full-on now, and my shell is in the haulbag, 160’ below.
I am shattered to pieces at the top. I can’t haul the bags because they won’t move. Wet ropes, the haul is running through blocks and at a harsh "lip angle". All I want is my jacket so I keep thrashing the tree in vain. Fox arrives after (seemingly) an eternity of blowing snow has pelted my face. I'd screwed the pooch by backcleaning a ton of bolts on the final pitch.
I am plastered and soaking wet with white stuff. We are screaming at each other about the haulbags, the bolts, the condition still stuck below the lip. He’s pissed because they aren’t already at the top. I am pissed because I can’t haul them. As in most big walls, it’s the team effort that gets them over the final bulge.
Fox keeps yelling as I am immediately sedate (mostly from getting my shell on). "It’s over, it’s over," I keep repeating a mantra of stupidity. He eventually stands down and is calm while we pack up.
It's far from over. I should know, I've blown out an ankle 4' away from the car---it's not even over on the "ride home"....Never having been to this section of the top of El Cap, I worry as we make preparations to descend. The storm thickens and my headlamp barely cuts the fury of blowing snow. If we go astray, we take a 3,000 plunge. I lead straight back from the wall and into deep manzanita bushes, a bane of all California climbers.
The only thing on our side is the fact that we both have several layers of clothes. Try thrashing through thick manz in the summer with shorts on and you will be cut to the bone. After tunneling for several hundred yards, it’s futile to do anything until dawn, we decide. We are plunging back first down a hill, trying to find a flat spot to bed down. There are a few inches of snow covering everything. Finding a micro flat area, we unpack our sleeping bags and bivy gear. Snow piles up. We haven’t even eaten dinner and have one PowerBar left out of our rations.
I huddle inside my swampy sleeping bag and worry about what the night will bring. If there is a foot of snow by morning, it will likely make the normal descent route impossible, and we will have to trudge several miles along the rim of the Valley to find a walk-off. I sleep uneasily until 5 am. The sound of rain pattering is the biggest relief I’d ever experienced. I know that the rain will make the regular descent possible and we won’t be walking miles breaking trail in snow with pigbags on our backs.
The sun comes up and it is a partly cloudy fall day, such a difference from 12 hours before. We melt some snow with our stove and split the PowerBar. 125 calories later, we don’t dally, as pizza and beer are calling us.
After getting to the floor of the ditch, we try hitching a ride from the descent point to where the Mark IV cruiser is parked, a mile up the road. A Ford F-350 without a shell stops.
"You guys climbing?"
"Yeah! Can you give us a ride?"
"Sure, you guys look pretty wet." The nice couple looks at us and decides we’re decent, but sopped, guys. (Yeah, right..)
I hop up on the full sized truck and Fox, who is built a bit less lanky than I, tries the same move, but gets pinned under his burdenous haulbag. I drag him in like a beached whale, grabbing the straps of his bag and yarding body and bag into the bed. Everyone chuckles and the Ford churns down the road--soon we are changed into dry clothes. Our totem is hung from the rear view as we drive for pie.
Down in the Valley, I call work in the bay area. "No, I won’t be coming in today. Sorry, I was stuck on El Cap in a blizzard last night." I get written up later that week. There is a saying, "the worst day fishing beats the best day working." If you substitute climbing in there, you have to further amend the statement. "The worst day climbing beats the best day working, so long as you walk away from the climb (not too badly hurt-a few gobis to be expected)...."
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 27, 2006 - 09:51am PT
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good one!... I'll have to put the fake-Euro pose in the files... micro-karma indeed.
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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Apr 27, 2006 - 11:36am PT
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mais oui!
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Hootervillian
climber
the Hooterville World-Guardian
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Apr 27, 2006 - 11:40am PT
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ausgezeichnet! schneiden Sie die Taue?
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Apr 27, 2006 - 12:14pm PT
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Jon has a variety of accents. For instance, here is the one he used most on our ascent of Jolly Roger.
Setting: one of the many heading pitches
Jon: "Hey, Michaelangelo - whatcha doin' with-a the chis'?"
Pete: "Hey, Luig' - shutta you mout'. After I finish with-a de statue of Moses, I'm-a gonna paint the Sistine Chapel."
"You just make-a sure dat Moses has a big-a set o' balls!"
"No problem, Luigi. I'm a workin' on-a dem right now...."
Pinck! Pinck! Pinck! ....... Ku-RACK!
"Uh-oh....."
I have not heard from Jon in years, so if anyone knows his email or phone number, please send it my way! I'd climb with Jon again anytime, and I'm available from mid-May to early-July.
Great well-written trip report! When did this ascent take place?
Cheers,
Michaelangelo
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yo
climber
I'm so over it
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Apr 27, 2006 - 12:39pm PT
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Two thumbs way up.
I will use "haulenschtein" on all future climbs. It is in my lexicon forever.
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Apr 27, 2006 - 12:44pm PT
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If you have ever climbed next to Spanish-speaking wall climbers, almost all of them refer to their pigs as "puta!"
It has a nice ring to it, "puta", the way you kind of spit it out with the plosives.
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426
Sport climber
Buzzard Point, TN
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 28, 2006 - 07:45am PT
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Gents, thx.
Pete (-Mike?-)- we did it in '94. Hopefully Jon will drop in sometime for some 'punislative' slander.
hoot-schneiden Sie die Seile auf anderen Wänden.... erklärt die Geschichte später!
yo-I hope all your hauls are cromulent and glad your lexicon's embiggened.
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golsen
Social climber
kennewick, wa
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Apr 28, 2006 - 11:58am PT
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Einem sehr gut reisereport! Bildete meinen tag!
Vielen dank!
On a side note, you guys climbed to sickle very fast with a pig!
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