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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Apr 28, 2014 - 01:07am PT
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Waiting for the Sun
by Greg Mofoshco
Half Dome’s Bushido, mysteriously forgotten by Valley wall climbers, has seen only two ascents in the last 20 years. It all started with a worn-out U-joint. You never realize the importance of proper vehicle maintenance until it’s too late. Anyway, that blown U-joint led to costly repairs, so I wend to work framing roofs for my friend Brad Jarret. Sounds reasonable so far, right?
We were both broke, working and living out of our cars in Fresno’s summer heat. Basically, it sucked. So when October rolled around and Brad suggested a weekend wall I was all for it.
Brad is motivated. Some might say too motivated. Earlier that summer he had spent 16 days hanging on a wall on Baffin Island putting up a new route between awful snowstorms. Climbers who know Brad are usually in awe of him. He doesn’t have a nickname. He’s just Brad. Or, as friends often refer to him after hearing of some new wicked adventure he's just pulled off, "F*#kin' Brad." And when you hang out with him for a while, things ,hat are unreasonable start to appear reasonable.
So when Brad and I left Fresno for Yosemite Valley I was somewhat prepared, but as soon as we got there things got out of control. Brad immediately forgot about the weekend wall idea. He was my boss so I could live with that.
"Half Dome is way more alpine than the rest of the Valley," he told me. "You get away from all the traffic and the noise up there. I think you'd really like it."
Oh sure, it all sounded so pleasant. Then he suggested Bushido, a Jim Bridwell/Dale Bard route from the 1970s on the right side of Half Dome. This would be the third ascent. Right then, red flags waved in my mind. Why have there only been two ascents in 20 odd years? And then there was the gear list - lots of really big cams required. Hmm ... if I'd been thinking straight I'd have stayed in the deli and let Brad solo the thing.
Before I could back out we were at the base of the northwest face of Half Dome with our first loads. I looked up the gully to our right and the route was obvious and horrifying. An 800-foot, arching, gaping, radically overhung shadowed corner system. "Maybe that's not it," I thought. "Nobody would want to climb that."
But somehow the sheer sickness of the venture motivated me. When someone said, "Bushido. Oh, yeah. Didn't Bridwell say he wouldn't recommend it to his worst enemy?" I just smiled. And by the time Brad and I carried our last load to the base I was actually excited to do the wall.
"Well, shall we do paper-scissors-rock for the first lead?" Brad asked.
"Uh, let me look at the topo for a sec ... if you're going to do the A4 pitches - you should take the first pitch so we can switch leads. Yeah, that way you'll get the 5.10 pitch in the middle, too." Made perfect sense to me.
Brad agreed and got ready to lead. He explained the double-haul system to me. I was a little confused but I figured I'd work it out. The first pitch was 5.7 free climbing up a gully. Brad climbed this quickly and was soon hauling. We had two full-size haulbags, two little bags, a five-gallon bucket of food, and the portaledge, all divided into two hauls. Brad hauled, I cleaned it, and soon I was at the top of the first pitch - my first experience dealing with Brad at a wall belay.
"Here give me that. Clip in there. Here's the rack. I've already picked out what you'll probably need to get started. You can use this gear sling if you want. There's your first piece. All right, you're on."
Damn. I was still trying to get my wall legs. I hadn't even looked at the pitch and Brad already had me on lead. The Bushido crack began. It was straight in and led to a roof about 60 feet up. The climbing was fairly straightforward camming and nutting but I still felt insecure. The rock was crumbling, rotten, and pink. Brad had heard Bridwell say the whole system was a fault line that ran clear down to Mirror Lake. The pink rock was supposedly radioactive. All I knew was that it sucked and was steep. The tag line hung straight down and curved back into the belay. At the roof things got a bit uglier. I pulled loose rocks and threw them out past Brad. The roof itself was composed of large, hollow-sounding blocks with a crack straight through them. Tapping and testing, worried the whole thing might collapse on my head, I slowly made my way past the roof.
Brad yelled up, "It's going to be dark soon, so I'm going to set up the bivy here." I looked down and he was putting the portaledge together. Above me parts of the wall were orange with the setting sun. Time had flown. I knew I wouldn't finish the pitch without climbing well into the night.
"Brad, this pitch goes on for quite a ways still. What's the best way to get back down to the belay?"
"Set up a temporary anchor. Clip the lead line to that. Then clip the tag line into the lead line with a couple biners. Rap the tag line. That way, if for any reason the anchor blows you're still clipped into the lead line and on belay."
When I arrived at the bivy, Brad had most everything set up. He went under the portaledge like a diver and handed the last of the bivy items up to me. It was a relief to be off the pitch, at least until morning. Our first day on the wall was over and we were one pitch up. We got into bivy mode, had beers, ate fresh tortillas and tabouli, and listened to music.
We woke up and yelled to our neighbors. "John! F*#k You!" Our friends John and John were next door, a couple hundred yards to the left, on Zenith. After a breakfast of dates and fresh fruit (the joys of the food bucket), I jugged to the high point and led to the belay, set up, and hauled. I was setting up the portaledge when Brad arrived. Things were mildly clusterf*#ked. "Don't worry about the ledge - it's just in the way,"Brad said. "Here, get this gear bag up there. Always get the gear bag up first. Now get the ropes flaked in the bags ..." Brad quickly organized the stuff, and the gear he wanted, and was off. The message was clear: keep the leader moving.
Between doling out slack, tagging up gear, and my poor belay arrangement, it took me a while to settle in. But finally I was relaxing on the portaledge. I munched food and slid tapes in the boom box. I looked at the lower part of the face sweeping off to the left. Overhanging granite everywhere. The sun slowly began to hit the face and the light crept westward, but we were still in the shade.
Brad was linking the third and fourth pitches together, methodically using the wide/rotten main crack and thin nailing seams to the right. "I think I'm wasting more time trying to find the easiest way than just climbing it," Brad said. "It's going to be dark soon so I figure I'll just come down to you to bivy when I reach the belay. Otherwise you'll be cleaning in the dark," Brad said.
"I don't mind cleaning in the dark if you don't mind hauling," I yelled up.
"OK. I'll haul and set up here." F*#kin' Brad. It was dark and cold. My fingers were painfully numb and my legs were lead - cleaning was gymnastic. The pitch overhung severely, and even in the dark I could sense the void beneath me. When I got to the belay, Brad was already in his sleeping bag. I drank a beer, had a smoke, and macked down hummus and tortillas, not knowing the full horror of the next pitch.
It was our third day and I was on the sharp end again on a wide, flaring, rotten crack. I was used to it by now. I shifted into full groveling mode. Step up high on the awkward placement way back in the bombay crack, begin full-scale excavation, tap with the hammer to find the most solid-sounding bit of choss, and dig with the pick to clear off the worst of the outer layer. Then, make the placement, test it as best you can from the wedged position, and move up. In the process send large chunks into the gully and small pieces on myself and Brad. There's a subtle pleasure of granite grit falling down the back of your shirt first thing on a cold morning.
After a couple of hours I reached some bolts, but didn't know if it was the end of the pitch. "That can't be it, you're barely halfway out, " Brad yelled from his sleeping bag. "If it is, just keep going and link the pitches."
I anchored and backcleaned about 60 feet for cams. Passing another two-bolt anchor, I started the next pitch. Although rated easier, this pitch seemed more technical. I leapfrogged cams and was 15 feet away from my last piece of pro when the placements got tricky. I jumped backward as tested pieces shifted. I tried to equalize junk, to no avail. I freaked with the anchors only 15 feet above, but after some funky pin placements, I slammed in a couple of big cams. It was just after dark. Brad cleaned, and we finalized the bivy arrangements together. Brad told me it was best not to hang the ledge off just one bolt, but just deal with it. All I wanted was a cigarette.
In my dreams I was on the ground. I had descended to get more supplies and take care of last-minute errands. Somehow a couple days passed by. Wasn't I supposed to be up on a climb with Brad? I tried to get back to Half Dome but events kept getting in my way. I'm too late, I thought. He's already given up waiting. I've blown it.
It was a bizarre relief when I woke and found myself still in the portaledge.
The next morning Brad led through a wide bombay traverse and onto the thin ground of the "Kohl is Light" variation. He was around the corner and done with the pitch in two hours, maybe less. I arrived at the belay, tunneled between the wall and the portaledge, and got a look at the next pitch - long, wide, rotten, and disappearing over a bulge to the left. My mind was so warped at this point, I thought, "Nice-looking pitch." I couldn't see exactly where it exited the bulge, but I suspected this was the last pitch of the Dungeon. Today we would leave the shadowed corner system and finally see sun.
Brad had the gear spread out for me and I got going. Another grovelfest. Brad, savvy to the route's loose rock, hid beneath a haulbag for the first 25 feet. Beyond there the overhanging wall provided adequate protection. Brad muttered and cursed as I climbed. He was organizing and the next time I looked down he was quaffing a Master Cylinder, a 24-ounce can of Schlitz malt liquor. "Hey, put on that Revco tape," I yelled. Up came the funky, fat industrial bass lines. It was excellent motivational music. I grooved out and excavated upward. For the first time on the route I was having fun.
"I'm drinking some of your whiskey," Brad announced brazenly. Was that a question? Good, I thought, at least he'll be in a better mood.
"Are you drinking and organizing?" I asked.
"I love to organize. I'm the King of Organization," Brad stated matter-of-drunkenly. He was getting rummied. F*#kin' Brad. Meanwhile, a heavy fog had come in, darkening the afternoon. By sunset we were in strange pale gray light surrounded by mist and cloud. Great, another day without sunshine. I was nowhere near finishing the pitch so I rapped down to the ledge.
"Hey Brad, you think you could haul me in?"
Brad turned to see me dangling, 20 feet from the wall. "You down already? Uh ... yeah."
We were both feeling good. Brad was pleasantly zooted. I quickly caught up. The mist enveloped us, but it wasn't cold. I woke in the middle of the night and looked around. The cloud had broken and the moon was lighting the walls and the moving scattered fog. Eerie and beautiful. I went back to sleep and dreamed that I rode a huge flying camel above the streets of the city.
The morning was clear, cool, and breezy. I was up early and motivated to start climbing. Brad let me out a few feet and then let go.
"Whoooeeee!" This is way better than coffee, I thought as I swung into space.
The pitch was long and cold. It finally took me out of the Dungeon, but I didn't get a chance to celebrate. A bitterly cold wind picked up and by the time Brad arrived at the belay, I could hardly think. The belay was a mess. Brad registered brief disappointment, then grabbed the gear and took off on lead while I searched for food.
“Greg, I know you're hungry, but you're just going to have to wait. Those ropes need to be stacked. I know it's not that windy now but it could come up and tangle them. We need to get organized," lectured Brad.
Brad nailed the seam without hesitation. Seemingly oblivious to the cold, wind, and fading sunlight he quickly placed Beaks, RURPS , heads, and small pins and nuts. Brad was in his element.
Just as the last of the daylight faded Brad set up a temporary anchor and bailed down to the belay.
We woke to clear skies and frozen water. Brad made short work of the rest of the A4 pitch and by midday I was heading right on solid, vertical rock. In late afternoon I reached a natural belay in a semi-alcove, with a small triangular ledge. We would bivy, here. Brad stood in aider and got the stove going. The down-sloping incut ledge was barely big enough to fit the stove and the pot. I was fiddling around when I heard the familiar sound of something not cooperating with Brad. "F*#king whore. This goddamn stove is useless."
"Having trouble?" I asked. The stove flashed, sputtered, and flamed again. Brad furiously pumped it. A few minutes passed.
"This thing isn't working. I should just throw it off" Whoah. Time for intevention.
"Wait a second. Check it out. Is it getting the water hot?" I asked.
Brad looked under the lid and was shocked. "It's almost boiling."
Soon we were eating pasta. "So I've been figuring. We're going to have three more bivies before we're off," Brad said with a hint of question in his voice.
"Whatever it takes, I'm happy to be up here," I said. “I don’t know exactly how much food and water we have left. If you think we're going too slow ... you could lead more pitches to speed things up."
"No, no. We don't need to do that," he answered. I'd never known Brad to be so communicative.
Just before dawn we woke to a loud flapping noise. BASE jumpers.
"Turn away! Turn out!” a hysterical voice yelled.
They had jumped in tandem and quickly pulled their chutes. By the time I looked up the emergency was over. Two canopies floated down to Mirror Lake. Madness. Brad set up the rack for his lead.
He traversed up a scary looking, loose, overhanging slot, sending large blocks. Supposedly 5.10. Brad was carefully aiding and making free moves. "F*#k. I need a one-inch angle and some Lost Arrows. And don't f*#k around; I need it quick!" he yelled.
I knew instantly he'd almost fallen and I figured he was free climbing. He hauled up the gear and finished the pitch, adding a bolt to the belay.
The next pitch was easy and interesting. A series of short pendulums took us to a natural stance in the sun. Brad climbed a bolt ladder, then traversed right on small circleheads ("5.10" on the topo) to the belay.
Our bivy, situated behind a huge flake, was in the middle of a smooth orange streak that bisected the headwall, and we could now see the lights of the Valley below. We hung from a crack we shared with a small but determined pine.
It was a fine evening, clear and cool. We talked a lot about the climbing life, the stupidity and sadness of what law enforcement had done to the valley, what our employer was probably thinking of us, and the day's progress - we'd finally managed three pitches in a day. Two more, supposedly moderate days and we would be on top.
I woke up in the middle of the night. The light of the nearly full moon was on my face and I turned to see Half Dome in ethereal light.
The following morning we listened to the Eagle, the one station you can always get on Yosemite walls. One of our favorite bands, Tool. would be playing in Fresno.
"Tickets go on sale today at 10 a.m." We both groaned.
I realized how far from civilization we really were on the wall. Although we could see the buildings and roads below, we were still days away from them.
I traversed to the end of the flake and started up a bolt ladder. The rivets were strangely close. Often I would automatically step high only to find the bolt at face level.
I reached the belay only 60 to 70 feet out, but continued. Cams under a lettuce moss-covered roof took me to a blank-looking traverse. Supposedly this stretch had been “improved” by the second ascent team. After making a bunch of moves on hooks and shaky pins I wasn’t exactly sure what they’d done and I wasn’t going to complain about it. One last hidden drilled bathook and I was able to slot cams to a natural belay.
Brad cleaned, blasted through the messy belay, and started the next pitch while I basked 1n the sun By late afternoon I was at the bivy. We finished the last few sips of whiskey as the light faded from the San Joaquin Valley.
We both knew it would be our last night on the wall. Brad told me of hopping freight trains. With the hope of finding sponsorship, he rode from Salt Lake to Reno to a winter trade show. We talked about our fathers’ anxieties about our lifestyles and the money it didn’t earn us.
I’d first met Brad six years before when we were both teenagers . Back then, I was the more experienced climber. Our philosophies had evolved along similar lines. We figured there were: no guarantees in life; you can die, lose your health, or your job (or your girlfriend) anytime. We had no faith that a 9-to-5 job can provide long-term security. We were young, strong (arguably) and adaptable. For the moment, we would climb.
Only two easy pitches to the top. I climbed a long bolt ladder, again with ridiculously close, and mostly bad, bolts. “It was crack. Those guys were definitely smoking the rock. I’m sure of it now," I said. The lower part, the avoided ledges, all that traversing just to get to a bolt ladder. What was going on?
About 70 feet up I had to make a decision. I was at the low-angle slabs below the final overhangs. I could go up and left or down, right and up. The slabs were a barrier, blank smooth, boltless and at least 5.9. The 30-foot-high overhang swept from left to right without an obvious weakness.
I searched for bolts or cracks, anything I could belay from, It didn't seem right. I decided over right looked better. There were some features and a blank-looking corner through the overhang. As near as I could make out on the topo, this was what the first ascent party did.
Brad lowered me about 30 feet. I pendulumed right, tried to tension traverse up friction smears, lost it. barn-doored. and took a 20-foot sliding, bumping, twirling fall back to the plumbline. I repeated this performance and barely got through a combination of pendulum, tension, slow slack, and sketchy slab moves. The belay consisted of slightly expando flakes with one bomber pin and other shaky gear. I called for the bolt kit.
Through a mix of ineptitude (I’d never placed a bolt), brittle bits and hard rock I managed to drill a partial hole and break all the remaining bits. The bolt I did finally get stuck way out.
The next pitch looked worse and Brad was nervous about the belay. The pitch led 50 feet up unprotected slab to the overhang. If he fell, the anchor might blow. He found some nut placements under an expando flake above the belay, equalized them. and spent a few minutes warming up his slab technique: below, me. He was neither confident nor happy. His shoes felt weird, we'd been aiding a cold wall for eight days, and he’d had trenchfoot recently. Nonetheless, I was glad he was leading this pitch.
Ten feet from the belay Brad managed to drill a shallow hole with a broken bit and pound a rivet halfway in. He came back down and rested, then moved slowly and carefully to a series of edges about halfway up the slab. It looked as though the crux was past but he was now over 20 feet above the rivet. He made his way to the base of the overhang, where he got a wire in and called for the hammer and pins. Brad placed a couple of pitons, traversed over to the blank corner, and looked at it.
"There's no way I can free climb this but I think it can be aided. Send me up some blades, Beaks, and RURPS." Brad set to it with determination. The placements were shallow and awkward. He called for heads and hooks. Though a fall would send him onto the slab below, he showed no fear. He hammered aggressively. Near the top he yelled to me that he should backclean some of the traversing placements. I told him not to worry about it; I'd deal with it. It had been one of the most impressive leads I'd ever witnessed.
There was an electric excitement in me as I cleaned my belay in the setting sun. The last pitch, the last clean, the end of the route. I arrived at Brad's belay after dark. We were on a 45-degree slab next to a six-foot vertical wall. Above us, moderate slabs rolled several hundred feet to the summit. We got organized and Brad took off to fix lines. He had problems finding cracks in the dark and was quickly near the end of the rope and unable to see a belay. Brad reversed. We wanted to get
to the summit, but it was madness in the dark. We would spend one more night in the portaledge, awkwardly hung on the slab.
For the first time of the whole climb Brad went for the inside sleeping position. The guy on the outside would have his head tilting down, and Brad seemed to have a morbid fear of his ass being higher than his head.
"You took the outside space at every bivy so you weren't crushed against the wall and now you want the inside so your head will be up?" I asked.
"What? I took the outside so if any rocks came down I'd be the one to get hit," Brad said innocently. I'd been one-upped by the bivy-politics veteran.
Both of us felt a little weak the next day after a dinner of raisins. The sun-light hit us and soon it was warm and pleasant. The slabs went on and on. We fixed hundreds of feet, shuttling loads upward. I was exhausted and hot by the time we reached the deserted summit in the early afternoon. My body felt empty and hollow and I was anxious about the descent. Out water was nearly gone but we decided to use the last of it to cook pasta, the only food we had left. It took some time but I was able to coax a pot of spaghetti out of the stove.
We then hand-over-handed our way down the dismantled tourist cable route, the heavy sound of Ministry blasting the way. It was pretty damn airy and I was especially careful knowing how tired I was. Lower down, we turned a corner and came into view of the sunlit north-west face. It curved away before us. Huge and concave. The lower crack of Bushido was striking and obvious in the distance. Damn, it was a proud line.
An hour later, we were on the ground. And that was it. Oh, we would drink and eat and party that night, of course. We would see our friends and celebrate. I would end my season. The route had been the biggest climb of my career. For Brad it had been a pleasant excursion. He would climb Aurora on El Cap after a couple days of rest. But at that moment by the stream we were still partners on the same path. I felt no pull to get back to the Valley. It was perfect: listening to the river, rubbing my sore feet, feeling the presence of the Dome above us.
Greg Mofoshco has been climbing in Yosemite Valley on and off for the last 12 years.
Climbing 161
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 28, 2014 - 01:09am PT
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
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Apr 28, 2014 - 01:27am PT
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great, simply great. thx Ed
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Avery
climber
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Apr 28, 2014 - 02:07am PT
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Fantastic Ed, many thanks. Your effort is much appreciated.
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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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Apr 28, 2014 - 03:53am PT
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BBST. Nice TR.
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MisterE
climber
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Apr 28, 2014 - 09:27am PT
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Shralping the Gnar!
"Kohl is Weak" variation - LOL!
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Apr 28, 2014 - 05:54pm PT
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Very cool! Thanks Ed!
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lars johansen
Trad climber
West Marin, CA
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Apr 28, 2014 - 06:08pm PT
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Great story Ed, TFPU.
lars
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Apr 30, 2014 - 04:08am PT
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Good stuff - thanks for sharing, Ed.
I have this in my stack of mags but never read this story before.
1996, hmmm - we had a 3-year old, 5-year old and 7-year old in the house;
I guess I was distracted. :-)
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