NEWSFLASH : Southern Belle Repeated!!

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aldude

climber

Monument Manor

Topic Author's Original Post - Nov 10, 2006 - 01:40am PT

Rumor has it that Dean Potter and Leo Holding did the long awaited and much coveted second free ascent of this Yosemite testpiece! Over twenty years have passed since the original free ascent of this jewel that Cosgrove declared - " the best route I've ever done ". Well done lads!!!

Jerry Dodrill

climber

Bodega, CA

Nov 10, 2006 - 03:09am PT

Whoa!!! That's proud.

elcapfool

Big Wall climber

hiding in plain sight

Nov 10, 2006 - 07:38am PT

Good job Leo!
That's fierce.

Patrick Sawyer

climber

Originally California now Ireland

Nov 10, 2006 - 09:28am PT

That is on the south side of Half Dome isn't it? What's it rated and how many pitches (and type of climbing)?

seamus mcshane

climber

Nov 10, 2006 - 09:44am PT

Patrick-
South Face of the Dome

Southern Belle is Grade V 5.12d R (14+/- pitches)

Hard cracks to start.12+, Runout slab/face to finish.11+.

Early 1990's?:Hank Caylor broke his ankle on a ledge fall higher up on the route. Alan Lester was Hank's partner and would not go for help for fear of pissing off SAR and looking like gumbies.
Hank and Alan had a memorable retreat, to say the least.

FA Malt Whipley and Dave Schultz 6/87

FFA Dave Schultz and Coz 1988

Bravo on the 2nd!!!

Karl Baba

Trad climber

Yosemite, Ca

Nov 10, 2006 - 11:03am PT

Very proud.

Wonder if the bolts are still 1/4 inch and aging up there!

Good things pro seems optional for those guys

Peace

Karl

Chicken Skinner

Trad climber

Yosemite

Nov 10, 2006 - 11:37am PT

I am surprised that it took so long for this news to get out. They confirmed the route as Burly but, we all knew that. It does still have the original bolts. Good job guys.

Ken

Karl Baba

Trad climber

Yosemite, Ca

Nov 10, 2006 - 12:15pm PT

Slab Climbin' - Get's no respect

cept from me

Peace

karl

aldude

climber

Monument Manor

Topic Author's Reply - Nov 10, 2006 - 01:32pm PT

According to the topo the crux is 12d face...with a bolt close by...but then.....!?!?

Ken, I heard about this last week but didn't post thinkin you would confirm....you are the Valley correspondant, no?

Chicken Skinner

Trad climber

Yosemite

Nov 10, 2006 - 03:22pm PT

Al, Wouldn't that be Werner? I am out of the loop. I heard about it last week too, probably from the same source as you.

Ken

Clint Cummins

Trad climber

SF Bay area, CA

Nov 10, 2006 - 03:41pm PT

Wow, that is big news. Almost 20 years since the FFA, and several strong parties have been turned back, trying to repeat it free.

http://www.stanford.edu/~clint/yos/longhf.htm#half

Yes, the topo shows the 5.12d next to a bolt (also hard 5.12 crack climbing lower down). The rating should really be split like: 5.12d / 5.11 X , and the guidebook is a little sloppy with the way they write the rating as 5.12d R.

Hank Caylor took a 60' ledge fall on p8 in 1994.

MarcoPervo

Trad climber

West Hollywood, CA

Nov 10, 2006 - 05:20pm PT

Way to go Dean and Leo! We checked that thing out on my first trip to the Valley after reading about in Climbing mags new route updates. It looked WAY harder and more severe than the initial and modest 5.11/R AO rating it recieved.

It had to be among one of the hardest multi-pitch climbs in the world when it was free climbed in 88'. It's always struck me as one of the unheralded plum lines in Yosemite. Glad to see it's getting it's due.

Peter Haan

Trad climber

San Francisco, CA

Nov 10, 2006 - 08:11pm PT

It's been amazing to me that this area (Back of Half Dome) has not received more energy, creativity and attention than it has, in all these years since some of us started putting modern routes on it. And Southern Belle is one hell of a route. Hopefully we will hear how it was for Dean and Leo at some point. A TR from one of them would be incredibly significant. They certainly were the team to bag this second.

best PH

le_bruce

climber

Nov 11, 2006 - 01:55am PT

Not that I'll climb it, but so that I can gaze at it and wonder next time I'm going by there: more or less where on the face is the line? Somewhere in these pictures?

Edited to add, just for the hell of it, another two shots of one of the most beautiful pieces of rock out there:

(All taken during the floods in Spring '05, from a Cessna 210. May 24, you can see how much snow was yet to melt, and at the bottom right of the last one a very swollen river - forget its name just now.)

Chicken Skinner

Trad climber

Yosemite

Nov 11, 2006 - 02:04am PT

le bruce, you have obviously climbed higher than I have in the Valley. Nice photos! I can see both of Schultz's routes. Walt said he had never been so scared in his life.

Ken

le_bruce

climber

Nov 11, 2006 - 02:39am PT

Is S. Belle left or right of the obvious waterstreak? Got to be left... then, left or right of obvious arcing dihedral?

Does anything go up the nasty, overhung looking section that is right of the waterstreak? Yikes...

Jaybro

Social climber

The West

Nov 11, 2006 - 03:26am PT

Props to the second free team.

Once, upon a time, there was to be an ascent with Schultz, Walt and Bachar.

"F*#k that, I don't wanna be the dud with the studs,' said one of those guys. later, it was freed.

elcapfool

Big Wall climber

hiding in plain sight

Nov 11, 2006 - 08:31am PT

Man, look at the impact of the cables route!
I don't ever want to hear another word about visual impact from the NPS. You can see their route from a friggin' airplane...