Elephant Rock aproach

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Alexey

Trad climber

San Jose, CA

Topic Author's Original Post - Sep 25, 2007 - 08:27pm PT

I'm planning to climb the Pink Dream route on Elephant Rock. Any beta on how to find the elusive trail to the base of the climbs so that much of the bushwacking can be avoided? Also, any details as to how strenuous or long the approach is will be greatly appreciated - some sources talk about crossing an ugly slab- is this a 4th class slab, or can it be bypassed?

Clint Cummins

Trad climber

SF Bay area, CA

Sep 26, 2007 - 02:13am PT

Watch for poison oak along the trail; it probably won't have any leaves, but the stems still have the toxic oil.

The trail goes up and slightly left to the outside face of the Worst Error buttress; Hotline starts on the left side. For Pink Dream, a trail goes out to the right along the base, then back left along a ramp along the top of a slab.

Pink Dream is the RFC in the center of the face.

Here's the anchor at the top of the corner, as of 9/2006. (It's not too bad - the blue sling goes to a good wired nut, and you can back it up with a TCU).

The Alpine

Big Wall climber

Tampa, FL

Sep 26, 2007 - 02:23am PT

Great route. The poison oak is definitely there! Was there July '07 and got absolutely wrecked with the stuff. I didn't realize I had gotten it until 2 or 3 days later when all the little itchy bumps started popping up everywhere.

The map above is pretty accurate. If you lose the trail just aim for the middle of the pillar. After pink dream rap in and climb hot line or fatal mistake.

Jaybro

Social climber

The West

Sep 26, 2007 - 03:08am PT

I've only come from above, no big thing.

Sounds like we got a mass creek crossing next month, assuming we have enough working autos.

Alexey

Trad climber

San Jose, CA

Topic Author's Reply - Sep 26, 2007 - 01:15pm PT

Clint and The Alpine - thank you for your information, warning about poison oak and nice photos.
I was also thinking to climb or TR upper part of Fatal mistake too
Is Pink Dream requered 2 ropes for rappel down?

Clint Cummins

Trad climber

SF Bay area, CA

Sep 26, 2007 - 02:35pm PT

Yes, 2 ropes to descend. I didn't see any fixed midway anchors on Pink Dream, and you need a long rap so you can swing out right into the main corner. I remember seeing a fairly new fixed hex in there somewhere but I don't remember if I cleaned it.

Here are my notes for rapping (after right traverse near the top of Hotline) on 9/06:
---------

Rap anchors:
1. (top of Nightmare): rusty hex head bolt (1/4" Taperbolt?) plus good angle piton; fixed Light D biner. 120'.
2. (top of Pink Dream): 3 rusty 1/4" buttonheads, #3 Rock, biner, 3 aluminum rings. 160'
3.(in chimney with bay trees): slings around tunnel between blocks; one good, several bad. 50'

Descent continued with 3rd class 500' descending traverse on ledges to south. Then trail back north along base.

spyork

Social climber

A prison of my own creation

Sep 26, 2007 - 02:41pm PT

When are you going to Elephant Rock Jay?

cultureshock

Trad climber

Mountain View

Oct 11, 2011 - 05:37pm PT

Are the Pink Dream bolts still old/sub-optimal? Perhaps they could use some replacement.

Anyone been up there recently?

Luke

Jaybro

Social climber

Wolf City, Wyoming

Oct 11, 2011 - 06:07pm PT

I wonder what happened to that plan....

Levy

Big Wall climber

So Cal

Oct 11, 2011 - 07:16pm PT

I just did Pink Dream last week & the anchor bolts are still old & in dire need of replacement. The blue sling is connecting a good nut & a poor one too & serves decently in backing up the anchor but some ASCA bolts would be nice to see.

Maybe it was it just my friends & I but pink Dream seemed hard for 5.10a. Mike Waugh & I thought it more like 5.10c but maybe we were just having a high gravity day. Barry Bates & Steve Wunsch did this waaaay back in 1971, sheesh!

mctwisted

Social climber

superslacker city

Oct 11, 2011 - 10:20pm PT

alexey, let me know when your going up there and perhaps we could get together and clean up that anchor with a couple stainless 3/8

Patrick Oliver

Boulder climber

Fruita, Colorado

Oct 13, 2011 - 06:39am PT

When Royal Robbins, Dave Rearick, and I did the Crack of Doom
in fall 1967, we got poison oak. We started the climb late
and got to the top at dark, rappelled in pitch black, and
stumbled/felt our way down the trail. Royal was super careful
to guide us in and around anything that looked like the dreaded
poison oak. He pointed to every possibility.
We felt we had managed to avoid it, and at the
river we took off our shoes... only to get the oak right there
at the river's edge...

Dtails

climber

South Lake Tahoe, CA

Oct 13, 2011 - 09:30am PT

Hey Patrick,

I've wanted to do Crack of Doom forever, I realize you were there awhile ago, but any beta?

Levy

Big Wall climber

So Cal

Oct 13, 2011 - 10:29pm PT

Great story Pat.

The quantity of Poison Oak down there is amazing. You have to really work to avoid it. I was surprised that I didn't get any on our way back to the river crossing.

Patrick Oliver

Boulder climber

Fruita, Colorado

Oct 13, 2011 - 11:09pm PT

The Crack of Doom is another of Chuck Pratt's masterpieces.
It was ahead of its time. For a period, people thought it
was the first 5.10 in Yosemite, but later years turned up
the notion that the East Chimney of Rixon's beat Doom by a short bit.
The Crack of Doom, though, is a much more significant climb
than Rixon's. Pratt was beautiful and bold. Mort Hempel,
Pratt's partner, tells the
story, in an issue of the Climbing Art.
From memory, but let's just say
Pratt was on his game. The final pitch is the crux. It's a
wall above a ledge and looks very easy from below. You've
already done three pitches of wildly steep crack, and so
it feels you've made it. Not so fast. That little wall has
a thin crack up its middle that will take a piton. The only
problem is the best spot for the piton, an angle,
is the best fingertip hold. Pratt seemed to understand that
at a glance and simply went up. Uncharacteristic of Pratt,
he said to Mort, "Watch me." And then he succeeded. When I
led that pitch, I went right up without a thought and slammed
in the piton, only to realize now there was no fingertip hold.
Dumb. But one can't exactly stand on those moves and take
out the piton. I crushed my fingertips in above the piton,
trying hard not to let the bottom of the bottom finger touch
that cold steel. Royal, with his leering gaze, studied my
every move. He was really competitive at that moment in his
life and ready to take me down a notch, anytime he could find
an opportunity. Anyway, he was suspicious that perhaps the soft flesh
might have glanced against that iron.... It was almost dark,
as we had started late.

I had done a slew of 5.10 climbs in the Valley just that
week, including Ahab, East Chimney of Rixon's, a bunch of
off-widths with Pratt, etc. etc., and my hands were kind of
bashed up. I didn't believe in using tape. The first pitch, thus,
was hard for me. It has a very rough surface inside, like
Veedavoo, and crystals dig into the skin.
This first stretch probably is the real crux and begins with
a pretty stiff handjam up almost overhanging rock, leaning a
bit left... Now I remember. I started up, but my hands hurt
from all those cuts and scabs, so I asked Royal if he'd like
the first pitch, and I would take the last. He was eager and ready
and did a fine job. I then led the infamous overhanging slot,
the second pitch. It's a really formidable looking thing but quite
solid. I was honed then in off-widths, had done such climbs
as the Crack of Fear and was solid in Ahab, so maybe it's harder
than I remember, but it seems one can get the body inside enough
to really be well wedged. I think I had an arm-lock most of the way.
About thirty feet up, without any pro, I looked down and saw
my two companions, Royal and Dave Rearick. They strained their necks
to gaze upward and slightly backward at me. The rope hung down and
out behind them a bit, really giving a sense of the overhanging
nature of the pitch. But again, it's solid. One simply has to
relax and do it. The third pitch is way back inside the crack,
moving upward in a dark cavern, of sort. At the top of this pitch,
one has to squeeze into a tight slot, much like the Narrows on
Sentinel, but on the Crack of Doom it's a longer stretch. Pretty
claustrophobic. Rearick, who has/had a fairly thick chest, felt a
bit panicky at one moment, and just as he was about half way up
through that tight narrows thing he yelled, "Pull me." We gave him a
little tension, only because I think he was having the vision
he might get stuck and have to be cemented in there as his
final resting place. It's a chest crusher of sort. But you are
so secure and safe and very far back into the bowels of Elephant
Rock, utterly away from any real world you once knew.
You couldn't fall out of that if you tried. Well, maybe if you tried.
That's a long, somewhat strenuous pitch but no single move of
any real difficulty, just a long back-foot chimney and various
crack things until that long squeeze. You emerge onto a big ledge
right below the final headwall that looks like nothing... The move
is definitely tricky and was something special at the time Pratt
did it, no chalk, no good shoes, just his gift... Doom is a very
reasonable climb, nothing a week or week and a half climbing cracks
in the Valley wouldn't adequately prepare one for, as I recall.
Then again, I was pretty fit back then, could fire off a hundred and
fifty fingertip pullups in five minutes and was a gymnast at the
university.... Sometimes I go back and try things I once found
straightforward and shock myself at how hard they are now, as a crusty
old geezer.

In 1966 Pratt led Don Whillans up both the Crack of Doom and
the Crack of Despair. Whillans didn't quite get along with Royal and
felt competitive or he was put upon by Royal's competitiveness,
and so later he reported that the Crack of Doom was a walk up,
I can only guess, to get under Royal's skin, but the Crack of
Despair, Whillans said, was murder. I think Whillans found
both climbs adequately difficult, but he didn't have much experience
with the kind of off-width that's found on Despair.... Whillans
liked Pratt, Bridwell, and me but didn't exactly quite work too
well with Royal. I think it was probably because Royal was too
serious and "sinister." In fact also I can only guess, but Don
probably was intimidated by Royal and remembered Royal's
trip to England where Royal went about trying to repeat those
testpieces of Whillans and Brown. The psychology is certainly
more complex than anything I've said here... I would have thought
Whillans would have hated me. Maybe he recognized a fellow
outlaw... a kindred trouble looking for somewhere to happen....

(edit: I fixed a few typos. Sometimes I fire these things off
in a few minutes and then later see how sloppy I was with
spelling, grammar, and such)

wildone

climber

Troy, MT

Oct 13, 2011 - 11:16pm PT

Thanks for that, Pat. Another engrossing bit of writing!

cultureshock

Trad climber

Mountain View

Oct 19, 2012 - 12:28pm PT

Bump again for Pink Dream Bolts!

Dan are you still interested in going up to replace those bolts? Do you have time to do so this weekend?

I'll be in the valley and and would like to help! Happy to drill, lead, belay, whatever.

I would also love to either throw a fixed line down Fatal Mistake or just give it a TR burn.

Luke