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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Dec 3, 2008 - 06:58pm PT
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Maybe some of you haven't read this one:
The First El Capitan Rescue 1970
Summers in Yosemite can be wonderful. In the shade of huge pines and firs while under sheltering cliffs during sweet afternoons, millions have enjoyed playing in the meadows and the river as time seemed to soften and lose its demanding edge. Incredible scenic hikes lead off in every direction. Families spend appointed weeks every year here for generations and with the thousands of points of interest, go away fulfilled, relaxed and well-fed, decade after decade.
And so it is not surprising that some climbers have come here with something like this in mind as well. It’s such a peaceful spectacular place that it might be hard to understand how in this midst, one could actually come to wit’s end or even die while people capered below.
By the early 70’s many parties were already trade-routing up the Nose. Ascents were completely commonplace, the ledges were getting rubbished and crap-filled. There were tons of fixed pieces, and route information was available everywhere. What looked like heaven from below during summer could be a stinking crowded shock in suffocating three-digit temperatures, with perhaps no wind. And worse, no shade. Yvon has called El Cap a vertical desert; perhaps it was becoming a vertical desert with frequent horizontal outhouses.
The first big rescue on El Cap was in summer, in the usual extreme heat and otherwise perfect weather that makes Yosemite famous. Quite obviously a party above the Great Roof was screaming down to us for a rescue. Many of us reached the summit by helicopter. It was a small bubble cabin type of copter, and I can recall approaching the enormous Salathe and Dihedral Walls from the west in this thing, sensing vertigo suddenly spring up in me, as the huge wall instantly gave scale to how high we suddenly were, spanning beyond my field of vision and completely filling the transparent cab. And just the frozen movement of this huge surface created a sense of awe, terror and urgency.
We had a couple of large reels of 1/2” twisted lay nylon rope brought up there, and perhaps 15-20 climbers. In fact this was the beginning, informally of SAR, with the West Buttress rescue later that year. Suddenly there would be free campsites for us and a small degree of relief from the denigrating myopia of the authorities even though for the next thirty years, they remained intent on wiping us out, even our Camp. It was not too clear how to get this rescue accomplished, as we were not sure if our distressed party could jumar out, or would have to be lowered or hauled. There was hardly any information with which to work.
Bridwell, already with years in ski patrol and EMS at Squaw Valley, lowered off the top on the first big line while belayed by us with the second line. He naturally assumed this role and had the confidence of the rangers. The rest of the group---all Camp Four types but federal employees for a few hours---stayed quite a ways back from the rounded actual edge, belaying and monitoring with no exposure at all. As soon as Jim was free of the rock past the big summit overhangs, he spun violently obviously wrapping rappel and belay lines around each other dangerously. The twisted-lay rope was of course causing this with the combined weight of Jim and all that heavy cordage now free to stretch and rotate, with perhaps 500 more mostly freely hanging feet below him. Suddenly horribly worried, we could hear his desperate swearing on the radio, and just as abruptly, he managed to descend further to get some contact with the route, to squelch this troublesome development and the amazing sounds coming out of our radios.
When he reached the party of two, they were exhausted but ready to get out of there, like right now. They had the necessary equipment for the climb and no injuries. Very very rapidly, Kelly Minnick from Colorado and Brian Robertson, a mountaineer from Scotland and Huandoy Sur/Whillans notoriety, arrive one after the other over the big rounded edge we had all been staring at for the last few hours. They had jumared 500-600 feet in nearly record time. We were all impressed. The story was they thought they were in trouble, they were running out of water. Both were sunburned and quite fair skinned. Brian had shorts on even, was portly and bright pink. To complete the image he was really vociferous, practically stentorian. Kelly was quieter, quite thin, probably younger and had long red hair. They did not talk directly to each other. It was immediately all about restoring one’s reputation and ego at the expense of a partner right in front of us 20 rescuers. It seemed they openly despised one another. They were not regular partners but paired for this ascent.
It was not the picture of climbers near death, unable to progress, empty-handed and doomed. It was apparent that they just couldn’t---no, had refused---to climb together further. They hated being sunburned to bits, weren’t prepared for the awesome exposure on this route without shade, and needed some water. Mostly grateful to us to get rescued, they were clearly preoccupied nonetheless by a variety of personal concerns that included neither real humility nor willfully managing to take care of all situations that stood in the way of a summit or a safe retreat. It was shocking that a party would call for a large-scale rescue without exhausting all other possibilities clearly present to everyone else.
The rescue complete we dispersed quickly, organizing to leave and go back to camp; I wandered a couple hundred yards over to the top of the famous Salathe Wall over which we had flown just hours prior, returning, curious. Without knowing it, I would end up soloing it a year later. Standing there by myself on the distinct edge, it was the first time that I had ever been right in front of exposure such as this, 3200 ft. It appeared to me almost as a door, that lead to another complete existence, so compelling the visual image was almost blurred, so full with meaning.
But I was upset in a way I did not understand. This rescue, with its initial grim look and morbid open-ended possibilities, had triggered something in me. When it turned out a raving success and just a mid-day caper, albeit somewhat unnecessary, this should have relieved me and the visceral grip we all feel in emergency situations. In fact the whole affair was over well within a day, a handful of hours. But I wanted to join this yawning gorgeous zero before me. I wanted to sail into the immensity, not because I wanted to die but perhaps because I was somehow terribly lonely, suddenly, after the valiant group effort of our team rescue had ended.
It had been my first such emergency operation. The noble bonds the hastily formed group made, the grave vital unity to which, honored, I had briefly belonged, had evaporated in minutes, as if it had not been there in the first place. We had thrilled to the sense of mission. Had it all disappeared into this huge place, this hole in the world below my feet? This sublime drop-off was also curious, new, attracting a deep primitive desire for flight, earthly transcendence, and somehow, impeccable worthiness. It seemed to promise an enormous alternative answer to everything else, all things, without disclosing how terrible this answer would be on the way down. Shocked and struggling between reason and primitive emotion, I turned back to leave, to return again in a few months for the next strange rescue operation we would mount in the fall on the tail end of a bad storm on the West Buttress.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Thanks, Peter - that's very good stuff! Looking forward to your report on the West Buttress rescue later that year - which you just posted.
Was this written recently, or some time ago? If the latter, was it published?
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 3, 2008 - 07:10pm PT
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Hi Mighty,
I had some time about three- four years ago between projects and fired out about eight or ten of these short little recollections and of course shared them immediately here. You asked for the West Butt. rescue; I just put it up too.
No, I could not have written like this back when I was 22; it was all I could do to put the Salathe Solo article together back then for the American Alpine Journal. It was like birthing talus for me then. The drafts were hand-written for the most part too which made it even harder to have an overall feel and control of the writing.
thanks ph.
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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
Where are YOU from?
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Love your writing, Peter...I had no idea the 1st El Cap rescue was such an anticlimax.
Sheesh. Maybe they should've been charged with the costs.Set a precedent, avoided other rescues. I dunno.....
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WBraun
climber
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Also .... Peter
Summer of 1970, over by the Mud Flats, you rescued a couple guys and gave them a huge earful afterwords.
Hahahaha, remember?
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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hey there peter haan... say, great article and very in depth thought put into it...
thanks for the great share... really enjoyed the thought line in, through, and around it all...
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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I see this is described as the first big rescue... I'm not sure how "big" the rescue of Jim McCarthy was when he pulled a pin on the Nose in '67 or '68 on the Stovelegs, fell a long way, and badly broke his arm. Pratt led up to Sickle in the dark. Then Chouinard came up and joined them... and they managed to rescue McCarthy...
What was the year Ed Drummond got rescued off the NA Wall? Wasn't that quite an epic? I think he was even very high up, like maybe at the Tenement Flats hanging bivouac... and, if my memory serves me, Royal and team came down from the top? I can't right now recall where this is written about, or if I just dreamt it, maybe in Drummond's article "Hubris?"
Also, words above seem to imply Peter was not a good writer at an early age (early 1970s). I don't know, but I do know he was a brilliant and astute thinker back then. I recall a day he came to an airport to rescue me and sitting there brainstormed with me as I worked on the article I did with Higgins, Nerve Wrack Point. Peter offered many great ideas and was inspiring.
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Neat story, Peter.
Keep them coming!
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 4, 2008 - 09:49am PT
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Wern,
Yeah, I do remember! But do you remember who that WAS??
It was a very young, a teenage, Vern Clevenger!! Vern was up part way on the first pitch of Mudflats. Back then it was a practice A4 route (although even by then it was pinned out to big slots and couldn't have been A4, certainly not by current standards)
And basically the problem was, "suddenly it was dark" and Vern hadn't finished his pitch, was on mixed climbing I guess "10 ft above a bashie" and in a panic. So what he does up there in the dark was call down to his partner on the ground who was to get a passerby on the heavily traveled trail right there to "go to Camp Four and find Peter Haan". Not exactly a plan that was likely to pan out, but in fact it actually did. I was by chance in C4 at that moment when a tourist comes rushing up to me and tells me the situation. So we go out there (a brief hike of 5 minutes I guess) with a giant flashlight of sorts.
The whole event was just sort of "bring milk-and-cookies"---a business of sitting on the ground in the leaves, talking Vern into getting back to his bashie and lower off, as he was less than half the rope length above us on the ground. He naturally was concerned that the bashie would blow, but what were his alternatives? It did not blow, he was on the ground in a minute or so and the two very young climbers were in tears and blown out by the whole experience. Yeah, a climbing lesson in being self-sufficient and maybe also having a remote idea of what time of day it is whilst leading. I think they went back the next day and got their abandoned hardware, the other part of their panic.
hilarious, wasn't it.
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the Fet
Knackered climber
A bivy sack in the secret campground
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Fantastic writing.
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hobo_dan
Social climber
Minnesota
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Thanks Peter:
I am enjoying your writing style. I like the slow boil of humor thats lurking under the introspection
murf
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 4, 2008 - 08:56pm PT
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Chris,
Someone had a camera; I don't remember who. There were about 15-20 of us up there too. Of course I didn't at that point. We were all kind of worried, you know, it was kind of an unknown game we were starting (g) and a camera always seems to get left behind when stuff is critical. I wouldn't be surprised if Bev Johnson had one; if so her photos are probably lost now.
best ph.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Well, these folks had a camera a few years later for the 72 Camp Six Nose rescue . From Mountain 29, Sept 1973.
Ken Wilson photo.
Were you in on this one Peter?
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 8, 2008 - 09:12am PT
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Stevie, I think I had just done the left side of the Hourglass and had left the Valley for the season. Or I was in the Meadows for a few days prior to that ascent and was unaware of the rescue. I can't remember.
Here are two other photos that appeared here a while back from that rescue.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Enjoy the turn of phrase you use Mr. Peter Haan. A favorite in this article, "door that led to another complete existence."
Will read over again ...Could not digest all. Needs to be ruminated on.
Enjoyable and more. lrl
In rescue at least JB had a paisley bandana. : D
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 19, 2009 - 11:05pm PT
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Bump for a companion article to the West Buttress rescue
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Mar 19, 2009 - 11:18pm PT
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hey there peter... i remember the first time i read this here.... i will NEVER stop rejoicing over these pictures...
epsecially after reading the part where "he spun violently" and the rope were tangling...
whewwwww.... hard enough, without that....
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couchmaster
climber
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Mar 19, 2009 - 11:34pm PT
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Great stuff Peter! Bump for a Neal Olsen update. Neal suffered a massive stroke/blood vessel rupture in his head @ 1-/2 years ago. He came closer to dying than pulling that block and having it land on his leg at camp 6 here as you describe. They opened up his skull to see what was in there....probably not a lot, but they did what they could. His memory went out the door a bit and is poor, but thankfully he is still his jovial self and still a great fella and is still as awesome as he ever was. He gets out and enjoys some climbing routes still. @ 7 years ago Bridwell was in town and they met and tossed a few back and recollected this event. Neal was and still is grateful to you all, and I don't even think the stroke has changed that feeling or that memory for him.
That Bridwell pic with Neal in the stretcher is about as good of a pic as it ever gets.
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