'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Topic Author's Original Post - Sep 8, 2005 - 02:00am PT
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This is Page 4 of a ten-part post which is a photo essay of my recent ascent of Tribal Rite on El Capitan. If you have somehow arrived at this point without quite knowing how, please click here to return to the beginning.
As per the instructions linked above, may I request that you please do not reply to this post! Instead, would you please leave all your replies and comments here. Like thanks, eh?
We moved our camp up to the top of 4, which is noted as a “2’ x 12’ sloping ledge” on the McTopo. In fact, it is more like twenty feet long and in places nearly three feet wide, it slopes only gently, and therefore it makes for a superb portaledge-mandatory bivi.
Here at sunset, Tom completes the 4:1 lower-out off of the final rivet in the ladder on Pitch 4, although I created a bit of bother for him when I clipped the lead rope directly into the crab that a previous party had left on this fixed lower-out point. Tom is never one to leave behind booty – he is a master cam extractor, since he makes the things and understands every little movement – but this biner left him a bit befuddled.
Only a Big Wall Theorist would leave behind a carabiner on a fixed 4:1 lower-out point – you just don’t need one. A little bit of tat is perfectly acceptable – you’re not going to melt through it nor damage your rope. What I should have done for him was to have first tied some fixed tat through the gear, and then clipped the crab to that so that Tom was pre-set for the lower-out. But Tom figured it out and solved the problem, as he always does, and added to our rack.
The unusually wet spring had really brought the cliff to life with vibrant flora, and our ledge was adorned with no fewer than four differently coloured flowers.
Believe it or not, there is a sweet little bivi ledge buried under all of our crap. Here Tom works through our morning ritual, with Middle and Lower Cathedral in the background.
Here’s a look-see the other direction. We have finally climbed high enough that Half Dome is visible above the East Buttress of El Cap. Hmmmmm, I’m still a little chunky looking, but at least not so white…..
We had been up on the wall for quite some time, and perhaps someone was wondering how we were doing. We watched as a rescue helicopter descended through the gap between the Leaning Tower and Lower Cathedral – right over top of Bridalveil Fall – and disappeared round the South-West Face of El Cap. Suddenly the thing appeared directly in front us, and I somehow managed to grab my camera fast enough to get the shot! The helicopter is hugely closer than it appears in this rather wide-angle photo. If they were looking for us waving for rescue, they might have been surprised [or amused] to find us instead reaching madly for our cameras.
“Would you like a rescue?”
“Would you like a cup of coffee?”
Right then, grab your warm clothes and click here to join us for the next part of the wall, and move to Page 5 of this ten-page photo essay. Brrrrrrrrrrr………. It’s about to get damn cold, but as we found out, the lower temperatures have their advantage.
If you have somehow arrived at this point without quite knowing how, please click here to return to the beginning.
And like, if you haven’t figured it out by now, please do not reply to this post, and instead leave your comments here. Just trying to keep the Wank Factor minimized, eh?
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