'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Topic Author's Original Post - Sep 8, 2005 - 01:59am PT
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Ya just gotta love the view, eh?
The tenth pitch begins as a bolt ladder, and traverses up and a long way to the right over rather low-angled rock. There are a few fun hooking moves along the way. Eventually you reach a ledge system, and have to make some tricky and annoying moves beneath a big bollard of rock. The topo says “go low” but I went right up under the thing, after first trying to go low and right without success.
I worked my way to the right, and aided across the huge corner where Wall of Early Morning Light comes up. The photo beneath is taken at the sidewalk-width bivi ledge below the crux pitch of Reticent Wall. Looking up at it, I had not the slightest desire to climb it. No thanks, mate!
The hauling to this point was quite problematical, moving around a low-angle bulge with all sorts of projections for the ropes to hang up on. In fact, the zipline became hopelessly stuck partway along, and I had to horizontally reverse half the pitch to free it, a monumental pain in the ass. Fortunately, the very long lower-out went OK, despite the pigs taking an enormous pendulum at the end after running out of lower-out line. It’s a good thing there was no corner for them to crash into!
Hey, at least I’m finally looking a bit skinnier…..
I was hoping that the final pitches of WOEML would be a bit more trivial, but they had me thinking. The pitch above this bivi requires a substantial number of sawed-offs, and I found myself in the crux A3 section on crappy gear and short of the only piece that would fit, which I had placed lower. I had no choice but to start equalizing gear and down-aiding until I had a decent enough anchor to butterfly into and rappel from. This is better than being lowered off by your belayer, because it doesn’t double the force on the anchor. I returned to the high point using a Body Hoist, whereby you use your Grigri as an ascender, and pass the free end of the rope through a crab on your jug. This way if your anchor fails, you fall onto your Grigri, and not onto the toothed cams of your ascenders.
On the first ascent, Warren Harding must have been fed up with being on the wall for so long because he bolted straight up the face instead of traversing ten feet right to the obvious crack system, and then coming back left.
I managed to reach the summit with just a bit of daylight remaining, and there is a bolted anchor on this superb ledge right at the briny brink. That’s the view past my Russian Aiders cuffs. When Tom cleaned this pitch, he found that the last piece – an inch-and-a-half sawed-off – to be almost hopelessly stuck. Much cursing and funking later, he joined me on the ledge. We unloaded the pigs at this point, and shuttled the gear to the summit bivi.
I’m a bit jealous of guys like Tom who can fall asleep anywhere – be it in the front seat of his Rolls Rover, or sitting on a cramped bivi ledge. Here he demonstrates his prowess on the summit of El Cap. The morning sunlight woke me, and revealed Tom still sound asleep in his pig, his head perfectly yet impossibly balanced on the point of this boulder, a full twelve inches above the ground! Amazing.
So as you can see, we reached the summit with food, water, beer and coffee remaining! The yellow cup I’m using is an old friend I remember taking on a caving trip to Belize in 1979, but is probably older.
Anyway, I hope y’all enjoyed the show! Thanks for stickin’ it out for the full ten pitches, er, pages. My portaledge is always open, and I’ll be in the Valley through much of September and probably til mid-October or so. Be sure to stop by if you’re in the neighbourhood, and join me for a coffee or a beer, depending on whether it is before or after Changeover Time.
So like, have a beauty day, eh? Please do not reply here, but instead if you liked the show, please leave your comments and messages HERE. If I get enough positive feedback, then maybe I’ll make you up a few more photo essays. And if you didn’t like it, then like, take off, eh?
Cheers and beers,
"Pass the Pitons" Pete Zabrok a.k.a. Dr. Piton
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