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Chris McNamara
SuperTopo staff member
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Topic Author's Original Post - Nov 15, 2005 - 01:56am PT
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After belaying Tommy Caldwell on his Nose/freerider link up, I got inspired to free the nose in a day yesterday.
well, to free about 30% of it anyway.
I teamed up with mark Melvin, the guy who started my el cap addiction by giving me my first fix on The West Face when I was 15. When I was 16, we climbed the nose in 18 hours together. Ten years later, we hoped to knock our time down a little. I announced that I thought we could do it in 7-9 hours. Mark silently thought I was full of crap and was going to be happy if we climbed it in less than 14. He thought it would be really cool if we didn’t have to finish the climb at night.
We met up around 5:30am. El cap meadow was as cold as I have ever experienced it. I briefly considered bailing on the climb and just sitting in front of the car heater.
We started climbing at 6:18, right when the sun hit the high clouds above el cap… creating the cool pink glow in this photo.
Mark is one of the best off-the-couch climbers I know. He led each pitch in 5-10 minutes. Here is mark cruising up the start of the stovelegs. 5.8 hand cracks forever!
Here I am jugging up to Dolt Tower.
Ever wonder what those critters are that eat your foot while your camped 1000’s of feet up el cap? Here you go:
6 or 7 inches long and fat. How does a rat that big get up el cap? And why did it suddenly expire in the middle of dolt tower?
mark Leading above Dolt Tower
And now the main event: The King Swing. For El Cap meadow spectators, this is as entertaining as big wall climbing gets. We doubled the viewing pleasure by using the latest speed double penji technique:
Mark led the boot while I simul-climbed behind him on the bolt ladder. When he got to the top, he threaded his rope through the pendulum point and then lowered and cleaned the pitch. He did the king swing and belayed on Eagle Ledge. Since he cleaned the pitch, I now got to also do the king swing and meet up with him.
He continued blasting up the free pitches to the base of the Great Roof. Here I took over the lead. Usually The Great Roof seriously spooks me. But for the first time, I was too rushed too be scared. After ten nearly painless minutes, I was at the belay. Each pitch after that really cruised by, I think partially because we had a tiny rack and partially because for the first time on the nose, I didn’t use daisy chains. With no daisy chains, you never have to deal with tangles with your aiders and you just get inspired to free climb more.
Here I am leading up the pancake flake.
Above camp 6 we caught up with a cool team of 3 doing their first el cap route. As I led up to them they shouted down “We will have some music ready for you when you get up here!” Clearly, they were doing the route in style.
Passing this team was really easy because they were super cool and they were cleaning the pitch as I was leading it. Toward the end of the pitch, I caught up with the cleaner. She offered to let me pass but I decided it was easier and more courteous to give cleaning tips and help out. I told her “You can keep going and ill clean this stuck yellow alien for you.” And a few piece later, “If I hold the rope, you can slide the yellow ascender down and get the tension off the piece.” She thanked me and said “Wow, its like having my own cleaning fairy... uhm, wait, sorry, I didn’t mean to call you a fairy. Uh, you’re a cleaning angel.”
We passed by and topped out a few minutes later. It was really hard to tell what time it was. It could have been 4pm for all I knew. When mark told me it was only 12:59 I was floored. Wait, we did the route in only 6 hours and 40 minutes. The perfect November climbing day.
Here is a shot from the summit:
PS: here was our rack
8 stoppers
1 purple/blue alien
1 green alien
1 yellow alien
1 yellow/red alien
2 red aliens
2 orange aliens
2 red camlots (#1)
1 gold camalot (#2)
1 blue camalot (#3)
1 gray camalot (#4)
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Nov 15, 2005 - 02:23am PT
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Props to you Chris, very cool... and inspirational.
What was the date of your ascent?
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Roger Breedlove
Trad climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Nov 15, 2005 - 09:01am PT
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Hey CCA (Chris the Cleaning Angel),
Great write up and pictures. The "Rosy fingered dawn" picture is very cool.
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Dad
Trad climber
Mariposa Ca.
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Nov 15, 2005 - 09:46am PT
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Chris
I was hiking at the base and saw you enter the stove legs.
I was amazed to find you had topped out as I was hiking out.
way to go!!
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bobmarley
Trad climber
auburn, california
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Nov 15, 2005 - 11:44am PT
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hey chris, that's impressive man. thanks for sharing. having done the NIAD, but taking almost the full 24, i'm curious what else you guys took? seems like maybe we were too loaded down and could have been lighter and faster. how much water, bars, etc? you guys bring shoes for the descent? how many ropes? just 1 60m or 70m? you take a gri-gri? looks like the 2nd carried a small pack? again, nice work! -patrick
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poop*ghost
Trad climber
Denver, CO
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Nov 15, 2005 - 12:27pm PT
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I know chris has done the descent without shoes - in his socks... this is where I would lose the "fast and light" competition. I would at least bring flip flops.
I would also bring a haul bag, poop-tube - perhaps a port-a-ledge... 16 gallons of water, 10 pounds of food and beer ... and probably take about 5 days.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Nov 15, 2005 - 03:00pm PT
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Saw you reaching Sickle Sunday morning at around 7am - looking super smooth! Nice job on reducing your time! :-)
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JuanDeFuca
Big Wall climber
Northern Mexico
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Nov 15, 2005 - 03:18pm PT
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Next Spring will be the year.
Everyday I am getting leaner and meaner.
Still will take me three days.
Live Every Breath!
Juanito
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David Nelson
climber
San Francisco
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Nov 15, 2005 - 03:31pm PT
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Chris, wonderful trip report. I hope you are like Peter Pan and never grow old! Or cocky. The little bit about the Cleaning Fairy was wonderful. Nice job.
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Nov 15, 2005 - 08:26pm PT
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Congratulations! You're [url="http://www.speedclimb.com/yosemite/2nd3rds.htm"]tied for 20th place![/url]
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CorporateDog
climber
Middle California
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Nov 15, 2005 - 08:43pm PT
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Why did the rat die - he bit a climber of course.
Great TR too!!!!
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yo
climber
NOT Fresno
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Nov 16, 2005 - 12:09am PT
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That's it, I'm psyched. I'm f*#king getting on that route again next year.
But I'm taking doubles.
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Fluoride
Trad climber
on a rock or mountain out west
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Nov 16, 2005 - 12:55am PT
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Impressive way to spend a morning. Congrats and great pics.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
one pass away from the big ditch
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Nov 16, 2005 - 03:05am PT
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I think on Saturday we met the mother of the team you passed.
Nice lady. She had a rad spotting scope and we watched them do a belay change over.
That same day my gal did her first El Cap route. Pine Line. Styled it. :) Also, a guy from North Coast of Cali did his first lead on gear, that happened to be in the Valley. Pine Line. He styled it too!!
What good weather on that face in the afternoon too!!!
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malabarista
Trad climber
San Francisco, Ca
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Nov 16, 2005 - 03:11pm PT
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Nice TR Chris!
but geez...
How am I supposed to brag about my amazing heartstopping 4 day ascent when you guys polish the thing off in 6 hrs? ;-)
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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Nov 16, 2005 - 03:41pm PT
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Cool stuff. I did niad, if you only count climbing time. On the other hand I think time spend on cool bivvies in unlikely places doesn't count on the age clock, it actually makes you younger.
"Usually The Great Roof seriously spooks me."
That's the only place (belay at the end of the pitch) that I ever felt the whole weight of what I'd done, where I was, and how scary this sh#t truly is.-You can, seemingly, see every move below, from there.
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Ammon
Big Wall climber
El Cap
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Nov 17, 2005 - 03:32am PT
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Nice one Chris.
Saw you pull up in the morning.... was actually looking for a good partner for the last few weeks. Don't have your new number.
Give me a shout.
OOAAAHHHHHH!!!
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| Messages 1 - 18 of total 18 in this topic |
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