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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Jul 29, 2006 - 08:52pm PT
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Basketcase 2nd free ascent: A day with Ed Ward
By Peter Haan, copyrighted 2006
It wasn’t Ed’s first visit---I think he had come over from England in the late ‘60’s announcing beforehand in a letter to Royal and others that he was going to bag the second ascent of the North America Wall in a solo, cleverly frog leaping any need to climb in the Valley at all beforehand. Clearly a very efficient plan. He was Ed Ward-Drummond then, later becoming just Ed Ward, why I don’t recall. But soon after arriving, he had met up with our various realities and had to actually train like the rest of us, just seeing what he could do as his schooling progressed in the Valley. It’s true, it would have been really impressive had he simply arrived full-blown from the head of Zeus as planned and flash-soloed the second ascent of the North America Wall, beating out Lauria and Hennek. But this dream of omnipotence most of us had had already and hastily recovered from, so we smirked communally, as people do, implying we would never have made such a mistake ourselves.
So on this latest visit in the mid-70’s, his newly revised plan was to get up notable crack climbs in the Valley, smile more and check us all out; a plan that was working well enough and considerably more practical than imagining Yosemite as a simple plum to pick, viewed from the safety-zone of one’s home. I think he was having fun even and he was making new friends, and the warmth was finally finding him.
Kind of elegant, and mostly honest, he had a bonafide adventurous spirit, done the FA of the awesome Trolltind Wall in Norway even, and liked hanging out in high sketchy places where perhaps he worked out in symbolic fashion his particular questions and passions. With his background in the Isles and Europe, he was very good on steep faces and liked to be Bold in Nature, his favorite theme and obsession. There was a really pretty non-climbing girlfriend who was being tortured at the time but Lindy eventually disappeared. Ed was on some kind of unconscious mission, but weren’t we all.
So he was bright, an engaging witty conversationalist and in a number of respects, a powerful climber with a very strong back. Kind of an English version of a man’s man. Sort of. In those days he still hoped for international acclaim by the way. So here he was in the Valley, and I was back up there too, climbing off and on a bit more--- like a weekend climber---some years after my better-known and devotional days of 1970-1972, but now beset by a complex construction career that still has a hold on me. As we were both intellectuals of sorts, and both wanting some difficult exciting stuff to try, we had started climbing together; it seemed to be working.
We did Hawkman’s escape and I added a dangerous 5.11 finish to it. Ed loved the long steep face pitch on Gleason’s route and just came alive on it. We were having fun right away. And so we went for more.
Less than a month after Donini and TM had aided the crux on their first ascent in 1972, Bridwell and Klemens freed their superb route on Basket Dome across Tenaya Canyon from Half Dome that July. And then Jim and Mark began to aggressively campaign me to do the second free ascent as soon as possible before some of our nemeses got a hold of it. It was a feared route of course, as most of the very early 5.11s were, and this climb’s crux was offwidth to make it more repellent to most. Since the approach was hours long involving rigorous brush management and some route finding, the practical attractiveness of this amazing climb was reduced to nearly zero even when able parties would scope it out from the eastern end of the Valley floor. They were seeing what was involved in reaching it and then getting up it. It would be a coup, but also because it was hard to reach, honor would allow one to avoid it and still be a hardman. So there it sat, a somewhat friendly dome sitting on the edge of Tenaya Canyon with a sweeping left facing dihedral of about 7 pitches facing southwest towards the Valley and Mirror Lake---an all-too-obvious line, a natural puzzle of great beauty with its own savage crescendo, each pitch building on the last and then a strange deeply cleft denouement in the summit pitches.
We parked up on the Tioga Road in the morning. Although it was early, it took quite awhile to reach the base of our formation. It was a moderate enough hike down to the rim of the canyon on a frequently traveled park trail, but then leaving it, an aggravating, highly detailed struggle to descend steep tongues of squatty vegetation that were incredibly packed and tightly growing from the seasonal snowpacks; this bit lead to a similarly festooned traverse to the start. The Dome is located fairly high up on the north side of the widening mouth of Tenaya Canyon as it merges with Yosemite Valley, Half Dome right across from us. The rock was absolutely perfect, dazzling white and all ours that morning. It feels alpine here. Surprisingly and astoundingly aesthetic, like parts of the Nose, Elephant Rock, and the Hourglass. What a reward for such a really bitchy approach. What a stimulating secret place but possessed of an opera house view of the upper Valley from which only a few other people had ever gazed.
The earlier pitches are in the 5.9 range, with a few holds and other forms of relief for the climber. These lower sections turn out to be less unrelenting than they appear from below. Protection ample, just happy climbing, but with a worrisome view of the developing overhang of the dihedral’s crux pitch #5 a few hundred feet above. Ed is keeping up well, spending less energy on the offwidths than I was thinking he would, but eventually starting to fade a little after hundreds of feet of fast paced crack climbing in thinning air under a blazing alpine sun.
Rather than a stiff vertical main wall typical of lots of other Valley routes, happily the Dome is more in the 80-85 degree range. But the dihedral itself arches out slowly above us as we set up for pitch #5. Ed is in a reasonable stance in the crack and with big sloping footholds, well anchored. I am thinking starting out from the belay, that this crux can’t be so hard, 5.11b; what was wrong with Donini? So I pretty much swarm up the initial longer section of increasingly overhanging offwidth hammering in two bongs, climbing over them in the standard manner and starting to turn the corner in a somewhat flamboyant and overly hasty manner. I was in fantastic shape, but not climbing very much at this point in my life. And then stunned, I see the flare into which I realize I am going to have to move.
As one would expect with it changing from overhanging to vertical, the formation is getting incredibly smooth, the crux flare above is basically a sluicebox for snow, scree and water during big weather, and so has become really slick, like something produced in a marble shop. And the crack’s edge that I am so happy to have, disappears too early becoming the flaring 45-degree facet of the same slippery nature. It’s reminiscent of the left side of the Hourglass just after the undercling, less complicated, but harder and ever so much safer. I am thinking, at least it is not overhanging at this point, just the lower half of my body is, as it still is in the regular crack trying to dangle and slip out of view! Progress has really slowed down just before this, the method is arm-barring, modified arm-barring and quiet tiny moves. With the demise of the more orthodox offwidthing below I am starting to realize this is a bunch of unusual very very powerful moves coming up, bringing me out of the crack, in an overhung posture.
I don’t like what is going on and am having a hard time accepting that there is not some really subtle trick to make all this stop being progressively more hideous. And I am in a hurry, getting a little exhausted but still too cavalier in the face of a world-class problem. I make the first set of moves to gain the bottom of the flare but am in error. I come flying out of there, sweeping the wall for a 25-35 foot well-belayed fall that is more like an amusement park ride than a life-threatening development, one of the five or so leader falls I have ever taken in 43 years. Royal used to say in his oracular riddling manner that you never actually fall you let go. But in this case I am pretty sure RR is quite wrong.
My first feeling is what a phenomenal relief; this natural bastard was trying to give me a heart attack. And frisky little falls can be very stimulating, refreshing---- although in those days leader falls were still rare and really really rare in big cracks. But most of us had practiced falling and belaying quite a bit when when we began climbing, back in the early sixties. So the feeling was on a basic level, pretty familiar. The pain and pressure can seem nearly infinite in actual cruxes, like torture finely applied by a truly uncaring world. I deeply rest on a stance by the belay for forty-five minutes, emboldened but really winded. Ed is a bit blown out by all this but still a solid guy on my rope, still impressively and totally committed. Sometimes the belayer is more upset after a fall than the leader. That’s right, there is nothing like hitting your head against a brick wall, so that stopping has to be nothing short of enormously beatific and enlightening.
We are worried since it is getting later in the day, we are way the hell and gone up here and truly loathe the idea of a retreat from the base back up through what we thought we would never ever have to struggle again---or even look at---especially going uphill.
I am thinking I can get the moves though, but we will just have to see. I feel the altitude since I don’t live in Yosemite anymore, and have only been up for a couple of days from Santa Cruz this trip. Working the whole pitch again, I get up to the crux with more economy and proper pace, and start to think the sequence out more astutely. I just can’t believe how delicate this is going to be, transferring myself in 1” stages, arching to the right severely and strictly into this flare from the overhanging conventional offwidth just below it, trying to get my torso back over my overhung feet that are trying to detach by this very position I have to take. I make the first move, the one that ejected me an hour earlier, and can hardly stay attached. But with the knowledge that it is going to be more balance than usual and a micromanaging tradeoff between one counterforce lock and another while losing the knee bar, I progress, using unbelievable amounts of power seeking security in the flare in an orderly but granular transition that is nearly impossible at least for someone my size. And there are absolutely no edges of any sort in the crack, neither on the main wall nor on the dihedral face, my usual secret tactic to unlock some cruxes. With no edge to the crack, but only the nearly perfectly smooth flaring facet for my right hand, I arch into the flare arm-barring and palming over a period of 5-10 minutes for just one or two feet of progress, toying with my left leg and right foot as they get more and more tenuous in the overhanging sections right beneath my waist, with a real risk of everything just sinking into disorganization and ineffectiveness.
In the flare now with the shocking problem below me, I realize that these had just been the hardest offwidth moves I had ever done, at least in context on a lead. Oddly delicate too with nothing but pressure to make the moves. No safety valve and no clever, secret and sophisticated combination no one else would see. And I now realize why the incomparable Jim Donini and TM had finally aided this section.
Following, Ed struggles up the lower section but the crux is just not going to happen without tension after repeated vigorous stabs below it that are really wasting him, determined as he was. We spend a lot of time here and I realize we are going to be benighted. I want to be impatient but squeeze this out of mind. I can’t see him until he gets to the base of the last 10 feet or so, at the crux. I think, British Ed probably wants to be beknighted, but does he want to be benighted, grinning to myself. Eventually continuing upwards, darkness approaching, we gain a small bumpy ledge inside the upper chimneys and just anchor in somehow, hardly enough room for the two of us.
We start to wait for dawn as night falls quickly. We think we saw some 5.8 above us, and we have no daylight left so sticking here is indicated rather than some hare-brained junior attempt to lead semi-hard free stuff inside weird deep chimneys in total blackness on weathered rock for who knows how many more feet all without any beta whatsoever.
Since I had ever so much experience in the Valley at this point and about twelve years of climbing, we didn’t have any bivy gear, any food to speak of, and no more water. We are in something like turtlenecks and cotton pants. And no lights of course. We are above 7,000 feet, albeit in good weather, but as anyone knows, the night is going to be at warmest, high 30’s. We may not have even had a second rope for god’s sake. And the thing is going to be about 10 hours long. A plan only young man would form since they are always and without exception, invincible.
But along with this profoundly intelligent situation, I have my half-length ace bandages on my knees under my pants for protection in the offwidths, and I can take them off for the sagacious but gross process of wrapping these filthy things around my head, face and neck mummy-style to trap some of the heat I will be losing through those very vascularized areas. I naturally offer one of the two immediately to Ed, as any decent partner would, and he is grossed out by the idea, nearly offended and certainly shocked. You would think I had offered my underwear, but those sure weren’t coming off! He thinks he isn’t going to need the ace bandage, but I don’t have a clue what he thinks it’s going to be like soon as night descends. And I had used this bandage trick on other forced bivouacs to great effect, and knew “the sooner the better”. In fact one night I had had to sleep in newspapers like a bum at Sugarloaf as Greyhound had lost my luggage when I was fifteen. I knew that small tricks like this could be the way you survive or at least shorten the approaching all-night spanking.
Time passes, the temperature drops some more, it’s a clear sky with almost no breeze, and we are just going to get damned cold. And won’t be having much else to think about for many hours. It becomes obvious enough even to an upper-crust Englishman, that protocol may have to be re-assessed. So quietly at the end of this re-assessment, about two prideful hours into the thing, Ed says in the darkness, “Peter….you don’t supposed I could have one of those ace bandages?” In Queen’s English of course. It was actually quite elegant and funny even at the time.
So off one comes; I rearrange my remaining one and Ed wraps his face and neck up as best he can in my other scuzzy old ace bandage, and we go forth a little bit more into this challenge similarly festooned. I am also realizing that wearing one less ace bandage is a huge step down from the bulletproof 5-star effect of two.
But this isn’t delivering us from trouble. It really is damned cold. So nearly involuntarily in a moment of mutual nonverbal grunted assent, we start to bearhug each other as thoroughly and completely as possible, shaking away in the black guts of this large chimney a pitch and a half from the summit as if something really terrible had just occurred in the world, besides the way we were now garbed. Although warmer in our spazzy clench as time goes by, the un-united portions of our bodies are really getting crispy. We keep changing configurations to relieve other parts that just can’t be this cold any longer, but also hating to do so since our desperately created heat races off into the alpine air like a precious life-gas of which we know we only have a fixed amount.
It is an interesting experiment, surviving in this manner, all conventions and inhibitions aside cheek to cheek, perched on this awkward tiny bumpy ledge for seeming endless wretched hours, almost unable to talk for the deep cold trying to take away the little warm spots that were still left of us.
I wondered if this is wild for Ed, hugging a climbing partner way off in California 8,000 miles from home, on a late summer night deep in a chimney at higher altitude after a really hard climb that bested him. But necessity has brought us to stay here, and everything else, all other issues, just shelved as big zeros. Our world is now in a newly established order to get through this, and with dignity. Getting back home is now absolutely trivial; staying is everything; staying warm is now more important than imagined personal boundaries and our respective individualities; starving is now essential and more important than eating, all because the original priorities (climb, go home, and eat) would now kill us. We know the rest of the climb is no challenge, we already have it and we just missed reaching the top by half an hour and the ever-so-longed-for archetypal level walk-off to the car.
Needless to say, as soon as it was possible to see what was happening above us in the colorless early light, we break up our death-grip on each other, start really getting cold separately in belay and lead. Shaking and stiff, I jerk towards the top, climbing grossly and ferociously, almost hatefully and lifelessly robotic, but seeing that it was a very smart thing to endure the night down there on the hideous ledge. For blindly climbing this odd crude stuff to the summit in a circuitous route that I actually am having to think about, I see I might have fallen in pitch dark the night before amongst very rough features or less dramatically, become separated from Ed spending the night in makeshift slings mid-lead on who knows what sort of hastily established anchors somewhere inside the granulated summit.
Soon after, time dragged us both away to our separate pursuits and responsibilities, and I never saw Ed again. He lives in Berkeley, last I heard and is a friend of Al Steck.
end
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bachar
Trad climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Jul 29, 2006 - 08:56pm PT
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Basketcase! whoah, a blast from the past. How many ascents has that thing had? Great story Peter. Any photos?
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sketchy
Trad climber
Vagrant
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Jul 29, 2006 - 09:39pm PT
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Good writing, I could really picture the offwidth. Great memory as well, I can barely remember the pitches I climbed the weekend before. Got any more?
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jul 29, 2006 - 09:56pm PT
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Thank you! And thanks for all the photos you posted a month or two ago, of climbs and climbers in the 1970s.
Clearly an excellent adventure, one still well remembered. And a darn hard climb!
I ran into Ed Drummond a few times in the 1970s, in Yosemite and then in the Bugaboos. As an impressionable teenager I was pretty awestruck, but he usually had a fair bit to say. A strong climber and interesting writer. It would be fun to hear his half of the story, unprompted.
Anders
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 29, 2006 - 11:40pm PT
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Hi,
John and buds, no photos damn it, just---as usual---running with it because it felt so good. And since we weren't carrying food nor water not etc, of course we couldn't consider a camera. By this time, though, I was in fact photographing some, finally (the earlier posted stuff for example). But you know, when it got hard or fast, the camera got left behind. We had little idea of history. It is all in memories, now. So I felt, christ, post this story before it is too late.
I am working on about a dozen other little vignettes like this, by the way. It's fun and challenging for me to pull it all up. These were times that were important to a lot of us here, even now, and must not go unacknowledged. There are thousands of us here on this forum that either were part of the 60's-80's period or want to take it in. The climbing world is standing on our shoulders in ways. Climbers before me, did not treat these areas, and damn, they disappeared on us all. After all those profound, life-changing experiences they had had...a big silence. If only Pratt and Sacherer, and now many newer climbers, had had more power and more time to write in what ever fashion, to convey to us what they went through, with all the extra stuff that makes a real experience, not an engineering report. Pratt's writing, though just a few pieces, is exceptional and worthy, and should have been an incentive for later climbers. He lead the way.
best to you, P.
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WBraun
climber
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Jul 30, 2006 - 12:06am PT
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I remember when you went there Peter. You guys were awesome. I went there too years later but a thunderstorm came and cos, Shipley, and me ran away hahaha. On the drive back, (we came in from Porcupine flat), cos and Walt were playing my guitar driving me crazy, so I took it from them and threw it out of the car. They were shocked but laughed their asses off. A great day anyways.
Later I woke up one morning and was going to free solo it on sight. I told Shipley and he told me I was nuts and shouldn't go there.
So we both free soloed the Steck Salathe that day instead, bummer!
Never did go back to Basketcase. What a cool line. You're lucky you went Peter. It's a true gem.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 30, 2006 - 12:24am PT
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Thanks for writing it down for us to read Peter. Great story, and well written.
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GoMZ
Trad climber
Paradise
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Jul 30, 2006 - 12:56am PT
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Thank You for posting this great story.
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Jul 30, 2006 - 01:38am PT
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Peter's posts here are always good, and this one was great.
If Big Mac would put a TR section on the website, this sort of thing would not get lost in the morass.
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bachar
Trad climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Jul 30, 2006 - 03:13pm PT
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Zander
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Jul 31, 2006 - 12:31am PT
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Thanks for the TR Peter,
Great writing. Every time I've gone by and looked up I've wanted to be up there. It just looks wild. Too bad I'll never climb that hard.
Zander
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Jul 31, 2006 - 11:16am PT
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great stuff!
Good point concerning the historical continuity which links the generations.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Jul 31, 2006 - 12:23pm PT
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Friggin' great story!
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John Vawter
Social climber
San Diego
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Jul 31, 2006 - 01:29pm PT
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Peter, I'm always glad you act on those impulses to write your recollections down and share them with us. Ed Ward wrote a little piece for Ascent I think. White something, White Elephant after bailing from the NA Wall? I think he mentioned dropping a shoe off one of the lower pitches and packing it in.
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Nate D
climber
San Francisco
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Jul 31, 2006 - 06:29pm PT
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Engaging read - thanks for sharing!
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Jul 31, 2006 - 06:53pm PT
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I just read this again...and my first thought is "damn, I wish I could write like that!" My second was, "I want to try Basket Case!". Oh wait, maybe it was the other way around. Peter, this is Supertopo at it's best!
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Chicken Skinner
Trad climber
Yosemite
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Jul 31, 2006 - 07:38pm PT
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Peter,
Great story of an excellent adventure. I also have enjoyed the photos you have posted. I am working on improving the
Yosemite Climbing Association website and would like to have a section in it with personal accounts of climbing adventures on the site. I also would like to have a (historical climbing)forum hopefully without the politics and the slander, sort of in a question and answer format to be used as a tool for gathering climbing history. Would you be interested in donating or lending some of your stories and photos to be put on the website? www.yosemiteclimbing.org.
Thank,
Ken Yager
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David Nelson
climber
San Francisco
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Jul 31, 2006 - 07:52pm PT
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Absolutely incredible writing! Thanks for taking the time, and think about another when you have the creative juices flowing. It is not easy to write like that.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 31, 2006 - 08:39pm PT
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Hi again buds,
Ken/Chickenskinner,
just let me know what you need. (peterhaan@mac.com) I am ever so into what you are doing and would certainly contribute. And a million thanks for your stunning and important contributions to us here and to climbing as a whole. The Hourglass article is now final, and you could have that too along with the Salathe article and this article.
And John V., and all the rest of you, thanks for your kind, generous encouragement. It makes a Big Difference to hear from you. John V, I was amazed by your story a year or few ago, regarding climbing with your son. It had the most amazing quality developed in it. How is Inez?? I called her shortly after she moved to W. VA, and she never returned a msg. Probably in Austria.
I am working on some more of these recollections, such as:
-doing the first unroped ascent of Crack of Despair
-doing FA of Wheatthin
-FA of Call of the Wild
-climbing Crack of Doom, Twilight Zone, Crack a Go Go.
-racing Bridwell down the talus at Arch rock when he took a horrible fall in the talus
-Surviving a fall in North Dome Gully as a big snowstorm approached at night
-My time with Molly Higgins
-Climbing with Ritchie Goldstone
-Pouring Bob Locke's ashes off of Dana into the couloir
-spending too much time with Ament, in a tent for a couple of weeks
-rescuing Vern Clevenger on Mud Flats when he was a teenager
Each one of these events was packed with stuff that is worth writing about, especially now that 30-40 years have gone by. And to structure it into stories is, although difficult, enriching to me.
Once again, I want to stress: it is shocking and disappointing that there is not more written lore from 1950-1974 on Yosemite. I think I have read it all, btw. and it just is not enough... As I have said elsewhere, climbing was almost a Beat phenomenon, and just doing it, was all that could matter. At least that's what we thought then, and now we see how we starve... there is more to see in these old events, as we transition from oldstyle accounts that read like engineering field reports or coy tales of self-aggrandizement, to our current emotional and complicated era. At any rate thanks and I will post some more stuff soon.
PH
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ground_up
Trad climber
portland, or.
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Jul 31, 2006 - 08:55pm PT
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This is the stuff that makes the forum worthwhile !
Thank You Peter !
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Hardly Visible
climber
Port Angeles
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Great story Peter, I look forward to more.
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John Vawter
Social climber
San Diego
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You're too kind. Inez is alive and well in the holler, and she is in fine climbing shape. A few years ago she told me about an adventure the two of you had on an obscure route on the Column. That was the first I heard about the other use for Ace bandages. She didn't know the name, so I'm guessing that was the Direct Route, now all but forgotten, except for a line on a photo in the Reid guide.
I look forward to more of your recollections.
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Excellent story Peter. I never climbed with Ed Ward (I wasn't at that level), but talked with him a couple of times. Mad Dogs and Englishmen comes to mind.
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Roger Breedlove
Trad climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Nice stroy Peter. Haven't seen Ed in 25 years.
More, please?
Best, Roger
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 1, 2006 - 10:01am PT
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John V,
Thanks for the update on our Gnarling. Yes it was the Direct Route on the Column (III 5.7). We started really late, had a brief routefinding problem down low, solved it, got a pitch below the top and had to bivy in the little forest just below the summit. We made a fire, kept it stoked all night and ace-bandaged ourselves then too. RR, Vandiver and I used to do this route unroped in the spring back in the late 60's and 70's as a get-in-shape program. We had it down to about 60 minutes. Sometimes we would link it with So. face of N. Dome and descend N.Dome Gully. I will have to write something on Inez and I huddling away, tearing all the branches off of oak bushes for the fire, talking endlessly like college freshmen staying up all night on their first week away from home.
For those of you who are enjoying this little tales I am posting, I would recommend Doug Robinson's books btw. He is a wonderful writer. He lives in Aptos, CA (Santa Cruz) with his cool family, and still writes and climbs/teaches/coaches.
best, P.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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I second Peter's recommendation of Doug's book, it is full of wonderful writing and wonderful stories... and even some great black-and-white photos. I learned about it thanks to Dingus who mentioned it in a previous post recently.
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Chicken Skinner
Trad climber
Yosemite
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Hi Peter,
Thank you. I am going to add a story or personal adventure section to our website and once I have done that I will contact you. Keep writing those stories down they are priceless.
Ken
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426
Sport climber
Buzzard Point, TN
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PH, thanks and great words.
I often thought of you on Salathe soloing when we did the route. My role was the free climbing cutie so I got all the wide. It helped me thrash my way up, just knowing you had done it big lonesome style when I was a tot. Looking forward to more vignettes...
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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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Peter, I enjoyed your story and its vivid descriptions of a remote testpiece.
I just finished Jim Perrin’s book on Whillans, The Villain, which I highly recommend. Peter and other off-width experts will be amused by Perrin’s assertions about US off-width proficiency. I was reminded of the following passage from the book when Peter described in the story maneuvering around a bong after placing it for protection:
“It took American climbers some time to realize that wherever you could place [a bong], you could also find good jams. [British climber] Martin Boysen’s 1967 free lead of the crux artificial pitch of the American route [Frost, Fulton and Hemmings]on the south face of the Aiguille de Fou [in Chamonix] caused great consternation Stateside, but proved exactly this point.” The Villain, p. 250.
Oh, really? Rather cheeky, that. Despite this bit of chauvinism, the book is excellent, full of great stories about Whillans, as well as British climbing in general and related debauchery in the 50s through 80s. The Brits have a tradition of great climbing tales and a rich climbing history.
Peter, thanks for the nice addition to Yosemite’s stories.
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Russ Walling
Social climber
Out on the sand, Man.....
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Peter.... green with envy!!! Good job man.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 4, 2006 - 06:41pm PT
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Rick A, thanks for your read and thanks for the recommendation of Perrin's recently published book. I had not noticed it, but will now order it! I read his giant Mirror in the Cliffs anthology back when it was published, so am looking forward to his own view on the incredible Whillans. Wow. My favorite writers in the past are of course Gervasutti, Terray, Patey and some of Dave Roberts, with the microscopic amounts of Pratt we have left today among others.
And thanks Russ, as always. Making you green with envy makes me red with embarassment .
best, PH
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Russ Walling
Social climber
Out on the sand, Man.....
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hahaha! Peter, you 'da man!
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pc
climber
East of Seattle
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I believe that the two of you "Mr Red" and "Mr Green" would create a truly beautiful baby blue offwidth.
;)
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scuffy b
climber
The town that Nature forgot to hate
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Great story, Peter. It really flows well. I wish I'd let you drag
me up some of the Wide in the old days instead of sticking to the
thin & crimpy I concentrated on back then.
Those unplanned bivies are certainly draining.
Thanks for the beautiful contributions.
Steve
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jan 28, 2007 - 09:12pm PT
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As we're into the spirit of bumping, I thought I'd add this one. No need to mention the "C" word.
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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Jan 28, 2007 - 09:48pm PT
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What Scuffy said, in particular, what about Gollum left?
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Jan 29, 2007 - 11:18am PT
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Superb story Peter. Thanks for posting it. I hope and assume that you are planning on a book sometime yourself to contain all these gems. Ed's piece in the 1973 Ascent, "Mirror, mirror", about his epic route on the Troll Wall in Norway, is one of my all time favorites. I wish that he had been more prolific as a writer as I really enjoy his incisive wit and black humor.
Very little writing has emerged from the post golden age generation in Yosemite and your contributions and experience are singular and very valuable indeed. Especially since you have a predilection for the wide and wild shared by only a select few!
Your tales are like the gold thread woven into an already splendid tapestry to render its beauty unsurpassable. Keep spinning please.
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looking sketchy there...
Social climber
Latitute 33
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Jan 29, 2007 - 11:57am PT
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Excellent story which really conveyed the feel of the climb and events. Thank you for posting this; and look forward to reading more.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Nov 12, 2008 - 12:50am PT
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bump
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Double D
climber
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Nov 12, 2008 - 01:21am PT
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Ed...thanks for the bump as I'd never seen this before.
Peter...great story! I meant to meet you at the Nose reunion but got sidetracked. My loss, I'm sure.
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MisterE
Trad climber
My Inner Nut
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Nov 12, 2008 - 01:23am PT
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Ed - bumpmaster General!
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Nov 12, 2008 - 10:07am PT
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Somehow I missed this story before -- glad Ed brought it back. First rate climbing and reading.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Nov 12, 2008 - 10:47am PT
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Good story, gives me a chance to talk about the first ascent, not that it matters much after all these years. When I got to the Valley that spring, TM told me he had discovered a great new line. He said that he had been looking at it with binoculars and had the gear figured out. I'll never forget the look on his face when we got to the bottom of the route- pitch after pitch of wide cracks loomed above as he fished out the knifeblades and other, mostly small gear, from his pack. Having come that far, we decided to give it a go even though we only had a couple of larger hexes. As the "wide crack guy" I ended up on the sharp end. On the crux pitch I had to constantly down climb to clean gear for the climbing above. I probably climbed the damn thing three times. I finally gave in to exhaustion and used a single aid move at the crux. I'm sure that I could have freed the pitch if I had the right gear. Back in the Valley I ran into Mark Clemens and told him about the climb including beta on gear. The next day he and Bridwell nailed the first free ascent. I still haven't learned to keep my mouth shut- oh well.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 12, 2008 - 10:50am PT
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Hi again everybody. It actually is hard finding photos of Basket Dome, at least showing Basketcase. But I found that http://www.yosemite-17-gigapixels.com allowed me to develop a zoomed side view of the route.
zoomed in a bit more:
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Mtnmun
Trad climber
Top of the Mountain Mun
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Nov 12, 2008 - 11:18am PT
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Hi Peter, great read, I'm sitting here with my morning coffee, procrastinating getting into the day and was stoked to find your well written story on the Taco. Cheers, Jude
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Mark Hudon
Trad climber
Hood River, OR
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Nov 12, 2008 - 11:25am PT
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Great story, Peter, thanks.
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Nov 12, 2008 - 12:08pm PT
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Nice recollection, Jim.
I have never done "Basketcase" but it is a fine looking line.
This past weekend, Peter and I talked alot about the nature of our collective efforts to get up great routes and how uncertain it was. I remmeber TM telling me about your heroic efforts.
Best, Roger
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Nov 12, 2008 - 12:08pm PT
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Hi Peter,
Thanks. Very deep thanks. What you illuminate in the crux is revealing of sensitive stuff. Like your Hourglass story, one of the very best. My body torques about, so fully engaged and squirming with the discomfort of being up against that smoothness, the polished flare bombay moves. The way I squirm now is a direct denial of the enforced posture of being engaged there, locked on but barely, where any such extraneous movement would either pop you off, or distract critically from the gut-busting clinging and pop you off anyway.
You're so right about all those engineering-style accounts. They seem to use everything else in the tale to turn away from talking about the hard stuff, the scary stuff. Pretty soon as the next account gets written, and then the next, a group mind builds up to feeling it's OK not to address the sticky stuff. Yeah, just leave it out. It's all done quite unconsciously but at the same time with relief.
Then you come along and bust that wide open. Yeah, "wide." Thank you indeed. I know how hard it is to do this well, so it's correspondingly appreciated.
Thanks for the photos too.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Nov 12, 2008 - 01:43pm PT
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Wonderful story. I think you're the only person I ever heard of who has repeated Basket Case. It sounds horrendous.
JL
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Nate D
climber
San Francisco
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Nov 12, 2008 - 01:53pm PT
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Hey Peter,
In case you hadn't, also look at the direct views of Basket from the Diving Board on the xRez Gigapixel site. Quite good - and should be included in the thread as well.
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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Nov 12, 2008 - 01:57pm PT
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When do the falls dry up?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Nov 12, 2008 - 01:59pm PT
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I remember about 12 hours, but it depends on the dose... could be as long as 24...
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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Nov 12, 2008 - 03:08pm PT
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Wow!
Thanks Peter, for a cool report and congrats on an historic Ascent!
I wanna do it!
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 12, 2008 - 03:33pm PT
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Jaybro,
actually back in the day, this is what you had to look like:
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 12, 2008 - 03:42pm PT
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Johno, yeah come to think of it, I don't know anybody doing it after me....I don't. I think the approach is tough enough and the climb hard enough that it took fools to do it in the first place. But a truly great climb and very safe. And if you can't do the crux you could aid it for a few feet like TM and Donini did and not have to rappel off and hike back up the Godforsaken approach.
Thanks Nate. Right. here goes:
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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Nov 12, 2008 - 03:43pm PT
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Now really, that Is the kind of line I dream of!
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Nov 12, 2008 - 05:45pm PT
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from what the approach looks like we'll have to short haul Fish into the base... or put in a rap route from the top. Even getting to the top is a bit of a hike.
Team OW is ready to serve, however...
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WBraun
climber
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Feb 23, 2009 - 12:52am PT
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Believe it or not Peter, I was going to onsight free solo Basket case one morning and Walt Shipley talked me out of it.
It was kinda hot day in the summer and Walt suggested we both free solo Steck Salathe instead, which we did.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 23, 2009 - 01:00am PT
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Munge. This is an incredible photo. Thanks for reporting that xrez has got new stuff--I guess that is what you are saying. Anyway, it does not show the "Basketcase" route but instead and way better, a fabulous shot of Kevin Worrall's "Milestone" route on the east face. 5.12b VI (19 pitches). (See previous thread from The Warbler on this. I am guessing it is his best climb.
Let's soup it up so we can see the detail that Worrall was working with. HIs route begins far bottom left and ascents diagonally up right almost to the highest point. He did this a few years ago as a fossil too.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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Feb 23, 2009 - 01:27am PT
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Peter, zactly. Good freshening of the shadows.
Kewl unearthing of a fresh persective on this route. It's an incredible area when viewed in xrez. Kevin, I can see why you were drawn to it.
I just want to try that slab to the right. I think Kevin said there is a spring on top and good bivy site.
July sounds like a good time to go in.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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Feb 23, 2009 - 02:41am PT
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done and done then. checking maps for the approach from above now...
thx!
edit- lightened original in the hopes of less data loss.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Feb 23, 2009 - 04:55am PT
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Here's a fairly low-res shot of Basket Dome and the slab to the right, from the original Xres:
Below are high-res images of Milestone from Xres:
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MisterE
Trad climber
One Place or Another
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Feb 23, 2009 - 11:33am PT
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My Gawd, I bet the position towards the top of the arch (geting closer to the edge) is breath-taking
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 23, 2009 - 12:13pm PT
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Here is a link to a 2 mb file I created out of merging Clint's five Xrez photos. You can zoom it way up and retain resolution:
files.me.com/peterhaan/tc4il8
and meanwhile, this is what the merge looks like from Photobucket which won't let me post such a giant HR image:
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MH2
climber
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Feb 23, 2009 - 12:17pm PT
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Something about Peter's writing makes me think of getting past fear beyond the climbing type.
Does anyone have a picture of Ed Ward(was -Drummond)? We saw a guy once who stood apart. For reasons I don't understand, other than he wasn't local, my brain made the unlikely guess that he was Ed Ward.
As Mighty Hiker mentioned, it would be interesting to hear the story in the inventive prose of PH's partner.
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noshoesnoshirt
climber
dangling off a wind turbine in a town near you
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Feb 23, 2009 - 01:40pm PT
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Holy crap I feel like an unmotivated slug.
Thanks for the great posts, mebbe today I'll go to that new stone on the river I've been meaning to check out.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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Feb 23, 2009 - 02:13pm PT
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no doubt
thx Clint and Peter for the motivational merging of the images.
What a bitchen line.
I hate to even ask, because if I have to even ask...
What's the rating on Milestone?
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Feb 23, 2009 - 04:30pm PT
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Here's my attempt to draw lines to match Kevin's descriptions of Milestone:
In the top photo, you see the end of the flake system at the bottom, and then the Tuolumne style black streak finish dead center. The cracks that continue up and right look fun, but a direct exit is in order at that point.
In the fourth photo, the exposed belay where the crack disappears around the roof is obvious - from there a long pitch goes up to a belay at the far right end of the long diagonal ramp that cuts through the frame. You can see the Scott - Child route to the left - it climbs the small corner/ramp to the left of the big ramp, the face to the big tree, and up the obvious flake above the tree. Milestone stays toward the right side of that fourth photo, entering a zig zagging left facing corner.
The route is obvious in the upper part of the third photo, but lower in the frame you actually climb all the way up to the sunlit tree, then down a ramp, and up another ramp to a belay out on the arete. A short, hard traverse left gains a Wheat Thin style flake, not visible in the photo, that parallels the arete for the first forty feet. From a belay at the top of the flake, a tricky face traverse finally climbs to the crack and the crux of the route. Higher in the third photo the route is mostly obvious - the route leaves the crack and belays in the left most hole, as the cracks are not freeable where they pass through the bulge at the line of holes. The Crack Sniffin' Dike above then leads the climber back right to the diagonal crack above the horizontal line of holes. Where that crack appears to end, you traverse right to another parallel, invisible crack. The crack becomes so thin you can't really see it in the photo, but its a splitter 1/4 inch crack, laser straight for 80 feet, right on the softly shadowed arete that parallels the sharp arete of the corner below. 11d as in desperate (prolly 5.12).
From the right side of that roof, in bottom of the second photo, a weakness leads up and left on clean rock between the bushes into the white ramp. You climb that for a bit, and then exit right to a belay on stacked blocks below a vertical straight in crack leading toward the arete above. From that arete, the white hand traversing flake is well lit that leads right into the back of the huge shadowed corner.
The route goes from low dead center to upper left in the lowest photo, leaving the bottom of the prominent right facing corner on a diagonal slash to the soft white arete on its right. Through the center of the photo it climbs the right facing corner/ramp with the clean jagged arete that ends at a pointed white top. Where the ramp ends, dark features lead up and right to a difficult Arches style slab section which ends at the roof at the top of the frame.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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Feb 23, 2009 - 05:45pm PT
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How long did it take to put it in? 19 pitches never comes easy, but face it often harder due to belays, etc.
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Russ Walling
Social climber
Upper Fupa, North Dakota
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Feb 23, 2009 - 06:21pm PT
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Werner says: I was going to onsight free solo Basket case one morning and Walt Shipley talked me out of it.
Usually when someone like Walt says it is a "bad idea" ........ well....... you get the idea.
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Feb 25, 2009 - 01:35pm PT
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In June of 1975, Kevin gave an account of the first ascent of "Milestone" in Old Geezers! (Yes you!) Write up your FA Stories and tidbits
The first ascent of "Milestone" by Kevin Worrall
Karl really does have a good idea, even though most people aren't taking him seriously, I'll start with the last, and maybe the best Valley FA I've done.
Sometime in the mid seventies, after Bridwell did Straight Jacket on Basket Dome, he told me about a long straght in crack system on the wall right of that route and near the arete of a massive right facing arch that dominates the southeast face of Basket Dome. He was really excited about it at the time, and said he thought you might be able to faceclimb to it, or that I might be able to.
Went up the Snow Creek switchbacks 30 years later to scope it out. Schwacked almost all the way to the base and saw potential for a start. Couple days later walked up Tenaya Canyon and way up the talus past Half Dome with some glasses and my camera. Began to see a line from the lowest point of Basket Dome up through some disconnected features, to three giant ramps that switchbacked nicely toward the crack system Bridwell told me of. From the end of that three hundred foot crack a weakness appeared to lead for five or six lower angle pitches to the top of the dome. Careful inspection of the photos I took that day led me to believe a route was there, and that it might not even be that hard.
There is a route there now, but it's kinda hard.
It took my partner Sean Shannon and I three trips to the Valley and some twelve days of climbing, bolting and working the route, before it was ready for a ground up ascent,
Not a ground up "trad style" ascent but more of a redpoint. With a trad flavor. We did start at the ground and climbed up, for two days, on the final ascent.
We tried to do a true ground up ascent, but what I was hoping to be 5.9 or easy 5.10 pitches at the start turned out to be four good 5.11 pitches in a row. Thin face crux on the pitch off the ground. Pure crack in a bombay flare, tight hands to rattley fingers to offsize pod on pitch two. Arches style thin, relentless, 11.d edging on pitch three. A tricky routefinding problem with a vertical step on pitch four.Two days of climbing and the hard looking part was still way the f#ck up there.
Rapped to Valley, went to SAR cache, got six static ropes from Werner and a ride back to our car at Porcupine Flat, hiked back to the rim, bivied, and rapped 1000 ft down the top of the climb to check it out, and determine if it would be doable. Living in San Diego with a wife and kids kinda takes the adventure ability down a notch or two.
Looked good...real good, but hard. The "hand cracks" Bridwell told me about were arrow cracks, with a few fingerlocks here and there. The rock was excellent, the position the cracks took spectacular.
Returned a year later, rapped down and did the upper five pitches, starting at the last belay on the crack, perched on the lip of a forty foot roof at the end of the massive 600 ft arch. What was to be pitch fifteen was 5.11 face right off the belay followed by linking small corners and arches up a rolling slab to a splitter crack finish and a good ledge.
Pitch sixteen meanders after a steep lieback flake, to a mantle, that places you below an 11d slab with three bolts, some dime edges and not much else, that gets you to a flake system, the belay comes after 180 ft.
Pitch seventeen has two easy 5.11 sections and ends liebacking a four inch thick flake separated from the wall by three or four inches. Super clean. The belay is standing on the flake where it becomes a thin ledge with a deep clean crack behind it.
The flake system continues up and right toward the summit of Basket Dome, but pitch eighteen follows the plumb line of a Tuolumne style black streak. All bolts, one cam in an overlap near the top of the 10.a pitch. Sweet slab climbing, perfect rock, way up there.
The belay below the last pitch is positioned below the steepest bulge in that zone and the climber mantles a big ol diorite knob with a stopper behind it, clips a bolt and does some thin 11a moves in a stemmy bowl to immediately easing rock and a big belay tree nearly at the dome's summit.
On the drive home we decided to do whatever we had to do to link these upper five pitches with the lower four we did a year before.
Our third effort we allowed ten or twelve days in the Valley. The ramps I had hoped to follow in the center section of the route were ruled out due to a thirty foot long, eight foot high blade of vibrating stone sitting with its ass end on the ramp and its snout cantilevered out in space. We found a route around this obstacle, that led us up into the bottom of the huge arch, and happily to a perfect bivi ledge atop pitch eight.
From our previous high point of four pitches we did a short 5.8 pitch to the base of a vertical straight in, straight up thin crack -120 ft 11.d. A desperate flared barndoor lieback start to pumpy fingers and hands, then up a steep stem corner with tiplocks to an exposed flat belay ledge positioned in the center of a 200 foot long arete.
Here the crack of pitch six becomes a ramp/hand traverse that turns the arete and leads back into a deep bowling corner that is the start of the huge arch above. This 5.10 pitch finishes on a handrail traverse with exciting distance between cams to a stance below roofs and a vertical corner.
Pitch eight (11b) liebacks a thin crack to hands through a roof, then up a steep leaning offsize with a bomber edge to more roofs, and finally the bivi ledge.
Two gnarled scrub oaks, each with a sleeping spot below, share an inspiring view of the Northwest Face of Half Dome, and a view straight up the unclimbed arch.
Pitch nine downclimbs a ramp to the left, down mantles a ledge, easy 5.11, to an easy ramp that rises to the arete of the arch and an airy three bolt belay.
Pitch ten is bouldery hard 5.11 moves sideways off the belay to a 1 inch thick flake that miraculously winds its way forty feet up the steep wall toward the three hundred foot crack system. The belay is atop the end of the flake.
Pitch eleven is the route's crux. Desperate face climbing left off the belay reaches the crack after twenty five feet. Good jams and fingerlocks disappear after twenty feet, and the angle steepens.
At this point we made a decision that will surely be controversial. The crack would take A1 arrows or A3 stoppers. At the time the 00 cams had not come out, and even those would have been hard or impossible to place in the leaning crack. We bolted it, rather than fix pins. Given the length of the route and the diffculty of the climbing on the pitch (12b) in comparison to the majority of the route's climbing, we decided it was the way to go.
After the pitch's 12b sequency, super thin crux, are forty feet of sustained 5.11 high body tension moves ending at a diorite knob that allows a shakeout. More thin crack leads to a band of giant holes that march across the face in a quartz band. Rather than follow the crack into the holes, the route exits left to the far left hole, a six foot high mini cave with a sandy floor.
At this point two parallel cracks are leaning at about a 30 degree angle, roughly paralleling the arete of the arch that was exited far below, and inching closer and closer to the edge as they rise. The cracks become unclimbable where they pass through the bulge above the holes, but some thirty feet higher again become climbable.
Fortunately, the far left hole belay positions the leader within a few steep moves of a dike that pops 3 inches out of the wall. A mantle places the boots on the lip of "The Crack Sniffin Dike". An exciting sixty foot 5.11 traverse brings the leader back to the coveted crack and a two bolt belay.
Pitch thirteen (The Hangnail Pitch) begins with good fingers for twenty feet to the end of that crack. At this point the crack system is double, so the leader moves down and right (5.11) to the neighboring splitter. Here his feet are about ten feet from the lip of what has become a forty foot roof below (the arch). Eighty feet of continuous, leaning 11d arrow crack with 00 cam pro brings the climber to the belay and even closer to the roof's lip. This amazing, laser straight splitter is the only flaw in the slab for nearly two hundred feet to the left. The leader should carry some prussiks on this lead as a fall and a pulled piece could mean a Touching the Void situation.
Pitch fourteen is easy 5.10 and becomes almost horizontal at it's end, with the leader's feet at crack level and protection placed by leaning over and peering into the crack at your feet. The belay is at a point where the four pitch crack system, "The Bridwell Cracks", finally disappears around the lip of the arch's roof.
The last 5 pitches I've already described.
Every belay on this route has two stainless bolts. All bolt protection is stainless, 90 bolts total. Six pitches have no protection bolts. Three pitches have all bolt protection. Most of the bolts on this route were placed on the lead, but not all. Some hero could have certainly done the route ground up, but we were happy to do it as we did. It's a good, hard, classic route, Great variety, quality rock, awesome positions and exposure, a line that starts at the very bottom of the dome and follows a mostly obvious route to the summit.
The final ascent we did with a bivi atop pitch eight. The days were getting longer and hotter, and we didn't want to be on the crux pitch in the midday heat. Because we had been working the route, we were able to stock water on the ledges, making hauling easier. We bivied on the Valley rim at a beautiful site behind Basket Dome near the stream that falls down it's East gully. An hour descent put us at the base, and we waited til 11:30 to allow the 11d third pitch to be in the shade. Arrived at the bivi just at dark. Summited the next day at sunset. No falls.
The way to do this route is in a day if possible. Bivi on the rim, leave your sleeping gear, crack it to the base, send the route and return to camp, a fifteen minute walk from the topout. Rapping off above the dike pitch would be tricky, so it's a committing challenge for a one day ascent. Spring has the advantage of water in camp and at the base. Car to camp is two hours. The topo should be in Reid's new guide. The cracks and the upper part of the route are easily seen from Mirror Lake near Basket Dome's skyline.
"Milestone" V 5.12b 19 pitches FA Sean Shannon, Kevin Worrall May, 2004
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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Mar 13, 2009 - 04:14am PT
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this pic what I think it is?
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 13, 2009 - 07:58am PT
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Mungie, did you check out posts 61-80? there is a massive bunch of hi-rez photography there of the route, Milestone. Your photo is of course "of the route" also but it seems you might not have seen those preceding images. You can't see the route Basketcase in your image, btw; it's on the left side of the prominent gray pillar, facing away from the camera.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Mar 17, 2009 - 12:08am PT
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actually it is my photo, and it's taken from the Snow Creek Trail... a couple of winters ago... of Basket Dome
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 17, 2009 - 12:12am PT
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Eddie,
Just let me know when you start going into sepia. I will need some warning.
hugs buddy, ph.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Mar 17, 2009 - 12:49am PT
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ok Peter... step one is to develop my own B&W though...
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 17, 2009 - 06:37am PT
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It's interesting you guys have this photo... certainly some more possibilities for routes there.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Mar 17, 2009 - 11:04am PT
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Did you take any pictures while on the route "Milestone" Kevin?
(Pardon me if I missed any mention of that in the text of the thread)
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Mar 17, 2009 - 12:00pm PT
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Great potential for photos...
and for climbing!!!
Amazing that we haven't seen a second ascent yet?
Or did I miss that too...
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Zander
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Nov 23, 2009 - 08:52pm PT
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"That’s right, there is nothing like hitting your head against a brick wall, so that stopping has to be nothing short of enormously beatific and enlightening."
Bump
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Zander
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Nov 23, 2009 - 09:09pm PT
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"I make the first move, the one that ejected me an hour earlier, and can hardly stay attached. But with the knowledge that it is going to be more balance than usual and a micromanaging tradeoff between one counterforce lock and another while losing the knee bar, I progress, using unbelievable amounts of power seeking security in the flare in an orderly but granular transition that is nearly impossible at least for someone my size. And there are absolutely no edges of any sort in the crack, neither on the main wall nor on the dihedral face, my usual secret tactic to unlock some cruxes."
bump
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Jan 14, 2010 - 11:56am PT
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Real Climbing Bump!
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Apr 27, 2010 - 12:11pm PT
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Real climbing bump....again.
Wow, those phtos are amazing.
Kevin, sure wish you would get over your habit of not taking pictures!
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couchmaster
climber
pdx
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Apr 27, 2010 - 01:38pm PT
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Peter, I can't determine if the writing or the ascent is more impressive. World class both! I missed this great read earlier, nice bump Survival.
Thank you so much.
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le_bruce
climber
Oakland: what's not to love?
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Apr 27, 2010 - 04:07pm PT
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Holy shit! Looks phenomenal. I try to imagine plugging up that crux crack pitch as it pulls you closer and closer to the brink out right... phew!
There must be a cousin to Nutcracker on that lower angle dome to the right, or something better.
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bob
climber
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Apr 27, 2010 - 04:41pm PT
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I've been up to the crux pitch of that crack. It is amazing. Lightening stopped us. SH#T!! We had gone 11 pitches up it and that was only where the business begins!
Baskecase looks oh so rough.
Bob J.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Aug 13, 2010 - 10:52am PT
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More Haan dynasty treasures, please!
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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Aug 13, 2010 - 12:14pm PT
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thank god, buddha, shiva....bump
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jan 23, 2011 - 10:20pm PT
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is the waterfall running? bump
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tom Carter
Social climber
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Aug 14, 2011 - 12:24am PT
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WOW!
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 23, 2011 - 11:26pm PT
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in yesterday's evening light
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 24, 2011 - 12:08am PT
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always looking around...
it's my old Nikkor 180mm F2.8 but on the digital SLR it's more like 270mm in the DX format sensor...
the light was very good yesterday
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bergbryce
Mountain climber
South Lake Tahoe, CA
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Oct 24, 2011 - 02:48am PT
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Awesome story!
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dec 22, 2011 - 01:02am PT
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zowie bump
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Powder
Trad climber
SF Bay Area
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Dec 22, 2011 - 05:57am PT
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What a story!!
Thanks for sharing.
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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Dec 22, 2011 - 11:41am PT
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bump
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cultureshock
Trad climber
Mountain View
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Just wanted to get some input by putting lines on a photo. Does this look about right?
I was on top of North Dome last weekend and could see easy looking XC travel over to Basket dome.
Once over there it didn't seem so obvious how to get down to the base. Is some of it 4th class? Kevin said:
The bivi site is visible at the very top of your low res photo in the open, flat terrain above the smaller dome. From the bivi, descend to the east behind the smaller dome, then follow its base back to the west. The gully below the east wall of Basket Dome is kinda sketchy.
I'll probably be trying to make another trip this weekend to scope out the route and hopefully go to the base of the dome. Gotta capitalize on the 120 staying open!
 Luke
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 4, 2012 - 06:06pm PT
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Cultureshock person, if you are seeking info on the approach to Basket Case, the FA came from Tenaya Canyon in one of the worse approaches ever performed in the western hemisphere. Subsequently, Bridwell and Klemens and than my party came from above, off the Tioga Pass road, diverting from the trail to follow the western and then the southern surfaces of the dome, staying as high as reasonable, traversing high to get to the base of the dihedral you climb, not below it.
By the way I am not sure this climb has had any other ascents; it seems a shame as it is a safe and gorgeous climb whose difficulties slowly mount through the pitches. A great classic. Should you fail to do the crux (quite likely) you can aid it easily, as our very own Donini did back in the early seventies. Whatever you do, you will not EVER want to reverse the approach.
Kevin's superb route may also be lacking attention; I don't think there has been a second ascent...and it is one of the Valley's great lines. And to think he did it when he was forty.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Report back on this, if you would cultureshiock, I'm developing a renewed intrest in it.
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bob
climber
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Milestone..........ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Bob J.
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Zander
climber
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Cultureshock,
Approach is line 2 in this photo, I believe.
Z
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cultureshock
Trad climber
Mountain View
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Thanks Zander. That seems to make sense for Basket Case. I was thinking that you might come in from the other side for Milestone... Not "1" in your photo but further towards Watkins.
Bob J, you have been on MileStone correct? Did you approach per "2" in Zander's photo (like for Basketcase) or something more like 1 or to the right, like I showed in my photo above.
Thanks for the note Peter:
Whatever you do, you will not EVER want to reverse the approach.
I was thinking it wouldn't be so bad to reverse the approach if you don't have any gear... I assume it's just really time consuming bushwhacking?
Here is an Xrez version with the left approach approximation. Seems I drew the horizontal (in yellow) part on a higher "ledge" system than Zander (now in green). Ah the power of ignorance...
Luke
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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I meant to go up on that one because it was the only old school off width that I never did. But I broke my leg in the summer of 1976 and when I went back to the Valley the only guy who would go up was Yabbo, and he had already done it - with who, I can't say. Maybe Dale or Kauk. I don't know anyone else who has done that route, and it had to be the best off width line in the park. Probably still is. Must be an entirely different experience with big cams.
Great article by Peter.
I did a bunch of climbing with Drummond that year - including the 2nd ascents of Free Wheelin' and Quicksilver. He was very skilled on the open face, and could run the rope with the best of them.
JL
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bob
climber
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Luke, we came in on the blue line in your photo one time, but closer to the mini-dome in the gully butted up to it. Its smooth sailing and definitely the way to go. I've gone up, down, and even across and back from Snow Shed (sp??) trail. Warbler did a really nice description of it in his Milestone write-up.
Get on it
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 4, 2012 - 08:27pm PT
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Larg, I bet it was Dale. He was WAY more motivated then Kauk, and he really dug offwidth. It is hard to imagine that in his day, he would never have done the route.
Culture, you use the upper of #2 in your latest image. Do NOT take the lower of your #2. When you get out of the little brush-choked chute between the dome and that little crappy forested arete prior to traversing to the actual base of the route, it becomes completely clear what to do--- you traverse over to it on very easy 3rd class, following the path of least resistance. At no point should you be 4th classing anything to get to the base of Basket Case; it should all be elementary. If you get into real climbing or anything risky, you are off route.
Zander, your line is drawn too low for the traverse; see Culture's upper #2 as noted in this post.
What is so awful about the BC approach? The brush is dense and very deep. At times we were walking on top of vegetation that was 5 feet deep and would fall through it at times. And all the brush points vigorously downhill, making uphill progress much much more icky. And there is quite a bit of this, you are at 6500 ft or so and higher, a direct southern exposure, no water, and some miles from the road.
Granted it is a terrific place to be, the summit. Like Watkins. So as a mere hike....I can imagine a whole lot of other things to do for hikes other than these two approaches..but as we are all saying, the several climbs are flat-out world class climbs.
EDIT: My Basket Case story reached its final and best form this last year (2011) in Alpinist Magazine; I think Issue #33.
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Alexey
Trad climber
San Jose, CA
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Peter, thanks for the Great story, I probably reading it third or fourth time after every bump.
But only now I realized that number of assents for this route can be count on one hand ..
Donini and TM
Bridwell and Klemens
Haan and Ward
Dale Bart and ?
anyone anymore?
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 5, 2012 - 11:26am PT
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Mighty Anders, the "big corner just right of Basket Case" is Straight Jacket and the Scott-Child variation, routes from the 1970's. The gigantic (2nd) corner further right of Basket Case is just to the right of Kevin's Milestone (Orion) route (Milestone plays out on the beautiful smooth face verging on that huge corner/arch) this huge dihedral is not a climb yet, nor the awesome east face of Basket Dome even further right---the mini-wall rising above that crazy steep gully running up toward the summit.
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cultureshock
Trad climber
Mountain View
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Jan 10, 2012 - 12:47am PT
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Thanks for all the comments and advice.
I had a great hike and found the base via the gully Warbler described. On the way down, i took a bit of a detour by going away from basket dome instead of towards it... OOPS!
The East Face sure is spectacular. I was pretty hard pressed to see anything that might be free climbable. Perhaps better eyes/binoculars are in order.
I might write more later, perhaps in another thread with photos.
Luke
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Ihateplastic
Trad climber
It ain't El Cap, Oregon
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Jan 10, 2012 - 01:12am PT
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Luke... Great shot of a rarely seen face!
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 10, 2012 - 07:52am PT
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Interesting! Here you also get a better idea of how hideous the bushwhack is down along the East face to get to Kevin's route start.
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karodrinker
Trad climber
San Jose, CA
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Jan 10, 2012 - 11:50am PT
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that looks like it could be a sport climbing crag! our own ceuse!
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karodrinker
Trad climber
San Jose, CA
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Jan 10, 2012 - 01:06pm PT
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hey luke, how long did it take to get to the base?
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cultureshock
Trad climber
Mountain View
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Jan 10, 2012 - 03:02pm PT
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So I went the "long" aka wrong way, on the way down. It took me about 2 hours to the base from the car. I ran most approach on the trail then had to hike the rest due to cliffs/steepness and route finding. It just over 2 hours on the way back since I knew where I was going. Over 2000 feet of elevation gain from the base of basket dome back to the car.
The GPS data is here:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/140223667
Lap1 is where I left the North Dome trail on the way down
Lap2 is where I met up with the correct approach (midway down the gully).
Lap3 is near the bottom of basket dome where you would go across to climb Milestone/Orion
Lap4 is the top of the "sub dome" ie the top of the approach gulley.
Lap5 is where I met back up with the trail.
From lap 3 to lap 4 is golden. A good way to get from subdome to the base and vise versa. I still didn't get the XC travel from the North Dome trail to the top of the sub dome quite right. It's hard to see and not quite obvious where the least amount of shrubbery is. I thinking I did better on the way down (leaving at Lap1) but just turned the wrong way when I got near the steep part.
Luke
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Alexey
Trad climber
San Jose, CA
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Nov 21, 2012 - 07:51pm PT
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This great tread should be bump with story of 5-th free accent with 21century camelots..
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 21, 2012 - 08:06pm PT
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Alexey, I would love to read subsequent ascent reports too, but there are so very few that have climbed this great route.
Twenty-first century protection (Camalots, etc) would not make this climb really very different. It is not a protection challenge at all. When you are doing the crux, you are only about 10-12 feet above your protection and on a smooth vertical to overhanging wall. If you did put a large cam in at the crux, it would have to be deep. The temptation to pull on it would be terrific, too. The challenge is the offwidth climbing itself, those special few feet that are out of view of the belayer and up around the corner you have turned.
Modern big pro, however, does substantially change Twilight Zone; Left side of Slack; right and left side of Hourglass; Crack of Doom; Excalibur pitches; Narrow Escape; probably Edge of Night, for instance.
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Alexey
Trad climber
San Jose, CA
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Nov 21, 2012 - 08:44pm PT
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Peter, let me express admiration of your ability to describe climbing you did about 30 years ago and only once. The description is so vivid that I can see this glassy stem box crux and you climbing it move by move
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RyanD
climber
Squamish
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Nov 15, 2013 - 12:34pm PT
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Bump
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cultureshock
Trad climber
Mountain View
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Nov 16, 2013 - 12:34am PT
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Photos make the heart grow fonder.
I've yet to try basketcase so some Milestone photos will have to do.
Enjoy,
Luke
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RyanD
climber
Squamish
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Nov 16, 2013 - 01:57am PT
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Yesssssssssssssss
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drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
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Nov 16, 2013 - 02:21am PT
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Siiiiiiiiiiiiiick!!!!!!
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 16, 2013 - 01:12pm PT
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Definitely a tour de force, Milestone. Perhaps Kevin's coolest ever FA and to think he was practically a fossil by then. (grin).
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SCseagoat
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Nov 16, 2013 - 05:35pm PT
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Great companion read with Salamanizer and Alexey's exploits!
Susan
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 16, 2013 - 06:42pm PT
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KW, is that first image of Cultureshock's showing the crack that runs to the gigantic dihedral edge?
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 16, 2013 - 10:42pm PT
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Thanks KW. Yeah, I agree: that dihedral is just massive and might well be the biggest unclimbed book in the whole region.
But back to your stellar route; the splitters right at the edge of that monster dihedral add so much to your route and route vision. What an adventure!
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Salamanizer
Trad climber
The land of Fruits & Nuts!
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Nov 18, 2013 - 08:46pm PT
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Cultureshock, did you do the whole route in a day? How long did it take you. I'd like to get on this route sometime in the spring so a little first hand logistical beta would be nice.
A TR is an absolute must now that you've teased the congregation with photos.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Nov 18, 2013 - 09:56pm PT
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Chad,
Judging from Luke's first photo, they rapped in from the top on a long static line,
and tried a couple of the crux pitches.
I don't think they tried the full route.
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cultureshock
Trad climber
Mountain View
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Nov 19, 2013 - 01:04pm PT
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The always observant Clint has me figured out.
We dropped in from the top with about 300m of rope. We were just short of the crux pitch but climbed the top 7.
I can post a shot of the crux from above later on. It looked very similar to the 11d 13th pitch, but thinner and thankfully bolted. Both pitches are laser cut and leaning. You use the crack more for balance than anything else since it is so thin.
With the ropes in place it took very little time to do the top 6 pitches. I think less than an hour and a half. As Kevin has mentioned up thread there are a few spots of difficult slab. Mostly dime edging and smearing. The bolts are in the right spots and protect the difficulties. The hardest moves are on the 16th pitch which is almost a full 60 meters. The rest of the climbing is very quick 5.10.
I was able to do P14-P19 clean first try. P13 was a good amount harder for me and I had a few hangs. I think you need triples in the Green and Purple C3 range to lead it. It is a very very thin crack!
Once you have gotten past P13, the 11d "hangnail" pitch, you just have to trust your feet to get to the top. All the belays are bolted and have good stances. You could link link P17 and P18 with a 70m rope, but the drag would probably not be worth it. The very short 11- section on the last pitch was harder than I expected having just climbed five pitches in a row of slab.
I was impressed that the route was still very clean. There is a little dirt and grainy-ness, but for the most part buffed golden granite.
Having looked for routes on large domes my self I am amazed that Kevin and Sean found a way to link all the various cracks together. As Kevin mentioned up thread Milestone follows some of the only weakness in that part of the dome. There are no other cracks nearby at all! The position above the roof is both wild and very un-nerving.
Chad, if you end up wanting a partner I would be interested in going back. The route also bakes in the sun. We were super warm when we were on the route on 11/9/2013.
Luke
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cultureshock
Trad climber
Mountain View
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Nov 22, 2013 - 05:28pm PT
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Kevin,
The area is pretty cool. These days I appreciate a longer hike and a touch of solitude. Also that face is super warm which is nice for this time of year. With the road closed it seems unlikely I'll get back out there this year.
Here are a few more shots of the route:
Looking down at the crux pitch.
Closeup of the crux pitch.
Ben starting off on the 5.11 slab pitch with some fun laybacking.
Looking up at the black streak on the 2nd to last pitch. Amazingly featured rock and tons of fun to climb.
Luke
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Salamanizer
Trad climber
The land of Fruits & Nuts!
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Nov 23, 2013 - 12:22am PT
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That route looks amazing. That kind of climbing is right up my alley, but that sure is a lot of hard climbing in a row that needs to all be done in a day. The number of climbers that could pull that one off in a day are probably pretty thin and far between. I'm not sure I'm one of those climbers. Maybe on the very lower end of the spectrum even if I were in tip-top condition.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 23, 2013 - 01:59am PT
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So Chad? Go up there and have a terrific experience, like we used to. You are very talented; make it happen. It's a warm wall, to say the least. If you get caught out, it can't be too bad. Accept the pressure and get on it! What a righteous route!
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ß Î Ø T Ç H
Boulder climber
extraordinaire
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Dec 21, 2013 - 01:16am PT
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The (yet unclimbed) dihedral would be a real plum.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 21, 2018 - 07:17pm PT
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you're all way to scared of this route bump
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Aug 15, 2018 - 02:29pm PT
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whew, I'm glad I went looking,
this one is not to be missed.
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