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Ghoulwe
Trad climber
Spokane, WA
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Wow, do I feel unworthy in this group! 2 ascents for me, but that was several decades ago.
#1) Salathe - Old Style. My 1st grade 6 and man was I in awe of the big stone.
#2) Triple Direct - Went to do the Nose but due to many attempts and epics going on lower down on the Nose, we started up 3D and when we got over to Camp IV, we had the route to ourselves.
#3 almost...) Had an aborted attempt on the Shield (one of the "attempts" that Hudon refers to above.)Had ropes fixed up above Mammoth when some slow-movers above us knocked a huge bunch of rock onto us and peppered our ledge and bags with baseball-sized rocks. Scared us more than hurt us, but we bailed anyway. Never have made it back.
Eric
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Maysho
climber
Truckee, CA
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Eric Barrett?
Hey I did not know you posted here. Welcome!
The road to El Cap success begins with great mentors, so Thank You for your willingness to let me, as a little punk, come along on those great days at Donner and the Leap way back when. I still see some of the old gang around here in Truckee, I climb with Bullit regularly, run into Victor rarely, and I had dinner with Jim Orey recently.
Peter
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Ghoulwe
Trad climber
Spokane, WA
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Feb 10, 2008 - 09:55pm PT
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Greetings Peter:
Yep, I do more lurking than a posting, but I do read ST.com regularly. Been living in Spokane for the last 6 years and I'm still climbing regularly (though not too hard these days...), lots of mountain biking too. Say Hi to the Truckee gang when you see them. I've seen Victor a bit in the last few years but it's been years since I've seen Jim or Gary. I do stay in touch with my Sacramento buddies and Hudon still.
Take care and I'm sure we'll cross paths again.
Eric
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Feb 10, 2008 - 10:38pm PT
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OK, 33 ascents by 33 different routes:
#1 The Nose - fall 88 with Kurt Haire. Haven't seen him since. He was a guide at Outward Bound in Oregon. Hoped for 3 1/2 days but it took 5 1/2. The Star Trek V film crew had just come down, and we scarfed some of their leftover food and water out of grey plastic buckets fastened to the wall at El Cap Towers.
#2 Salathe Wall - fall 95 with Thomas Frischmann of Frieburg, Germany. Haven't seen him since, I sent him an email once but he never responded. Not much of a writer. It was he who said "you must alvays have a vell-organicized belay and a vell-organicized bivi."
#3 West Face - late fall 95 with Thomas. Great route! One of my prouder moments back before Free Climbing Retirement. Actually got the first two pitches on toprope on sight with no falls. We bivi'd on Thanksgiving Ledge rather than climb to the summit in the dark. Built a big campfire in the cave and fell asleep on the sand. Woke up cold every hour or so, threw some more wood on the fire and went back to sleep. West Face definitely counts for me, as it is the route which would give me the most trouble were I ever to try to repeat it.
#4 Zodiac - fall 95 with Neal Weiss, who writes as Lovegasoline on McTopo. My most clusterf*#ked El Cap ascent ever! Borrowed a home-made portaledge which broke - sheesh. We were out of food, water and light on top.
#5 - Lurking Fear - fall 96 with Dean Brault, a lawyer from Arizona I think. Drove this old yellow Mercedes. He taught me about cordelettes. Some Brit climbers climbed it in a 24-hour push. We did it in three eight-hour days. We had more fun. One of the Brits saw my big wall crab and said, "Oi, a spy-dah!"
#6 - Mescalito - fall 96 with Neal Weiss. Pretty good ascent. All of the partners above I met in Camp 4. I nailed more pins in one pitch on that route than I had done in sixteen years of climbing.
#7 - Sunkist early May 97 - Dave Benton, a guy from back home who I met in the climbing gym. His first wall, a great partner. What a superb route! It should be climbed a lot more often because it's brilliant. Above the brilliant orange headwall you climb straight up this exposed arete, and I watched this peregrine falcon begin soaring from the base, and he flew by me so close I could see the stripes on his breast and curve of his talons.
#8 - Pacific Ocean Wall - May 97, the big flood. Jon Fox and his wife Lisa. He introduced me to big wall coffee, definitely the Better Way. I remember we made the approach, and climbed and hauled to the top of 4 to bivi there the first night. Cool bivi on Island in the Sky. We couldn't really find the Highbrow Bivi, not sure exactly where it is, over towards the Igloo somewhere I guess.
#9 - fall 97 - Chongo told me I ought to solo something, so I chose something longer and harder than anything I had yet done, Iron Hawk. I knew nothing about the route except Warren Hollinger told me he liked it. It was quite the adventure, I was on the wall 16 nights. I took a daisy chain fall down low on The Spoon, it's a traverse, and when I fell the daisy caught me under my rib, and I might well have cracked a rib cuz it really hurt. The free climbing up top was desperate, fully gym-rat side-pull 5.10 thirty to forty feet above psychological [not real] pro. Definitely DFU. I was using a Solo Aid so I had to pay out the slack BEFORE I made the move! Possibly the second solo of the route, Odd Roar Wiik told me that Xaver Bongard told him X. had solo'd it.
#10 - fall 98 - Aurora with Dave Benton. Another superb line that ought to get climbed more often. The expando Gong Flake is particularly memorable.
#11 - fall 98 - Reticent Wall eighth ascent with Chris Geisler and Sean Easton. Pretty darn hard, that! I remember Leo Houlding taking his 200-foot factor-one falls off the summit. When he hit the end of the rope, his chalk bag exploded.
#12 - fall 98. I attempted to solo Native Son the spring of 98, but got El Nino'd off. I returned in the spring of 99 and sent it. On my first attempt I took a twenty-foot fall after the flake I was hooking ripped and I fell onto a duct-taped skyhook on the second pitch, which miraculously held. [these were the days before I had Screamers]. That hook was almost completely straightened, so I found a crack and bent it back. Near the summit on the Golden Nipple pitch, Chris Falkenstein rapped down and took some pix of me. One appeared on the front cover of the Yates catalogue one year. The film footage appeared in the Reid aid climbing video, which is not a great video. Fourth solo ascent I think.
#13 - Jolly Roger eighth ascent fall 1999 with Jon Fox. Probably my favourite El Cap route. Superb sustained climbing the whole way. I did the hard aid, Jon the hard free climbing. Some real DFU pitches on that one. The hardest hook move I have ever made!
#14 - May 2000 Muir Wall with Christian George, Thad ? and Tim ?
#15 - Tangerine Trip solo - spring 2001 - great fun. Met up with Gerald a guide from Austria who was climbing with a Kiwi named Froggy. They passed me, and when I was bivi'd one pitch above I rapped down with my ghetto blaster, beer and whisky for a big wall beer party, and we blasted out AC-DC. "Zis vas ze best bivi I haf ever had!" declared Gerald.
#16 - Sea of Dreams - May 2001 with Nick "Rambo" Ginn. I met him on the summit after he climbed the Ranch with Tom Morrow and his girlfriend. Ammon and Gabe pendulumed over from South Seas to P.O., and Chongo jugged his fixed ropes, and we had a big wall keg party on Big Sur Ledge. Great times!
#17 - Zenyatta - fall 2001 - solo. Seemed like a good route to do. I was nailing an "expando" flake when the bloody thing blew off with me attached to it, and a thousand pounds of granite and I met in mid-air prior to the thirty-foot fall. I still have the scar on my elbow. I fell onto a slung spike of rock, and the sling was almost cut through.
#18 - Excalibur - May 2002. Tom Kasper [Tom on McTopo] made his superb 9" and 12" Valley Giant cams just for our ascent. You should see my slide show of Frosty's Claustrophobic Bivi on rockclimbing.com.
#19 - Shortest Straw - spring 2002 - solo. Great route! I sent that one pretty fast for me, about a week I think. I was definitely on-form for that one, wheras I am usually off-the-couch.
#20 - Lunar Eclipse - fall 2002 - solo. A nice line, actually. Not very hard, not A4, probably just A3+. Superb bivis at Cats and Frogs Ledge [more properly Lady Bug Ledge since BUBS was climbed first] and also above the Devil's Brow just before you swing onto Zodiac.
#21 - Scorched Earth - fall 2002 - with Tom Kasper. The fourth ascent, sort of. I dropped Tom's pig - containing all our big cams and half our food and water - from the Poison Pill. Without the big cams we had to bypass the Leavittator, Tom's reason for climbing the route. I enjoyed the A5 pitch down below, the one with the 15-foot Lovetron move! There's a really cool 30-shot slide show on Rockclimbing.com. You can read how I dropped Tom's pig. Sheesh. With half our food and water gone, we had to rocket to the summit, and I led all the pitches in blocks, four per day. People thought we bailed because after our leisurely one-pitch-per-day pace, we were suddenly "gone" from the wall, until they looked up. "Wait, they're near the top!"
#22 - May 2003 - Bermuda Dunes - Fourth ascent with Tom Kasper. Probably my second-favourite route after Jolly Roger. I asked ASCA to sponsor us to replace bolts, but wouldn't guarantee I would drill no new holes because I had never replaced a bolt before. So Chris Mac said "no" for now. Anyway, Tom made us some "tuning forks" and we replaced I think 23 old rusty 1/4-inchers with new fatty 3/8-inchers, all in the same holes. Hole count remains unchanged. We took photos, and got full future sponsorship from ASCA. There is some f*#king AWESOME climbing on Bermuda Dunes, man. It doesn't get climbed because people see "200' pitch, no pro" on it. That's the Hollow Flake of Salathe Wall, you come in at its bottom, but it's thin there. The fat stuff isn't til up higher, so if you can climb Salathe you can climb Bermuda Dunes. Of course we had Tom's big cams to C1 it. You climb through some of the biggest roofs on the Captain, right near the top. Amazing exposure, brilliant climbing. What a superb route!
#23 - June 2003 - Lost in America - my seventh solo of El Cap. I was accused on McTopo of drilling the two chicken rivets on the sixth pitch, but I didn't, though I used them. And cuz I used them I didn't chop them. Note - there is no 5.8 bypass to this crux pitch. Of course I hooked the rest of the pitch.
#24 - September 2003 - Eagle's Way - my eighth solo of El Cap. Fun route, not too hard. Circuitous annoying climbing at the bottom til you reach the headwall. Nicest C1 thin crack you'll ever do near the top.
#25 - October 2003 - Never Never Land with Sean ? and Jean-Paul Brackin who writes as diesel_smoke on McTopo. Nice route, a moderate. Pretty good climbing, actually. A real epic up and over the top of Lurking Fear. We had a lot of food, water and beer and were going slowly. The whole time Sean was fretting about his wife at home, poor bugger. Timbuktu Towers and Pinnacle of Hammerdom are superb bivis, as is of course Thanksgiving Ledge. I determined if I ever reached Thanksgiving Ledge again I would not go over the top, but rappel Lurking Fear.
Spring 2004 - fell off of Wyoming Sheep Ranch and busted my leg. Big time surgery, in a cast all summer.
#26 - August 2004, took out the one pin in my leg so I could walk. Sept 2004, Son of Heart with Tom Kasper. My least favourite route I think. Grungy with lots of wide stuff. I was so slow because of my still-healing leg, it was a long way below par, that's for sure. Traverse at the top of the corner to Sunkist is quite brilliant though, really cool solution pockets with crazy-ass pin stacks.
#27 - spring 2005 - Tribal Rite with Tom Kasper. Another great big wall camping trip, we went up via New Dawn and spent two nights on the superb Lay Lady Ledge. Great photo essay on Mctopo.
#28 - fall 2005 - North America Wall with Cybele Blood. Not sure I really liked this route that much, it just wanders around a bunch. Nice bivi in the Black Cave - it rained and we stayed completely dry. Great rainbow photos from there.
#29 - spring 2006 - Dihedral Wall with Cybele Blood. Another not-so-great route. Just not great climbing, y'know? Cybele and I finished the legit four-pitch finish, very "different" up a huge gully, some wet climbing. We rapped the gully, then rapped Lurking Fear to finish.
#30 - spring 2006 - Cosmos with Tom Kasper. We were all tooled up with ASCA bolts for Wings of Steel, but I wasn't prepared to do fifty-foot runouts on truly-sick hooks to climb the route. Probably the hardest route on El Cap. Now there is a superb study in "resentment" - all of it recorded on McTopo. Should be a magazine article on that route, man. Cosmos, we replaced a bunch of bolts. We trundled a huge piece of rock off of Cosmos - it had stopped the previous team on P6 where they had drilled a rap bolt. I drilled a three-rivet ladder around it, then after cleaning the pitch trundled it with one hand, after removing the booty #3.5 Camalot of course. I think we reckoned it weighed about 6000 pounds. Amazing explosion at the base. I chopped the rivets afterwards, as there is a thin crack where the flake used to be. Rapped Lurking Fear again.
#31 - fall 2006 - Magic Mushroom with Tom Kasper. Another not-so-great route. The upper corners are really awkward and hard to climb, not fun. Replaced a bolt or two. Nice bivis along the way at Mammoth, Grey and Chickenhead ledges. Tom got off-route at the penji below the pinnacle, and we climbed two pitches of Flight of the Albatross by mistake, after which we followed an obscure traverse over to rejoin the Mushroom.
#32 - spring 2007 - rematch on Wyoming Sheep Ranch with Kate. Big wall camping at its finest. I replaced lead rivets on Welcome To Wyoming pitch, a Real Live Death Pitch, that, with an incredibly sharp lip to a roof that could well cut your rope if you fall.
#33 - Horse Chute with Holly Beck, fall 07. The big corner was OK, but not everything it was cracked up to be.
See you next spring for #34!
P.S. Would like to hear you guys' take on the quality and climbing on these routes:
The Heart Route, Pacemaker, Grape Race, NJT, AO, Kaos, BUBS
If you're interested in any routes, I have annotated topos, so drop me an email and I can send 'em your way.
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Trusty Rusty
Social climber
Tahoe area
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Feb 10, 2008 - 10:56pm PT
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Yeah. . .Tucker, your looking sweet these days! Is that Popcorn in yer hair . . .or a dab of Butter?
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Gagner
climber
Boulder
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Feb 10, 2008 - 11:08pm PT
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Lots of ascents of the big stone on this thread. Wish I had done more, but at 47 y/o still trying. My short list:
1979: Nose with Rick Harlan in 2 1/2 days-could have done it in two days but slowed down by a party of three jugging with packs, not hauling.
1979: Zodiac with John Barbella and Karl McConachie. With an old curry ledge, and the 3rd always took the swing - yee haw!!
1980: Mescalito with Steve Schneider. Spent two nights partying on the Bismark.
1980: Pacific Ocean Wall with Chris Bellizzi - somewhere between the 10th and 13th ascent, who knows..?
1985: Son of Heart with Gary Thunen. Great route ... 6th ascent?
1985: Salathe with Jim Woodmency
1986: North America Wall with Renny Jackson
1987: Muir Wall with Bill Crouse in super cold and stormy conditions.
1987: Lost in America with Eric Brand - 2nd ascent. Hauled a ton of supplies for the total 'fat man' ascent - 11 days!!
1988: Nose in a day with Tom Davies
1988: West Face in a day with Steve "Lucky" Smith
1989: Nose in a day with Steve "Lucky" Smith
1989: (I think): Salathe in a day with Steve "Lucky" Smith - 3rd one dayer.
1999: Zodiac in a push with Steve "Lucky" Smith
2001: West Face again with Steve "Lucky" Smith
2003: Shield with Lee Lambert
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Gagner
climber
Boulder
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Feb 10, 2008 - 11:15pm PT
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Ummm I don't remember Kathy...:)
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Trusty Rusty
Social climber
Tahoe area
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Feb 16, 2008 - 04:52am PT
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Nice publish Pete.
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Feb 16, 2008 - 11:33am PT
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Thanks, Rusty. Be sure to go back and check out some of the others like Ammon and Erik E. and Bill and Tommy T - some very impressive ticks. And also some glaring ommisions - as in, "routes with no second ascents". And let's get Gerby on this thread!
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clustiere
Trad climber
Rock Ridge/ Oakland CA
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Feb 16, 2008 - 11:56am PT
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3 fer 4
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Chicken Skinner
Trad climber
Yosemite
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Feb 16, 2008 - 12:37pm PT
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T2,
When you did Zodiac with Hatchett and Lovelace, did you get rained on heavily near the top?
Ken
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Feb 16, 2008 - 12:58pm PT
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P.S. Still waiting to hear you guys' take on the quality and climbing on these routes:
West Buttress, The Heart Route, Pacemaker, Grape Race, New Jersey Turnpike, Atlantic Ocean, Kaos, BUBS
And I'm available to answer questions or provide beta if anyone's interested - cheers.
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aaronj
Big Wall climber
KY
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Feb 16, 2008 - 01:27pm PT
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26 ascents, 18 different routes, 8 solos, 15 ascents during the 2007 season
#1 lurking fear-tyler jette, matthew thomsen, 3 days 9/04
#2 south seas-solo, 14 days 6/05
#3 zenyatta mondatta-scotty vincik, jake hector, 33 hrs 6/05
#4 tangerine trip-zak tourville, jake hector, 25 hrs 7/05
#5 scorched earth (10th pitch variation)-scotty vincik, dan oppenheim, 36 hrs 7/05
#6 shortest straw-solo, winter, 8 days 2/06
#7 native son- solo, 10 days total, 7 days of storms 4/06
#8 eagles way-lance lemkal, carson, 36 hrs 8/06
#9 lost in america-solo, chopped chicken rivets, 8 days 8/06
#10 zodiac-tim, jason, 5 days 10/06
#11 north america wall-lance lemkal, jean redle, 5 days 10/06
#12 virginia-dave turner, matt thomsen, 26 hrs 5/07
#13 zodiac-matt thomsen, lance lemkal, 26 hrs 5/07
#14 dihedral wall-ivo ninov, 3 days 5/07
#15 NA-lance lemkal, ted, 3 days 6/07
#16 shield-lance lemkal, ted, 3 days 7/07
#17 zodiac-solo, 26 hrs 7/07
#18 zodiac-solo, 18 hrs 7/07 (same week as^)
#19 tangerine trip-ivo ninov, 16 hrs 8/07
#20 nose-corbin usinger, 17 hrs 8/07
#21 tempest-solo, 9 days 9/07
#22 nose-corbin usinger, 12 hrs 9/07
#23 zodiac-solo, 12:52 9/07
#24 aquarian wall-alik berg, 26 hrs 10/07
#25 zodiac-lance lemkal, 8:30 10/07
#26 tangerine trip-ivo ninov, 14 hrs 11/07
plus leaning tower, washington column, h-dizzle and the porcelain wall
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GDavis
Trad climber
SoCal
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Feb 16, 2008 - 02:09pm PT
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how do you solo zodiac in under 13 hours.....
f*#k.
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aaronj
Big Wall climber
KY
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Feb 16, 2008 - 04:23pm PT
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only one 70 m rope
lead pitches 1-3 until bolt ladder to hook transition, rap/clean
leave biner on last bolt in ladder on pitch 3. loop belay to pitch 3 anchor. again loop belay and back clean all of pitch 4 to anchor. pull rope, rethread thru anchor backclean all of pitch 5. repeat pitch 6. self belay with grigri as normal, pitch 7 (black tower), 8, 9 and 10. rap cleaning the nipple f*#king sucks. thread rope thru anchor below mark of zorro, loop belay to above lip of roof, backcleaning everything. repeat for the rest of route.
all in all i only belayed (traditionally) for 4 pitches and did the rest of the route facing 150-230 falls if i popped as i only used 2 daisies.
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James
climber
A tent in the redwoods
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Feb 16, 2008 - 04:28pm PT
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And if he hadn't stopped for so many smoke breaks, he would've done it in 10.
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GDavis
Trad climber
SoCal
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Feb 16, 2008 - 04:34pm PT
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Amazing. Good description, I can see how that works.
*balls shrink into stomach thinking about it*
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lucho
Gym climber
San Franpsycho
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Feb 16, 2008 - 09:02pm PT
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Sorry about that previous obscene comment James made me do it! Now to answer the question, 3 times up the big stone.
First - 26 hour push on Eagles Way
Second- No falls ascent of West Face
Third - Attempt to free FreeRider in 3 days, climbed 21 pitches with no falls then fell apart on pitch 22 the "crux" boulder problem pitch. Nevertheless tons of fun!
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T2
climber
Cardiff by the sea
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Feb 17, 2008 - 10:13pm PT
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Chicken Skinner: I don't believe we encounterd any weather when we did that. To be completely honest though it is hard for me to remember for sure. I can tell you that we had a great time up there. My job was basically to advance the rope up higher on the climb while Mike would film Rick releading certain pitches below.
PTTP: I am really poor in the beta department, I rarely give it because in my opinion no beta is better than bad beta.
Kaos: I would describe as rope stretcher piches, loooong reaches for any rivits, and heads up climbing. Z.M. felt easy when we got there. Steve had told us they used 200' ropes and streched them out. The thing that I remember the most was my first lead (the second pitch) I ran out of rope 20' shy of the belay, strung out on thin gear (beaks and heads) I was forced to tie the trail line into the lead line, put myself on belay with a clove hitch to make the last 20'. Scarry head up sh#t.
Atlantic Ocean wall: I felt this one climbed a super cool part of the wall between the N.A. feature and Iron Hawk. It is almost like a buttress that divides the diorite and that golden granite. It is fun to say I got to climb about 3 pitches that now rest at the base. The true Atlantic Ocean wall from the start has not been climbed since Steve Gerberding soloed it right after Rick and I climbed it back in 94'
The pictures I have posted before but I am sure it has been a few years.
On my post that list's my ascents the last one listed was supposed to be Lunar Eclipse not Lurking Fear with Jim Erdman. My edit button doesn't appear for some reason.
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Mar 18, 2008 - 02:02pm PT
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I'm a speed climber now! Zodiac was my 34th ascent.
Nanook - still waiting for your numbers - did you figure it out? Wasn't our push of Zodiac your 60th El Cap ascent??
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