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pix4u
climber
Sonoma, CA
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Jan 12, 2011 - 12:51pm PT
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We had a bosun's seat, an canvas arrangement like a seat that we adapted for climbing use. We spent one night below the overhang at 700' sitting in these "chairs." It was not very comfortable, and we didn't get much sleep.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 12, 2011 - 12:56pm PT
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Thanks Ed.
Still have one of those seats kicking around or a photo of one?
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pix4u
climber
Sonoma, CA
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Jan 12, 2011 - 02:54pm PT
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Don't think I still have one of those around. I do have some old climbing gear in the garage; next time I am cleaning it out, I'll look, but I don't think I ever saved it. I'd have to look through all my El Cap pictures to see if it shows up in one of the transparencies. Keep in mind that I lost all my original B&W negatives in a fire. So if I had it in B&W it would have to show up in one of the prints I made before the fire. I shot both color and B&W on the climb. I carried 2 folding 2 1/4x 2 1/4 cameras, one loaded with color, the other with B&W. I used the large pockets in my old army surplus pants to carry them. Fortunately I never dropped one.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 12, 2011 - 02:58pm PT
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If you have some of the custom hardware that you guys made for the Chief still in your collection, that would be wonderful to see as well as hardware used on the Dihedral Wall.
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pix4u
climber
Sonoma, CA
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Jan 12, 2011 - 03:36pm PT
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Here is a picture of hardware collected for the El Cap climb. On a separate thread, Memories of Jim Baldwin, there are pictures showing the extra large pitons made by the blacksmith in Squamish, in place behind the Split Pillar.
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Jan 12, 2011 - 04:01pm PT
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Fabulous stuff, everyone - keep it coming!
OK, more precise question about the hauling - my understanding is that Royal claimed to invent the pulley plus inverted ascender setup for hauling, obviously sometime later since you didn't yet have mechanical ascenders.
Sometime before Warren Harding and crew hand hauled their loads - dang.
Did you guys use a pulley plus inverted prusik, or some such setup? Did you haul by hand? How heavy were your pigs? And I don't believe you said how many nights you were on the wall for both your pushes.
Cheers,
Pete
P.S. Pity Mr. Prusik didn't have a chance to speak with Mr. Klemheist beforehand, or perhaps Mr. K. was knot yet born?
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SGropp
Mountain climber
Eastsound, Wa
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Jan 12, 2011 - 04:01pm PT
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I climbed the Dihedral Wall in May of '76 with Brian and Tom Conry . This was just two days after doing the Triple Direct. I think the route had probably less than 20 ascents at that point, as the cracks were still in nearly pristine condition. We did most of the pitches at least 1/3 to 1/2 clean using hexes and stoppers and slotted copperheads.
We had single point hammocks that Brian had sewn. They were pretty good, considering the alternative but by morning it felt like one had been sleeping stuffed in a laundry bag.
Tom got caught by darkness leading one of the pitches in the upper left leaning dihedrals and got to the belay long after it was pitch black. He had no headlamp. At the end of the lead we sent him his hammock and bivvy gear. A while later, something flew by in the night, followed by a curse. He had dropped his bivvy gear and had to spend a cold night. When I cleaned the pitch in the morning, I was quite impressed with his difficult lead done in total darkness,with lots of solid but tricky nut placements.
We had a very violent lightning storm and rain high up, but luckily we were a bit sheltered by the steepness of the wall.
We could see Jim Beyer and a partner climbing the Aquarian at the same time. Beyer took a big ripper when a bolt broke at the top of one of the rivet ladders. We ran into them on Thanksgiving Ledge. Other than them we had that whole side of El cap to ourselves.
We finished the original route all the way to the top. The climb took us 6 days with no pitches fixed in advance.
For some reason the route had a somewhat dubious reputation at that time , but I thought it was an amazing place to spend a week, with great sweeping views down the wall, an elegant and natural direct line up a beautiful section of EL Capitan.
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Eubanks,D
Big Wall climber
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Jan 12, 2011 - 05:08pm PT
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This thread is amazing!
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pix4u
climber
Sonoma, CA
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Jan 12, 2011 - 05:32pm PT
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I looked carefully at my pictures and this bosun's seat is clearly visible in a couple of them. Look for the light colored fabric around the buttocks area. We used these when we were prussiking or stopped for some time at a fixed point. They had metal fastenings into which we could clip carabiners. I'm posting two pictures showing it By the way, how do you post two or more pictures in a thread without having to make them appear as separate posts?
The second pictures shows hauling a bunch of stuff in an uncomfortable way, but we shortly adopted the practice of hauling gear on a rope trailing below us but attached to us, when we were prussiking. (Third picture)
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pix4u
climber
Sonoma, CA
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Jan 12, 2011 - 05:33pm PT
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pix4u
climber
Sonoma, CA
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Jan 12, 2011 - 05:34pm PT
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pix4u
climber
Sonoma, CA
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Jan 12, 2011 - 05:36pm PT
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Ihateplastic
Trad climber
It ain't El Cap, Oregon
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Jan 12, 2011 - 06:44pm PT
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Ed... For posting multiple pics...
Select your first image and go through the process of putting it into your comment. Do NOT post your comment yet! Now, just skip down a line or two and select the PHOTO tab again to put in a second image. Repeat until tired.
Hope that helps!
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pix4u
climber
Sonoma, CA
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Jan 12, 2011 - 06:48pm PT
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By the way, interesting bit of trivia: I picked out the line for the route from a photo in a magazine before ever arriving at the Valley.
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Captain...or Skully
climber
leading the away team, but not in a red shirt!
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Jan 12, 2011 - 06:52pm PT
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Well, yeah. It's a Line. That's the beauty of a line. There it is.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 12, 2011 - 08:08pm PT
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Ed- Would you take a guess at the proportion of soft iron to harder alloy steel pitons in the selection shown earlier. Count any aluminum angles or bongs in the steel category.
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hamie
Social climber
Thekoots
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Jan 12, 2011 - 09:10pm PT
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Here is part of a letter which Jim Baldwin sent me at that time:
"Still working on El Cap, up 2000' now. Still very bad nailing, continuous 6.7 and 6.8 sometimes 6.9 Another man on team, Glenn Denny [Leaning Tower W. face]. We all have had leader falls. I fell once ripping 4 pins, and also my hand. The last 3 pitches have been overhanging all the way."
As you would expect, it was written on that fancy Yosemite Lodge writing paper. Big thanks to the YPCC!!!
Cheers, H.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 12, 2011 - 09:41pm PT
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Nice share!
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pix4u
climber
Sonoma, CA
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Jan 12, 2011 - 09:49pm PT
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I would guess that only 25% or less of the iron used shown in this picture was of the new chrome-moly type pitons. We were very poor, and couldn't afford the price of the new pitons by Chouinard. The rest were the old softer iron pitons from Europe. Before Jim and I left to climb the route on ryEl Capitan, we held a party in Seattle, where we asked everybody attending to bring something to help us out on this venture.
My thoughts on the free ascent of the Dihedral wall are this: Mark Maguire and Barry Bonds broke the 70 mark for home runs after using steroids. That seems analagous to the first free ascent of the Dihedral Wall.
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Gene
climber
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Jan 12, 2011 - 10:15pm PT
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My thoughts on the free ascent of the Dihedral wall are this: Mark Maguire and Barry Bonds broke the 70 mark for home runs after using steroids. That seems analagous to the first free ascent of the Dihedral Wall.
Provocative. Are you referring to ‘working’ the route? Red point style? Better tools? No fear of the unknown?
As the FA guy of #3 route up El Cap, I’d appreciate your expanded view.
Thanks, Ed!
g
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