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WBraun
climber
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Apr 11, 2008 - 11:18pm PT
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Huh?
This is a mind blower. That Deucey document that Bachar authored. I know way too much, much more than the tip of the iceberg that's been revealed here. Much more than I even want to know.
It's scary, and too bad I can't say.
If you all really knew, what's going on.
Maybe on the guys deathbed it'll be all revealed.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Apr 11, 2008 - 11:57pm PT
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Here's what the Southern Belle topo shows. None of the 5.11d pitches look particularly runout on the topo, but of course the topo may not be "to scale".
[Edit: see further posts below - looking "safe" on the topo does not mean much (except that the topo is not very accurate in showing the runouts) - the runouts up there are very real].
1. 5.9 corner
2. 5.9, then 5.12 traverse to face crack
3. 5.12c enduro overhanging ow to wide hands and finally thin hand crack (sizing of crack is not mentioned on topo; that is from posts here); finishes with exit to dike and 5.9 face
4. 5.12d bolted face, then traverse right to 5.11a crack
5. crack protected by thin pins - 5.10 at start, 5.12a up high
6. up crack, former pendulum right freed on 5.11b face
7. 5.8
8. 5.10c start w/ no bolts, crosses South Face route, 5.11a near bolt, then 5.9 runout
9. 5.11a, 4 bolts on pitch
10. 5.11a runout traverse right, 5.11d above 3rd bolt, 5.10a face, 3.5" corner, another traverse to belay on The Ledge (South Face)
11. traverse left down and back up runout to bolt, 5.11d above bolt, short corner, then 5.10a past 2 bolts
12. 5.10b, 1 bolt
13. corner, 5.11c (R?) face reaching second bolt, 3 bolts on pitch
14. corner, then 5.10a above corner, no bolts
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BLD
climber
excramento,CA
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Apr 12, 2008 - 12:08am PT
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This May Help?
Is this Legal?
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Apr 12, 2008 - 12:25am PT
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Blair,
I think a scan/photo at that resolution will not be a problem, because it's not as nice looking as what could be copied from the guidebook.
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BLD
climber
excramento,CA
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Apr 12, 2008 - 12:37am PT
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Ok thanks Clint.
Blair
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Apr 12, 2008 - 12:38am PT
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Here is the text from Climbing #147 (1994) with the description of the attempted repeat by Hank Caylor and Alan Lester (note that the topo had just been published in the 1994 edition of Yosemite Climbs - Free Climbs by Don Reid):
Southern Belle: getting a reputation
In late July, Alan Lester joined forces with Hank Caylor in Yosemite Valley to attempt the second (and first one-day) ascent of the dicey 15-pitch Southern Belle (VI 5.12d R) on the South Face of Half Dome. The pair made excellent progress on the crux lower pitches, with Lester on-sighting the 5.12c/d fist-to-finger crack on the third pitch. By 10:30 a.m. they were over halfway up the face, with the four 5.12 pitches behind them. The upper pitches are no giveaway, however, involving very runout, insecure 5.11 face climbing. "Alan would go 75 feet to a 1/4-inch bolt, then another 75 feet to the belay," says Caylor. "And you couldn't see the bolts from below, so you were doing these moves that you couldn't reverse."
One hundred feet out on the eighth pitch, with one marginal HB nut and a tiny cam nestled 30 feet below him, Caylor took a 60-foot "slab-splashing plunge," as Lester put it. He sustained numerous bruises and abrasions and a broken ankle. "I scraped off all my skin," says Caylor. "It looks like I got dragged behind a pickup." Lester set up 1300 feet of devious angling rappels, then helped Caylor to the tourist trail, where rangers gave him a pony ride to the Valley floor. "The route was horrifying," says Caylor, who has done other Yosemite scare routes, like the Bachar-Yerian. "I'll never go back."
Lester, however, says, "I'm going back for sure, unless it gets done this fall." The route's reputation seems to grow. The taxing climbing and the long approach makes doing the route in a day even more formidable.
Dave Schultz of Yosemite and Scott Cosgrove of Joshua Tree freed the bold line in 1988. Peter Croft and Schultz had attempted it on two subsequent occasions, but reportedly never got past the fifth pitch.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Apr 12, 2008 - 01:09am PT
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Oh, I believe you Hank, it's for real up there. A topo is not that much reassurance when you can't even see the bolts up above!
[sorta like the old topo for p2 of the Bachar-Yerian - says 5.10c and no bolts in sight after the first 1-2; no 5.10c leaders in sight on that one, either - I guess it meant the individual moves were not harder than 5.10c if you were somehow fresh - I toproped....]
I was just trying to get a feel for what it might be like for someone looking at the topo, maybe thinking "that doesn't look so runout?" But looking not too runout on the topo often does not match up with the rock - I've definitely been there before. It is tricky trying to decide how much to trust the topo and when to be more skeptical, especially when you can't match up the features above with the topo.
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Raydog
Trad climber
Boulder Colorado
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Apr 12, 2008 - 01:15am PT
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RE:
"It's scary, and too bad I can't say.
If you all really knew, what's going on.
Maybe on the guys deathbed it'll be all revealed. "
holy cow it's like a spy novel,
only for real - lot easier to Coz's point
after reading all that, whoa.
good luck sorting it out guys, seriously.
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Apr 12, 2008 - 01:19am PT
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Yeah, what's up...like Werner gets to be in another secret club that I don't get to be in???
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Sean Jones
climber
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Apr 12, 2008 - 03:18am PT
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Hey Pasha !!! or "Blowboarder"
Great to here from you!!! Those were the days huh? I remember when that 220 lb crankster straight out of prison was twirling that huge knife next to me while driving Kauks van and talking about cutting people up.
I remember getting really pissed off and stomping on the gas pedal. Pissed because we were actually helping him out w/ a ride. I remember looking in the rear view mirror at you and Chris holding onto crow bars and raedy to pounce.
One wrong move from that f#cker and I was planning to lock up the brakes, send his f#cking head through the window and beat his f#cking ass hard.
I remember cranking heavy metal loud at the Cannabis wall and climbing hard for days on end and partying even harder. And god forbid we were having tons of FUN sport climbing.
What a bunch of pussies we must have been. Climbing all those sport routes and actually thinking we were cool.
Hey, I have 3 kids now and if my wife would go for it, I would have more in a second. The best climbing days of my life have just begun now that I'm climbing with them.
Sure hope they don't turn out like us and climb for fun.
Lots of love !!!!!! and talk to you soon !!!!!
Sean.
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Sean Jones
climber
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Apr 12, 2008 - 03:31am PT
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Today I went digging through piles in my climbing gear room to try and find the topo for Growing Up. Dug for an hour and didn't find it. I then called Rock&Ice to see if they had the one I sent them. They said they lost it.
Tomarrow I'll try one more time in the room. If I can't find it, I'll draw up another one. Luckily, if I have to draw another one, I have a very photographic memory and it WILL be very accurate. I promise !
Sorry it's taken so long to get it out there. I did send it to Rock&Ice in hopes it would have made it into the issue w/ the article.
Peace,
Sean.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Apr 12, 2008 - 08:58am PT
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Funny you should use Ugly American to describe rap bolting??? shows you how irational these arguments can get. Chances are pretty darn good the Euros would be all for rap bolting and use the term Ugly American on us for telling them how they are allowed to climb.......
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Apr 12, 2008 - 10:03am PT
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OK, so I just read [url="http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=566859&tn=1179"]DR's description of what they did.[/url] If you have not read his excellent summary, then you should. The link above will take you directly to it.
My summary of it is this:
"We worked really hard for the first part of the wall, and gave it a lot of thought, and did a damn good job climbing it. But then it got even harder.
So instead of backing off because it was too hard - which might have upset our sponsors or magazine editors - or backed off because it become too time-consuming or scary to drill our bolts on lead from hooks, instead we went to the summit with topropes and completed our "ascent" by rap-bolting to create what we are now attempting to justify as a legit big wall route."
"This much exhausting of traditional means before reluctantly stepping beyond them is what I see our route saying."
What a load horsesh|t. I don't see your route saying that at all. You guys just got lazy, and when you had had enough, you took the easy way to the top.
Shameful.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Apr 12, 2008 - 10:47am PT
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Just to be clear Pete...
if they had stayed in ground up mode, and drilled bolt and rivet ladders through all the harder climbing that couldn't be stance or hook drilled, would you have no problem with the route. (even if it had 4 times as many holes and missed the line of least resistance?)
it's worth answering.
Why would you feel to the need to dictate "their experience" if the outcome for the stone is actually better? It's certainly easier and safer to climb walls in the style that you do rather than do it 2 or 3 times faster like everybody else. Even the FA party on Hollow Flake didn't aid it? So why not live and let live?
Peace
Karl
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Apr 12, 2008 - 11:45am PT
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Karl, good question, and worth examining. I have another I've been pondering.
I have no doubt that Sean and the FA team had the skills to climb the route. From
descriptions, the upper slab has one .11d pitch followed by easier. This well within
the skills of the team.
Unwilling to blindly drill ladders, they rapped to scope the headwall and
discovered a dearth of stances and hook placements. It was this, and not a lack
of time (or skill), that lead them to rap bolt.
OK, the question: Should this route have been left to someone willing to risk their life for the FA?
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Apr 12, 2008 - 12:15pm PT
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Karl's hit on exactly the question I've been trying to get across as well.
Do all of you folks that don't like this route think it would have been much better with a few more rivet ladders, perhaps even a couple of failed lines of rivet ladders when they discovered they didn't go the right way?
Certainly a pretty good choice would have been not to continue, but there are certainly no shortage of routes in Yos where a line was forced by drilling more holes, so it seems like plenty of people have considered that acceptable.
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say-no-to-rap-bolting!
Trad climber
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Apr 12, 2008 - 12:51pm PT
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I completely agree with 'pass the pitons pete'.
IMO:
chop it.(a local with authority...)
don't offend the guys that did the first ascent.
try to keep this kind of climb (that never saw a first ascent) out of the Valley. Please!!!
wouldn't it be a cool climb if they just stopped when they couldn't lead bolt it anymore?
cheers
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Apr 12, 2008 - 01:00pm PT
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Since you agree with Pete, perhaps you could take a stab at the question as well, (just so we know what's OK or not OK, subject to the Chop penalty)
if they had stayed in ground up mode, and drilled bolt and rivet ladders through all the harder climbing that couldn't be stance or hook drilled, would you have no problem with the route. (even if it had 4 times as many holes and missed the line of least resistance?)
Peace
karl
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Apr 12, 2008 - 01:04pm PT
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Honestly, I'm surprised at all the talk about rivet ladders (or bathooking) as a way of making progress to install a free line.
I don't recall our ever talking about that option in those endless discussions about what to do. Speaking just for myself, the idea seems disgusting, degrading to the stone of this magnificent Dome, boring to actually do. Even if you patch it later, it would still feel like stitches in a scar on your face -- still a wound on the clean stone.
And 2-3 of those ladders to nowhere? Meandering and blanking out? Even patched after? Yuck! What we did feels much cleaner to me.
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Apr 12, 2008 - 01:08pm PT
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I find it very hard to believe that a low-angle face which can be free climbed does not have a few edges on it where you could hang a hook, and drill a bolt on lead. Did the FA team not do this for a while, and then suddenly stop and switch to rap bolt?
Largo and his Stonemasters used to do this back in the day. Perhaps John can comment?
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