Free solo OnSighting the Steck Salathe

A little (worthwhile) thread drift

right of passage for young rock stars to prove themselves by 3rd classing their way up Sentinel via the Steck Salathe.

Feb 2, 2006 - 11:28am PT
Sitting here recovering from shoulder surgery and going through this site is bringing back a flood of memories. Only a few friends know this hopefully interesting free-solo story - so here it is.

The inspiration, really, was Henry Barber's free solo of the Steck Salathe - in 1977, I think. I was intrigued by this, and in 1978, I too, free-soloed the Steck-Salathe. I did it the same way Henry had done, I brought a long sling and a carabiner with me to protect the one scary piece of face climbing. The whole climb took about an hour and a half to complete.

The Steck-Salathe was a climb I had done several times before, and, frankly, free-soloing it did not seem to be such a big deal, in retrospect. It occurred to me that an on-site free-solo of a Yosemite classic would raise the stakes. I don't remember what made me think of the Lost Arrow Chimney - it wasn't a climb that was really on my radar or anything, but I was very confident in the wide crack arena and figured there was no way that I couldn't free-solo 5.10a.

So, sometime in the late Spring of 1979, I let some of my friends in on it and told my buddy Alan Chase that if I didn't show up for dinner the next night, to walk up the Falls trail the following morning and throw a rope down to the notch so I could prussik out.

I left in the morning, excited, of course. I brought a paperback book, "The Myth of Sysiphus", that I stuffed in my cotten warmup pants, just above the ankle. The climb went quickly and rather uneventfully. Because I figured that I might have to hang out at the notch all day anyhow, I took my time - hanging out at certain ledges - but still the whole climb took only about 3 hours. Like on the Steck-Salathe, I took a long runner and a carabiner. I used the runner on a fixed pin at the scary, flakey section discussed in this post, and then abandoned it.

When I topped out on the notch, there was a party setting up to do the tyrolean traverse of the spire. Two clearly inexperienced guys were at the notch, and one guy in particular, was really spooked and could not believe that I had soloed up to that point. I asked if I could use their ropes to get out. Both guys ended up jumaring up to the top of the wall. I was expecting that maybe they would send jumars down for me, but after the second guy went up, nothing happened for like 15 minutes, in spite of my yelling. So I got out two small cords and prussiked their rope to the top of the wall.

I hiked back to Camp 4 with little fanfare. I do remember John Long congratulating me the next morning.

If Henry actually used the sling to protect the face move, well then that's not a true free solo.

I almost hate to post this, but a true on-sight solo doesn't include a sling to clip, into a bolt or pin to protect a section.

I was always amazed at places like Josh as to how much more confidently I would solo if there was someone toproping within reach. As if I could actually leap over mid-fall, grab both ropes and save myself, which fortunately I never had to test! But somehow it made it seem pretty safe and I recall some times being way off the deck and climbing cavalierly due to the rope being nearby.

One thing about the place, though, the wide cracks gape at you and the whole face sort of glowers. After the grey rock and dark shadows of Sentinel the NE buttress of Higher was all sunny yellows and oranges. Hadn't done it either so naturally I got lost on it as well - this time up high. On top of Higher my mind was blown and my eyes were wide open. It wasn't so much the amount of climbing as the scenic tour factor.