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ryankelly
Trad climber
Bhumi
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Not what you'd call a wilderness experience
Its pretty freaking wild up on the wall in my opinion...
It might not score 100% on all of the tick marks for the Wilderness Act of 1964 but it is certainly an amazing example of a place where humans are capable of only a visit and cannot remain for long without returning to civilization. (insert joke about Piton Pete here)
Even if you can see civilization from the wall you are often far from it (get ready for some big words Taco-Heads) spatially and temporally. Heck, you can see cities from Space but thats Wilderness in my mind also...
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john hansen
climber
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I think "Fossil Climber" was involved in the first accent of the Nose.
Wayne Merry, though I could be wrong..
It was a wilderness back then.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Tahquitz is not a SSC due to the organized efforts of...
LOCALS.
There are too many non-locals climbing on EC. They have no stake in the place, only a desire to have ticked certain routes.
Yeah, I blame the tourist climbers.
Fossil Climber has recently confessed to dumping tin cans off the route back in the day simply to impress some woman. Hey, it worked, too. And someone picked up the litter. He's still looking for the cans which went astray and were never found.
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anita514
Gym climber
Great White North
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Nov 10, 2015 - 04:32am PT
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I wonder if the El Cap haters have ever even climbed El Cap? Probably not right, cuz it sucks and single pitch crags are more fun eh? ;)
Like ryankelly said, it gets wild up there. You can see the cars and lights at night, you might be able to hear others, but you really are alone. Especially when you're up there 5+ days. After our last stint, when we got down and the Facelift stuff was happening, it was way too overwhelming for me. I'd been (barely) talking to the same 2 other people for over a week. I couldn't even formulate a proper sentence at first. It was too much and all I wanted to do was be back up there.
As for the trash, it's pretty sad to see cracks stuffed with food waste and even human waste. I dropped an empty soup can. Sorry. Whatever loose stuff we found, we packed and put away as we could. Just do your part and pick up trash when you can.
Camp Six was really bad.
So that is my noob 2 cents.
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clinker
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, California
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Nov 10, 2015 - 06:09am PT
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It might not score 100% on all of the tick marks for the Wilderness Act of 1964 but it is certainly an amazing example of a place where humans are capable of only a visit and cannot remain for long without returning to civilization. (insert joke about Piton Pete here)
Parasite attributes?
Like the slow convulsing of of an agonized bowel, El Cap in aching suspension, eventually pushes PTPP to protracted elimination.
;)
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Sierra Ledge Rat
Mountain climber
Old and Broken Down in Appalachia
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Nov 10, 2015 - 06:48am PT
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I've seen some pretty disgusting things on El Cap, things that were perpetrated by climbers. Like - the big crack at Camp 6 is full of sh#t. Who f*#king shits where they sleep?
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F
climber
away from the ground
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Nov 10, 2015 - 07:00am PT
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It's a roadside cliff with good rock. What do you expect? ''Merica!
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Nov 10, 2015 - 07:21am PT
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Overdevelopment and overuse are the bane of today's climbing. I just returned from IC where i went to Creek Pasture to meet some friends. One campsite had seven cars a couple of others five.....more than I've ever scene.
El Cap is a geologic wonder. There is nothing to compare to it on the planet......combine that with California weather, super easy access and the conveniences of nearby groceries, restuarants, bars and showers and you have the recipie for overuse.
I have always wondered why Valley big wall climbers don't export their skills more to remote, unclimbed walls.....but, understanding human nature, I don't wonder too much.
The Valley's seductive lure of an unparallelled wall plucked down in a nearly urban environment will continue to draw climbers from far and wide.
The desire to explore new and remote areas is still present in today's climbers but it has been severely muted by the, hard to resist, conveniences of modern life.
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ryankelly
Trad climber
Bhumi
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Nov 10, 2015 - 07:53am PT
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Overuse is a word that gets thrown around a lot during discussions about recreation.
The trick is disconnecting heavy use from resource degradation.
We can't eliminate all of the factors that create crowding described by Jim, but as Mikey suggests we can all do our part to care for this place.
In my opinion rock climbing has been downgraded to a "sport" in its current incarnation. I kind of blame the industrial manufacturing and retail appendage of this "industry."
What is the Chouinard quote?
"Go light, respect the creation."
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Nov 10, 2015 - 11:03am PT
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This isn't the fault of free climbers, the majority of which sport climb almost exclusively these days. It is the aid climbers. I did Zodiac when it was 9 years old or so. My partner didn't have a portaledge, but a Forrest hammock. Portaledges were brand new. I was shocked to see 4 1/4 inch bolts side by side beneath the Zorro roof, a protected bivy. There was already two piss streaks down the wall from folks leaning over and pissing out of their ledges.
Nowadays, Zodiac gets done every good day, and from looking at El Cap-Pics website, is basically a clusterf%ck. It was a popular route back then, which meant that it got climbed every two weeks or so. That adds up to maybe ten ascents per year. It had seen more traffic than anything else I had seen, but it wasn't scarred up from pins.
We pounded tons of iron. Cams were there, but hard to get, and the #1 was too big for the angle-sized cracks. Hell, a lot of Zodiac was expando. Now it is A1 with small cams.
We placed a lot of heads. People cleaned their heads instead of leaving them back then. If it looked like the wire was going to rip out, we would of course leave it, but very quickly, routes were full of fixed heads.
We also chunked our tin cans over our shoulder after every meal. We crapped in small paper bags, and tossed them as well. Nobody worried about it, because afterwards, you went up to the base with an empty haulbag and picked up all of the trash beneath the route, yours or not. It was pretty clean except for the shitbags, which broke down quickly,and so few were doing El Cap that the only really messy area was directly beneath El Cap Tower, well to the right of the Nose start. There was a 20 yard diameter area there that was a cesspool.
That was the way things were mainly done back then. The exception was the routes which overhung the trees on the right side. There is probably a tin mine worth of cans still in that area.
Nobody behaves this badly today. The problem is just too many climbers. If they drop only a few cig butts, and there are three parties per day on that section of rock, it adds up fast.
Poop tubes seemed pretty gross at first, but in practice, they were great. The sh#t problem at the base of El Cap forced their use. Carrying empty cans to the top wasn't a problem, either. Don't ask me why we chunked them without a thought. I guess it was fun to watch them fall.
Anyway, I think that it is only fair to say that the old time climbers were far dirtier than this generation. There was fossilized crap on the overhanging parts of routes. You just climbed past it. We chunked all of the soft stuff off the top in a haulbag after the route, and carried down the rack. If that was going on today, those WEML climbers would be in danger. The pigs kind of scrape the wall on the bottom half of the route over there to the right of the Nose.
As I said, it is just so many climbers today, even though they are much cleaner than we were in the Dark Ages. Trade routes are backed up like crazy. Zodiac gets done more times in one year than in the first ten years put together, so even though they are cleaner, it adds up. So it is like a crowded campground. You have to carry EVERYTHING over the top and back down to the dumpster. The last time I did the Nose, three parties topped out on one day, which blew my mind (we were the middle party). That was in 1994, I believe. I was shocked to see the Changing Corners pitch covered with fat bolts (It was freed the previous year). I did it after years on the couch, and had never seen sport bolts. The rest of the route was still 1/4 inchers, though. Tons of them in the Stovelegs.
I think that today's climbers are far cleaner. Most dutifully use their poop tubes. It is just sheer numbers. If they behaved like we used to, the base of El Cap would be a total dump.
To sum it up, today's climbers are much cleaner than the early day climbers. There are just so many of them, that if they drop only a single piece of tape, it adds up quickly.
The clean ethic arrived quite a while back.
Anyway, sport climbers all climb in caves these days.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Nov 10, 2015 - 11:15am PT
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My only beef is convenience bolts. Bolts used to be looked at as a blight. Today, they are expected at every belay. Bridwell used to build these complicated, yet safe, belays, by building complicated anchors. Most belays were natural.
Now we see fat bolts at every belay, which kills the scare factor, which is a part of aid climbing. It is supposed to be scary.
Remember the picture of the Rurp belay on the SOD? I think that there was a single bolt next to the rurps, but the cleaner (Dale Bard) jugged on the rurps. I assume that there are two fatties there now. ZM originally had an all hook belay. There was a bolt a few moves above it. Rob Slater dreamed about an all copperhead belay on the Sheep Ranch, but there wasn't a place for it.
Times have slowly changed. Natural gear is strong and good, folks. You can hang a semi on two good #5 stoppers.
I saw a picture of a classic ice route in Chamonix that we did long ago. It takes good gear in a crack next to the ice. Now it is sport bolted. I heard that the guides tired of the risk, but it really turned my head.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Nov 10, 2015 - 11:57am PT
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Good posts, BASE104. As someone climbing walls in the "old days," and still around in the current ones, I generally agree with your thesis that modern climbers are "cleaner" but more numerous. In defense of the "old day climbers," however, we certainly recognized littering for what it was, and tried to clean up after ourselves. By 1970, Camp 6 smelled of fecal matter, and we knew we had to change that - and we tried to do so, though not particularly well at first.
Still, low impact - particularly in dealing with human waste - differs if five parties a year climb a route rather than one or more parties a day.
Where I think we had it over the current scene, though, was in altering climbs to suit our convenience. We really did think about people coming after us and tried to maintain the rock and the climb as we found it. I never would have considered placing extra bolts on existing routes, except to retreat. On most big climbs, I left the bolt kit on the ground, and I think I reflected what most of us did. We saw boldness as an essential part of climbing. Many now do not; they only see technical difficulty that really can make a climb "a succession of sport pitches."
Please don't misunderstand what I'm saying. I think the current state of El Cap leaves room for any number of styles, and no current route strikes me as a pure sport climb. I just don't like the trend of adding bolts for increased security. The only huge change I see from when I started in 1967 is the frequency of ascents. When I started, people still counted every ascent of every route. That quickly changed, at least for the Nose. While I must disagree about how alone one feels on a wall when there are multiple parties in eye and earshot, it still feels wildly different from being on the ground to me.
John
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Don Paul
Big Wall climber
Denver CO
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Nov 10, 2015 - 05:01pm PT
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In our public lands, you can hike off trail, but not dig new improved paths to semi- permanently alter the land. Are there not enough paths for all to follow? Get out and explore off the beaten path and leave no trace.
Hey, I don't mean to drift off topic but you made me think of something. I have always done "off trail" hiking whenever possible - once I understand which valley I am supposed to be in, and my landmarks to get back, I get away from the hikers, dogs and crowds. If you want to experience our national parks and forest, this is the first thing to do. This year, I bought a Colorado state parks pass, which includes a lot of land, peaks crags ... and there are signs all over telling you to stay on the trails. In my opinion the people who damage these places are the ones who build the mega-trails, and particularly, pave the roads to get there. Now we have NFS and BLM demanding entrance and camping fees. For what? Build more roads and megatrails into the wilderness? It's a losing battle folks.
Well, that's my only rant. I am glad to see people cleaning up the trash, particularly in Yosemite which is a kind of spiritual home for many of us. Now, we just need to figure out some way to get Yosemite Valley designated as a protected wilderness area ....
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Nov 10, 2015 - 08:03pm PT
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"It was too much and all I wanted to do was be back up there."
I'm betting that could probably be arranged..... ;) xo
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Nov 10, 2015 - 08:05pm PT
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I remember when the entire base of El Cap was littered with paper grocery bags with piles of poo on them, delicately launched from above and riding the wind currents on the way down...
Back then it truly did seem like a "shitty" crag...
Making climbers aware and holding them responsible seemed to work. It's too bad that people can't imagine that disposing their trash in the landscape, horizontal or vertical, is really not an acceptable thing to do.
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john hansen
climber
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Nov 10, 2015 - 08:23pm PT
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I wonder if Yosemite got some really heavy rain, like in 1997 , El Nino, kind of rain ,if that would clean up some of those nasty spots on the Nose , or are those spots too overhanging to get rain and runoff?
I am hoping you guys get more rain then you can handle this year.
Let it rain..and rain some more.. and rain some more.
That still would not fix the problem of fire rings and such..
Does any one have stories of topping out and finding 2 or 3 other teams who had just topped out , and , like you, are also planning to watch the sun go down and spend the night up there on the top of El Cap.
I wonder how many people camp up there each night during peak season?
I would think a lot of people, have spent a lot of time up there.
Sounds like it could be a pretty fun party .
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mikeyschaefer
climber
Sport-o-land
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Nov 11, 2015 - 08:09am PT
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@Jim Brennan not sure if you were directing your statement at me but I’ve climbed plenty of routes on the right side. Well at least over 10 different ones. I’ve been climbing on El Cap for 20 years now. I have a decent historical perspective of the area.
@Elcapinyoazz Not sure why you think I had a portaledge stashed up there for a long time. It was only up there during the 10 days that I was trying to send the route and I was sleeping in it ( i never went to the ground). But you are a bit right about the “ I got mine now FU” except I got mine without building rock houses, leaving trash and fixed ropes on el cap. I am saying an FU to the people that think it is ok to leave 20 one gallon jugs under a boulder or build bivi caves that shouldn’t be there. You really should go up there and have a look for yourself. I know you’ve been up there before.
And to the couple comments about me being a hypocrite. Sure maybe I live in a bit of a glass house but honestly I think its more of a wooden one with glass windows, which I think most humans have. I’m not perfect and have actually had fixed ropes on El Cap. It is probably approaching 10 years ago now and I have learnt a lot since then. I actually had them on the route I just climbed, Golden Gate. I had rapped in to check out 1 pitch. they were up for a few days then I pulled them out. But what I thought was appropriate then has changed to what I think is appropriate now. As has the amount of traffic the free routes on the SW face are seeing. They are the modern Astroman. Golden Gate got climbed 4 days before me and then 2 days after me. I couldn’t even guess how many teams are on Freerider these days but it is a lot. With the increase in traffic and the rising of climbing abilities our old practices as climbers must also evolve. But what i’m seeing is our practices devolving. We are actually lowering the standards right now. It is totally standard practice to walk to the top of el cap with a bunch of ropes and sh#t, make a camp up there, rap down the route leaving fixed ropes and gear on the bivi ledges, and work the pitches for a few few days or weeks. Then once you have all the beta you start from the ground without even hauling. Is that really climbing El Cap? Is that really what it takes to free climb it? In my opinion it is absolutely not required. Climbers are choosing to make the climb easier as opposed to just getting better. But maybe this all comes back to the overwhelming since of entitlement we have as americans. “if he can climb that so can i regardless of how it impacts others.”
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blr
climber
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Nov 11, 2015 - 09:00am PT
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Mikey Schaefer = class act.
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whitemeat
Trad climber
San Luis Obispo, CA
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Nov 11, 2015 - 09:42am PT
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I think the bolts are wierd. So, back in the day, you don't drill unless absolutely mandatory, right? Now it seems you drill if it makes traffic jams easier or free climbing better or rappelling nicer. What the hell!
There were some badass people in the day that risked a lot putting up these routes. They built shitty anchors, they ran it out, they tried not to drill at all costs. What a shitty way to honor these people by drilling convience bolts so it's easier, and to justify it as, pushing the limits free climbing?
There's 2 parts to climbing, mental and physical. Back in the day, mental seemed to be as big a part as physical. But it seems to be changing to just physical.
Mikey, serious discussion thing, needs to happen is right.
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 11, 2015 - 09:54am PT
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They built shitty anchors
Not on purpose ever.
The gear was limited and there were some great improvisers.
Now a days you'll see less and less improvision and more and more sterile herd consciousness due to too much technological brainwashing.
This how it's done now and everyone go herd into the corral and drool ......
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