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Mimi
climber
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GDavis, after checking the journal, we fixed and hauled four at the end of June 1986, blasted on June 30, and were down on July 5. My notes for the 5th state: Down, hammered, alive. I'm glad I can laugh about those words today.
On June 28, Eric Goukas was killed on Cosgrove's new route next to Crucifix. Needless to say, being on a wall diverted those thoughts from that tragedy and definitely helped me to deal with it rather than being stuck on the ground.
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survival
Big Wall climber
arlington, va
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Well done guys! Nice trip report. I love it when guys aren't afraid to show their "aid" side!
Bruce
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GhoulweJ
Trad climber
Sacramento, CA
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Nice, really nice.
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Cracko
Trad climber
Quartz Hill, California
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Great TR....Thanks. Just disappointed that posts like this get swept off the first page in a matter of minutes when all the rest of the "jerk off" off-topic posts stay forever. Sad !!!
Cracko
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Mar 21, 2008 - 07:13pm PT
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I climbed Never Never Land in October, 2003 with a couple of friends – J.P and Sean – it was their first El Cap route, and my 25th. You can click here to [url="http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/3752/neverneverlandtopomz0.jpg"]have a look at my detailed beta sheet.[/url] Never Never Land is a superb route, actually, and isn’t really hard. I rated its hardest pitches NTB, which would translate to A3 or less. Accordingly it's a route that really ought to get climbed more often!
The route starts out rather inauspiciously with a long traverse, and then you have to haul up this huge slab towards the water-streaked headwall above. You can see Horse Chute, Dihedral Wall, Cosmos and Excalibur up and right.
Despite the traversing on the first seven pitches, there is good climbing on solid rock. You'll find a rivet ladder on the slab that requires you to make genuine top-steps right out of the hero loops in your aiders. This is impossible to do with the Russian Aiders I use, so I had to clip a small sling to the rivet and stick my toe in that.
The real selling feature of Never Never Land is its superb bivi ledges, which from my beta sheet above you can see occur at the tops of pitches 15, 18, 20 and of course on Thanksgiving Ledge. But all of those pale in comparison to Timbuktu Towers. Unfortunately, to get on top of the Towers, you have a pretty crappy haul, so we hooked up our haul monkey Sean on the 2:1 hauling ratchet and sicced him on the pigs. Nice headphones, eh?
So this being another of my big wall camping trips, we set up Advanced Base Camp on Timbuktu and fixed pitches above. Evidently it was not very windy.
We liked the place so much, we spent an additional three nights on it while fixing pitches. You can see that I’m eating tomato soup and chili for super – the real question is, what was I drinking? Oh, I see four comprimed beer cans...
I decided to set a new big wall precedent by dropping one of my aid climbing shoes, and the only spare shoe we had was one of J.P.’s free climbing shoes, which was several sizes too small. I had to put water in the shoe every morning to stretch the leather out enough to fit it on my foot. I’m sure you can guess how well I enjoyed the descent, too.
Another view down on Timbuktu Towers as Sean jugs up while we were fixing pitches.
We finally hauled above ABC, heading seven pitches up to camp at another great bivi ledge at 15.
Once you get high above the slabs, the route gets steeper and the hauling easier.
There’s another superb bivi ledge area down and right from the Pinnacle of Hammerdom, which you see here. Nanook told me it's possible to free solo up to the summit at about 5.4.
Sorry, these are about the only pix I have available – all of my pictures are in slide format [which I have yet to scan] and most of these were taken by J.P. Brackin.
We ended up on Thanksgiving Ledge a day later, and with all our camping gear endured quite an epic going up the West Buttress finish and down the East Ledges. I promised myself that if I ever ended up on Thanksgiving Ledge again, I would not go over the top, but would instead rappel Lurking Fear. It’s a promise I’ve kept three times, after Cosmos, Dihedral Wall and Horse Chute.
I hope you like the photos, eh?
Cheers,
Pete
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GDavis
Trad climber
SoCal
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Mar 21, 2008 - 08:04pm PT
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once again pete, you rock!
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bringmedeath
climber
la la land
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Mar 21, 2008 - 11:01pm PT
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Was looking at pics like normal then read the shoe dropping part... had to get back on my couch after falling off laughing... well not really but that was one of the funniest things I've ever seen you post.
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Mar 21, 2008 - 11:40pm PT
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Oh dude, you'd have laughed even harder if you saw my toes after wearing those damn things for a few days....
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MZiebell
Social climber
Prescott, AZ
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Mar 22, 2008 - 09:07am PT
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Bump
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J. Werlin
climber
Cedaredge
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Mar 22, 2008 - 11:28am PT
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Pete, very nice addition to the thread. Thank you.
I was looking at the pict. of Sean hauling--it looks like he is attached to the haul rope with a clove hitch and would have to keep slipping that knot as he hauls?
I'm probably seeing the system wrong.
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J. Werlin
climber
Cedaredge
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Mar 23, 2008 - 05:48pm PT
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bump for a cool thread.
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Mar 23, 2008 - 09:36pm PT
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J. - have a closer look at the system Sean is using to haul. It's a 2:1 mechanically advantagous setup known as the "hauling ratchet". The cord you see clove hitched isn't the haul line, but rather a separate piece of 6mm cord that is formed in the shape of a letter "zed" using two pulleys.
Below the zed-cord is an inverted ascender, which is upside down on the haul line. The zed-cord is fine-tuned to precisely the correct length using the zed-cord.
When Sean goes down 3 feet, the pig is raised 1.5 feet. Get it?
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J. Werlin
climber
Cedaredge
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Mar 24, 2008 - 01:28pm PT
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Pete--
Got it now. When I look closer I see the zed-cord is of thinner diameter, missed that the first time. System looks a little like a spanish burton.
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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
North of the Owyhees
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Jan 26, 2009 - 10:09am PT
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Zed bump.A blast from the past(well, fairly recent past, considering.....).
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Thorgon
Big Wall climber
Sedro Woolley, WA
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Jan 26, 2009 - 12:37pm PT
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Way to push it you guys!
Thor
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Mr_T
Trad climber
Somewhere, CA
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Jan 27, 2009 - 11:03pm PT
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I've heard Aquarian is a stinker. Good to hear this line is so much fun. Looking for some kind of A3 mellow for this summer - recovering shoulder injury - put away the rock shoes, get out the cam hooks.
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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
North of the Owyhees
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Jan 27, 2009 - 11:05pm PT
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I hear good things, Mon.....The Left side!
Yowza....It's a Wall!
A4 old school is what... A2 max new wave?
You're on it.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Jan 27, 2009 - 11:50pm PT
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Enjoyed this cool Thread and Pics....jess wishin'.....
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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Mar 26, 2009 - 01:16pm PT
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yessss
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