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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Oct 27, 2007 - 07:38pm PT
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Great job Levy and Erik. Glad that you made it without incident and with lots of excitement. Can you believe that Xavier Bongard soloed the second ascent? I was very glad to have company working that one out.
I would like to hear a detailed report on the state of the route these days but that can certainly wait a while. There were absolutely no enhanced placements on the FA and beaks were not in the picture. Charles lead the Gold Doubloon using only the smallest of heads (six in a row!) pushed deep inside the coin's fragile edge with a long thin Bugaboo on the most subtle and impressive lead that I ever saw him pull off.
I am curious about the 190' lead given that we had 165' ropes on the FA. Some jerk probably decided to take the bite out of an A5 section by establishing a belay in the middle of it. I certainly hope not but don't see the upper belay being repositioned amidst the expanding nonsense on the pitch above the Doubloon. Looks like a lot of bolts have sprouted up at the belays. Thanks for posting up and congrats on doing one of the proudest lines ever.
Anders- Other than the Pirates of El Cap fantasy that Charles and I used to entertain ourselves, The Jolly Roger name also derived from an incident high on the headwall when a blue Collins belay seat slipped out of a hole in the back pocket of my Patagucci climbing pants. It disappeared with the wind followed by my curses only to show up two days later tantalizingly close to us whirling in the ever present breeze. "Yarrr, and ye be hoistin' yer colors and the Jolly Roger before we be comin' aboard," we both roared.
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Duke-
Trad climber
SF, aka: Dirkastan
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Oct 27, 2007 - 07:40pm PT
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Sweet TR! Lots of beautiful pics. I really liked the BD biner picture.
Thanks,
-Dirka
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TradIsGood
Half fast climber
the Gunks end of the country
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Oct 27, 2007 - 07:59pm PT
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Beautiful!
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WanderlustMD
Trad climber
Lanham MD
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Oct 27, 2007 - 08:37pm PT
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Incredible shots!! Great job on the route.
What kind of camera did you use? Are you a photographer or a very skilled point and shooter? Either way, they sure turned out great!
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Levy
Big Wall climber
So Cal
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 27, 2007 - 08:47pm PT
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Steve Grossman- I think you're mistaken about the length of your ropes back then. Many, let me repeat that, many of the leads were in the 175 to 190' range. The 6th pitch for instance, a full rope stretcher, my partners had to undo the knots from the belay to give me enough rope to tie in with. Same with the Golden Doubloon, the 17th pitch ramp, the 11th pitch, 13th pitch(which combines 2 pitches of Sunkist), and perhaps more, I'll have to check my notes later but I am at work right now so I don't have my info with me.
The next to alst pitch was also memorable. Long, long reaches, hard to place beaks in weird placements and tough to see rivets in the rock made for a stout finish.
There were only 2 or 3 enhanced(ie:drilled!!) hook placements on the entire route. I have heard that some parties may have filled in some of these holes over the years. Many of the belays had old rusty 1/4" bolts and 1 single, old 3/8" rawl but some belays did sport a Petzel longlife bolt or some other modern bolt anchor.
I'll write more when I return home tonight.
Levy
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couchmaster
climber
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Oct 27, 2007 - 09:11pm PT
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Looking forward to it, and thanks for sharing.
I'd encourage PTPP 's to share stuff too. (and encourage youshouldbe to STFU with the negativity)
Sweet pics!
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catfish
Trad climber
los angeles, ca
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Oct 27, 2007 - 11:30pm PT
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Very nice job boys! And, Levy, thanks for all your patience while I figure all this aid business out. It's all just a matter of time...
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Hummerchine
Trad climber
East Wenatchee, WA
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Oct 27, 2007 - 11:39pm PT
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Photos made me want to cry, they are sooooo awesome! Thank you!
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T2
climber
Cardiff by the sea
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Oct 27, 2007 - 11:44pm PT
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Great photos and report Bill. It was cool spending what little time it was with you guys before you left the Valley.
What do you mean "the wheels blew of his bus" Please elaborate.
Hehehe :)
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Levy
Big Wall climber
So Cal
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 28, 2007 - 11:00am PT
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Bump. I added a bunch of new pics above.
Somw real nice ones, some mixed in w/ the others, some posted at the end. Enjoy!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Oct 28, 2007 - 01:47pm PT
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Levy- the 165' ropes are a fact. Several pitches are rope stretchers. ZM went up the previous year and there was a big controversy when they used extra long ropes without disclosing it and caused Todd Bibler and Catherine Freer to have an epic while on the first repeat because they had to add several intermediate belays with a meager bolt kit.
The original station below the Gold Doubloon had only one 3/8" split shaft with a Leeper hanger next to conventional gear in the crack leading directly to the Doubloon itself. If you climbed by any more than the single bolt connecting the cracks on that lead then something has been altered. All of my belay bolts were 3/8" until we ran into drill holder problems up high. The belay at the base of the last pitch has three 1/4" bolts and is the only exception. The station at the end of the Doubloon was so wildly exposed that even Charles was compelled to place a fattie (his first on a wall route!) I used to ride him endlessly over the bolt quality issue with little effect.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Oct 28, 2007 - 01:55pm PT
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Hi Levy,
That looks like one of the really great El Cap routes and leave it to you two guys to bag it.
Nicely done, as usual.
JL
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ec
climber
ca
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Oct 28, 2007 - 02:08pm PT
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Awesome! The JR is bad ass.
Many moons ago, Richard Leversse, Todd Vogel and I attempted a 2nd ascent of the JR. Leversee got to that infamous mantle and it was wet with water seeping from above! Needless to say, he popped for a short one a bit higher up and hit his arm on the only bolt out there. Bailed. Probably a good thing he did that, since a day later it snowed like hell for several days after.
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Raydog
Trad climber
Boulder Colorado
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Oct 28, 2007 - 02:51pm PT
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mega-duty thread - excellent stuff
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Oct 28, 2007 - 02:55pm PT
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Hey guys,
I climbed Jolly Roger in the fall of '99 with my friend and erstwhile partner Jon Fox, whom I have seen only once since. If anyone knows where he is, I'd love to email him and say hi. As far as I know ours was the eight ascent, and I found the climbing pretty darn hard in places. I think Jolly Roger is my favourite El Cap route, which says a lot as I've climbed 33 so far.
I don't remember seeing any enhanced placements anywhere, except in the three pitches that are shared with Sunkist. Someone accused me of drilling on this climb, but I didn't, at least on any pitch. I did add one convenience rivet to hang a ledge from at the top of 10 I think on the right side of the Heart, because at the time I didn't think it was a bad thing. I no longer do this, however. Sorry, Steve.
The third pitch was my lead, and I took a fall when I clipped into someone's perfectly placed "timebomb" head, just tapped into the crack hard enough to support your weight, at least long enough to get onto it - the bastards! That was the first and last time somebody "got" me.
I loved the fourth pitch - I used duct-taped Talons on Screamers for pro. Evidently I placed a few heads, as you see below. The face is not too steep, which makes the micro edges seem reasonable. I remember some reachy topsteps, and you have to keep your balance!
Jon led the next pitch - a 7-inch 5.10 crack - completely free by pushing a #6 Friend above him for pro as he climbed. Wow! One wonders how many still have that skill. He also led the next pitch, the long low-angle "bumpy" face you see in Bill's pictures above with damn near a hundred-foot runout on solid 5.10 ground. There is a pretty spicy mantel at the end, and I seem to remember hearing about someone [Aischan Rupp?] taking either a huge whipper from it, or else downclimbing. Anyone know for sure? [Aischan was a wicked hard hardman who died on the Matterhorn]
Jon led the first two pitches above Mammoth Terraces, which were both really hard. He described the first pitch not as 5.10, but as 5.11x with these handslap moves palming up an arete thing. I would like to hear Steve's and Bill's take on that pitch. Jon completely free climbed the second pitch above Mammoth at about 5.10. He said the 5.8 chimney was rather harder.
One of the definite cruxes for me was the third pitch above Mammoth, where the hard stuff begins on top of the little pinnacle you see Erik standing on. There was a bolt or rivet, but then I had to hook. The problem was, there were no edges to hook within reach! I got up as high as I could, but still couldn't find anything. I distinctly remember duct-taping a pointed Cliffhanger onto the end of my hammer, and scraping it around to try to find something - anything! - that would catch. After about fifteen minutes of frustrating insanity, I could find only one thing. So I joined my two aid ladders end to end, and climbed up and up and up, to find my little hook barely caught on a little kinda-rounded-kinda-flat edge about 1/3 the size of my baby fingernail. Yikes!
I kept thinking that if I blew the move, I would fall straight onto the top of that pinnacle, and it would split me in half from stern to stem, as it were. Eight years later my hands are still sweaty as I think about it.
Duct-taping a hook on the end of your hammer might be the only "legit" way of using a cheat stick. Thoughts? I describe this in detail because I wonder if that's how Steve and Erik did it. After I finished the pitch, I looked around, and it seemed to be the one and only way to climb it.
I also led the Golden Doubloon, which is over 110 degrees in steepness. In fact, so steep is this pitch, that Bill's photos are not oriented correctly. Look at the angle of the dangle of Erik's aiders - the pitch is so steep, Bill couldn't imagine turning the camera far enough to get the plumbline straight! So it's actually quite a bit steeper than it appears on the photo.
My notes describe expanding nailing with some beaks near the top. Great value pitch!
You join Sunkist for the next couple-three pitches, and the climbing suddenly becomes so much easier that you think you've just turned from a rutted muddy bush road onto the interstate highway. Sunkist is a frickin' brilliant route, too - possibly the best A3 on the Captain, and it rarely gets climbed. I don't get why this is so - it ought to be super-popular.
The A4 ramp to the A5 corner was at the time a full-on PDH - DFU pitch. I was stuck for a couple hours on the ramp, trying to figure out what to do. I was unable to find anything that my hook would bite on without peeling off - it was like trying to hook a Kellog's corn flake. Eventually I found a bat hole, which was only reachable by standing in the hero loops of my aiders. I say this because I wonder if the bat hook hole was added after the first ascent? I suppose its addition is conceivable if whatever nubbin of choss Steve hooked here happened to later bust off. At the time I was there, there was no other way to do the move without the hole.
The A5 corner above was way stout, too. I made about 25 consecutive head moves, most of them in parallel equalized placements about one or two inches apart, and most of the heads being #0 and #1. So I might have placed around 40 heads. I had a couple lead heads that some Spanish climbers gave me, and I really liked them. Nate Beckwith said that if you blew it on this pitch, you would break every bone in your body when you hit the ledges below the corner and above the ramp. In the photo below, you see some of the actual heads that Jon cleaned from this pitch:
I read above that this pitch now takes beaks? That surprises me, because at the time a beak wouldn't fit, only heads. Just when I thought I had finished the pitch and could cruise to the belay, I had to negotiate passing a super-loose block. I think it's one of the hardest pitches I've ever led. I am very curious as to how it has changed since I was up there. I didn't know head placements could evolve to beaks - I thought it usually happened the other way round. Thoughts?
Jon led the penultimate pitch, and reported more hard Talon hook moves, another real A4 section. The rivets were at the time very hard to find as they were mostly covered with lichen.
Brilliant route - tell us more, Bill and Steve!
P.S. If you're interested, you can click here to [url="http://img233.imageshack.us/my.php?image=jollyrogertopoingiftf3.gif"]see my Jolly Roger beta sheet and notes.[/url] I've got notes like these for most of the routes I've climbed, so if you're interested in doing something, drop me an email and I'll see what I can give you.
Cheers,
Pete
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John Moosie
climber
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Oct 28, 2007 - 03:12pm PT
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Thanks for the report and the pics. Super cool.
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raymond phule
climber
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Oct 28, 2007 - 03:58pm PT
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Great thread! Thanks.
I am pretty sure Aischan Rupp downclimbed from the mantle on his first try.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Oct 28, 2007 - 04:16pm PT
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The pitch below the Doubloon had one of the most exciting moves that I ever pulled off and featured a ring angle claw with the nose of my Yo hammer through the ring. It was a long reach to a blind shelf and so steep that I had to commit before eyeballing it. As I swung from the claw and moved up, I was horrified to see that it had gained purchase on a sloping ledge about two inches in width. There was no going back down and the claw tip steadily travelled towards the inevitable with a slow grinding path as I dangled below.
I grabbed my third aider with a Chouinard Meathook and weighted it just enough to hop the skating claw into a much better spot at the very back of shelf. Whew! The claw tip had about 1/2" more to skate as I pondered the thin white scratch mark and shook my head!
I continued hooking out left and took an exciting fall on to a 1/4" buttonhead when a Michener novel sized flake sheared off just short of the belay. The rock was so steep that the plunge loosened the bolt and I gave it a tap back in. Charles thought the section rated an A5 grade and I couldn't argue.
For the record, duct tape on granite is BS technique IMO and using the hammer to extend your reach is entirely fair game. One of the disadvantages of hammerless climbing is the loss of that additional reach which I use to maximal advantage.
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Holdplease2
Big Wall climber
Yosemite area
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Oct 28, 2007 - 05:35pm PT
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Hey Levy:
A couple of questions for you, if you have time:
It looks like a lot of your pieces have short 5/8 inch webbing loops...fatter than "usual" tie off sticking out rather than a biner or skinny tie off. I'm wondering if:
* You do this rather than adding a biner to pins like arrows, blades, and angles to reduce stress on the piece if you fall?
* These placements are peckers and you are using the webbing thru the hole on the pecker because it has a higher breaking strength than the wire that they come from?
* These are just a bunch of pins that went in part way, they needed tie off, and you guys use the fatter stuff because its more secure?
Thank you so much,
-Kate.
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Watusi
Social climber
Newport, OR
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Oct 28, 2007 - 06:27pm PT
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Super Job Bill!! Give my thumbs up also to E when you see him next. Awesome!
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