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brotherbbock
Trad climber
Alta Loma, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 26, 2009 - 04:00pm PT
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nice pic.......the overlay seems like a great idea :) Help us fumblers out as much as possible!
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Jake,
> That random fixed rope up there is on some old route...its in the green guide and apparently a lot harder than it gets rated. The rope's on our endless list of trash to eventually be removed.
Bruce Hildenbrand and I went up there today and removed two ropes there, two short ropes down below, many tattered slings, etc. So you can take that off your otherwise endless list!
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JakeW
Big Wall climber
CA
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NICE! Even prior to being a professional tat remover, that rope bugged the you know what out of me. I'm not really sure why. The first time I rapped the ledges it nearly suckered me in. After that I'd look over there and it would send me these ominous vibes...extremely disproportionate to what it was. My buddy Andy Puhvel also talked about how sketchy it was, even when newer. Apparently Jim Herson liked to take him that way...without really using the ropes. Anyhow, I guess I owe you my paycheck.
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Mark Hudon
Trad climber
Hood River, OR
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If you've done the raps quite a bit then finding them in the dark shouldn't be too hard. If you weren't very familiar with them finding them in the dark would be pretty much impossible, not to mention quite dangerous.
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cragnshag
Social climber
san joser
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Wow, Clint. For a guy with bum ankles, you sure get around. That's a long way up.
Rope booty: looks like you got yourself some new lead lines :)
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bhilden
Trad climber
Mountain View, CA
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I have the ropes in my garage and all I can say is that you wouldn't want to lead anything above about class 1 on them. Some of the nylon slings were so old and tattered that they had grass growing out of them. There was so much tat in every fixed piece (several pins and one bolt) that it took 5-10 minutes at each stance just to cut everything out.
Bruce Hildenbrand (bhilden)
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cultureshock
Trad climber
San Diego
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My partner and I came down the East Ledges yesterday 11/3/09.
The top line (purple dynamic) was ok (no knots) but getting pretty frayed/fuzzy at the end.
The second rap had two static lines each with a tied off core shot right at the anchor. Easy to pass, just setup the belay device below the knot.
The third rap had a dynamic line (orange) that was in ok shape, no knots. This rap ended on a small sloping ledge in group of trees.
The last rap was a black static line. Seemed like the newest, no knots.
Clint, pretty sure I saw you and your partner removing the ropes. I thought it was you, but couldn't tell for sure. We had orange and red helmets and a big haulbag. I don't know you personally but I think you know my GF, Lizzy, through SAC.
Thanks for cleaning up!
On a side note there were two huge Yates harnesses at the top of the raps and a rope, coiled sitting on a tree branch next to the last rap station. Were these left behind after a rescue?
 Luke
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bhilden
Trad climber
Mountain View, CA
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I am not Clint, but I play him on TV. Actually, it was a long day yesterday, hopefully Clint is getting some well-deserved sleep.
Just so, everybody is clear about what we did, we didn't remove any of the ropes on the popular, four-rappel, descent of East Ledges. We went up there to remove the two fixed ropes (it looks like one, but is actually two) that were strung from the top of the second rappel (first rappel after the tree rappel) from the other (more eastern) East Ledges descent route to the bottom of the crux pitch of the East Ledges climbing route.
Besides removing the tat and ropes we also removed three old, unneccesary 1/4" bolts and added some big quick links to the webbing around the tree at the top of the eastern East Ledges descent route(the descent route without the fixed ropes).
Bruce
ps- we saw two parties with haul bags come down the raps. One was at about 10-11am the other about 3 hours later.
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Mark Hudon
Trad climber
Hood River, OR
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Thanks a lot for doing that. If you're ever up in Hood River, look me up and I'll buff you out with a couple pounds of coffee.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Cool, Luke. If it was you guys in the morning, then I think I have some shots of you and your partner:
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JesseM
Social climber
Yosemite
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Clint, Bruce,
Thank you guys for your consistently awesome service to the Yosemite Climbing Community. How hard was it to get everything out of there?
I can't believe how much fixed tat, rope, anchor slings and other random climber leavings we still find here in Yosemite. I know you've removed several thousand feet of it in your day.
We may be doing a top of El Cap restoration, and clean-up next week. Any chance you have any weekdays off?
Jesse
Yosemite Climbing Ranger
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msiddens
Trad climber
Mountain View, CA
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yuck and sorry you had issues there. Definitely harder in poor light...we nailed the C version and route finding in the light was good and found the ST description to be helpful
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ricardo
Social climber
San Francisco, CA
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My worst memory of coming down the east ledges has to be when i came down with 2 haulbags by myself ... took me 10 hrs to shuttle the loads .. (of which the rappels where the quickest part since i was able to descend with all the bags at once) ..
.. lord ..
.. out of food.. out of water 1/2 way through the day .. -- next time i'm paying folks to meet me at the top ...
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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If anyone really wants to scope the East Ledges descent out, take some binos up the Nutcracker.
Once you pass the Midnight Lightning and come out of the manzanita tunnels do not hug the wall anymore and work well right. Look for the dirt track above a clean narrow gully that some folks may want a rope to work across for the first time if you have a haulbag on. The top rappel anchors are just over lip shortly after you gain the dirt track.
If you continue along the wall to the point where the drop gets spooky, you are in the wrong spot. Back up for a ropelength or so and try to head directtly cross valley.
Best to not try working this out at night the first time down with bags.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Jake,
We're not looking to booty anybody's paycheck - strictly amateurs!
I think Bruce just couldn't resist after we saw that old fixed rope ourselves after doing the East Buttress a few weeks ago, and then hearing about the descent epic where the people followed the rope.
Jesse,
Bruce and I can't deny having fairly flexible schedules, after doing the East Buttress on 10/22 (Thursday) and the East Ledges on 11/3 (Tuesday)!
If you and Jake have more bite-size projects of this type, we could get psyched for more.
A full scale top cleanup is probably too much hiking for wimpy old me, though?
For years I thought about how to get that old fixed line on Higher Aspirations / NW Face of Higher Spire, but never got serious.
It was cool when Tom McMillan and his partner (Jay Wood?) cleaned it up!
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cragnshag
Social climber
san joser
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good work guys!
Now if we could just get some of these young whippersnappers to pitch in some community service....
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Fletcher
Trad climber
somewhere approaching Ajna
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Awesome Clint and Bruce. Thank you.
Eric
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Unforgiven
Mountain climber
Dirt
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Holy f*#k up. i did this onsight in the dark w/ ease. what's next how do you pass a knot on rapp
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WBraun
climber
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Thanks for replacing the mank with guys. Just pointing out subtle observations; when the biner (red arrow) behind the locker is clipped in the rings lose their equlization.
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bhilden
Trad climber
Mountain View, CA
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Werner,
heh, heh, heh:-) The next rap is not straight down, but goes slightly to the climber's right. When the ropes are properly weighted the rings are equalized.
Bruce
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