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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Hey Doug, that is a great photo of Sheridan, actually climbing, big wave, red stocking hat. Thanks for digging that up and posting it.
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Owlman
Trad climber
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we digress.
trundlin that log.
what a stupid thing to do.
pissed me off for years
now Im just bitter.
I can live with bitter.
was standin in the line at the checkout at the store in the valley. little man schulz was next to me. little napolean i thought as i towered over him.
I'm like 5.4.
but anyway, I just started laughing.
thanks for the great pics o the log.
never got to see it in action.
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tenesmus
Trad climber
slc
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To quote someone earlier in the thread,
"ANOTHER EDIT: As I recall, the position of the Log was such that it was free from water flow (rot) and mostly out of UV-damaging sunlight. It was positioned perfectly for a long, long life, as evidenced by its usefulness for about fifty years."
Have you guys ever seen or hiked up to the log bridges above Harding Rapid in the Grand Canyon? I'm sure Duce has by now. Its insane. They figure they've been there over a thousand years as part of a way through that part of the canyon via an Anasazi highway. Pretty crazy stuff.
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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
North of the Owyhees
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Knott so crazy.
People that understood their surroundings.
yowza.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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I remember carefully sweeping the leaves and pine needles away with every foot placement on that final traverse and even carefully stepping over a few wet spots. That last traverse had to be the headiest part of the climb. (at least that early in the season)
that's geting close to 40 years ago.
We bivied and intended to do North Dome the next day also. Had a nice fire after finding a rotting dead log and liberating the pine knots (a trick my dad taught me). My partner was pissed the next morning as I'd had my tonsils out a couple of weeks previously and was snoring so loudly that it kept him awake all night even 25 ft or so away.
Ended up not doing North. Someone was already on the route.
Talk about diging up old memories.
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tenesmus
Trad climber
slc
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This one.
that was really fun to look for.
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couchmaster
climber
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Do any of the old dads feel that adding rappel bolts to descent the route, after many many years without them, just to make the descent off the route easier, degrades the experience and is a sacrilege much like adding bolts to the slab or any existing route would??
My first trip over the log, I stopped to slap a runner on it, my buddy quietly says: "Consider that". After considering the ride down attached to the log and my rope I continued without it. The only exciting part of that early spring ascent was when buddy's bro, leading the last pitch to get off on the wet, leaf encrusted slab to exit to the top, slipped off, with a full pitch of rope out sideways. He slid to a small 2" ledge none of us had seen and after catching our breaths, we topped out and hiked down North Dome gully.
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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
North of the Owyhees
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I've walked down and rapped. I kinda prefer the walk, actually.
More my style.
All those raps are annoying, & knott much more convenient, really.
Do what you will.
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east side underground
Trad climber
Hilton crk,ca
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climbed the log in the early eightes, remember how slick and polished it was and how it flexed!! Got caught in a rain storm high on the route, had to do the final traverse in "flood" conitions, took a huge whipper at the end just before the slab meets the forest, felt like I was on a water slide ! lucky I got a good nut in or off awahnee buttress I go!
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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I like going down North Dome Gully. Some great views along the way and the routefinding makes it feel like mountaineering. Part of the experience, the gift as it was wrapped for us in 1936.
I have bivied many times under that overhanging boulder just up on the rim. Five inches of Jeffrey Pine needles -- mmmmmmm. Some of them were planned, carrying a cookpot and coffee and a little Scotch. Gotta time it so the tiny stream is running. The Coffee deck is a hundred feet away, right on the rim.
South Face of North Dome is obviously the next day. A stellar climb itself -- just SO good -- but several notches stiffer than the Arches. Finding the right spot to climb over the dihedral is major. A friend broke his ankle falling off 5.10 on a wrong choice. Chuck Pratt reckoned SFND was one of his three favorite Valley climbs.
The full "Grand Tour" from there is to walk out the trail going west and down Yosemite Falls. Spent a second night out on that once, bivied on Yosemite Point with British poet Terry Gifford and wrote this haiku:
No pencil comes out
Poets struck dumb at twilight:
Yosemite Point
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Great post, Doug! Pratt really liked the South Face route that much?1? It's a fine route but top five for him...live and learn.
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R.B.
Big Wall climber
Land on the Lahar
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I remember crossing the log in Feb/Mar 1984 with Tim Toula.
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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I can live with bitter.
was standin in the line at the checkout at the store in the valley. little man schulz was next to me. little napolean i thought as i towered over him.
I'm like 5.4.
you could be, like, 7.6 and you still wouldn't tower over Dave Schultz.
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TripL7
Trad climber
san diego
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My first visit to Yosemite was 1971, and the R.A. was one of the routes that we climbed. The Rotten Log Traverse was a sort of right of passage from bygone years...a memorable feature.
I lead the pitch and recall pausing for a moment at the bottom of the log, and feeling very vulnerable as I stepped up on the first polished nubbin...with the echoes of "Whatever you do DON'T tie off the log!" resounding in my mind as I glanced down into the void. A sudden realization that perhaps you were not the master of your own destiny taunted me, and hastened my upward movement.
As I was leading the second to the last pitch, a nice hand crack up to the belay before the final long and exposed traverse to the left. A guy in the party ahead of us slipped on the pine needles which fill the small pockets and scooped out edges leading to the hanging forest on the left. He was only a meter or two to the end of the pitch and climb when he slipped.
I can still here the rattle of his rack "Obviously pins and large bongs!" I can remember thinking as he slid for what seemed like a very long time before shooting over the lip, and then slowly made his way back into view. The next day, the palms and fingers of both of his hands were huge blisters. Monstrous reminders of the previous days slip.
I also recall hearing of the young man(19yrs)who with his friend, decided to solo the RA's and slipped at the very same spot. He slipped on a collection of pine needles and dust awaiting his adventurous young soul. Waiting to cast him off into the void, where eternity itself was patiently waiting...
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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The pitch into the Jungle cam be epic when wet and a very good reason to bring a skinny cord with you even if you are "free soloing." My first trip across featured running hops onto sliding munge hummocks and was far more similar to glacier travel than rock climbing.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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> I also recall hearing of the young man(19yrs)who with his friend, decided to solo the RA's and slipped at the very same spot.
Jeff Drinkard, May 18, 1979
(from "Death in Yosemite")
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TripL7
Trad climber
san diego
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Thanks Clint!
Jeff Drinkard R.I.P.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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On early solo climbs on the RA I always freaked out on the Rotten Log. Roper use to make jokes about riding it down as one would a horse. Then the movie Dr Strangelove came out in 1964 and we had a role model for the ride. Impossible for me to see the movie with Slim Pickens as Major King Kong riding the nuclear bomb out of his B- 52 and not think of the Rotten Log.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Cut to the ephemeral mushroom clouds....and goodnight!
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BeeHay
Trad climber
San Diego CA
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I posted this earlier, it was removed for some reason...
1976
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