2nd Free Ascent of Basketcase: a story

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Peter Haan

Trad climber

San Francisco, CA

Topic Author's Reply - Feb 23, 2009 - 01:00am PT

Munge. This is an incredible photo. Thanks for reporting that xrez has got new stuff--I guess that is what you are saying. Anyway, it does not show the "Basketcase" route but instead and way better, a fabulous shot of Kevin Worrall's "Milestone" route on the east face. 5.12b VI (19 pitches). (See previous thread from The Warbler on this. I am guessing it is his best climb.

Let's soup it up so we can see the detail that Worrall was working with. HIs route begins far bottom left and ascents diagonally up right almost to the highest point. He did this a few years ago as a fossil too.

Mungeclimber

Trad climber

sorry, just posting out loud.

Feb 23, 2009 - 01:27am PT

Peter, zactly. Good freshening of the shadows.

Kewl unearthing of a fresh persective on this route. It's an incredible area when viewed in xrez. Kevin, I can see why you were drawn to it.

I just want to try that slab to the right. I think Kevin said there is a spring on top and good bivy site.

July sounds like a good time to go in.

Mungeclimber

Trad climber

sorry, just posting out loud.

Feb 23, 2009 - 02:41am PT

done and done then. checking maps for the approach from above now...

thx!

edit- lightened original in the hopes of less data loss.

Clint Cummins

Trad climber

SF Bay area, CA

Feb 23, 2009 - 04:55am PT

Here's a fairly low-res shot of Basket Dome and the slab to the right, from the original Xres:

Below are high-res images of Milestone from Xres:

MisterE

Trad climber

One Place or Another

Feb 23, 2009 - 11:33am PT

My Gawd, I bet the position towards the top of the arch (geting closer to the edge) is breath-taking

Peter Haan

Trad climber

San Francisco, CA

Topic Author's Reply - Feb 23, 2009 - 12:13pm PT

Here is a link to a 2 mb file I created out of merging Clint's five Xrez photos. You can zoom it way up and retain resolution:

files.me.com/peterhaan/tc4il8

and meanwhile, this is what the merge looks like from Photobucket which won't let me post such a giant HR image:

MH2

climber

Feb 23, 2009 - 12:17pm PT

Something about Peter's writing makes me think of getting past fear beyond the climbing type.

Does anyone have a picture of Ed Ward(was -Drummond)? We saw a guy once who stood apart. For reasons I don't understand, other than he wasn't local, my brain made the unlikely guess that he was Ed Ward.

As Mighty Hiker mentioned, it would be interesting to hear the story in the inventive prose of PH's partner.

noshoesnoshirt

climber

dangling off a wind turbine in a town near you

Feb 23, 2009 - 01:40pm PT

Holy crap I feel like an unmotivated slug.

Thanks for the great posts, mebbe today I'll go to that new stone on the river I've been meaning to check out.

Mungeclimber

Trad climber

sorry, just posting out loud.

Feb 23, 2009 - 02:13pm PT

no doubt

thx Clint and Peter for the motivational merging of the images.

What a bitchen line.

I hate to even ask, because if I have to even ask...

What's the rating on Milestone?

Clint Cummins

Trad climber

SF Bay area, CA

Feb 23, 2009 - 04:30pm PT

Here's my attempt to draw lines to match Kevin's descriptions of Milestone:

In the top photo, you see the end of the flake system at the bottom, and then the Tuolumne style black streak finish dead center. The cracks that continue up and right look fun, but a direct exit is in order at that point.

In the fourth photo, the exposed belay where the crack disappears around the roof is obvious - from there a long pitch goes up to a belay at the far right end of the long diagonal ramp that cuts through the frame. You can see the Scott - Child route to the left - it climbs the small corner/ramp to the left of the big ramp, the face to the big tree, and up the obvious flake above the tree. Milestone stays toward the right side of that fourth photo, entering a zig zagging left facing corner.

The route is obvious in the upper part of the third photo, but lower in the frame you actually climb all the way up to the sunlit tree, then down a ramp, and up another ramp to a belay out on the arete. A short, hard traverse left gains a Wheat Thin style flake, not visible in the photo, that parallels the arete for the first forty feet. From a belay at the top of the flake, a tricky face traverse finally climbs to the crack and the crux of the route. Higher in the third photo the route is mostly obvious - the route leaves the crack and belays in the left most hole, as the cracks are not freeable where they pass through the bulge at the line of holes. The Crack Sniffin' Dike above then leads the climber back right to the diagonal crack above the horizontal line of holes. Where that crack appears to end, you traverse right to another parallel, invisible crack. The crack becomes so thin you can't really see it in the photo, but its a splitter 1/4 inch crack, laser straight for 80 feet, right on the softly shadowed arete that parallels the sharp arete of the corner below. 11d as in desperate (prolly 5.12).

From the right side of that roof, in bottom of the second photo, a weakness leads up and left on clean rock between the bushes into the white ramp. You climb that for a bit, and then exit right to a belay on stacked blocks below a vertical straight in crack leading toward the arete above. From that arete, the white hand traversing flake is well lit that leads right into the back of the huge shadowed corner.

The route goes from low dead center to upper left in the lowest photo, leaving the bottom of the prominent right facing corner on a diagonal slash to the soft white arete on its right. Through the center of the photo it climbs the right facing corner/ramp with the clean jagged arete that ends at a pointed white top. Where the ramp ends, dark features lead up and right to a difficult Arches style slab section which ends at the roof at the top of the frame.

Mungeclimber

Trad climber

sorry, just posting out loud.

Feb 23, 2009 - 05:45pm PT

How long did it take to put it in? 19 pitches never comes easy, but face it often harder due to belays, etc.

Russ Walling

Social climber

Upper Fupa, North Dakota

Feb 23, 2009 - 06:21pm PT

Werner says: I was going to onsight free solo Basket case one morning and Walt Shipley talked me out of it.

Usually when someone like Walt says it is a "bad idea" ........ well....... you get the idea.

Roger Breedlove

climber

Cleveland Heights, Ohio

Feb 25, 2009 - 01:35pm PT

In June of 1975, Kevin gave an account of the first ascent of "Milestone" in Old Geezers! (Yes you!) Write up your FA Stories and tidbits

The first ascent of "Milestone" by Kevin Worrall

Karl really does have a good idea, even though most people aren't taking him seriously, I'll start with the last, and maybe the best Valley FA I've done.

Sometime in the mid seventies, after Bridwell did Straight Jacket on Basket Dome, he told me about a long straght in crack system on the wall right of that route and near the arete of a massive right facing arch that dominates the southeast face of Basket Dome. He was really excited about it at the time, and said he thought you might be able to faceclimb to it, or that I might be able to.

Went up the Snow Creek switchbacks 30 years later to scope it out. Schwacked almost all the way to the base and saw potential for a start. Couple days later walked up Tenaya Canyon and way up the talus past Half Dome with some glasses and my camera. Began to see a line from the lowest point of Basket Dome up through some disconnected features, to three giant ramps that switchbacked nicely toward the crack system Bridwell told me of. From the end of that three hundred foot crack a weakness appeared to lead for five or six lower angle pitches to the top of the dome. Careful inspection of the photos I took that day led me to believe a route was there, and that it might not even be that hard.

There is a route there now, but it's kinda hard.

It took my partner Sean Shannon and I three trips to the Valley and some twelve days of climbing, bolting and working the route, before it was ready for a ground up ascent,

Not a ground up "trad style" ascent but more of a redpoint. With a trad flavor. We did start at the ground and climbed up, for two days, on the final ascent.

We tried to do a true ground up ascent, but what I was hoping to be 5.9 or easy 5.10 pitches at the start turned out to be four good 5.11 pitches in a row. Thin face crux on the pitch off the ground. Pure crack in a bombay flare, tight hands to rattley fingers to offsize pod on pitch two. Arches style thin, relentless, 11.d edging on pitch three. A tricky routefinding problem with a vertical step on pitch four.Two days of climbing and the hard looking part was still way the f#ck up there.

Rapped to Valley, went to SAR cache, got six static ropes from Werner and a ride back to our car at Porcupine Flat, hiked back to the rim, bivied, and rapped 1000 ft down the top of the climb to check it out, and determine if it would be doable. Living in San Diego with a wife and kids kinda takes the adventure ability down a notch or two.

Looked good...real good, but hard. The "hand cracks" Bridwell told me about were arrow cracks, with a few fingerlocks here and there. The rock was excellent, the position the cracks took spectacular.

Returned a year later, rapped down and did the upper five pitches, starting at the last belay on the crack, perched on the lip of a forty foot roof at the end of the massive 600 ft arch. What was to be pitch fifteen was 5.11 face right off the belay followed by linking small corners and arches up a rolling slab to a splitter crack finish and a good ledge.

Pitch sixteen meanders after a steep lieback flake, to a mantle, that places you below an 11d slab with three bolts, some dime edges and not much else, that gets you to a flake system, the belay comes after 180 ft.

Pitch seventeen has two easy 5.11 sections and ends liebacking a four inch thick flake separated from the wall by three or four inches. Super clean. The belay is standing on the flake where it becomes a thin ledge with a deep clean crack behind it.

The flake system continues up and right toward the summit of Basket Dome, but pitch eighteen follows the plumb line of a Tuolumne style black streak. All bolts, one cam in an overlap near the top of the 10.a pitch. Sweet slab climbing, perfect rock, way up there.

The belay below the last pitch is positioned below the steepest bulge in that zone and the climber mantles a big ol diorite knob with a stopper behind it, clips a bolt and does some thin 11a moves in a stemmy bowl to immediately easing rock and a big belay tree nearly at the dome's summit.

On the drive home we decided to do whatever we had to do to link these upper five pitches with the lower four we did a year before.

Our third effort we allowed ten or twelve days in the Valley. The ramps I had hoped to follow in the center section of the route were ruled out due to a thirty foot long, eight foot high blade of vibrating stone sitting with its ass end on the ramp and its snout cantilevered out in space. We found a route around this obstacle, that led us up into the bottom of the huge arch, and happily to a perfect bivi ledge atop pitch eight.

From our previous high point of four pitches we did a short 5.8 pitch to the base of a vertical straight in, straight up thin crack -120 ft 11.d. A desperate flared barndoor lieback start to pumpy fingers and hands, then up a steep stem corner with tiplocks to an exposed flat belay ledge positioned in the center of a 200 foot long arete.

Here the crack of pitch six becomes a ramp/hand traverse that turns the arete and leads back into a deep bowling corner that is the start of the huge arch above. This 5.10 pitch finishes on a handrail traverse with exciting distance between cams to a stance below roofs and a vertical corner.

Pitch eight (11b) liebacks a thin crack to hands through a roof, then up a steep leaning offsize with a bomber edge to more roofs, and finally the bivi ledge.

Two gnarled scrub oaks, each with a sleeping spot below, share an inspiring view of the Northwest Face of Half Dome, and a view straight up the unclimbed arch.

Pitch nine downclimbs a ramp to the left, down mantles a ledge, easy 5.11, to an easy ramp that rises to the arete of the arch and an airy three bolt belay.

Pitch ten is bouldery hard 5.11 moves sideways off the belay to a 1 inch thick flake that miraculously winds its way forty feet up the steep wall toward the three hundred foot crack system. The belay is atop the end of the flake.

Pitch eleven is the route's crux. Desperate face climbing left off the belay reaches the crack after twenty five feet. Good jams and fingerlocks disappear after twenty feet, and the angle steepens.

At this point we made a decision that will surely be controversial. The crack would take A1 arrows or A3 stoppers. At the time the 00 cams had not come out, and even those would have been hard or impossible to place in the leaning crack. We bolted it, rather than fix pins. Given the length of the route and the diffculty of the climbing on the pitch (12b) in comparison to the majority of the route's climbing, we decided it was the way to go.

After the pitch's 12b sequency, super thin crux, are forty feet of sustained 5.11 high body tension moves ending at a diorite knob that allows a shakeout. More thin crack leads to a band of giant holes that march across the face in a quartz band. Rather than follow the crack into the holes, the route exits left to the far left hole, a six foot high mini cave with a sandy floor.

At this point two parallel cracks are leaning at about a 30 degree angle, roughly paralleling the arete of the arch that was exited far below, and inching closer and closer to the edge as they rise. The cracks become unclimbable where they pass through the bulge above the holes, but some thirty feet higher again become climbable.

Fortunately, the far left hole belay positions the leader within a few steep moves of a dike that pops 3 inches out of the wall. A mantle places the boots on the lip of "The Crack Sniffin Dike". An exciting sixty foot 5.11 traverse brings the leader back to the coveted crack and a two bolt belay.

Pitch thirteen (The Hangnail Pitch) begins with good fingers for twenty feet to the end of that crack. At this point the crack system is double, so the leader moves down and right (5.11) to the neighboring splitter. Here his feet are about ten feet from the lip of what has become a forty foot roof below (the arch). Eighty feet of continuous, leaning 11d arrow crack with 00 cam pro brings the climber to the belay and even closer to the roof's lip. This amazing, laser straight splitter is the only flaw in the slab for nearly two hundred feet to the left. The leader should carry some prussiks on this lead as a fall and a pulled piece could mean a Touching the Void situation.

Pitch fourteen is easy 5.10 and becomes almost horizontal at it's end, with the leader's feet at crack level and protection placed by leaning over and peering into the crack at your feet. The belay is at a point where the four pitch crack system, "The Bridwell Cracks", finally disappears around the lip of the arch's roof.

The last 5 pitches I've already described.

Every belay on this route has two stainless bolts. All bolt protection is stainless, 90 bolts total. Six pitches have no protection bolts. Three pitches have all bolt protection. Most of the bolts on this route were placed on the lead, but not all. Some hero could have certainly done the route ground up, but we were happy to do it as we did. It's a good, hard, classic route, Great variety, quality rock, awesome positions and exposure, a line that starts at the very bottom of the dome and follows a mostly obvious route to the summit.

The final ascent we did with a bivi atop pitch eight. The days were getting longer and hotter, and we didn't want to be on the crux pitch in the midday heat. Because we had been working the route, we were able to stock water on the ledges, making hauling easier. We bivied on the Valley rim at a beautiful site behind Basket Dome near the stream that falls down it's East gully. An hour descent put us at the base, and we waited til 11:30 to allow the 11d third pitch to be in the shade. Arrived at the bivi just at dark. Summited the next day at sunset. No falls.

The way to do this route is in a day if possible. Bivi on the rim, leave your sleeping gear, crack it to the base, send the route and return to camp, a fifteen minute walk from the topout. Rapping off above the dike pitch would be tricky, so it's a committing challenge for a one day ascent. Spring has the advantage of water in camp and at the base. Car to camp is two hours. The topo should be in Reid's new guide. The cracks and the upper part of the route are easily seen from Mirror Lake near Basket Dome's skyline.

"Milestone" V 5.12b 19 pitches FA Sean Shannon, Kevin Worrall May, 2004

Mungeclimber

Trad climber

sorry, just posting out loud.

Mar 13, 2009 - 04:14am PT

this pic what I think it is?

Peter Haan

Trad climber

San Francisco, CA

Topic Author's Reply - Mar 13, 2009 - 07:58am PT

Mungie, did you check out posts 61-80? there is a massive bunch of hi-rez photography there of the route, Milestone. Your photo is of course "of the route" also but it seems you might not have seen those preceding images. You can't see the route Basketcase in your image, btw; it's on the left side of the prominent gray pillar, facing away from the camera.