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KP Ariza
climber
SCC
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Jun 30, 2011 - 05:01pm PT
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Roger, thank you for shedding a little light on this obscure but quality route.
Eric Kohl took this picture of me in 1984 and Iv'e always had questions about this route. It was not in any guide books so we went and spent an entire day up there cleaning it on aid. There was about a thirty foot section of the crack that was chocked with hummocks and seemed to be un-protectable. In addition, the crack in the finishing corner was filled with grass. After hours of cleaning, Eric and I both climbed it and thought it to be around 5.10+ and really good. We told Donny Reid about it and he had no prior knowledge of the route. It was even mentioned in a subsequent issue of climbing as "Where's The Reef" 5.10b.
Then, Donny Reid told us months later that you had previously free climbed it. Understandably we were a bit skeptical.
You guys were obviously honed to have climbed that thing in the state it was in without cleaning, but I still wonder how you were able to protect and free climb the middle section with out the crack exposed from the muck?
KP Ariza
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 3, 2011 - 01:35pm PT
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Hi AP Ariza,
Dave and I hiked over to that side of the Salathe face for the same reason that you and Eric did: That corner really stands out. This is a scan of the Meyer’s yellow guide published in 1982. As you can see the corner is clearly marked but with no route given.
In the 1987 Meyers Reid guide the same drawings are used but show the routes by the names Dave and I gave them.
BTW, we did not rate Smee’s Come On. The 5.11 seemed extreme to me when I finally saw the guide. Your 5.10b seems more reasonable.
Here is what I remember:
The corner was pretty crungy, at least out to the last bit with the finger crack. It seems like it would be a lot of work to clean the thing our given that it leaned over and is so thick.
As I remember the pitch, the first part of the corner leaned right but not too much, then about a 1/3 of the way up, the corner leans severely right and then finishes with a vertical section. The main wall was not too steep until the last part of the corner. The rock under the leaning corner was covered with friable flakes; potato chips everywhere: I skated around on them. That part of the wall under the leaning corner seemed to be protected from the elements, and stuff that would normally get washed off just sat there. I brushed a lot of micro flakes off in the lower part of the pitch.
I don’t remember the climbing as being that hard on the lower part of the pitch. As the corner leaned over, I was below it, face climbing. I think I remember a small left facing flake on the main wall, facing the main corner, about where the corner really starts leaning. I was able to get a nut behind that flake. I have a vague recollection of climbing up to the main corner to get something else in as I worked out across the slab. I didn’t have as many pieces in as shown in your photo.
When we climbed it, the last section, the crux, was very clean. I think that I stood in the same place you are pictured and scoped out the last section up to the ledge, the top of the first pitch of Wendy, under the Wendy chimney. I remember that section, both the main wall and the corner, being more vertical as compared to the lower part of the pitch. (This is not the way it looks in your photo. Maybe the vertical portion of the corner is out of sight in the photo. And I was standing on a something farther along than where you are.) From that good stance, I climbed up and got in a good nut at the base of the last, steep section, and then I down-climbed to the good stance to visually memorize the moves. I didn’t think stopping in the last section was a good idea and planned to run it out to the top.
Dave and I had climbed the other obvious right facing corner between Peter Pan and Wendy a day or so before, the one we named Lost Boys. (The 1987 guide lists the two climbs in different years, but we did them in the same year: I think it was 1975.) Dave had been up there on one of the other routes, probably Peter Pan or Wendy, both popular, and had noticed that corner. He asked me to come along to give it a try. We called the route Lost Boys, in keeping with the Peter Pan story line, and rated it 5.9. The other routes in that area are much better.
The right facing corner to the right of Wendy was obvious so we decided to return and give it a shot. When we hiked back over there, under the great slab, we passed Bachar who was walking back toward the Nose. He was alone but had ropes and gear. I asked him what he had been up on. He was both evasive and revealing: it was obvious that he had been up to look at the corner right of Wendy. It was also obvious that he knew that Dave and I had been up there the day before. This was the time with I think John was at his worst. I told him that he should go scope out his own routes. He just responded with his patented bullshit smirk.
After resting on the stance under the final corner, memorizing the moves and gathering courage before the crux, I climbed back up to the corner and found that the corner had both a sharp edge for laybacking, which I could see, and that the crack had perfect fingerlocks. I ran it out quickly and found the really good holds just before the ledge at the top. It was over in less than a minute.
There was a simultaneous cheer coming from the base on the other side of the face, over near the short routes between the Dihedral and Salathe Wall starts. I guessed that climbers on the short routes were watching me work the pitch. Once you are out to the position shown in your photo you are high up on the slab (probably well over 300 feet off the ground) and in an exposed, obvious position. With me climbing up to fix a piece at the bottom of the upper corner, backing down to the stance, talking to Dave, screwing up my courage, I signaled to our far away observers that something was about to happen. (On the other hand it might have nothing to do with me; maybe someone made it up one of the hard routes there at the same exact time.)
I was surprised when you posted your photo. I have asked twice if anyone had ever done this route. About seven years ago, I asked Bridwell if he knew if anyone had done the route: he said that he thought that the route had fallen off. It might still be there, with the same look it had when we and you and Eric did the route, and Jim just assumed that anything worth climb climbing was not there. I also asked here on ST and Melissa posted this reply in September, 2004:
Hi, Roger...
Take this with a giant grain of salt...If Bridwell said it fell off, then it probably did. However, when I was up there earlier this year, my memory tells me that we at least thought that we identified the climb and that the zone below tinkerbell/peter left, which is where I kinda remember smee's and capt. hook being, was incredibly mossy and chossy.
Given the 1982 guide, I can understand that you and Eric thought that the corner was unclimbed. I am glad that you thought that it was a good climb. I thought that the last bit was pretty good, but the lower corner was not very good. This is the sort of climb that should never be recorded so that adventurous folks can go climb the thing, expecting a first ascent and enjoy it as such. My guess is that Dave and I and you and Eric are the only climbers who have ever done the route. (Maybe we should regrade it 5.13c R. Kids would be swarming over it.)
However, your skepticism of our abilities is clearly unwarranted. We were not just honed, as you say, we were badass. As in badass, badass--just look it up in under mythic self-delusion. Ha!
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Roger is being modest, the fact it, he climbed most of that stuff before the lichen, moss, etc, colonized the cliffs after the glacier receded, the first glacier.
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KP Ariza
climber
SCC
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Ha ha....nice! Great job Roger. Your description of the route sounds pretty much the way I remember it. Thank you for your account of the first ascent. That whole little area up there has some quality routes on great rock and its a shame they don't see more traffic.
I don't think that Smee's fell off and it shouldn't be difficult to see in recent photo's of El Cap's left side. It is such a prominent feature that I would think it would be visible if it were still standing. Any photo's out there??
There are still a few things over there yet to be freed. I freed the left aid line on Delectable Pinnacle with Joe Hedge in 1986 at 5.12b/c and I know Dick Cilley was coming close to freeing the right one. Don't think he ever went back.
Another stellar finger crack that never gets done is a route Dale Bard did that's in the guide as Delectable Pinnacle Center Route 5.11c. Anyways, great to hear about your route and those times. Keep up the badassness!
Ken Ariza
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 3, 2011 - 07:45pm PT
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Hey Ken,
How is your memory? Is the portion of the corner above you the last bit, or is the last bit out of sight?
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KP Ariza
climber
SCC
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Well, my memory is shot for the most part except for things that interest me the most like climbing. I could tell you exact sequences of routes I haven't climbed in over twenty years but I'm hard pressed to remember what happened in the movie my wife and I saw two weeks ago. I'm pretty sure there is a fair bit of climbing around the lip that I'm looking up at in the photo. The last thin section of the climb is really good as I remember, thin lie backing on, thin locks with positive gear.
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Some mention, way up thread, about the influence various
climbers have had in the area of nuts and clean protection.
Most mention Doug and Stannard and Royal and Chouinard and Frost,
starting around 1970, in a context with Doug's clean climbing
piece. Just a fine point, it all really began earlier, though, about
1966. Royal and Whillans visited me in Colorado in fall 1966,
and we climbed Ruper, and I did Supremacy Crack, etc., and Royal
at that time was really keen on making the switch to nuts, long
before the catalogue came out and others started to make it happen.
Everyone's contribution certainly was valuable, but Royal was
right there determined to get us to use nuts, in 1966. I did start
using them a bit but didn't really make the full conversion until
after I did the West Face of Sentinel and El Cap, in June 1967. I
soon realized those climbs would have been much easier with nuts
and wished I had used them. We only brought two nuts on the Nose
and did use them several times... Soon, though, I began to have
great confidence in them and realized how useful nuts were, how
much sense they made. Quite a few of us were beginning to use
them in the States a couple years before the clean climbing movement,
the Chouinard catalogue, Doug's writing, Frost's hexes, etc. etc.
really took off. Sometimes the report makes it seem as though it all
suddenly began with Doug's fine piece or with Chouinard, but the use
of nuts was well in the making in '66 (and well before that, in England).
One of Stannard's great contributions was how he tested R.P.'s and showed
how strong they could be. We were using them already, but he took a
kind of scientific approach to it all, studying things out, and applying
his mastery, to show how reasonable it was to use these on the lead and
to fall on them, if necessary...etc.
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Nov 11, 2012 - 09:58pm PT
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Bump this for Mr. Stannard. One of the best to post on the taco stand.
Period.
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rlf
Trad climber
Josh, CA
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Nov 11, 2012 - 10:24pm PT
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Without question!
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jstan
climber
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Nov 11, 2012 - 11:58pm PT
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I'll make shameless use of Goldstone's great line.
Does this mean I have to die now?
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Kim Ferguson
Boulder climber
Madera,Ca.
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Mr. Stannard,
Hi there sir! My name is Kim Ferguson. I met you in the summer of 1967/8? I just wanted to thank you for the great time we spent camping . I still remember talking to you and you disappearing...only to find out you had scurried to the top to get used to the rock!
Glad to see that the Lord has been good to you. I even remember you being on the cover of Life magazine!
May the Lord continue to bless you and yours!
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