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wstmrnclmr
Trad climber
Bishop
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Thanks Clint and John for the added clarity of history. That helps a lot. A beautiful line and again thanks for all the hard work on keeping it alive.
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bob
climber
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Me too. I haven't moved much for two weeks.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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funny, I didn't even think to look at the 1994 guide...
I'll up date the topo with the top pitches later...
here's a photo of the top...
the aid route comes up in the shadows in the center and then traverses left under the roof system, the new route and perhaps the Tora Bora route, busts through the roof system
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Hey John, What were the two other legacy climbs the team did on Middle?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 1, 2017 - 07:10pm PT
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Hi Roger, here's the write up on the Middle Routes:
MIDDLE CATHEDRAL
Several weeks before the Misty Wall send, on the North Face of Middle Cathedral, the Terrex crew completed routes two and three of the Legacy Project.
The first project was the first complete ascent of Central Pillar Direct, which combined the efforts of various teams climbing on the route over the past 53 years. The history is a rambling saga, and runs something like this:
The first route established on the Northeast Face of Middle Cathedral was the Chouinard/Pratt route, bagged in 1964 by Yvon Chouinard and Chuck Pratt. This line follows the prominent right-facing corner running 1,200 feet up the wall to the U-Shaped Bowl and the Powell-Reed ledges. The first 500 feet ascends the right side of the Pillar of Frenzy. This section was first free climbed in 1978 by John Long and Pete Minks at 5.12.
Five years prior, in 1973, Roger Breedlove, Jim Bridwell, Ed Barry (and others scattered over various efforts) climbed the first pitch of the Chouinard/Pratt (5.9+), then exited left onto splitter cracks for four more pitches to a big ledge atop the Pillar of Frenzy, 500-feet up the wall. They carried on another pitch and a half and traversed off left (5.10) and into the Kor/Beck route, and finished up to the U-Shaped Bowl (I think. When I repeated the route shortly after the FA, I rapped off after the traverse).
Tobin Sorrensen and Gib Lewis returned in 1977 and pushed the Central Pillar line directly up for another three pitches, using some aid. Bridwell returned with John Long and Billy Westbay in 1978, and free climbed the Sorrensen/Lewis direct finish at 5.11.
Later that year, or possibly the next (1978), Dale Bard and Kevin Worrall added a new first pitch, left of the Chouinard/Pratt, directly up the face of the Central Pillar. The was the last piece of a composite line that was totally independent of the Chouinard/Pratt.
At 5.12d, Bard and Worral's 60-meter lead off pitch was at the time one of the most difficult free pitches in the world.
NOTE: I later repeated this pitch with Richard Harrison, and around the same time, Steve Grossman (photos below ) also did as well, and I remember this lead as possibly the hardest free pitch I ever did on Middle, right there with Black Primo and Mother Earth. There's some sketchy face work down low but the business is a thin crack and face sequence up high, all led on gear. Modern climbers found it as hard as I remembered, rating it 5.12d - this from people who climb 5.14. So that pitch is real. Hats off the Kevin and Dale.
Over the years, the first five pitches of the Central Pillar (minus the direct start) became one of the most well-traveled multi-pitch free climbs on earth, with a conga line of teams swarming over it every single day from early May to the end of October. The direct finish and direct start were rarely if ever done.
Throughout April and early May of 2017, the entire eight pitches of the Central Pillar, including the direct start and direct finish, were fully restored: brushed and groomed, anchors rebolted, and some of the leads re-engineered into 50 and 60 meter monster leads, with each pitch individually freed by Marcus Garcia, who headed up the restoration effort with Ryan Sheridan and his "Strawberita" crew. (Strawberita is a go-to intoxicant for many valley locals, described as "24 ounces of sugar love, with three shots of bathtub rum and genuine artificial strawberry flavoring - all for two dollah."
In early may, Chelsea Rude and Ron Fundeburke made the first continuous ascent of the entire Central Pillar Direct, with Chelsea leading the crux first pitch (12D), a superb 60-meter face and thin-crack pitch (the crux is led on gear) that joins the standard Central pillar route atop the 2nd pitch. Pitches 6-9 involve marvelous 5.10 and 5.11 climbing up flakes and shallow corners on the open face, including the iconic Fissure Largo on pitch 8, a laser-cut 5.11 splitter up flawless granite. From the top of pitch 8, the route traverses right into an easy crack leading to the U-Shaped Bowl.
Several weeks later, Marcus Garcia and Rita Shin teamed up for the first ascent of "Cosmic Girl," which links the first four pitches up the Chouinard/Pratt, with the upper pitches of the Central Pillar Direct. The second pitch involves a 100-foot, 5.12 fingertip lyback that rates among the best free leads in the valley. Garcia added a direct finish above the Fissure Largo, a "sting in the tail" of steep and runout 5.11 face, ending on a ledge named Planet Garcia.
Garcia is a long-time Yosemite veteran who has climbed scores of walls and top drawer free routes and says that Cosmic Girl is the best free climb he's ever done in the valley, featuring a full smorgasbord of Yosemite techniques, from thin to wide to open face.
Remarkably, the entire route is protected on gear save for one bolt on the 60-meter 5.11 pitch below the Fissure Largo. This pitch was first led free by Tobin Sorrensen and later by Billy Westbay with only a knifeblade for protection. However Fundeburke took a whipper onto said blade, which shot from the wall like a toothpick from an olive, blowing out the placement, which Garcia later replaced with the only protection bolt on the route.
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Levy
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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Way to go, a strong show of persistence!
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aldude
climber
Monument Manor
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Funny thing about the direct 60m first pitch on Central Pillar...the Yosemite Valley Free Climbs guide shows it rated 11d and no bolts...and no verbal description or first ascent credit...?
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tarallo
Trad climber
italy
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Hi Great job.
when a topo of the two routes will be available?
thanks
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Thanks John, Clint for the links and the future history.
I remember the Chouinard-Pratt corners being grass and dirt filled. I had concluded that they were a major water shed, and it would be too much work to clean them out and that they would not stay clean. Did someone purposefully clean them out? Or, do I need to clean out my memory?
,
I know that Chuck tried several times to work out a better route for the Chouinard Pratt with a direct finish above the U-shaped bowl, to no avail. Tom Higgins, I think, tried to free the corners. In any case, Jim and I tried the straight-in cracks to the left. They were covered with large hummocks of dirt all of which came off easily on lead.
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WBraun
climber
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From the Misty Wall we now mysteriously wandered over to the Middle Cathedral ...... :-)
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 2, 2017 - 07:46am PT
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Richard and Ricky were with me (we all came from Upland Ca and went to the same high school and were original partners). We cleaned out the lower pitches but never went back as a team. I returned with Eric Ericson but he couldn't follow the 2nd pitch and I couldn't pull him up. Later I went back with Minks and we struggled up to the top of the fifth pitch. As Roger said, the climb is a watercourse and was pretty dirty, especially the upper section. Too grassy to clean the whole thing. A crew spent two weeks scrubbing the lower section, getting all the dirt and grass out, so it should be good for the time being. Like Central Pillar, I rated the 2nd crux pitch 5.11. That later switch to 5.12 ratings on both routes comes from people who climb 5.14, and 5.12 climbing is hard but manageable for those folks. My sense of it is back in the mid 70s, 5.11 was the top grade and so it got stretched. Once the upper grades were explored, the harder old school routes got elevated accordingly. Thing is, neither route on Middle is groundbreaking in terms of difficulty but they are the business to lead on gear and are fantastic trad routes to attempt on sight. I can tell you this much for sure: Pratt was a bad ass to have led that 3rd pitch on Cosmic Girl back in the 60s. There's basically no way to protect the crux flare so Chuck had to do what the rest of us did: Run it out. Heady work in lug-soled shoes. I remember following Kevin up Edge of Night before i knew how to climb flares and I was crying a river and barely made it. By the time I got on Chouinard/Pratt I had wide climbing pretty dialed and still cried a river. So did Marcus.
Don't fall on that one...
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Werner, who knows where the wandering legacy crew will strike next? Steep, serious walls all free, then the MCR playground? Surprised me but, framed within the Legacy projects, it still is compelling. We can all remembered when extensive route preparations were suspect: now two weeks of vertical gardening (slightly less vertical on MCR). Who knows, maybe that big dirt filled corner at the top of the Golden Bough that Drummond and I traversed around is next (just kidding).
I like John's project-sort of a gift to 5.12 climbers everywhere.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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hey Werner, let them take their attention over to MCR... they won't notice all the other great places to climb.
(I think Roger is still in love with MCR after all these years)
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 2, 2017 - 02:46pm PT
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Next one is coming down in 10 days and it might be the best of them all. Can't wait to see how it plays out...
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Roger Breedlove: maybe that big dirt filled corner at the top of the Golden Bough that Drummond and I traversed around is next (just kidding).
John Long: Next one is coming down in 10 days
How are these posts related?
I've a pic from 21 May that shows a party right of the Falls. On topic?
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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And your point, Ed? There are a couple of things I love from the middle half of the last century!
Of course I love pretty much everything about the years I spent in Yosemite. What's not to love? That's why I read climbing posts on ST. In any case, reading about new climbing just feet away from places I have spent time is both interesting and evokes a flood of memories, all of which are burnished to crystalline (and happy) clarity.
For instance, I still remember the specific move to start the sixth pitch of the Central Pillar: a chimney move with no chimney, my back against a 4 inch corner and one toe on an opposing hold. Sort of a "I wonder if this will work" anticipation followed by "that was cool," when it passed the 5.10 section off the ledge. I did it the same way every time I climbed that pitch. The only time I can recall using such a move with so little to use.
I think that the climbers who worked out how to pass the roof on the Misty Wall will remember those moves and the air and the sound and the mist for the rest of their lives, posting nostalgically on ST on 2 June of 2061 (same time forward as it is for me backward) when someone posts a picture of an on-sight free-solo, ala Wolfgang Güllich. Maybe a grandchild of the first ascent team.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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it's wonderful to be in love for so long...
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SuperTopo on the Web
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link of Central Pillar Direct Start and Finish,
Let us know!