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pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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May 15, 2009 - 09:47pm PT
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Chappy,
Thanks for the report.
hope to meet you at the Ape's wall again as I did some ten years ago!
two people that live in Ventura whom have sacked the "Sack"!
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Bldrjac
Ice climber
Boulder
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May 16, 2009 - 12:24am PT
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Mark,
I forgot that you and Jimbo did Tis-sa-ack together. I always just associate you two with Eagle's Way, a proud ascent. Yeah. Jim Orey was my first really solid partner and he and I did a number of walls and trips together before we grew apart. He was always so solid technically and emotionally on hard crack climbs, which was and still is my Achilles heel. Nothing ever seemed to scare him or bother him too much. On the Muir it may have been the 4th ascent), he seemed unfazed by hard 5-10 cracks while I hated to step out of my aiders and onto hard free.
As I recall, Mark, you were much the same.......the understated yet very naturally talented free climber and just all around nice guy.......It was great hanging out with you in C4.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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May 16, 2009 - 03:59am PT
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Marty
Bill Dentz was injured on the original NW face route I believe climbing with one of his mates from NZ.
He showed up at my house in Santa Cruz for a place to recuperate, set up his tent on one of the numerous terraces and stayed there for well over a year.
He later climbed Tis-Sa-Ack with McLean, I would venture to say ,somewhere between 1977-79?
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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May 16, 2009 - 07:35am PT
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With all this excellent, detailed history getting reconstructed here, I wondered -- does anyone
have information about the early history of the Direct Northwest Face? It's no Tis-sa-ack, but
still a big route for its time, originally graded A5.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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May 16, 2009 - 11:28am PT
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Wow. Jim Orey stories.
We did one of our first long climbs together - Steck/Salathea, I think when we were still in high school. Orey was solid. I later climbed some routes on Middle with him as well, Central Pillar and so forth.
Always wondered what happened to Jim. Had a great head for the long stuff. Also had some fantastic tales from just living. Barely remember he and Chappy doing Tis-Sa-Ack.
Look how much modern gear has changed the complexion of these routes.
I'd also be interested in knowing about the early history of the Direct Route on Half Dome. First of my generation/group to do it (that I know of) was Richard Harrison and Kevin Worrall circa 72/73.
All those routes looks steep and intimidating from the base, when you walk down from the shoulder and stare up for the first time at that dark, shadow-streaked wall, shooting straight up out of the ground like crazy. All the talking tends to die off at that point . . . ever notice that?
JL
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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May 16, 2009 - 12:12pm PT
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I'd also be interested in knowing about the early history of the Direct Route on Half Dome. First of my generation/group to do it (that I know of) was Richard Harrison and Kevin Worrall circa 72/73.
When Roger Briggs and I climbed the Direct in May '72, we believed it was the 5th ascent. I can't recall
who came earlier, though, and I never knew the story behind that A5 rating.
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Double D
climber
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May 16, 2009 - 01:36pm PT
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Nice story Mark. I’ve got to share a humorous Jim Orey story, although honestly I didn’t really know him personally. Back in ’76 or 77, Max Jones, Augie Klein and I decided we wanted to do Tangerine Trip. For those of you who didn’t climb in that era, the Trip had a reputation of being a bad-adzed route that there was no possible way to retreat from… it was thought to be too overhanging. If I remember right we figured that our’s was the 7th or 8th ascent. The only first hand beta we had was from Bachar, Kauk and Bard who both scarred the crap out of us sent us reeling with their comical tales of hanging bivi’s gone awry.
So we show up at the base to fix the 1st 4 pitches and there’s a frigg’n party ahead of us. It’s Jim Orey and Jack Roberts. He assures us that they’re just doing the first 5 or 6 pitches and then venturing out to a new route (that somewhat became Aurora). Cool, we’re back on track.
So he’s on the 4th pitch, which at the time was supposedly the crux and we’d just fixed the first two. Not wanting to crowd the belay we hang for a bit…and then a bit more…and then a bit more and finally after a good four hours we’re able to proceed. I knew that Jim had done a bunch of “hardman” stuff and at this point I was somewhat concerned about leading the 4th before darkness set in as we only had about three hours left. It ended up being fine, only took and hour to lead and I’m thinking to myself what could have taken him so long? Just about that time I notice that there was a fairly steady stream of empty beer cans floating downward that I most likely didn’t notice earlier in the day so I assume that they must have been a little hammered.
The next day we launched with a couple of pitches between us. There’s a non-stop flow of empty beer cans coming off rivaling horsetail falls. Jim hollered down that he had not done much climbing in a few years and made certain that they didn’t “suffer” too much in regards to their ample supplies. They must have gone through a case that day…it was way too funny!
That night we had an amazing lightning storm. We watched a wall of water ungulate to and fro but rarely hitting us due to the severity of the overhanging wall. The next morning it became obvious that the storm was going to last several days. Being on an overhanging wall and staying dry we figured that it was no worries though. So Jim and Jack are two pitches above us and he yells down that they are going to bail because they’ve run “drastically” short on beer. He asks if they could tie their two ropes with our three and shoot for the ground. We were at the top of the 6th or 7th pitch and because of all the meandering of the route we reckoned that the ropes would make the ground. So they proceeded to rap out into space from the anchors never coming close to the wall. In fact where the rope hit the talus was a good 200’ out from the base. Pretty wild rap, that’s for sure!
So Augie, Max and I were getting ready to pull up the ropes and lead when it struck Augie and I that we could rap down to the creature comforts of the Mt. Room Bar that evening and come back after the storm. Although the bar didn’t have any appeal to Max, Augie and I became master-salesmen and in just moments we too followed suit rapping down into a seemingly endless void of air. As I descended the wall just got further and further away. The undulating wall of rain was still way out beyond our reach but the dense clouds surrounding me were like being in a white room with no corners. All I could think of was how much fun this was going to be to jug back up.
Now the morning comes for us to blast off again after waiting out the storm in the luxurious comforts of camp 4. We opt for an alpine start and arrive at the base just after first light only to find Mr. Bachar with this sh1t-eat’n grin on his face. He immediately explains that he thought it might make for some good pictures and he knew we were blasting off…”so here I am” he says.
Strange, I thought, why didn’t he just come with us? Nothing else was said and soon we were underway jugging the endless jug way out in space. I was so busy taking pictures that I didn’t really think about it anymore. The picture I took that ended up in Yosemite Climber of Augie jugging came from that morning.
We eventually finished the climb with mostly crappy weather and topped out in a horrendous snowstorm on May 1st, dug a hole around the base of a tree to bivi in and decided to slog down the Falls trail rather than getting diced out on the East ledges.
So about a month after this, John comes up to me and fesses up: he’d clipped into our line, scrambled up the 3rd class ledges on the 1st pitch and proceeded to go for the largest rope swing possibly in Yosemite’s history. He wanted to do it on the sly because he feared that I’d be really pissed off about it. He’d just finished taking off his swami minutes before we arrived and was so pumped with adrenaline that he couldn’t think of any better excuse for me than the picture scheme. Of course I busted up and wished that I’d thought of doing the same with such a rare opportunity!
So indirectly, Mr. Orey and Mr. Robert's brush with a no-beer drought set the stage for a historical, albeit little-known, feat in Yosemite. Thanks Jim…and John how was that king-swing anyway?
(-;
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Ihateplastic
Trad climber
Lake Oswego, Oregon
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May 16, 2009 - 05:22pm PT
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Here's a couple of shots from the same article published in Mountain 18.
"Peterson following the deceptive 5" crack."
"Peterson bolting the final headwall."
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bhilden
Trad climber
Mountain View, CA
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May 16, 2009 - 09:59pm PT
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Dave(Double D),
what a great story! Yet another Super Topo moment. This forum is the bomb.
Bruce
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 16, 2009 - 10:17pm PT
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Daryl Hatten and Scott F. tried Tangerine Trip in autumn 1976. They got memorably wasted a few days beforehand, and then set about packing and fixing and hauling. They got five or six pitches up, and retreated - much as Robbins had when trying the first ascent. They tied four ropes together, and got down.
The problem then was retrieving the ropes, as it's a 200 m freehanging rappel. They set off to the rescue cache, where they were able to persuade John Dill to lend them a 600' rope, which was on a big spool. The idea being that someone (Scott) would jumar up the fixed ropes, with the long one in tow, then set it up so that he could rappel, then they could pull the ropes. They had to promise not to actually rappel or jumar on the YOSAR long rope, presumably so as to avoid wear or damage. "Oh no, Mr. Dill. We promise. We won't rappel on your rope. Cross our hearts and hope to die."
Well, when you get up there, it's an awful long and scary jumar and rappel, and worse because you have to changeover three times on the way. So it may be just possible that YOSAR's rope was used in irregular ways.
I wonder how many other people retreated from much the same point, and also had to borrow the YOSAR rope?
OK, back to Tis-Sa-Ack, though these stories are all great.
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Double D
climber
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May 17, 2009 - 12:03am PT
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Sorry for the slight thread drift. Jim's name just jogged my rather foggy memory. I am hoping to hear and see more about the 'sac.
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Studly
Trad climber
WA
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May 17, 2009 - 12:36am PT
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Bump for the story of Bachar's 600 foot king swing from the base of the Trip........what a rush that must have been!
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Bldrjac
Ice climber
Boulder
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May 17, 2009 - 12:18pm PT
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Dave,
Too funny. I remember that. Jim and I were trying to get psyched to do a new route and we were doing inventory on our gear to see if we had enough to do something new. As we continued to go through our bags we drank more and more beer and eventually we decided we did not have either enough gear (beer) or psych and decided to rap. That rap down to the ground was HUGE!!! Your eyes were pretty BIG!............ Jim hadn't climbed in a bit and wasn't keen on going up......Again, I need to scan my pictures 'cause I've got a classic shot of a forlorn Jim, dejected and stoned in a Robbins hammock.
Jim and I did the 7th ascent of the NW face Direct. I think Jim still flys small, commercial aircraft.
Jack
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Bldrjac
Ice climber
Boulder
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May 17, 2009 - 12:23pm PT
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Back to Tis-Sa-Ack stories. I remember when Charlie and I set up camp before we went up, we slept out a little from the foot of the face because we wanted to scope out the wall and all. Problem was in the middle of the night we heard rock noises and quite close there was a tremendous "THUD! CRASH!", which freaked us out enough we got out of our bags and ran towards the base. In the morning we saw that some really big flakes had come off the wall and landed some 50 yards away from us. That's a loose wall.
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Lambone
Ice climber
Ashland, Or
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May 17, 2009 - 02:36pm PT
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Has the big rock scar up and right of the Zebra effected the start of Tis-Sa-Ack? You know the new scar that first looked like a sea creature, then morphed into an Angel...
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Rhodo-Router
Gym climber
above the play park
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May 17, 2009 - 02:37pm PT
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Tis-sa-ack was my first multipitch solo, in the fall of 2005. It wasn't nearly as horrifying as all the old tales of pre-cam ascents make it out to be...although it also sounds like a lot of the really nightmarish stuff has fallen off! Any horror I experienced was self-induced:
I rather enjoyed the historic feel of all the old hardware. Fortunately it would tale a really long time to replace all those bolts...it would be a shame to lose that sense of those who came before.
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Lambone
Ice climber
Ashland, Or
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May 17, 2009 - 02:42pm PT
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wow, proud man!
Would you suggest leaving the timepiece bolts?
What about adding more bomber protection bolts in places and fixing bad anchor bolts? Could allways leave the old bolts and put a new one in parallel to them as needed and time/energy allows. I think I'd prefer that way, because then you still get to oogle over that aincient crap and pay respect to all the poor fools who hung their asses off of the jank dowels since they were put in.
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Rhodo-Router
Gym climber
above the play park
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May 17, 2009 - 02:59pm PT
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Replacing one old-but-not-original anchor bolt at each belay that required it would do it for the anchors. Obviously they're adequate as they stand now-the thing is climbed every year- but having a high new one for the hauling would ease the mind a bit.
Pro bolts...there was one on the 3rd pitch before a 5.9 move that was freaky. Nothing else comes to mind, really. Royal's famous ladder of pride atop the Zebra is still in good shape, especially for body-weight-only travel. The upper ladder has had a few old ones backed up or replaced. It's worth considering that any cam you stick in that route is probably better than the shitty pins they had BITD, so how good do you really need that bolt in the middle of the pitch to be?
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Lambone
Ice climber
Ashland, Or
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May 17, 2009 - 03:34pm PT
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fair' nuf
I think the excitement driven by climbing up on old rotten mank chunks of metal hastely smashed into the stone to be a bit contrived and overrated. The better the bolts, the quicker I'm off them and to the features I came to climb.
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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May 18, 2009 - 12:33pm PT
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Back in 1980, I was 16 on my first trip to the Valley and climbed the NW Face over a couple of days. What makes that relevant to this thread is that there was a party on Tis-Sa-Ack at the time. Several times a day we heard rockfall and instinctively hunkered down only to realize that it was those poor bastards on Tis-Sa-Ack. They even cut a rope and had to come down to get a replacement.
At that time, while I knew it was a feared route, I had assumed it had way more ascents than it did. From this post, that sounds like it have only been the fifth or sixth ascent (if they topped out). Anyone know who that may have been?
Oddly enough, after that, you'd think the logical part of your brain would tell you to stay away but ever since, even now 30 yrs. later, I've always wanted to go back and climb it.
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