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TripL7
Trad climber
san diego
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Jan 29, 2010 - 02:07am PT
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Thanks so much for putting in the time and effort for this TR. SOH has always held a certain place in my life. I had planned to do it with a friend of mine in the Spring of '75. I got really sick and ended up in the hospital by the first of June, and missed out. I wish I could relive that Spring/Summer.
My friend, Dave Stutzman(with Maurice from Norway)went ahead and attempted the second ascent. Got within less than a pitch from the top.
He gave me pitch by pitch account. What I recall vividly is his discription of the back to back wide pitches. Kirkegaard and Nietzsche. He led them both with zero pro. Belay to belay. No aid, no bongs, and of course their were no Cams BITD.
Dave Stutzman was a bad azz...RIP Dave!
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Plumbbob
Mountain climber
Juneau, AK
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Jan 29, 2010 - 02:52am PT
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Just a note, I climbed with Dave in 1977 and his stories of the Son of Heart route were entertaining and educational. I think I have some of his origional slides from his attempt in with some of our other climbing pictures. I'll try to get those scanned and then add them to this thread.
BP
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Jan 29, 2010 - 07:21am PT
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TripL7 - how the heck can someone get within a pitch of the top, and not complete the second ascent? Whether you count the "top" the beginning of the slab, or the very top, none of those pitches up there is hard. I don't get it.
Did they rap the whole route? Get stormed on? Did someone drop them a toprope?
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TripL7
Trad climber
san diego
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Jan 29, 2010 - 08:41am PT
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PtPP!
They ran out of water. Dave said he didn't have the energy to high-step his aiders on the overhanging wall(not technically difficult). They were suffering from dehydration. He went up several times but couldn't step up high enough to place a pin. The next pitch(Fat City??)eases off and they would have been home free.
They laid there for about 3-4 days, at which time Chapman and Orey wrapped down to the ledge(Thanksgiving??)and dropped them a line. Dave was hoping someone would lower down a couple liters of water. He felt that he would be able to finish the last(steep)pitch and complete the route. But Mark and Jim had not brought much water(half quart).
That's why Dave was upset in regards to the rescue. He felt that if it was one of there friends they would have brought sufficient water for them to finish the route. They had plenty of food, but they couldn't swallow it without water. He didn't want to be rescued.
Plumbbob! Looking forward to seeing those pics. Thanks!
Trip~
EDIT: Regardless, they were rescued and should have shown more appreciation.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
Monrovia, CA
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Jan 29, 2010 - 10:56am PT
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What, no love for my portrait of The Culprit?
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Jan 29, 2010 - 03:32pm PT
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Reilly,
Obviously none of us has the slightest idea who The Culprit is. How about a name?
TripL7, that is an amazing story! What a terrible way to fail. That would never happen nowadays with cell phones and two-way radios. SOH finishes right of Thanksgiving coming onto the edge of a two-pitch long slab, which is a nasty low-angle drag-fest finish now shared with Sunkist.
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Jingy
Social climber
Nowhere
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Jan 29, 2010 - 03:35pm PT
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great TR guys...
Bump!!!
Cheers
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TripL7
Trad climber
san diego
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Jan 29, 2010 - 07:21pm PT
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PtPP!
Yea, they were about 75 ft below the slab pitches on the overhanging wall! Dave felt as though they could have finished it, or at least made it to the top and left the haul bag until later. If they could have got up to the lower angled pitches.
So it goes.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
Monrovia, CA
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Jan 29, 2010 - 08:07pm PT
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Pete,
I assumed (I know) that everybody already knew
what Sylvester looked like, without his Asgard skis on, that is.
I guess I also assumed y'all would make the deduction
based on the thread title; my bad!
ps
posted simultaneously with Jim B
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skywalker
climber
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Jan 30, 2010 - 08:53pm PT
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bump...
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Apr 19, 2010 - 01:35am PT
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If one was climbing Son of Heart, and fell, would it be considered a Freudian slip? Would a pinnacle have to be part of the scenario?
Bump.
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Roxy
Trad climber
CA Central Coast
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Apr 19, 2010 - 10:42am PT
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perfect Monday morning find! Thanks for the share
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Apr 19, 2010 - 11:26am PT
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If several parties get all bunched up and retreat off of this one, does it qualify as congestive heart failure?!? LOL
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hoipolloi
climber
A friends backyard with the neighbors wifi
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Apr 19, 2010 - 02:09pm PT
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bump for awesome.
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Double D
climber
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Apr 19, 2010 - 04:11pm PT
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Great TR Tony.
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Gabe
climber
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Apr 21, 2010 - 01:50am PT
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Some of the best photos I've seen of these pitches! Charging Hard! Thanks.
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Rick Sylvester
Trad climber
Squaw Valley, California
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A few words from "The Culprit" (I should be asleep now like all decent people but I've never been decent)....Wow. wow. wow -- what a discovery! Thanks so much! Those great photos are the first time I've been able to revisit the route not to mention the chimneys -- of course no decent person would want to -- since I was up there in '71 or whenever it was (camera trouble resulted in no photos past the Heart). I have no memory of unusual or excessive vegetation on the route. That doesn't mean it wasn't there, just, as stated, that I have no memory (I could write volumes of the things of which I have no memory,if only I could remember what they were so I could write). Likewise, I have no idea of what's being referred to by the wrongly placed anchor bolt above an arete. Not many anchor belts were placed...I think. The only one I can recall placing was one at the end of the Tonsillectomy Traverse because I was having severe problems due to horrible rope drag. Some time later, years?, I realized a way I could have avoided the rope drag, so I accept blame. Life's tough enough even without being stupid. But I don't think this is the bolt being referred to.
But I can explain about the bolt under the Heart roof. I do indeed have very definite memories, perhaps even correct ones, on this subject. Not to mention some guilt still to this day. I had the guilt right from when I was placing it -- and yes, of course it was a quarter incher. I knew that better climbers or more daring climbers or more ethical climbers or some combination thereof would not have placed it. My reason -- rationalization? -- for so doing was that if I zippered the roof and smacked into the wall, a la Mike Hoover's staged zipper fall on "Bishop's Balcony" in his Academy Award short subject nominated film "Solo", I risked getting injured, perhaps badly. Aside from the normal problems with an injury in such a situation there was an additional one. My partner, Claude Wreford-Brown, was inexperienced at big wall climbing. He'd been one of the two best and most avid students I'd taught/guided the summer of '69 at the ISMM -- there were two Ms then; the deleted one stood for "Modern" -- climbing school in Leysin, Switzerland, run by Dougal Haston following founder John Harlin's 4000' plunge off the Eiger Direct Route. Claude did an amazing job on the route, especially considering his inexperience. Save for placing around half a dozen bolts and dowels on one pitch he did no leading but essentially belayed me for 10 days, all the while dealing with the exposure, fear and fatigue, the heat of midsummer -- my understanding was and is that it was the first time an El Cap big wall was first ascended in the height of summer -- and running out of food and more important water the final two and a half days. His achievement and contribution were nothing to scoff at. In addition, all his belaying, all ten days of it, was in a sit harness, the original Whillans sit harness (the first roped climb of my life was with Don Whillans at the ISMM school in '66, 3 months after Harlin's fateful accident). He had no belay seat and virtually every belay was a sling belay on the virtually ledgeless route. You should have seen the welts on the sides of his thighs he revealed to me on the summit! Anyway, my feeling was that due to Claude's inexperience at that type of climbing in that situation I had an unusual responsibility and a large part of that meant not getting incapacitated in any way. Of course retreat from high up on any climb can be epic even in perfect conditions with all team members fully functioning. Recently attempting to write an account of this climb after all the passage of time, it struck me, looking back with all the great perspective based on my great age (that, by the way, is not meant to imply any great or even average amount of maturity; after all, I still climb) that Son of Heart was the climb of my life. And this wasn't due just to the route's nature but to my role of responsibility. It was tough but a grand grand adventure and I've long really regretted that I never went for another El Cap first; there were certainly possibilities. After all, many other climbers achieved multiple El Cap big wall ascents. True, I got busy with the El Cap skiBASE jumps and other stuff. But still. The Upper Yosemite Wall route was the only thing sort of in the same vein, six days in length, but it still didn't compare. I was with a qualified, perhaps even more so aid-wise than I, partner (Chauncey Parker). A related side note to all this which I've never revealed before. Claude had a much better hammock than I, a state-of-the-art single anchor point one vs. my lousy fishnet-ish two point one. His worked properly from just about any place it was hung; mine, only if the two anchor points were properly spaced. When the climb started becoming epic-like -- the running out of food and water, the heat, etc. -- I wanted to insist that we switch hammocks under the perfect logic that since I was doing all the leading it was essential that I be able to function as well as possible, ie.get as good a night's sleep as possible. I obsessed about this for days, about requesting we trade hammocks. But despite the impeccable sound logic it of course appeared outrageous -- I'd never heard of it having ever occurred before in the annals of mountaineering -- and I lacked the courage to ever effect the request. Anyway, that's the story of the roof bolt. Soon after drilling it it the upward driven knifeblade placements appeared to seem sounder and due to the weird nature of the roof I wasn't just totally dangling but my knees were in contact with rock. So of course the doubts that I'd chickened out entered my, yes, partially exfoliated brain -- probably more from that roof than the chimneys -- and are surely still lodged there. And I have no real hopes that the matter won't come up for review when I'm at the Pearly Gates. And if this -- believe me, there's a lot of other stuff -- is what makes the difference of my not getting in -- well, I understand. I surely deserve my fate. All logic and reasons aside, I wasn't tough enough. I chickened out.
And Reilly, that was your photo, which I've never seen before, in Samarkand during our '78 AAC/Soviet Mountaineering Federation exchange expedition. Amazing. And your name, after all this time, came up just a month or so ago from Carlos Buhler on his way to Nepal. He sent me notice of our fellow team member Steve Hackett who recently suffered a heart attack and died at the age of 65 -- way too early -- whilst skiing in Wyoming. I'm sure you know that Chuck Kroger, just a unique person, one in a billion (and he did the third ascent of the N.A. Wall when it still had the reputation as "the world's hardest rock climb" passed away a couple of years ago, cancer. on Christmas Day. A third of our team is gone; it's getting a bit lonely and scary. Carlos, ever the considerate person he is, wrote that he didn't know how to contact you. And I replied that you lived in Seattle, obviously oblivious to the fact that things like addresses could change in 33 years. And it appears you're another of the 37 million like me residing in the Golden State. How about that! I love the photo. It's a more pleasant memory than those of the chimneys. I was young once! Unreal, although a bit disconcerting. I'd love to get in touch with you. I get to Southern California occasionally.
Oh, it was also nice to get some explanation of the calcite growths after all this time. As if the chimneys weren't bad enough without them.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Thanks for sharing the cool stories, Rick.
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Rick Sylvester
Trad climber
Squaw Valley, California
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May 16, 2011 - 03:32am PT
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Thanks for the kind words. All of you have done amazing things -- some obvious, some more subtle -- of which I stand in total awe.
Now got to go out and shovel even though it's mid May, but another of those winters that don't end. Amgen first stage bicycle rce cancelled yesterday. Wonder if the Squaw stage 2 will get off tomorrow. Would rather get in some climbing; the shoveling, even occasional skiing, was good for the first several months. Now it's just getting a bit old. More of it and I'll even prefer getting back on SoH -- sure.
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