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MSmith
Mountain climber
Portland, Oregon
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Oct 26, 2005 - 02:39pm PT
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Yo wrote “But here's what bothers me: With a hook failure rate of 30% on the FA, what's the sustainability of such a route? If the route got twenty ascents, would there be anything left but rivets/bathooks?”
Yo, that’s a valid concern. While the quality of El Cap granite varies quite a bit, at its best its quality is amazing. A nickel thick level edge will consistenly hold body weight with a Leeper narrow hook. Simply unbelievable. Unfortunately, some micro-ledges are actually the tops of micro-flakes which are subject to being separated from the main wall by a very thin layer of greenish clay. (It seems that the clay is an end product of a natural deterioration process of the minerals in the rock rather than something that has washed in, but that’s just a guess.) Looking at a micro-ledge it’s usually impossible to know whether you are staring at simple ledge, the top of a solid flake, or the top of an undercut flake. If too large of an area has been undercut by clay, the whole flake is subject to peeling off. Many if not most of the micro-ledges/micro-flakes on the area of El Cap we climbed are not undercut with clay. These should be able to sustain repeated hook placements. No doubt that there are some flakes that we stood on that are undercut and are time bombs ready to go off. In the majority of these cases, other flakes will be available, at least for those willing to try. So I think that the route as a whole is reasonably sustainable, although clearly more holes will go in over time. But the route is not as sustainable as others, which is a valid criticism. I want to go off on a rant about the trashing (needless non-sustainability) of big wall classics like the Sea which has been turned into an A2 or A3 fixed copperhead clip-up, but I’ll save that for another time.
”Is it possible that many people (upwards of 15 parties?) have bailed from the first pitch because it's been ripped clean by traffic?”
Slater’s ascent to the 5th anchor was not one of the earliest attempts, giving credence to the notion that the remaining flakes are stable.
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jack herer
climber
chico, ca
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Oct 26, 2005 - 02:48pm PT
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someone f*#kin climb the route now
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mtnyoung
Trad climber
Sonora, California
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Oct 26, 2005 - 03:39pm PT
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Yeah, somebody climb it. I weigh too much for hooking fragile flakes, and I'm not sure I'm looking to do El Cap again all that soon. Who's a "light" hard man that can answer our questions?
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Lambone
Ice climber
Ashland, Or
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Oct 26, 2005 - 03:53pm PT
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"(Lambone's cheap troll excepted).
Why dismiss my troll as cheap? Surely it was a troll, but a sincere one at that, not cheap at all IMHO, but valid from one perspective.
These two guys above come off not understanding why so many people dissed their route when the answer is obvious. It's a forced line up a black face.
The tradition on El Cap (as far as I know) was to minimize forced blank face climbing by linking as many features as possible to create a natural line. Even Hardings WEML linked spectacular features.
So Wings follows a water streak, yeah well folks that want to climb water streaks ussualy head up to Toulomne and put their free shoes on.
Aiding up a feature (or lack of feature) like that is forcing your way ip the stone under drill and chissel (as they admited above to chiseling hook placements).
Doing so to link to crack systems is one thing. Doing so from the ground up with no intentions of finding or following crack systems is another thing altogether.
So fellas, don't be confused about why people diss your route, it's clearly obvious. Sure the hook moves are no doubt ballsy, but there is no doubt a clear difference in style between an ascent that works with the mountain following natural features and gaining vertical ground as the mountain allows you, and bashing your way up the thing with chissel and drill. So you had more hook placements (some chisseld) then drilled holes, so what?
Dumbing down the Sea of Dreams to justify your route by hole count is missing the point. The Sea is a natural line of features. The Great Slab is just that, sometimes not meant to be climbed.
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mike hartley
climber
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Oct 26, 2005 - 04:18pm PT
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Lambone,
If, as they reported, they predominently used natural hooks how can you say they didn't follow natural features? Maybe others had "eyes but could not see"?
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caughtinside
Social climber
Davis, CA
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Oct 26, 2005 - 04:39pm PT
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Good thing there are people who can tell you what you can and can't climb.
So what if it was a slab. We can't climb slab now? We can only climb big features and cracks, drilling ladders between them?
For all the spraying about 'hard aid' and the number of sequential hook moves being 'puckering' its funny to see fools like lambone rag on this climb. Isn't difficulty good? Isn't 8 hook moves in a row something to aspire to for those that care?
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darod
Trad climber
New York
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Oct 26, 2005 - 04:42pm PT
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Mike, I kinda have to agree with you; "weaknesses" aren't just cracks I suppose, so until someone has actually climbed the route and proved otherwise, I have to believe Mark and Richard (for whatever that's worth).
I think that some people here are trying to detour us from the main topic that has come out of this post. If the route is aesthetic or classic in any way, is not relevant at this point. Regardless of the quality of the climbing, there seem to be a great injustice here, and we should all try to remedy it.
Coming out with the truth about these accusations of bad style is a great start.
IMHO.
darod.
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shitzy
Gym climber
La Playa
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Oct 26, 2005 - 05:20pm PT
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Let me see if I understand all of this.
Some relatively unknown guys went up El Cap really slowly, climbing the early crux pitches of their new route on a low angle part of El Cap, and when they threw their shitz off every day, soon there was a big long streak of poo running down the route they were putting up, and somehow, people just assumed they had poor style?
No wonder they didn't want to talk about it for 30 years!
Somehow, I am not picturing Warren Harding, a hot babe, and a big jug of wine, sitting below a big streak of poo, shouting encouragement at these guys.
How embarrassing, at least they picked up after themselves.
What was in all those haul bags, bibles?
Closer to god by painting an epic stripe of poo in his direction?
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MSmith
Mountain climber
Portland, Oregon
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Oct 26, 2005 - 05:22pm PT
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Lambone writes “Dumbing down the Sea of Dreams to justify your route by hole count is missing the point. The Sea is a natural line of features. The Great Slab is just that, sometimes not meant to be climbed.”
Lambone,
The Sea is an aesthetic masterpiece with much to recommend it which Wings of Steel doesn’t have. Also, I agree that counting holes is not the point. (In retrospect, I wish we would have just done the climb and left counting holes to the second ascent.) I do think that Wings of Steel was aesthetic in its own way and offers a type of climbing not found on any "aesthetic" El Cap route, but that's just me waxing eloquent. I don’t agree that the Great Slab should have never been climbed, although I think that your view is supportable. (Looking at today’s El Cap jigsaw, do you think it was going to stay forever untouched by the Valley locals?)
Lambone: “[Drilling] to link to crack systems is one thing. Doing so from the ground up with no intentions of finding or following crack systems is another thing altogether.“
Wings of Steel is NOT a direct line. We studied the face by telescope and created a line to work up the Slab as easily as possible. A number of significant cracks are linked. I think the climb is a great effort in using what the Slab has to offer to find the best line. (Some might argue that we should have used Yaniro’s two pitches to the left of our line. Perhaps.)
“These two guys above come off not understanding why so many people dissed their route when the answer is obvious. It's a forced line up a black face.”
No one was dissin’ on Yaniro when he worked on the Great Slab, were they?
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jack herer
climber
chico, ca
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Oct 26, 2005 - 06:01pm PT
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" Intifada - VI 5.10 A5 vs
FA: Jim Beyer (solo) December 1988
Details: Well, this route originally rated A6 by Beyer really isn't too bad. There were no holes drilled deeper than 1/4" deep on the first ascent. The second ascent drilled some of the holes deeper to place baby angles. Tim Wagner on the real second ascent filled in those holes. "
Can either of you comment on that?
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ricardo
Gym climber
San Francisco, CA
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Oct 26, 2005 - 06:16pm PT
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i nominate lambone to go up wings of steel and set the record straight.
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Light&Fast!!!
climber
calgary
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Oct 26, 2005 - 06:27pm PT
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Damn people! I'm sorta new on this thing and only read a little of it but seems that lambone is the "expert". At least he thinks he is. Goes on about all sorts of stuff, my only questions about this is... Is he qualified to give such an opinion? What has he done that would make him qualified?
I just get the sense from ricardos post that he hasn't done anything real. Which is totally ok, because this forum is mostly represented by the same type. Everyone is at a differnt level and whatever you can climb is cool, it's just that to voice such a strong opinion with limited experiance off the beaten path, seems sort of misguided.
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MSmith
Mountain climber
Portland, Oregon
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Oct 26, 2005 - 06:49pm PT
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jack herer,
Okay, I think I’ve done a pretty good job of being reasonable and measured in my posts. However, regarding your assertions on Intifada I’m a little strained to maintain such composure. We’ll see if I can keep it together. In August 1992 I did the second ascent of Intifada, not Tim Wagner. I, or better said “we” as I swung leads with Richard Jensen, did that climb in the best, repeat best, ABSOLUTE PERFECT, style, period! (Ah yes, signs of my composure starting to crack.) We did not make one placement in that climb which if videotaped and available on the Web today could be found to be bogus. There were bat hooks which were indeed shallow and, given the rock quality, quite scary. (Ironically, Richard managed to bypass one of them with a natural placement.) We did not drill out anything. Got that?, anything. At no point did the leader ever carry a drill. It appeared to us that there were drilled holes that had been used for baby angles in the third pitch. I wondered if they could be the result of natural features in the rock, although this seemed unlikely, Fisher Towers notwithstanding. The drilled angles, or what appeared to be drilled angles, were very surprising to us, especially since they occur on one of the easiest pitches. I didn’t lead that pitch and I don’t remember how many there were. I photo-documented at least one of them when I cleaned the pitch and I’d be happy to find the slide and send you a copy.
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John F. Kerry
Social climber
Boston, MA
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Oct 26, 2005 - 07:18pm PT
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Very interesting and cool to get firsthand info on WoS from the FA guys. Dudes: thank you very much for your efforts.
So in a nutshell: a couple of outsiders come in, do what proved to be a stellar job on tough terrain, got dissed for not paying homage to the Valley boyz, then proved that the boyz who did the early Sea repeats were not as saintly as claimed... amazing.
The comments by Rob Slater speak volumes. His statements alone should be all the STFU needed by the boyz.
And somehow 20 years of slander is Richard & Mark's fault because they didn't jump when the critics demanded it? Ridiculous.
It's ironic when rock police are discovered to be crooked cops.
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Oct 26, 2005 - 08:09pm PT
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If you are bitchin', you will have detractors. Perhaps these guys were just too bitchin'?
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golsen
Social climber
kennewick, wa
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Oct 26, 2005 - 11:54pm PT
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My post last night may have been a bit out there. But it is interesting to see the spray that goes on. What I am referring to is "I heard sh&& so it ust be sh&&". Thanks you guys (Mark and Richard)for posting. Perhaps PTPP is right, you may have blown people away by your determination and skill.
When one thinks they stand at the top of the heap, or they even think they are part of the heap, it is a difficult thing to see some new guys come by and climb as high as the heap, or higher. Sometimes it is easier for one to focus on ones negatives as opposed to finding ones one faults to work on. But ultimately, we can only control our ownselves. No matter how much we try otherwise. Good job on Wings of Steel.
To the detractors: Climb it or STFU.....
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Oct 27, 2005 - 12:47am PT
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To Jack Herer:
Like Mark, I'm trying to keep it together on this one. So, let's try to stick with the facts we KNOW, and then extrapolate a bit of logic from there.
First, Climbing magazine publishes articles about bad-ass Jim Beyer in TWO back-to-back issues. Intifada is called "the hardest rock climb in the world" in both issues. Beyer is called possibly the hardest man alive (in my mind, outrageous as long as the Bird is living!), and a route with NO second ascent is "hyped" in the most frothy style possible. There is talk of a new rating system to encompass the insane difficulty level to be found on Intifada, and it is stated REPEATEDLY (including in a later interview with Beyer) that "if you fall from the last pitch you will most likely rip out not only the pitch but every connected anchor below it." This is the "new" meaning of "A6". Not only will a fall result in the death of the leader, but that fall will "pull down the whole house," including anchors.
Wow! Mark and I just HAD to see this for ourselves! Of course, upon finding that the "mad bolters" were in town, the Moab locals would NOT provide a topo or any help whatsoever... no surprise. So, Mark and I spent a day with a telescope drawing our own topo of the route, since with our scope, we could literally see every place a piton had been driven--we could even see the lines of trenches for copperheads in many places.
So, we head up on the route, expecting to be terrified, and we find that the greatest terror of the route is a very active wasp nest right at the anchor of the second pitch! A quick trip to town for some spray eliminates that problem, and THAT "modification" to the route is the ONLY one we make.
As Mark says, we were surprised to find several DEEP angle holes in the third pitch, since that pitch was one of the easiest. Mark did get pictures of those, including pictures of OUR placements which bypass them... pics which he still has, I'm sure.
At any rate, the route up the face peters out, ending most obviously on a ledge belay with bolt anchors. I don't remember the name of that route, but it was a free climb, I think 5.9. At any rate, when Mark reached that ledge, we were sure we must be missing something. The route CLEARLY goes to that ledge, with bolt anchors, and that ledge is two pitches from the absolute summit. It is free climbing from that anchor to the top! Yet, there are bat hooks leading to a short crack ending on that ledge!
So, we're standing there scratching our heads.... Where are the death belays? Where is the insane hooking? There has been ONE short section of (old rating system) A4 lower down, and most of the route has been A2/A3. BOLT anchors? Whaaattt?
After returning home, we write up our report, and, amazingly, Climbing publishes it. Beyer later responds in an interview, saying that he did take that free route for one pitch (using the BOLT anchors!!!), and then traversed back out onto the face (from the ridge the free route follows) in order to get in his final "horror hooking" pitch as the final pitch out on the face.
Now, let's think this through. There are NO, repeat NO death anchors on Intifada. After all the hype, the last "horrible hooking" pitch leads off of a BOLT anchor. The last pitch is absurdly contrived, as there is NO "natural line" reason to head back onto the face from the ridge; the ONLY reason for doing this is to be able to claim a "horrible hooking" last pitch. But the A6 rating is a complete fabrication! ALL of the frothing at the mouth in Climbing magazine was based upon NOTHING more than Beyer's word about what could be found on the route! And, upon a little inspection, we find that ALL of the most grandiose claims about the route are false. EVERY one.
So, who are we going to believe about the holes on the route? Beyer, who has already been caught in his lies? I don't think so. Even the line, "There is no hole deeper than 1/4 inch" is an obvious lie, since the bat hooks were deeper than that, and MOST of the trenched copperhead placements were much deeper than that. The bottom line is that we found a surprisingly easy route, not a single death anchor, holes drilled where they made no sense (including one bat hook hole I was able to bypass by slinging a sloping nubbin), NO "horrible hooking," miles of deeply trenched heads (which were bomber, btw), and I could go on and on. This route is NOTHING like Beyer described it, and I have no doubt that Beyer is the person who drilled those angle holes, rather than to use the flaired cams I used to bypass them.
At any rate, we certainly didn't drill those holes. I only wish now that we had had the sort of scrutiny on Intifada that we had on the Sea, so that people could KNOW that we didn't "rape" Intifada. But, hopefully, we have earned enough credibility on at least THAT front, given our past history, and BEYER certainly has no basis of credibility for his claims--the ONLY claim he has made about the route that I know is true is that the route is on Cottentail Tower. Every other claim he made about the content of the route has been proved false.
Nuff said. Next question?
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 27, 2005 - 12:54am PT
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Thanks Richard for your in depth input as I know it takes quite some time to write up, interesting reading.
I find it hard to believe that those climbing magazines turned you down originally as you are a very good writer.
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Lambone
Ice climber
Ashland, Or
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Oct 27, 2005 - 01:30am PT
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madbolter, are you %100 sure you made the 2nd ascent of Intifada? Perhaps someone else wen't up and modified the route before you guys and didn't tell anyone?
In your original post you in a round about way asked NOT to be called a liar. (Or, actually, threatened to go away and never come back if someone called you a liar)
But now you are here calling other people liars? What give bro?
Some comments on interesting quotes from above:
i nominate lambone to go up wings of steel and set the record straight.
f*#k that! I'm way to chickenshit on slabs...
plus I am not sure which record you are wanting to set straight? That the route really is hard with a lot of hook moves...yeah no sh#t sherlock!
Is he qualified to give such an opinion? What has he done that would make him qualified?
Does one have to be qualified to have opinions these days? I didn't get the memo.
Look, I am not a detractor, I really don't care about the route one way or another. I never said they were in the wrong or their route should be chopped, or not-repeated or whatever, I said none of those things. I said I don't altogether agree with the style...you gotta problem with that...then bugger off.
I also think it's very cool that we can sit here and have a respectfuil conversation with these two FA'ers and they are willing to participate and contribute. I read their posts carefully, and listened to their perspective...which is altogether valid and honorable. However, I got the feling like each was whinning about people not liking their climbing style. I brought a perspective to the table as to perhaps why some (or many) people may see the route differently then they do themselves...which seems fairly obvious to me, and maybe to them also.
You know what, everybody climbs for their own reasons and expects different rewards. Some styles are for some and some styles for others. Just like some may agree with my opinion and some may not.
Different opinions and perspectives are what make this forum fun, I think, and sometimes when I come upon a thread where everyone is agreeing with eachother adamentlty...I'll often offer up an opposing viewpoint just for kicks, that's my style.
you see, he owns a climbing gym. that sort of makes him a hero to all the n00bs
LOL hahaha....yup you bet...
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 27, 2005 - 01:34am PT
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Lambone said: "Does one have to be qualified to have opinions these days? I didn't get the memo."
Pretty funny
But, I agree Lambone you did a good job.
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