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Chicken Skinner
Trad climber
Yosemite
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Topic Author's Original Post - Oct 12, 2007 - 01:04am PT
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Venture a guess?
Ken
P.S. Raise your hands if you have done it.
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marky
climber
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Oct 12, 2007 - 01:15am PT
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by my back-of-the-envelope calculations, 1,311 times
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Donny... the OHHH!- Riginal
Sport climber
A Deluxe Apartment in the Sky
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Oct 12, 2007 - 01:25am PT
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I wanna know how many times it's been picked.
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Chicken Skinner
Trad climber
Yosemite
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 12, 2007 - 01:27am PT
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I would think more. So many have done it more than once. I was thinking way more than 5,000 parties. Maybe Tom Evans could give us an estimate as to how many top out every day during the Summer months. I want to figure out an estimate.
Ken
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Oct 12, 2007 - 01:29am PT
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I believe someone (Roper?) kept records of ascents of the Nose through the late 1960s. The NPS may have some statistics. I suppose it may even be possible to make some empirical measurements that would help, e.g. accumulation of rubber at key "rubbing" points, wear of the rock from passing haulbags. An archaeologist might have some ideas on how signs of human passage could be measured - ask Echo.
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Oct 17, 2007 - 02:23am PT
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I was communicating with Roper a short while back, regarding the early ascents of the Nose, and I think I sorted out a few mistakes he made in terms of order and dates. I made the 9th ascent, I think, a very hot second week of June 1967... starting a couple days after I did the West Face of Sentinel (the latter in 13 hours or so). In one of my books I wrote, I say about the Nose that I did it in July, but that mistake was made because my slides said July... developed later.
I can't imagine how anyone could venture even a remotely accurate guess as to how many people have now done the route. Perhaps more interesting would be how many people did it with pitons (and no fixed pitons), stretchy nylon rope, no perlon, without Friends, no chalk, no sticky rubber, no fixed bolt rappel stations, no SAR waiting nearby. The whole world changed when nuts and Friends came in. At that point, doing the route in a day became a reasonable idea.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 17, 2007 - 03:22am PT
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If you take the rate at which the Nose was being climbed...
1958 1
1960 2
1966 5
1969 22
and just fit it to an exponential you'd calculate something like 266,216 trips by 2007... but there are only 14,235 days from 1969 through 2007, which would have required 19 ascents per day for that period.
Take half the days, and estimate an average of 1 trip per day (still high my guess). That would give you 7,118 trips up the route.
So Ken's estimate of 5,000 is probably not a bad ball park estimate.
Tom doesn't quite report one trip per day, even with the NIAD teams... if there is an average of one ascent every other day, that would put the number at close to 3,550 trips...
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Prod
Social climber
Charlevoix, MI
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Oct 17, 2007 - 11:51am PT
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Anyone know how many times the Hubers have done it? Impressive feat, but it leaves me asking why?
Prod.
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Oct 17, 2007 - 12:38pm PT
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Ed, I don't think the Nose had not been done 22 times by 1969. Pat did the 9th ascent in 1967 (see above) and I think even in 1970 and 1971 the number was around 20. Does anyone have an estimate of the current rate, in 2007. Fitting a curve between the end points could be a very good estimate.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Oct 17, 2007 - 12:45pm PT
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When we climbed the Nose in October 1971, Jim Bridwell's campfire reckoning (I don't know if he kept written records) gave us about the 85th ascent.
He also figured, as I recall, that parties on that route had something like a 10% success rate.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 17, 2007 - 01:04pm PT
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page 200 of Roper's Camp 4 said it was done 17 times between 1966 and 1969, and the 5th ascent was done by Brits in winter 1965/1966 so I just added 5+17 to get 22....
given Chiloe's accounting, there is a "doubling" period of 2.3 years... but that would have us at 218,481 in 2007
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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Oct 17, 2007 - 01:05pm PT
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somewhat OT, Frank figured (don't ask me how) that we did the 18th ascent of Aqaurius in '82, the year of the WOS ascent- now there's one (WOS) for easy record keeping!
Ed, shouldn't you be working?
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 17, 2007 - 01:09pm PT
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The very first time I did it in 71, I pounded those mighty pieces of aluminum and steel into the whole route.
I can still hear that sweet sound of aluminum and steel ringing .....
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Internofchoice
Trad climber
NYC,NY
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Oct 17, 2007 - 01:12pm PT
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The next question is how many times has el cap been climbed?
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Oct 20, 2007 - 02:26am PT
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Werner, you are a man after my own heart...
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Oct 20, 2007 - 02:48pm PT
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OMG I just had a vision of a geriatric taco of days to come.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Oct 20, 2007 - 02:52pm PT
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Werner's right - pitons ring and sing quite musically, when being carried and placed. Nuts just go clank and clunk.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Oct 20, 2007 - 02:55pm PT
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The very first time I did it in 71, I pounded those mighty pieces of aluminum and steel into the whole route.
I can still hear that sweet sound of aluminum and steel ringing .....
Typically you'd hammer in and hammer out what, 500 pitons per ascent? Clean climbing came not a moment too soon.
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Oct 20, 2007 - 05:00pm PT
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You're right, Chiloe, nuts were a good thing to happen, and none too soon. Actually Royal was the first to start pushing the idea, in Fall of 1966, on his return from England. He gave me a few. We took two of them with us on the Nose, June 1967. We were a little slow in getting the faith, so to speak, but I will say we were good at placing pitons only good enough to hold body weight, so that they would be easier to get out. That was a whole separate art.
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tradcragrat
Trad climber
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Oct 20, 2007 - 05:04pm PT
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Another bit of related trivia I've been wondering about for some time: has a full-length el cap route been done w/out drilling?
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