Intro

Over June 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, 2014, my partner and good friend Ryan and I climbed Zodiac, one of the shortest Grade VI routes on El Cap. It was my first big wall aid route (among a lot of other firsts!), and at C3+, Ryan's most difficult aid lead to date. We completed a hammerless ascent of the route without too much difficulty. I have compiled this trip report with some photos and a description of our time on the wall to the best of my memory. Hope you enjoy it!

Preparation/Idyllwild

The week of May 25th, I meet Ryan at his place in beautiful Idyllwild, CA to practice aid climbing, plan plan plan, and stress/freak out. We practice aiding, jugging, docking/freeing the haul bag, and whatnot for a couple days and sneak in some free-climbing days on Suicide Rock as well. We inspect, label, and re-rack obscene amounts of gear. We spend way too much money buying the last pieces (offset cams, etc.) and random things we forgot we needed. In Ryan's living room one night nervously drinking beer and organizing gear, I watch as he handles the Beaks and Copperheads he'll be placing for his first time on this route. To me they look vaguely decorative. They'll have to support his weight if we're to send.

One of the days that week, we head up a trail to one of the bouldering spots in Idyllwild to practice setting up our portaledge. Having set it up just to look at it the night prior, where it seemed like it would provide a surprisingly comfortable and spacious bivy, I'm excited to try and set it up and pack it away while hanging in my harness. We each take a few turns at it, cursing profusely, tangling up straps and generally performing pathetically until Ryan devises a good system to keep it a little more organized as it goes in and out of its sheath. Our last attempts take around 5 minutes. We call it a day.


The last few days, we nervously dick around in Idyllwild wrapping up the preparations. We sit around in Nomad Ventures looking at the topo over and over. We spend more money, putting it off until it has to be done. As the day of departure approaches, a nervous dread descends upon Ryan and I that we imagine might be comparable to that felt while packing for a long prison sentence. We sleep poorly, waking up each morning and sitting together in the dim kitchen, saying little. There are heavy sighs and probably-not-sarcastic expressions of terror. The second-to-last day, we raid Trader Joe's, stocking up on boxed chili, canned peaches, cheese sticks, and bagels. Everything gets a ziploc bag. We procure a bunch of 2-liter soda bottles for our water that will sit at the bottom of the haul bags. One of the last nights in town, I split from Ryan so he can spend time with his SO. Sitting alone at a bar, I sip a beer and ride one of those climber-type trains of thought where I ask myself why in hell my life will soon involve spending mutiple days dangling from bolts drilled into the side of a cliff and shitting in a tube. I don't come up with an answer. El Cap is waiting.

Day 1

We roll into the Valley the afternoon of June 1st, with all of our gear in the back of Ryan's truck. I crane my neck back and forth, looking around for the granite monoliths that I've only seen pictures and videos of before. This is the “capital of North American rock climbing.” As a climber, it's almost like I'm about to meet my maker. Then, out of nowhere, we round a bend in the road and the forest falls away. To the East, there is a tower of white and grey stone that seems to fill half the sky. It is impossibly huge. My eyes take in The Captain. I watch it stand soberly as the pines drift by out the car window. It is too gigantic, for a long while, to allow the impression that we will ever drive past it. We might be in orbit. My mouth hangs open for the next mile or so...

Ryan has a campsite reserved, where we check in, fill the bear box, set up a few things, pack up the haul bags with water and our ropes & climbing gear, and drive to the approach. That afternoon, our plan is to hike to the base, scope out the situation to see how many other parties are on the route, and stow as much stuff as we can up there so we can take a lighter trip next time. Walking towards the wall, with our route in full view, it's hard to swallow - Zodiac is sheer, blank and impressive, the “grey circle” distinctly marking a path that we know all too well already from reading the topo. To me, it resembles the astronomical symbol for the Earth, a circle with a cross through the middle. Fitting - it will be our world for the next few days.


The approach takes about 40 minutes, and consists of a short walk on trail followed by steep hiking/scrambling up talus. By the time we reach the base, I am covered in mosquito bites because I forgot to replenish the perpetual layer of Deet I've been sporting since I arrived in California (I'm one of those people whose epidermis is essentially a moving buffet for every mosquito in a 10 mile radius unless it is fully and completely covered in carcinogenic repellent). As we get closer, our spirits rise - we see not a single person on the route! This is beyond good news, we were at least expecting to have to wait a day or so. We reach the base, and see another climber in the middle of lowering off the first pitch. We're both under the impression that we might soon be listening to an explanation of how this guy got spooked by the crux first pitch and is bailing - not something we want to hear on the day before we begin the climb, especially for Ryan, since he'll be leading the first pitch and it will be the most technically difficult pitch of aid he's ever done at C3+.

The climber reaches the ground, and we exchange greetings. He seems to be in a good mood, and we quickly find out that he hadn't bailed off of the route but had just been practicing aid that afternoon and had just finished up as we arrived. He talks about how awesome the first pitch is, gives Ryan some gear advice and wishes us luck, then quickly packs up his small haul bag and leaves. We wander around the base for a while, amazed that there are no parties on the route, snap a few pictures, stow our supplies nearby, then head back down to the car for a nervous night of sleep.



That night, I drift in and out of consciousness, never fully leaving my pinwheeling thoughts, spending hours wondering if I'll actually fall asleep. We are kept up in our campsite by gunshots and the cartoonish sounds of rangers scaring off bears. Just as I feel like I might have gotten the hang of the whole “sleep” thing, I check my phone and it's time to get moving. We tentatively poke our heads out of the tent. The first slivers of morning light coldly frame the shapes of tents and RVs. We stride nervously back and forth, packing up the last of our supplies and going through carefully catered mental checklists. We eat quickly and pile into the truck. I am awake and terrified and vaguely psyched, a sensation that only exists for me the morning after a night of restless sleep and before a long-anticipated climb.

Day 2

At the base, we pack and organize our haul bags, gear up, and flake out the ropes just like another day at the crag. We gaze up at the first pitch, the blank, shallow corner seeming menacing and thin to me. Ryan has his work cut out for him. It is 8:30 AM on June 2nd, 2014.


My focus is starting to narrow, the rest of the wall out of my vision, blank, unknowable, waiting but not demanding attention as it did when I first looked at the route. Today, Monday, we hope to climb at least to the top of pitch 3, where we will fix our ropes, rappel off, and start our “blast-off day” tomorrow.

We decide that we will haul from the top of pitch 2, unsure whether the lower-out line on our haul bags will be long enough for the long rightward traverse that introduces this pitch. This means that for the time it takes us to climb the first two pitches and me to rap down and attach the haul line (probably 2-3 hours), our bags and everything in them will be fully vulnerable to any curious bears in the vicinity that might appreciate an easy breakfast. We've read Zodiac trip reports describing bears that destroy teams' bags while they're halfway up the first pitch. We know they're out there. Thus commences what I dub “bear watch 2014.” For those first two pitches, I nervously glance around the surrounding trees and talus just waiting for my first glimpse of the furry beast that will literally and figuratively eat our collective lunch.

Ryan makes the first few placements and moves on the first pitch slowly and cautiously, settling into a C3 mindset. I can tell he's scared, but he's doing OK - his hooks and offset cams are well set, and he steadily moves up the corner. This pitch includes a tenuous beak move, and Ryan uses cam hooks to surmount the cruxes. He relays to me that we've done well to stock up on offset TCUs and aliens, which prove indispensable for the flaring pin scar cracks and seams. On bear watch, idly belaying Ryan on pitch 2 does my nerves no good, every perceived blur of peripheral movement immediately suspect and worth extended examination with held breath. This pitch is more straightforward, a long rightward traverse that eats up small and medium cams. Following, I re-aid on Ryan's placements, struggling to get the hang of this process for the first time. I have to perform my first big lower-out on this pitch, which I've never done before. I've read the section in the Supertopo how-to on it, but never practiced it, so I have to think back and remember each step in my faded memory - there is a bight of rope involved, a locker on my belay loop, but what do I do with my ascenders...eventually, I have the process mentally worked out enough for me to give it a shot, and it goes off without a hitch. Nice!


After we get situated at the pitch 2 anchor, I rap down, attach the haul bags/ledge/poop container to their line, and jug back up, relieved that we can at least push on with our supplies intact - from here on out, if we have to bail it will be non-bear related. Ryan leads the third pitch smoothly, using small stoppers for the rivet hangers and learning how to top-step with his fifi hook. We haul to pitch 3 and, checking the time, decide to rap off. It is getting late into the afternoon, and we're hungry and exhausted, but satisfied with our progress and feeling capable. We have completed three pitches in about 7 hours, and this included the time that I spent rapping down, fixing the bags, and re-ascending to pitch 2 (30 minutes or so). This speed is plenty good enough to satisfy us, our expectation being that we would finish at least 4 pitches per day on the wall. Plus, after we are committed, we'll be starting earlier and finishing later. We head down to Yosemite Village, stuff our faces, drink beer, obsess over the topo a little more, and pass out early. Tomorrow is blast-off day.

Day 3

Early to rise on June 3rd - it's a beautiful morning in the Valley and the approach goes quickly without having to lug the haul bags. Before I know it, I'm jugging up our 300 ft of free hanging lines - it's a good warm-up, and I have to rest a lot because I'm still getting the hang of which muscles to use in this process. My rhythm is 20 steps up, then rest for 10 breaths. I eventually start moving faster, both because more of the rope is beneath me, and because I've started using my bottom aider's leg more efficiently, tucking it in as I slide my top ascender up while rocking forward, using more of my core.


In 45 minutes or so, Ryan and I are looking up at pitch 4. The ground is now a very close friend who I will not see for a while.


We are psyched, ready to start the day's climbing. Ryan gets organized and prepares to lead. Pitch 4, 5, and 6 go casually and steadily. Pitch 4 involves some tenuous free climbing up a low-angle arching corner. We combine pitches 5&6, Ryan back-cleaning almost the entire way, making it an easy pitch to clean. I am settling in to our vertical world, the breeze buffeting our ropes back and forth, the casual munching of almonds, the periodic re-adjustment of my harness, the close-at-hand minutiae of clipping, unclipping, double-checking of knots, coils of rope.


At some point, I look over to our left and see a two-man team on Tangerine Trip. It seems like they started the day shortly after us, but are already passing us on the wall. I notice the leader short-fixing, and free climbing an impressive amount. As I watch them, it gradually sinks in that these guys are moving incredibly fast, gliding over the pitches with little noticeable effort. The leader has a voice I recognize, and his belayer keeps calling him “Alex”...could it be?

“Ryan, I think that's Alex Honnold over there!”

At the next belay, we pause for a few seconds and watch. We're not sure who it is, but if it climbs like Honnold and sounds like Honnold... We smile and shrug our shoulders, and get back to work. Alex and his partner pass us and steadily keep moving up.

Pitch 7 is the notorious “black tower” pitch, marked by a short corner/ramp leading up to an ominous 30-40 ft tall spike of dark granite jutting out from the wall. Following the route, the leader must trend behind, then above, then up and right of the tower. The body-weight placements necessary to get through this mentally cruxy section must hold, lest the climber risk a hazardous fall into the vicinity of the spike. It's terrifying in a comically Super Mario-ish way. As Ryan ascends near the tower, mumbled expletives drift down to my stance at the belay. I later find out that Ryan's aiders had been clipping into his placements by accident! Not a favorable situation to deal with while you're in the midst of suspending your mortal terror through a no-fall zone. Ryan cruises the mental crux of the route for him so far, 3 body weight placements (including beaks) above likely impalement. Offset cams and cam hooks keep him moving upward, until a surprisingly tough move to clip the anchor brings him to this nightmare pitch's conclusion. I follow the pitch with the familiar “this must have been scary to lead” type of relieved modesty that I've often seen my followers express on outings in Eldorado Canyon. It's a humbling experience.


And so we keep climbing, staying hydrated and relatively happy, with few hitches save a small mishap when I mess up tying in the haul bags short after a pitch and have to manually lift 100 lbs. to get them free of the anchor. We climb quickly and efficiently, our communication short and to the point - essentially, we're killing it. Our pace and ease of ascent seem precariously beyond our expectations, to the point that I don't want to jinx it so just keep my mouth shut and keep jugging.

Pitch 8 has a section of free climbing that leads into a steep traverse that requires offset cams, beaks, and maybe was missing some copperheads. This is a physically demanding lead for Ryan, possibly the crux of the day. It's just as much so following, as I have to do a harrowing lower-out and a lot of steep jugging. On pitch 9, the beautiful “Flying Buttress,” Ryan has to get the hammer out for the first time - to free a stuck cam hook! It takes a good 20 minutes at least, but we won't count it against our clean ascent. There were a lot of fixed copperheads and pins on this pitch, and I remember it being incredibly aesthetic, taking us into the grey circle up a smooth corner of beautiful granite.


Before too long, we're watching Alex Whatshisname and his partner top out - they absolutely fired the route in about 5 hours - and I notice a black shape seemingly floating in midair around them. At first I think it must be a bird or a stray piece of clothing, but its movements are too regular and controlled. We conclude that it's probably a remote control camera, and that clinches it for us: we spent the day climbing next to Alex Honnold! It's an absolute thrill to be in the presence of this guy and we're psyched to have been able to watch him crush, so inspiring!

I finish cleaning pitch 9 quickly, since it's mercifully vertical and mostly just requires racking quickdraws. It's dusk by now, and the sun has long since dipped into hiding behind the Nose. Blue and purple shadows spill across the valley onto the Sentinel, and the sections still reflecting the last light of the day are scintillating pearly white and gold. We can hear the cars whispering by on the road 1000 ft below us, carrying loads of visitors back to their campsites to start stoking fires. Ryan sets up the ledge above and to the right of the bags, easily assembling it in about 5 minutes. I am starting to feel the uniquely aching exhaustion of fading adrenaline. We take some time to adjust and organize: I hand Ryan stuff sacks, layers, food and water from the haul bags while he gets situated fine-tuning his balance. We hear a few whoops and hollers from other climbers far away on this sea of rock, probably calling it a day just like we are. The small details required to prepare for our bivy help inspire a tranquil patience as I swing over to the ledge and plop down. I feel El Cap's fading warmth on my back as Ryan and I recline to enjoy the impossibly beautiful sunset. We are ants on this wall, specks of dust. We are uniquely invisible. We are the luckiest guys in the park.


It's alien, and unsettling, but I also feel grateful to be this isolated, away from the cacophony of car alarms, running children, and ravens back at our campsite. Indeed, a couple days later when I'm back in my tent on the ground I sortof miss the ledge, weirdly enough. After a high-calorie dinner and a few sips of whiskey from a nalgene, I'm deep inside my down sleeping bag, drifting rapidly asleep. The dark erases the yawning distance between us and the trees below. All that reach me as I conk out are the breeze gently rustling the straps on our gear and the sharp pinpricks of starlight.

Day 4

It's a cold morning on the ledge, and we're both sore as hell, but we know we have to get moving and we both smell so bad at this point that it starts to seem like a good idea to start climbing, if only to put some distance between us. I stretch and eat some breakfast (bagel with nutella and peanut butter), and we start to get organized. I swing over off of the ledge and onto the haul bags below while Ryan fills up his water bladder for the day and organizes gear.


Before too long, the lead line is flaked, ledge is packed up, and Ryan is wearing the rack and looking up at the infamous Nipple pitch. It's still cold so we're both eager to get moving, and he heads off. This pitch is spectacular, flawless white granite creasing the wall to a right-arching crack into a wide break, where it terminates in a gigantic flake and continues up and left. Fixed pins and gear bring Ryan to the notoriously insane series of moves leading up to the Nipple itself- 4 inverted cam hook moves in a row! These hold nicely, then Ryan struggles to plug a large cam and get situated as he attempts to clip the bolt above the Nipple. I watch him struggle at this part for a while, awkwardly trying to stuff his body behind the flake and reach up to the bolt, but no dice. Too much time is being wasted here, so out comes the cheat stick! To Ryan's later dismay, this was the picture that made Tom Evans' El Cap Report for the day...


All in good fun! Up we go, into pitch 11, the “Mark of Zorro,” which has a bunch of beak moves, some in quick succession, including one beak hook on a dead head! Ryan thinks there may have been missing fixed gear on this pitch, but it was still doable hammerless, albeit very difficult and pretty dangerous as well. Cleaning, I have to do lower-out after lower-out, and pulling around the steep overhang at the end is arduous. At some point, I look over and what do you know - it's Honnold and his partner firing another route way off to our right! I took a picture this time...


So I have my entertainment for the day watching these guys crush, it truly is a beauty. They ended up topping out a few hours later. No big deal, two El Cap routes in two days.

Onward...time up here is measured by the shadows across the valley, and I get well acquainted with the zip zip of my ascenders, the delicate-but-not-delicate art of removing weighted offset brassies with my nut tool.

Pitch 12 is the last C3 pitch on the route, which fact Ryan is quietly ecstatic about. He has some trouble on it, especially getting to the belay, at one point having to make 3 hook moves in a row.


At one point as I'm coaxing a cam out of a pin scar, I feel a few water drops hit me. Oh sh#t oh sh#t is it raining? Great...but I look up, it's a gently descending spiral of pale yellow droplets emanating from...Ryan, some 100 ft above me! I'm getting peed on!

“Dude, what the f*#k???”

“I can't help it man it's the wind! I can't stop now, it got on me and the bags too!”

He's right, the drop zone he was going for is clear, but the breeze is unfortunate. At this point I'm shaking my head and laughing, and I've started jugging again. I guess that's life on a big wall, sometimes you just get peed on.

The topo for pitch 13 mentions a reachy hook move, but Ryan finds nothing of the sort. Instead, the length is the challenging part, producing heinous rope drag. This pitch is tons of fun, because it includes a very cool 5.8 crack section that I jam through, gladly dispensing with my aiders. We're making steady progress and feeling good, drinking plenty of water and munching on various snacks that I carry in my little BD pack. At each belay, I remind Ryan to eat because he's too zoned in to remember. We are cool and methodical, staying within our means and trying to be patient with one another. The wall moves slowly but dependably beneath us.

On the spectacular Peanut Ledge below pitch 14, as we take a short lunch break, the unmentioned fact that we are three pitches from finishing the climb hangs suspended, not one of the thoughts that I choose to vocalize on this well-deserved break. Ryan is looking at the position of the shadows across the valley, wondering what time it is - he mentions that we're 300 feet from the top. I take out my phone, which has been off since this morning, and turn it on. We decide that if it's before 4pm, we should commit to finishing the route today. The little iridescent apple logo sits for 30 torturously long seconds as I wait for the verdict. And then, with conviction, the numbers are there - it's not even 2:30, which means we're going for it. I flash the screen to Ryan, who agrees with enthusiasm, and sets off.

Some of the wide crack on pitch 14 can ostensibly be free climbed, according to the topo, but Ryan aids it. Two #5s are absolutely mandatory, and according to Ryan, three each of #4 and #5 would have been nice. As I clean the gear on the flake, I think about Charlie Porter liebacking it, 1500+ feet off the deck. This route, his route, is so beautiful, this pitch so wild and humbling to climb. The roof at the end is tough to surmount following, with a scary lower-out. Fixed gear on this pitch is key.

Pitch 15 begins with a few rivet hangers followed by an absolutely terrifying 5.7 leftward traverse on the edge of a gigantic hollow flake.

The exposure is incredible here, but following it is pretty much a nightmare, and leading this pitch isn't pleasant for Ryan either, because in order to establish us at the belay he has to back-clean everything he places as he ascends up a crack and traverses sharply back right on an awkwardly small ledge to finish at a spot 100 ft above and roughly in line with the start. The climbing is easy, but the exposure and danger definitely makes this one of the more memorable and exciting pitches of the climb.



Before we know it, we're at the bottom of the final pitch of Zodiac, pitch 16, which goes free at 5.10b supposedly, and which we have established I will try to lead free. Ryan asks me if I'm still psyched, and I don't have to consider for too long before I decide, what the hell, this is crazy, but I'm going for it. I will attempt to lead my first pitch of Yosemite granite, 2000 ft off the deck after cleaning 6 pitches of aid that day. I am completely wiped, but I know we only have a couple hours of daylight left and the possibility of accomplishing this seems so worth the effort! I pick my rack off of the gigantic array of gear hanging from Ryan, take a few minutes to lace up my TC Pros, and set off. Before too long, the reality of what I'm trying to do supercedes my already tempered expectations, and I'm hanging from a cam, pumped out and frustrated. We don't have time to dawdle, so I pull on the gear and keep climbing, reaching the overhanging finish where I once again have to hang, mumble something about sandbaggery, clip in my aiders and crank over the lip on fingers-to-hand sized camalots. The anchor bolts are there, then the angle fades away, then I'm standing upright on solid ground, looking at the summit of El Cap. I've lead us up the final pitch to the finish! It's over! Almost.


This pitch is extremely awkward to haul from, because the bolts are placed just above a sortof lip of rock that stops the bags well below the anchor.


I have to haul the bags to just under this lip while Ryan cleans the pitch, and when he's done, we leave it at that for a while and walk up to the summit together. We take it all in slowly, enjoying the magnificent view and sitting for a while just contemplating what we've done. Words can't describe that feeling, so I'll keep it short - it's profound, a sense of smallness but at the same time significance, the idea that I have helped scale such a proud cliff with all of our little tools. Underneath it all is a basic gratitude for El Cap, for its somber countenance, its patience, the privilege to experience the same adventures that generations of climbers before me have as well.

We have to haul our bags up if we want to eat, which is the thing that I desire to do roughly more than anything else that I have ever desired at any time in my life. After taking a look at my haul setup (admittedly pretty poor probably, it was my only time hauling on the route) and making a couple other lame, tired manual haul attempts, we decide that the only thing we can do is empty the bags and carry them over the lip by hand. Thus, I lower myself down to the bags, dig in, and start throwing/handing random objects up to Ryan until the bags are light enough to lug over the lip and leave stranded just beyond the finish. We have our food and our sleeping supplies up here now, and I eat two days' worth of food in about 20 minutes. Ryan calls his GF, I text my family and a few friends - we're winding down. The sun is dipping down below the horizon behind the Nose, coloring the valley with its usual shades of red and gold.


We hang up our food a good distance away from where we will bivy, and lie down. Drifting off to sleep, I know that tomorrow will be an adventure in itself as we have to lug our gear down the descent and walk back to the car. But for now, it's OK to relax - we can get up at our leisure tomorrow, and I'm proud of our accomplishment. It's been a wild ride, and it's good to be alive.


Thanks for reading!!!