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The Prow, Washington Column (attempt), April
1989:
Fresh in the Valley for the first time ever, I teamed up with a
Coloradan to try this steep line. No port-a-ledges, not enough practice
on hauling and jugging plus an inadequate weather forecast resulted
in an epic retreat in a full bore storm from the top of pitch 6
or 7. A very important event in my big wall career. The lessons
that were pounded in during these two days were so numerous, that
I spend a couple of weeks afterwards getting my systems all together
and my mind ready for what turned out to be the Amazing Valley Season
of 1989.
South Face, Washington Column, April 1989:
After our struggles on the Prow, I opted for the safe and prescribed
route to become an El Cap climber: Practice on the South Face of
the Column, fine tune on the NW on Half Dome, followed by the Nose.
My partner from the Prow had to leave, and not for the last time
I went rooting around Camp 4 looking for someone to team up with.
I was not interested in teaming up with some wall guru that had
everything wired and just needed a belay slave. Also drifting about
was a number of overly extroverted, yet hopelessly inexperienced
characters that I managed to steer clear of. Eventually I found
a reasonably reliable guy from the East Coast, who had the same
goals as I. We climbed together on the this one and the next two
routes.
Regular Route, Northwest
Face, Half Dome, May 1989:
This fine route is quoted in 50 Classic Climbs as 'the pinnacle
of achievement for an experienced party of weekend warriors' or
something like that. When I first read that years ago sitting in
my room in Denmark, thousands of miles from the valley, I knew I
had to try it even though I could barely climb 5.7 and had never
done a multipitch route. I studied every photo and tried to imagine
the exposure of 2000' of air, while shuffling out Thank God Ledge.
The actual climb didn't disappoint, even though I had lived thru
it vicariously hundreds of times. It was less of a 'big wall' experience,
than just a really long rock climb with some steep aid pitches and
a distinct alpine feel. We approached it conservatively with a haulbag
and 3 days worth of supplies. Today, as we all know, it is a standard
accomplishment to do it in a day, but that was not even considered
by us back then. Which was fine. We slept on the rocky, sloping
ledge at the top of pitch eleven with a couple more pitches fixed,
and went to the top the next day.
The Nose, El Capitan, May 1989:
The first
route I did on the Big Stone. And also the easiest. It has few of
those real frightening passages that usually shows up somewhere
along the way on an El Cap ascent, and which typically involves
wide cracks. Sure, there's memorable sections. King Swing is indeed
a large swing and the 50' of backcleaning that we had to do at the
far end wasn't fun. But that may have been because we actually overdid
the swing and landed way down in the Jardine free variation. Never
really figured that out. Texas Flake? No pro all right, but easy.
Stove legs? Walk in the park with modern cams. No,
probably the real challenge is
the fact that this is likely one's first wall on the Big Stone.
There's so many systems that has to work before moving upwards at
a reasonable speed. The whole aspect of working in aiders. Setting
up for jumaring effectively. Devising a simple hauling system. These
are 3 biggies. Without getting them to work smoothly, the ascent
of thirty some aid pitches is going to be a colossal chore at best.
So practice first on other less committing routes. That's what we
did, and when finally embarking on the Nose things went smooth and
we enjoyed the whole affair tremendously.
Our initial plan was to fix ropes to Sickle. When we arrived at
the base mid afternoon it became clear that we would be the last
in a long line of climbers, unless we started the true ascent right
away without fixed lines. We made it to Sickle at dusk and bivvied
there. After dark another party, who also had seen the writing on
the wall, arrived. But Sickle is not a big ledge and they had a
rotten night and bailed. The next morning we were completely alone,
half way up the Stovelegs, before anybody had sorted out the tangled
fixed ropes and started to jumar. We reached El Cap Towers with
enough time to fix to Boot Flake. The next day we climbed to Camp
Six and again fixed a couple of pitches more. Another half day of
standing in aiders brought us to the top. We had the whole route
to ourselves. See pictures
Salathe Wall, El Capitan, June 1989:
In my book this is one of the best climbs
that I've done anywhere. It's fantastic. This statement has even
more weigh when considering that the initial third of the route
is nothing special. The socalled Free Blast, save for the very first
pitch, is rather unaesthetic, with weird slabs and bothersome flares
on low angle rock. No, the real climbing starts when leaving Heart
Ledges and continues thru the the next 25 pitches all the way to
the top. Here are also numerous absolutely terrifying passages with
mandatory free climbing quite a ways above the last pro. Unless
you own a sizeable rack of large pro.
My memorable ascent with Californian Craig Delbrook was so full
of hilarious events that I'm saving it for an upcoming article.
Zodiac, El Capitan,
October 1989:
This was the third El Cap route I on that epic road trip of '89.
I was close to being burnt out after sleeping on the ground for
9 month and climbing almost every day, when I teamed up with Lionel
Clay from New Zealand. We decided to set out on Zodiac with two
homemade port-a-ledges without rainflys, despite an unusual wet
october in the Sierras. Together with our greasy down sleeping bags,
these bundles of bent aluminum and torn canvas provided a rather
insufficient defense against anything wet from the skies. This proved
to have an interesting psychological effect. Even the most harrowing
A3 pitches was nothing measured against the overwhelming fear of
rain. Every day, as the thunderheads kept building in the high country,
our dread climbed even higher. As far as we could determine there
were no other climbers on the South East Face. Did they know something
we didn't? It had a very humiliating impact on us to hang there
on that exposed wall, unable to move more than 50' an hour, with
only a handful of down between us and the elements. We tried to
convince each other that the wall was simply too steep for any moisture
to reach us, even though we knew better. The hardest part was off
course belaying. Hanging for hours in the harness studying the progress
of the billowing clouds. How fast were they moving? This way or
that way? Complete torture. Finally, on the third day, did we reach
the rim just in time. We were hardly done coiling the ropes before
all hell broke loose and send us scurrying down the East Ledges
followed by cascading water and rock fall. It rained non stop for
4 days. See pictures
Dihedral Wall, El Capitan,
May 1990:
Somewhat obscure route. But quality nailing, if there is such a
thing. We didn't do the upper pitches beyond Thanksgiving Ledge,
as recommended by everybody we spoke to (none of which actually
had climbed them, but all seemed to know that they were to be avoided).
As a footnote to danish climbing history I should mention that this
was the first El Cap route done by a danish-only rope team. My partner
was Peter Harremoes. See
pictures
Mescalito, El Capitan (attempt), May 1990:
After Dihedral Wall the plan was to
bail the Valley and sample some climbing areas in Wyoming, but the
arrival of an old East Coast friend prompted me to do another route.
However, motivation was lacking, I missed my girlfriend and time
had not been kind to this particular friendship. Eventually we bailed
after 4 or 5 pitches and I finally went to Devil's
Tower. I remember the first pitch to be on the scary side with
blown out bat hooking on a smooth slab. One
pic
Muir Wall, El Capitan, May 1992:
This five star route is nice and long,
very sustained but never dangerous or tremendously difficult. In
other words, a perfect outing if exposure, fantastic cracks and
overall climbing quality is on your list. It is possible to avoid
the lower pitches via Salathe's Free Blast. Bad idea. We had done
the Free Blast before and knew it wasn't the best section of climbing
on El Cap, besides the fact that it is a free climb, as the name
implies, and the Muir is an aid wall. Better to get in that groove
from the beginning and do the seldom visited lower pitches below
Mammoth Terraces. Sure it adds a day to the climb, but that's what
it is all about: Hanging out on the wall. Pictures
Special Feature
North America Wall, (attempt),September 1992:
The most non committing try I've ever
done on any route. It didn't feel right, for many reasons, most
of which were due to personal turmoil at the time. Rapped off after
two pitches. Instead we did...
Skull Queen, Washington Column, September
1992:
Nothing out of the ordinary here.
Not too steep, not too clean and rather chossy on the crux pitch.
For sure felt like A3. The climb overall is not too difficult and
has lots of rivet ladders. SuperTopo do call it a bit harder than
the Prow, located around the corner. Maybe I agree, but when it
comes to quality Skull Queen is far inferior. Given the choice do
the Prow. But if you happen to find yourself hanging from a pair
of aiders on this route, don't worry. There's worse things to do
than any Yosemite wall. One
shot
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