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Open Letter to the Climbing
Community about Everest
November 2008: EL CAP! Trip report below.
Lurking Fear, VI 5.8 C2
October, 2008
It’s
been a long time since I’ve written a real-live El Cap trip report, for
no other reason than it’s been a long time since I climbed El Cap. The solo of the Muir back in 2003 was
really only a few short years ago, but a long, long time ago
metaphysically.
The
original goal for 2008 was to climb the Nose in a day -- 24 hours of the best
climbing in the world. The ascent
requires incredible aerobic fitness and solid, efficient free climbing at the
5.10/5.11 level. Yosemite 5.10, that
is (read: real, live hard 5.10 crack climbing). My erstwhile partner Robbie and I embarked
on a free climbing training program that could best be described as
“tentative,” and really was just plain old lazy. Not surprisingly, June came and went
without even the whisper of an attempt at ECIAD. I set my sights on running ultra #3 and
wrote off my El Cap career.
Come September
I had a surprising conversation:
Ed:
…[random lead-in] “Yeah, and I’ll be in the Valley that
weekend.”
Robbie:
“Doing what?”
Ed:
“Hanging out with some good friends from SF and approaching
stuff.”
Robbie:
“Wanna stay out there and climb with me?”
Ed:
“Sure. Wanna do El Cap?”
Robbie:
“Heck yeah. I’ve wanting
to do a wall all summer.”
And a
plan was hatched. Save the intimate
details, but the planning involved choosing a route we didn’t end up
doing (Tangerine Trip) and a gigantic spreadsheet.
After a
fantastic weekend with SF peeps during which I unsuccessfully attempted to
convince them to Sherpa water to the base of El Cap for me (turns out an
“interpretive hike to the base of El Cap carrying 2 gallons of
water” doesn’t sound that appealing to your average person. Oh well) Robbie and I set off to the base
of the Trip over on the right side of El Cap.
We arrived to find a bomb had gone off… three haul bags, countless
cams, biners, and slings and what looked like 40 days worth of food were surrounding
two hapless looking climbers. We had
arrived at Gumbo central, just an hour too late. These guys were headed up our route in no
hurry with (what appeared to be) not so much expertise. So, while the prospect of climbing slow and
having gear dropped on you for four days was mildly appealing, we decided to
check out another route… Lurking Fear.
Lurking
is one of the classic El Cap starter routes.
Interesting, aesthetic and not too hard. It was definitely a notch or two below our
ability but a really classic line and it promised to be good fun. And El Cap delivered.
Day 0: Fixing
After
our game day change we hiked up to the base of Lurking and proceeded to fix 3
pitches (pretty standard fare on the route).
The climbing was pleasant and pretty easy, although there was a lot
more hooking than I would have expected from a C2 route. Lots of hooking over gigantic 3/8 inch ASCA
sponsored bolts… sort of like a rookie’s guide to hooking. Which, we realized, was exactly the right
speed for two old retired climbers getting back on the big stone one last
(well maybe not last, we’ll see =) time. Three pitches, lots of bolts, ten hook
moves and a pendulum and we were down and headed to Curry for pizza and beer. Pitch by pitch beta follows (the Supertopo
pitch #’s):
Day 1: Short and lots of hauling
After a
good night’s sleep and a couple copies of our new topo we headed back
to the base with our haulbags full of water and food. We were planning for four days on the rock
but had enough to be totally comfortable for five. Although the scotch would have probably run
out -- prime motivation to get ‘er done.
We only
did four pitches on Day 2 -- partly because we had to do the approach and the
haul and partly because we were just getting back into the groove of aid
climbing. The long traverse at the end
of the day near dark was exciting. I
remember a lot of complaining about hooking from Robbie on the fourth pitch,
but cleaning it looked pretty straightforward. We complained a lot about pretty easy climbing
on this route. The highlight of the
day was getting the ledge set up just before dark. The first night back in the ledge was
absolutely phenomenal… cold stag chili, a little scotch and some mini
candy bars for dessert. I realized
that ledge sleep is the best kind of sleep, and I also had really, really
bizarre and vivid dreams. Trippy.
Day 2: The bait and switch
Our
second day on the wall dawned early and we got out of our bivys slowly. I remember hearing voices as we were
getting ready to go, but figured they were coming from another route. Not so much. The first pitch of the day is the somewhat
notorious cam walk pitch -- reminiscent of the #4 cam walk on Zodiac. It fell to me, and it was pretty
scary. It’s the classic dilemma
of easy aid climbing -- solid #3.5 or #4 Camalot placements for 100 feet but
nothing else. Like a bad lottery
ticket: the chances of a piece blowing are very low, but the consequences,
since it’s virtually impossible to carry enough pieces to protect the
pitch adequately, are very bad. I
complained a lot but slowly managed to get through it, cleaning and
back-cleaning my #4s with abandon.
Sometime
during the day we got passed by a very famous Yosemite
climber (who shall go unnamed) who was dragging his [friend?] [client?]
[partner?] along, doing the route in a day.
He was free climbing, French-freeing and short roping like a true
Valley local and moving way faster than we were. We chatted with them and agreed to let them
pass. Robbie led the next pitch, which
turned out to be pretty easy, quickly.
Our friendly Yosemite El Cap hero promptly decided it was a good time
for his gumbo-esque partner to take the lead, and we got stuck waiting for
them at two belays while he got going.
Bait. Switch. Hero-guy knew he had sort of done us wrong
and appeared to be chagrined about it.
Soon enough they got out of our way and it was time to set up the bivy
at the end of the day at the top of 11.
This was my favorite night -- we got set up well before dusk and just
enjoyed our dinner and drinks and the incredible beauty and majesty that is Yosemite from a unique vantage point. Spectacular.
Day 3: Getting moving
The
third day on the wall we really got moving.
We were hoping to get up to this giant ledge a few pitches from the
summit called Thanksgiving ledge. It
would pass as the first “flat” ground in three days. The first pitch of the day was mine again
-- fear for breakfast was getting to be habit! This was also the day on the wall when it
started to feel like the summit was closer than the ground. It was in sheer vertical feet, I guess, but
it was more than that. There’s always
a specific point in the climb when the El Cap challenge starts feeling doable. From the base, it feels like there is just
too much stone up there to contemplate ever climbing it all. But you start, one pitch at a time thinking
only about what you have to do to climb the next pitch, only the next
one. Then, somewhere a little over
halfway, the ground doesn’t seem to get any smaller and the summit
starts getting closer. You are
committed. I think there’s a
lesson on life buried in there somewhere.
The
third day on the wall flew by -- I had a fun traverse, a little temper tantrum
when I had to climb some run-out 5.5 and a fun, steep crack. Robbie finished us off and we slept on one
of the coolest ledges on El Cap, where you can walk around to the see many of
the great routes on the right side.
Amazing.
The top
of this route has a reputation for being pretty mungy, but we found it to be
relatively clean and aesthetic. After
a good dinner Robbie and I finished the bottle of scotch that we’d
brought up the wall and chatted for a while about life. He slept in nice flat bivy spot, and I set
up the ledge hanging from a couple of small cams, just for comfort. I’ll remember our night on
Thanksgiving ledge for a long time.
Perhaps my last night in a portaledge, somehow the sky seemed more
dark and the stars that much more bright.
It was like the sensations of all the nights on walls in the Valley
and Zion over
the course of a decade got concentrated and experienced as a compact whole
simultaneously. Maybe it was simply
the sweet sadness of another wall (nearly) in the bag, or maybe it was more
-- the melancholy of the end of a big wall career, the end of a string of
intense experiences where refuge from the real world lay. I spread out in the ledge, absolutely happy
and content in the moment.
Day 4: Up and off
After
that spectacular night on Thanksgiving ledge we had only two pitches to the
top, which we dispatched pretty easily.
The long exit slabs had fixed lines, which we backed up, and we topped
out in pretty short order. The East
Ledges descent still sucks -- it’s getting better with all the rappels
fixed and a pretty good trail laid out, but the Captain doesn’t let you
off easily, ever. We bit the bullet
and were down by afternoon. We capped
off our El Cap experience with a hot shower at Curry and steak and martinis
at the Mountain Room restaurant. It
doesn’t get any better than that.
“To live
every day as if it had been stolen from death, that is how I would like to
live. To feel the joy of life... To
separate oneself from the burden, the angst, the anguish that we all encounter
every day. To say I am alive, I am
wonderful, I am, I am. That is
something to aspire to.”
Garth Stein (as spoken by Enzo)
The Art of Racing in the Rain
Pitch by Pitch beta:
Pitch
1: Easy free
climbing up a baby aid / 5.10 crack to the top of a pillar to a combined bolt
/ hook ladder. Some of the placements
are pretty reachy so bring your cheater stick.
Pitch
2: Long easy
bolt ladder. A couple of reachy hook
moves.
Pitch
3: Somewhat
awkward climbing up a narrowing flake that wants to spit you out left. Here we coined the term “a little
A-W-K”. The penji is easy as is
the unprotectable baby aid to get you to the belay. The leader has to drop down further than is
intuitive to make the penji. The moves up to the 5.9 climbing are easy and there’s
one fixed pin.
Pitch
4: Bolt, hook,
bolt, hook, bolt, hook. To small stuff
to easy aid.
Pitch
5: Baby aid up
to the top of a pillar. Goes fast
Pitch
6: Repeat of
pitch 5. Fast baby aid. I led both pitches
Pitch
7: Short traversing
bolt ladder around a corner. The bolts
are bomber and the moves are pretty easy.
There is more climbing around the corner than the topo seems to
indicate.
Pitch
8: Easy climbing
to 100 feet of #3.5 or #4 cams. The
3.5 is really the ticket, and there are very few places to leave anything
other than a #3.5 or a #4. I got one
dicey #3, one dicey #5 and a bomber #4.5 at the top.
Pitch
9: Fast baby aid
Pitch
10: Easy until
the very end. Pull over a roof on a
bomber piece to a medium sized cam hook to a tiny RP to a bomber bolt. Top step cheater stick clip the anchors
from the bolt.
Pitch
11: Some fixed mank that looks pretty good and
easy aid.
Pitch
12: Pretty easy
fun traverse. Do the variation marked
“5.10 or hook var.” in the Supertopo. It’s two hooks to a few easy free
moves to access a thin crack for a few moves under the anchor.
Pitch
13:
Robbie’s pitch. Looked pretty
fun.
Pitch
14: Do the
“C1 (better way)” variation -- one move pulls you up on this
sloping 5.5 ramp. It’s totally
casual in free shoes without the rack, but a little grippy otherwise.
Pitch
15: Some ledges
to an easy crack
Pitch
16: Went pretty
fast with a lot of free climbing.
Bring your free shoes on this one for sure
Pitch
17: A couple of
moves in the off-width crack and then some easy climbing to Thanksgiving
ledge.
Pitch
18: Easy
aid. Save your .75 Camalots,
you’ll need one on the steep exit crack.
Pitch
19: Long casual
slabby 5.4.
Exit
Slabs: Long but
casual with a fixed line. Definitely
fix the line and carry the pig(s) on your back -- don’t try to haul, it
will be a nightmare
Beware
the red ants on Thanksgiving ledge!
August 2008: A continued dearth of real
adventures is replaced by a spectacular summer, including fantastic trips to
Yosemite and Colorado, karaoke on my birthday (note to self: Johnny Cash was
very talented but a poor karaoke choice), a new appreciation for San Diego
and the resumption of some trail running, albeit at a more careful pace.
In the category of impactful reading I feel
compelled to suggest Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies. This is a really fantastic work: genuine,
profound and actually quite funny.
Some other suggestions include:
Running Money, by Andy
Kessler. A pretty interesting tale of
the author’s journey raising, managing and exiting a technology hedge
fund during the bubble. It is well
written in the tongue in cheek style found only among the independently
wealthy.
Hedgehogging, by Barton
Biggs. Random hedge fund war story #2
- not nearly as well written as Running Money but entertaining and
thought-provoking nonetheless.
Twilight in the Desert, by
Matt Simmons. This is the most boring,
most profoundly insightful work I have found about the current state of the
world’s oil and gas reserves, focused on Saudi Arabia.
The Art of Racing in the Rain,
by Garth Stein. Hilarious. Sad.
If you have a dog that you think is smarter than other dogs and
actually might have a coherent thought, this tale will take your
anthropomorphism to new heights.
Either way it’s a well written and amusing story of a race car
driver’s life, as told from the vantage point of his dog.
May 2008: Sorry for the delay in updating the site… it’s been a
crazy seven months, although with a relative dearth of adventures thanks to a
pretty severe tendonitis of the knee. Downside:
no running or climbing until recently.
Upside: I discovered the SwiMP3 - an underwater mp3 player. The worst brand name on the planet but a
spectacular device that enables country music whilst working out in the
pool. It makes a savagely boring swim
workout tolerable.
October 2007: Done with the move back to
San Francisco
and loving being back in the City. First trip to Yosemite after getting
back my buddy Josh and I did an amazing trail run from Tuolumne to Hetch
Hetchy down the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne.
Here's a pic of the reservoir:
Some more reading from
Ed's reading list.
Come
Be My Light, The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta, by Mother
Teresa. Through private letters and commentary, the collection provides
an amazing window into the inner spiritual life of one of the greatest saints
of our time.
Ultramarathon
Man, Confessions of an All Night Runner, by Dean Karnazes. This man
is insane.
The
War of the End of the World, by Mario Vargas Llosa. An epic in the
tradition of Marquez which tells the story of the Brazilian uprising at Canudos.
Mergers
& Acquisitions, by Dana Vachon. A hilarious account of one man's
experience in JP Morgan's investment banking analyst program.
September 2007: Big trip to Needles over Labor
Day weekend before starting my new job in California full time. The picture
below is of my climbing partner and me on top of the Witch Needle after doing
the worst 5.9 on the planet. Note to self: "tunnel variation"
routes should be avoided.
August 2007: Not a lot of adventure to
report. I've been cranking with work and spending a lot of time
traveling back and forth to California
and other points far and wide. I did manage to get a weekend in Tuolumne in a couple weekends ago. The goal for
the weekend was to trail run / hike Cloud's Rest and Half Dome from the
meadows (rather than up from the Valley). I thought it would be a lot
more flat and casual. Boy, was I wrong. The loop (including a 2
mile shortcut from Cloud's Rest to the Half Dome trail) along the ridge that
looks down on Tenaya Canyon turned out to be 22 miles on the nose with about
6K feet of up and down. Good fun but way, way tough at altitude.
A few more reading
recommendations:
More Sex is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics,
by Stephen Landsburg. An econmist's slightly tongue-in-cheek approach
to using incentives to solve the world's problems.
The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The
sequel to Fooled
By Randomness. Both spectacular must-reads, the Black Swan examines
the role of outlier events in determining our economic, social and personal
fates.
Thirteen Moons , by Charles Frazier. Loosely
historical fiction about a white man taken in by Indians in the late
1800s. Outstanding subtle and slightly black humor.
July 2007: Went up and did the
Diamond again, it was good fun. We did Pervertical Sanctuary, which I
think in retrospect is a highly overrated route. The one long sustained
pitch is definitely super-mega-classic, but the other pitches are pretty
chossy, and the wide pitch totally SUCKS. I battled my way up it, but
the Diamond definitely got the better of me that day.
June 2007: Well, Wildflower was pretty much
a bust. I think in retrospect it was a little aggressive to plan a
half-ironman two weeks after my first ultra. The run on the tri was one
of the most painful long runs I've ever done... I had the energy but my legs
were just filled with lead. Oh well, I guess there's always next year.
I also got a light and
fast run at Dreamweaver, in Rocky
Mountain National
Park. The route was in pretty good
condition, with lots of snow and a couple vertical pitches of ice. We
did it in eight hours car-to-car, or something like that, entirely simul-solo
(the only way to fly on an easy route like that). Kudos to my partner
Robbie who battled through illness to get it done.
May 2007: Not much personal climbing to
report. The Desert
Rats 50 mile was 21st of April and it went really well. I finished
in 10:50 and only contemplated quitting maybe 15 times. Basically once
per mile between 35 and 50. Yikes, that's a long way. Results are
posted here. The Wildflower
Half Ironman is coming up... finish one race and taper for another!
A friend of mine sent me
an email the other day that started with something like "I just saw you
on You Tube..." which is almost always bad. But, in this case it's
all good: my partner from Everest, Rex, put together some video clips from
our trip, including some pretty sweet summit footage. The video is
embedded below or linked here.
April 2007: The ice in Colorado
is pretty much out, but the great long routes in Rocky Mountain
National Park are
coming in. It was such a long nasty winter, I suspect it will be a late
Spring season in Colorado
this year. In the meantime, I've got two non-climbing related goals on
the horizon: the Desert Rats 50 mile (my first ultra) and the Wildflower
Half Ironman. Both awesome races. I also want to urge you to
action. After the spectacle of Dean Potter soloing Delicate Arch,
Johnny Law and the powers that be have convened to create a Climbing
Management Plan for Arches
National Park.
The period for public input on the Plan is now open. Here are Sam
Lightner's comments from Mountain Project. And here is the link to
form you can use to submit your comments to the Park. Hit "Comment
on the document"
Regardless of whether
you like run-out dirty tower climbing in places like Arches or not, we all
need to defend the right to climb, albeit responsibly and with minimum
impact. Do your part.
Recommended Reading:
"Murdering
the Impossible" by Caroline Alexander. National Geographic,
November 2006. An in-depth, insightful profile of Reinhold Messner
Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why, by Laurence
Gonzales. Fascinating look into what equips people to cope with life
and death situations of all kinds.
Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller. One man's
compasionate exploration into faith and growing up.
Finding Flow, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. The
psychology behind moments of pure concentration and happiness.
High Exposure, by David Breashears. Autobiography
of the world's best high altitude cinematagrapher.
Simply Christian, By NT Wright. The basics of
post-modern Christian faith from an intellectually honest perspective.
When Not Seeing is Believing, by Andrew Sullivan.
Time Magazine, October 9, 2006. An inquiry into doubt, fundamentalism
and the role of faith in solving the world's meta-problems.
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