 |
| What better way to spend a week in August? |
We were bored. It was hot,
stiflingly so and the thought of getting up and doing something seemed
untouchable. We sat frustrated, watching the squirrels uncaringly gnaw through
tents and steal food as they always do in the summer. Greg, an Australian, his
fuse lit about something, abruptly jumped to his feet mumbling something about
giving the vermin something they would never forget. Not entirely sure what he
was up to I followed his lead.
Observing this sudden surge of
activity, the lady in the site next to us politely enquired as to what we were
doing.
Greg rolled his eyes and mumbled,
“We're going to put a Squirrel into low earth orbit”, as if he'd been asked
that same question a thousand times and the act launching a rodent into the air
at high speed, a normal thing to do.
In reality Greg wasn’t too far off
the mark. I’ve seen them sautéed and eaten by Koreans, on the business end of a
2kg rock and Burt even brought his .41 Magnum Ruger revolver specifically to
“nail” a few of the little beasts but we managed to get him to put it away when
he levelled it at my tent after drinking a litre of rum.
We looped a rope around two pine
trees, wound into it a stick that became so tight a Medieval Mangonel had
nothing on our evil device. On the end of our Squirrel Flinger we attached a
pad upon which we smeared the peanut butter bait and pinning it to the ground
we withdrew to our tents.
Soon enough an unsuspecting test
pilot approached the bait with trepidation and after a moment of indecision,
hopped aboard.
The trap was sprung.
The arm accelerated upwards and spun round in an arc,
whumping and wobbling like an unbalanced rotor blade. I didn't see a petrified
airborne squirrel hurtling through the trees.
Bollocks.
After about thirty high velocity
revolutions the arm came to a rest, dangling limply.
“Did you see it go?”, I asked.
“No mate”
This was very odd.
Approaching the Flinger we heard
some pathetic squeaking. Peering around the other side appeared a very unhappy
Squirrel.
From what we could deduce, it held on to the bait stick and survived
30Gs just below the speed of sound. The rodent dropped to the ground and
wobbled away in a drunken state.
We looked at each other in disbelief and knew
without a doubt that if man wants to go to Mars they should send Yosemite
Squirrels first.
 |
| The route: Zenyatta Mondatta |
After two lengthy groundfalls, a
year spent recovering and an all too disturbing familiarity with grey NHS
waiting rooms I wondered why I was here again. After fixing a pitch on Zenyatta
Mondatta on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley I wanted nothing more to do with it and began to question my reasons
for climbing.
I then ran into Jeff and through his enthusiasm changed venues.
We had a jaunt on the Pacific Ocean Wall which cleared my mind and subsequently
I felt a more certain to have another go at Zenyatta.
When we returned, I met Andy and
Sean, two Aussies hailing from Brisbane.
With Andy being sick, Sean was planning to go it alone on the Zodiac and late
one evening in Camp 4 he came over to get the beta for it as I'd soloed it the
previous year. It occurred to me that it wasn’t very intelligent for the two of
us to solo within twenty metres of each other so I asked him with efficacious
apprehension if he was interested in climbing Zenyatta with me.
Turning to see if I was serious, he
momentarily pondered my slurred invitation as I tentatively gripped my tenth
beer of the evening.
“All
right mate, yeah, why the fuck not”
We were in business.
 |
| Packing the equipment at the base of the route |
The next day we slogged up the talus
ferrying 200lb loads to the base. The Titanium in my shin gave me pain, the top
two screws out of 12 were loose and I could feel the heads retreating from the
bone.
That evening I re-led the first A4
pitch consisting of rivets to many small fixed ‘heads interspersed with creaky
TCU placements, more heads, two rusty ¼” bolts, a hook to ten serried pin
placements and more hooking to the belay. Sean leapt onto the fixed lead line
and cleaned it as soon as I was down, setting the pace for the days to come.
The morning was slow after
celebrating our decision to go for it the evening before. We said little to
each other as we threw everything into the bags. With every push of the Jumars
the cold morning air chilled me less and less and the ground rapidly fell away.
Leaving the horizontal world for six days felt good and after ten minutes I
eventually made it to the belay and set up to haul.
Sean followed me up and clipped into the opposite end of
the rope. Jumping off, we space-hauled the two big bags, two buckets and hardware
bag in one shot. By 9.30 all our stuff was at the anchor and I tooled up for
the A4+ second pitch.
Hooking from the belay into a series
of vertically staggered ‘head seams linked with rivets I came to the partially
broken “Death Flake”. At one time, it must have been a menacing feature which
threatened a fatal groundfall from 200'. Now it creaks and groans like an aging
troll with a bark far worse than it's bite.
The climbing to the belay became
circuitous and technically difficult. Because of the rope drag I didn’t place any protection
in the whole 60m zigzagging ‘head pitch. Tying off the lead and haul lines at
the belay, I yelled to Sean and he cut the bags free. Like a plumb line, the
bag cluster drove home how dangerously steep this route was, a potential
retreat would be very difficult.
Clipping into the haul line, Sean
sat back and became a human counter-weight. As I lowered him 60m we
simultaneously raised the bags to the anchor. His alacrity was commendable, he
never complained about jugging the initial pitches twice and was always easy
going when it came to the tiresome work of hauling.
 |
| The completion of the backbreaking space haul to the top of pitch 3. Note the two buckets, one for breakfast goodies (danishes and pastries) and the other for human waste...don't mix 'em up! |
We now found ourselves in one of El Cap's
infamous diorite bands. The rock became slate-like, loose and fractured. Above
us arched the ragged corner of the third pitch. It didn't look as hard or as
deceptive as the last two and we could now see the lightening-bolt roofs and
the other big roof way up there, two features I was psyched to get to grips
with.
The pitch started with heads and shallowly driven pins
then a couple of long sections of hooking above a ledge system that left
nothing to the imagination should I fall. At the end of the pitch, with no gear
in place, I traversed under a small roof on a marginal knifeblade stack driven
upwards, a #3 Camelot followed by a gnarly hook move on the lip from which I
reached the belay via three copperheads.
Sadly, on the first of April the following year Matt
Baxter would tie in to the lead line one last time and rope solo the third
pitch after soloing the first two. A copperhead that had probably been placed
on the first ascent strained to support his weight. Seemingly safe, the
deceptively weak copperhead failed as did the carabiner clipped to a piece of
gear below him. His rope severed during the fall after it snagged behind a
flake sending him to his death.
Sean arrived and we hauled all our
crap up and I got settled in. He, having not done much nailing and having never
really used hooks and heads before, agreed that I would deal with the first
three hard pitches.
 |
| Sean about to gear up to lead the 4th pitch |
Now it was his turn.
He began climbing right over my head on his first
nailing lead. The first move was a hook and then a very marginal pin. The next
was gripping for both of us. A lost arrow, driven in under 5mm and tied off.
Under the test it levered right down so he knocked it out and placed it again.
Getting another pin of similar integrity about eight centimetres above, he tied
them together. Under the test, they levered slightly but held.
Subsequently, he drove in three more
pins that couldn't restrain a fart after which he started hooking up and left.
I was really impressed.
"How's it going up there?"
"This is great fun!"
Gulp!
I cringed. I have always been a bad
passenger in a car and this was incredibly similar to racing down a dark lane
with the headlights off and your life in someone else’s hands.
He disappeared from view and I
relaxed a little, the angle lessened and led him into some very loose free
climbing. Soon he reached the belay and as it was getting dark, he abseiled
back down for the night.
Evenings are great up on El Cap. I
surveyed the base of the wall and noticed a party racking up for the Zodiac -
just getting a couple of pitches rigged, thinks me - they don't have haulbags.
On the south-eastern horizon the full moon crept into the sky. Capitalising on
the moonlight, the Green Dragon from the Valley Floor Tour came rumbling around
the bend and eventually parked by the meadows.
What we disliked the most about the
Green Dragon was that one particular guide got the entire bus load of tourists
to cheer at the top of their lungs. This is bad enough when you're gripped on a
hard lead, but at night it's beyond a joke. You get settled in and your just
drifting away into never never-land when all of a sudden “Heeeeyyyyy!” from the
meadow.
“What the fuck was that?”, mumbled
Sean.
“The fucking Green Dragon”
“I was asleep”
“Yup”
Sean leaned over the ledge and
looked down to the road.
“Fuck
off you fucking wankers!”, he screamed.
No doubt the tourists thought that this
was all good fun, not considering that climbers might be exhausted and trying
to sleep. They must have caught Sean's tirade and assumed they had established
some kind of communication with us as no more than five seconds later they did
it again.
Bollocks to it, I needed to sleep.
Well it was over for tonight. Eyes shut. Head down. Ahhhh!
Thwack, thwack, thwack.
“Hey dude, off belay!”
“Okay, belay off”
What
the hell is going on? Why tonight? A speed ascent of the Zodiac.
“I don't fucking believe this is
happening”, Sean mumbled from the depths of his sleeping bag.
“Mmmm”
Between the tourists and the
tumultuous individuals on the Zodiac, murder and terrorism were plotted.
The following morning we cleaned and
hauled. The next lead was one of the first places where one of us could be
severely hurt.
All racked up, I deftly hooked to a
fixed pin, clipped it and felt for the small drilled holes that I knew would be
above. The first two were easy to find and the specially pointed Chouinard hooks
I'd brought along worked fine. For the next placement I had to second step in
my etriers on an overhanging section pulling straight back on the hook. With my
legs straining to keep me stable, I searched frantically for the next
placement. The ledge and corner below me waited patiently for a mistake. Unable
to locate it, I dropped down and tried to relax - the weighted hook ground at
the edge of the hole.
Sweat dripped into my eyes. Standing
back up, I searched again, my fingers interrogating every ripple and bump that
could reveal a hole. Suddenly I found it - I placed a hook and moved over.
Several more moves took me to an
unceremonious flop onto a sloping shelf and down this I walked to an A2 corner
that was so loose I wished I was back at Gogarth. Cams parted blocks, huge
slivers of diorite threatened to decapitate me and I kept worrying about the
rope being chopped. I was finally led to a nice little belay nestled in a
corner with a berserk bird squawking away inside a crack. I called to Sean to cut
the bag free.
Taking rivets off the belay, he
climbed into a slabby groove that led to a narrow, awkward Quarryman-like
"V" slot which required a lot of thrashing and swearing on his part.
Next, I had the lightning-bolt
roofs. Dark and threatening, they scared something deep down inside me. The A3+
wasn't hard, A1 probably, and I soon made it to the lip and gained the super
smooth rock via several rivets. Feeling the oppressiveness, I looked at my
watch. 8pm. I'd felt compelled to get out of that Stygian place for some time
and I now needed no more encouragement. I clipped the two rivets and lowered off,
leaving the rack at my high-point.
 |
| Sean all plugged in and reading at the belay |
Descending and spinning into space in the dusk
light gave me a good view of the Diorite with these amazingly sharp pinstripe-like
quartz seams running horizontally across the wall. The world must have been a
truly awesome place as it actively tried to purge its core through the surface
and created what we now climbed. It really struck me how amazing the whole
world must have been as entire continents cooled and rock like this, fractured
and high pressure molten Quartzite surged into these fissures. Dinosaurs ruled
and died, ice ages came and went and now millions of years later, erosion by
glaciers and the elements permitted climbers like us to see the earth as it was
when it was being shaped from within.
I pulled myself into the belay. We
set up the double ledge, chatted and ate.
 |
| 8am bicep workout. James jugging to the previous day's highpoint at the top of the Lightning Bolt roofs. The hardware was left at the rivets above to avoid having to lug it back up! |
The following morning was very cold.
At 8am Sean lowered me 20' out from the wall and I took in the 1500' drop
between my legs. Jugging to the rivets, I warmed slowly. I made a hook move from my top substeps and
clipped another rivet. From there I reached the overhanging crack that's
visible from the ground and was brought awkwardly back to the vertical.
Slightly expanding knifeblade placements took me through loose flakes and tied
off pins to the belay.
The next pitch was mine also. After
re-racking, I traversed leftwards from the belay on hooks and climbed the
shallow A4 corner which from a hook took me up under the roof to some
interesting loose climbing and an almost surreal environment. I felt like I was
back in Wales,
climbing through the limestone roofs at the Great Orme with Dave.
The original expando is now gone but
the high quality of the pitch remains. Marginal pins driven upwards into flared
pods, ‘heads and more pins lead you through a small expando and up around the
edge of the roof to the belay. Looking to my right I saw heads and rivets that
meandered into the same anchors and departed into nowhere - The Shortest Straw and also Eric Kohl's Abstract Impressionist which has the
most terrifyingly thin first pitch I've ever seen.
 |
| Sean cleaning the roof pitch |
Within half an hour Sean was already
leading up an incipient leftwards trending seam that took only knifeblades and
heads.
"I don't fucking believe
this!"
"What's that?"
"Some idiot has hammered a
number six nut flat onto the rock!"
He tested and moved over. Appearing
not to be too flustered he selected a medium knifeblade and drove it in to the
hilt. It became obvious when he continued to belt it another twenty times that
he didn't like that flat nut.
The seam fizzled out and a series of
rivets took him diagonally right and into a yawning A2 dihedral that led
straight to the belay.
This is what struck me about the
route, you seem to wander all over creation but in the end, the belays are all
roughly on top of each other. Zenyatta is a truly natural line and a testament
to Bridwell's genius.
After I cleaned the pitch, we
abseiled back to the lip of the roof and set up the ledge getting ready for the
evening. Later on, we were just dozing off when I glanced at the southern
horizon.
"Jesus Sean, look!"
A fireball was slowly making its way
from the east and traversed ever so slowly behind Higher Cathedral and
continued west. It was huge, like a meteor with a glowing spherical front and a
giant tail that spread as the object traversed the sky. It showed no sign of
fizzling out as it went behind Glacier Point and became too low to be seen.
Sean sat up and looked at me with a
shocked expression on his face.
"What in hell's name was
that?"
"I have no idea...."
It reminded me of Greg Child's similar tale which
eventually led to him and Randy Levitt giving their new route the name Lost In America.
 |
| Sean cleaning my lead |
Morning came and I was apprehensive.
The next pitch which I was to lead was graded A5 on the topo, it appeared to be
short and sharp. Sean jugged to the next belay and hauled the bags. I followed
nervously.
Continuing along the corner Sean had
been climbing the previous evening to where it ended; I clipped a fixed
copperhead and stepped up.
There it was in all its glory, the
first A5 section of the route. Climbing higher, I contemplated my life as I
hung from the last rivet before the A5 flake.
Hanging like a dagger poised to kill
me, I carefully reached across and placed a #1 Camelot. Applying my weight, I
cringed expecting it to expand.
Nothing, not a peep.
I was very wary. Reaching up, I
placed another cam and moved on - nothing. Continuing along the flake, cam
after cam was totally bombproof. Elated, I yelled down to Sean.
"This A5 is a piece of
piss"
"Really!"
"Yeah, I'd haul off it"
He shook his head.
I drove an angle in to the hilt and climbed three heads
and then a funky hook traverse to the belay.
We hauled and cleaned, ate a snack,
then racked Sean up for the 200' 11th pitch.
He started up the initial A4 section
with apparent ease considering that this was his fourth nailing lead. He
stitched up several seams that were linked with rivets, then placed a cam under
a paperback sized expanding-exfoliating flake. He'd done this above only one
rivet and a bunch of marginal pin stacks - a move that impressed me when I
cleaned it. More pins, hooks and rivets led him to the belay adjacent to a big
spike.
With the second A5 pitch above, I
racked up and set off up the old expanding spike. From a tieoff on the top, I
moved tentatively across the wall. This was expando time.
I drove a 3/4" angle under the
partially broken flake and watched it open slightly as it went home. Not happy
with this I wiggled in a nut and equalised them. Looking at the rock to the
left I noticed a hairline seam that was causing the expansion, eventually it
would creep all the way down and some poor sod will get air miles the hard way.
After another move, I looked at my
watch - it was getting late. Sean lowered me off.
“What did you lower from….a rivet?”
“Nah, a hook on the expando”
He grinned, “Mad bastard”.
Dinner was consumed greedily. I
polished off the last of the stale greasy cheese in my three tortillas filled
with Chilli Con Carne. The dark crept over us and the familiar light of the
moon followed, casting eerie shadows over the wall. Our postprandial
conversations dwelled on insane things, the future, where we had been before
and plans for the years to come. We watched the traffic and people in the
meadow who'd come to look at El Cap bathed in soft light. We finally settled
in.
The night passed too quickly and morning came too soon.
 |
| Do I have to get up? |
Opening my eyes I took in the light
creeping over the wall and without looking at my watch noted its position.
7.30am. Raspberry Danishes and bread smothered with cream cheese were thrust at
me. Half an hour later I tied into the rope and jugged to the flake.
Tenuously ascending the shallow
bashie corner, I placed several alumiheads. Above this lay five rivets. I left
wires on the first two and back-cleaned the rest. Under an expando, I placed a
special knifeblade I'd waffled for placements like this. A copper circlehead
led me rightwards onto a bigger aluminium circlehead from which I started to
place a half inch angle.
As I was driving the angle piton
upwards, there was a sharp jolt…
Headfirst I was falling. I felt myself slow as each
piece just capable of just holding my bodyweight, failed. Without warning I
surged forward with each failure, accelerating to the next. My investment cast
hammer hit me on the back of the head very hard and my comprehension of the
situation dulled. I saw the copperheads whip past in my periphery off to my
right. Gritting my teeth in anticipation of impact, adrenaline surged into my
blood, my eyes bulged. The granite spike zoomed up to me. Another piece of gear
failed. Twenty feet, fifteen, twelve, ten; suddenly I lurched to a halt. The
hardware attached to my chest harness gave a hefty “clank”. Suspended upside
down, blood pooled in my head, brain-cells shorting out by the bucket-load -
not that I had many to start with... I almost laughed when I looked at the
pitiful rivet straining against my mass, and the ten copperheads below that which
couldn’t stop a falling interest rate. It was Friday and this was my first fall
on the route but I couldn't help it, deep down I was having a good time.
Those
moments are often a haze of fear but I had one distinct feeling throughout. I
just had to hang on for the ride. There was nothing I could do, I was at the
mercy of both the rock and gravity. I had been whipped to left, inverted and
spun over twice by the time I finally stopped about 50' lower. My brief supplication
to whatever controlled my future had paid off.
I was totally gripped, not so much
from the fall but from what had caught me and what lay ahead had I not stopped
where I did.
"Jesus Christ mate are you all right?”, Sean yelled.
“Just lower me off”, I said as my
heart rate subsided.
Arriving at the belay, Sean pulled
me in and I relaxed.
“Fuck!”, was my plosive reaction.
“What stopped you?”
“A rivet....the last one”, I
stammered quickly.
He was as shocked as I was. Fifteen
minutes later and still shaking I jugged back up, replaced the broken rivet and
the failed circlehead. An hour later I'd traversed out right then up, passed
the false belay and made it to the slabby 12th anchor.
 |
| Sean leading off the belay. The flat nut can be seen poking out through the gap under his right arm. |
Next, Sean led up an aesthetic
arching corner which he told me on more than one occasion how nice he thought
it was.
"This is really nice!"
Yes Sean.
It was, really.
Lost In America joined us about
halfway up and we could see it's crux “Fly or Die” pitch, also we gawped at the
“Levittator” on Scorched Earth, a yawning 5.11 offwidth above A4 knifeblades – potential
death on a shitty stick.
Sean disappeared behind a large
flake and minutes later declared the pitch done. He hauled, I cleaned and when
I arrived we decided to knock it on the head early.
I placed a rivet to hang our ledge
from, and we got ready. The evening was spent in a jovial mood and we lived it
up as much as two people could on an area smaller than a single bed…
The following morning, my last lead
took me off up a corner which trended into a short arch. This route just didn't
let up. I climbed a thin seam for ten feet abruptly ending with a #1 copperhead
pasted into a barely visible seam. I began driving home a 1/2" angle.
It rang not.
I stopped hammering and watched the
block expand all on it’s own. Not good. Hitching myself up a little, I selected
a #3 copperhead and pasted it in above the block. Moving on, I gained another
five feet via two marginal hook moves on small brittle edges taking me in the wrong direction for the
belay twelve feet away. Swallowing hard I hooked very delicately rightwards and
tentatively clipped the anchor.
 |
| James belaying |
Starting the next pitch, Sean free
climbed along a flake to a line of rivets. Looking off to the east, we could
see the tops of all the routes….
Casting my mind back, I remembered
my last day on the Zodiac the previous summer as I looked at the belay and the
majority of the 15th pitch. I recalled the summit fever I had by that point and
the emotion that it engendered welled up within me. The reality of actually
being back after my accident only fully struck me at that very moment.
Sean traversed a thin seam on the
blank wall above my head. I sat there listening to my walkman and taking in the
scenery as one does when all of a sudden I noticed a person sitting on a lip of
rock beyond the top of the Zodiac. He was waving - it was Andy.
“You're a sight for sore eyes”, I
yelled.
“How's it going?”, he enquired.
“Pretty good”
Two hours later Sean scrambled over
the rim and tied into the tree. I took about half an hour to clean the pitch.
He and I struggled with the bags to get them up the slabs and through the
bushes.
 |
| Team Zenyatta on the El Cap rim. We drank about 12 Gallons out of the 16 we hauled...that's 32 two litre Coke bottles of water! |
“Where's Andy that lazy git”, I
asked.
“On his arse up there”
“Andy.
Get your arse down here and give us a fucking hand with this”, I yelled.
“Fuck off”, a voice echoed back. We
planned devious revenge.
Scrambling over the top we must've
looked like a pair of stunned troglodytes.
We found he'd brought loads of food
with him.
He cooked us a meal, we drank the beers he'd dragged up too, as well
as the kettle chips, powerbars and other goodies.
We let him off - luckily for him.
 |
| Three Monkeys, Andy, Sean and James |
 |
Big Wall bog roll dispenser for the more discerning climber...
|
 |
| The morning after the week before... |
