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El Capitan- Triple Direct- 5/10/2019

5/26/2019

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Picture
Making the short approach to the fixed lines.
​I woke up Friday with my truck filled with portaledges and haul bags. Doug and I were moving away from our partnership and inviting a third person, Matt to accompany us up on the big rock. Three people means more banter, more water, more food, and more rope tangles. Especially because Matt has never climbed a big wall before and has jugged a rope >3 times. We were prepared for this new challenge and ready to blast up the rock.

I got to the valley early Friday around 4pm and my friend Brett so graciously helped hike loads to the base of heart ledge. We brought 16 gallons of water (about 4 a day), with one haul bag, the one I carried stuffed with 10 
gallons and rainflys. I was close to 100 pounds. I gave Brett the smaller load with the remainder of the water. Brett and I took a couple short trips to get the water and ledges to the base and by the time we were done, Doug and Matt rolled in and they hiked the ropes and rest of the gear to the base. The three of us jugged up the lines and stared space hauling. One of the few benefits of having three people, the hauling is very "easy". The bags left the ground at 7pm and did not reach Mammoth Terrace until 2am. It was a night full of hauling followed by a short night of sleep. ​​
​We woke up Saturday morning at 8am with a few hours of sleep and had a real slow start to our morning. We rapped the fixed lines, stashed our gear and trekked back to the car. We made breakfast along with a few sandwiches for lunch. I also had my first hard boiled egg in my life. To conserve our sparse poop tube capacity, we drove around the loop to Bridalveil Falls bathroom. After navigating through the tourist filled parking lot, we made our way back to El Cap bridge, grabbed the rest of the ropes, snacks, and water and departed to Freeblast. We did not start climbing Freeblast until 12 in the afternoon and eventually topped out at 4pm on Mammoth Terrace. Doug rope gunned us up. Off of Mammoth Terrace, Matt took his first 
Picture
Some good ol' night hookin'.
lead of the day to he deceiving Pharaoh Ledges. We set up our ledges (not big enough for three people to sleep) and I took the next three pitches to Grey Ledges to fix. I started my lead at about 8:30pm and took pitch 12 in a little less than an hour. Doug followed up and cleaned the pitch, passed the gear off to me and I began the link for pitch 13 & 14 to Grey Ledges. Pitch 13 was fun, it featured a bunch of cam hooking and and small cam placements. I hooked a little bit extensively but that made the pitch go by quicker. I reached the anchors around 10:30 and continued up into pitch 14's awkward chimney section. With it being night time and aiding, the chimney pitch sucked. With a bit of time and frustration, I reached the anchors, fixed the rope and rapped down to Pharaoh Ledge by 12 at night. We made a quick dinner and began to catch up on sleep we lost the night before.
Picture
Matt jugging up on one of the traversing pitches.
​Waking up on the side of El Cap is probably one of the most peaceful places to wake up at. The sound of the wind, birds, and smell of cold Sierra air always greets you in the morning. Fixing the three pitches the night prior, gave us a good head start for Sunday. We made our coffee, bagels, and completed some personal business and headed up our fixed lines. We took turns space hauling, making hauling more of a fun activity than a dreaded chore we had to do every pitch. Before we knew it, we had our bags up at Grey Ledges and Doug took pitches 15 & 16 up to the Cross Roads section of the route. Doug popped a cam and took a nice fall into space while linking pitch 16. Matt and I jugged up our lines and met up with Doug at 
the belay. The night before we talked about how were going to haul and clean the next couple traversing pitches, and on paper we seemed to have it down. Boy where we wrong. I took pitch 17, running through it and ready to haul. It took at least an hour and a half to haul the pitch due to ropes being unorganized, haul bags getting messed up, and just an all around cluster-fuck. Eventually the bags made it up as well as the rest of the team. I took pitch 18 next and fucked it up even more than the hauling. I lowered down way to far, followed a line of bolts (not on the topo), to a couple of rivets, (not on the topo), to a chossy hooking section (not on the topo). It seems as if I was unable to read, disregarded the obvious pictures shown and made my own route. Upon reaching the last 
Picture
Matt on the wrong off-width crack.
bolt, being lowered well below the belay, I was top stepping a bolt in my aider and placing a hook with my finger tips. The hook seemed bomber, I weighted it, taking my foot off of the bolt and the took popped. I took a good violent daisy fall cutting my finger open and partially expanding my screamer on my aider. 60 feet below the belay, Matt could tell my finger was covered in blood. I jugged back up the rope, assessed the situation and finished the pitch the correct way.  We eventually hauled all of our stuff over to the Cross Roads bivy ( a really nice bivy despite the description) and set our stuff up. Matt took the next pitch off of the bivy and fixed up to pitch 19. We had one of our first early nights, in good position to finish by Tuesday.
Picture
Doug getting the belay organized.
​Waking up, this was one of the first days we all felt real rested. We packed up our stuff, hauled a quick pitch and began moving. We really found our momentum this day. Switching off mid haul, always having some one lead the next pitch and really got going. Doug took pitch 20/21, through the Great Roof into the Pancake Flake. While belaying Doug on the Great Roof, a couple of NIAD people were cruising through at a sub 10 hour pace. It was ridiculous how fast and controlled these guys were moving, especially at a sub 10 hour pace. 
Picture
Cleaning the Great Roof.
It left me thinking about how insanely fast sub 2 hours is. I jugged up the line, cleaning The Great Roof quickly, mid haul, Doug gave me the rack and I was off on the Pancake Flake. It was a cruiser pitch, leap frogging .75 all day. I got up to the anchors, started the haul when Doug caught up to me, took over the haul and I began leading the next pitch up to Camp 5. We were really cruising now. After some awkward aiding, and a cam popping off my harness, I made it up to Camp 5. Doug took the last two pitches up to Camp 6 where we hauled all our bags to. I took The Changing Corners pitch that night. Changing Corners was a fun pitch, walking up cams the progressively wider and wider crack until you 
hit bolts. Matt followed up and as the sun was setting, Matt took the last pitch of the day, pitch 27. We fixed our ropes, cleaned our pitches and set up our bivys. ​​
​Tuesday, we woke up ready to blast to the top. Packing up our bags followed by some tom-foolery, we jugged up our lines. Doug took pitch 28, and I took the last two bolt ladder pitches to the top. We topped out around 12 in the afternoon and began our descent shortly after. With haul bags, we made the descent rather quickly with me running ahead to retrieve the car and celebratory cobras. A team of three provides a little bit more rope chaos (if untrained), but makes up for it with good times, easier descents, and more poop tubes. Due to my new career, I think my Yosemite season this year was short lived. With 6 moths of non-stop training, it is unlikely I will be returning for another wall this year. I 2020, we plan to knock out The Shield, Zodiac, and a few other walls in a day. 
Picture
The obligatory portaledge shot.
Picture
Starting the descent down.
Picture
Doug almost walking away from the climb unhurt.
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Washington Column- Skull Queen (In A Day)

5/2/2019

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Picture
Making avocado bagels with a hunting knife.
At 4am, Doug & I awoke to the dreaded melody of an Iphone alarm. We shot up with anticipation ready to get this done. 

After a successful 2018 climbing season in Yosemite, we started planning the 2019 season shortly after. We talked about long free climbs, hard aid routes, tough single pitch climbs, as well as some talk about some 14,000' mountains in the Sierras. With my new career change, and Doug's current career, our (my) schedule was looking grim. With a lot of plans on the back burner, we decided upon two climbs to start the season off and then play it by ear for the remainder. The conclusion was blasting up Skull Queen 5.8 C2 in a day would be a good warm up route for our second planned climb this season, Triple Direct.
The last time we aided was when we did Leaning Tower in a day in November so our aid skills needed some sharpening and Skull Queen seemed like an easy enough choice. We woke up at 4am in our classic bivy spot, smashed some breakfast, spilled some coffee, and raced down Highway 140 blasting the custom 21 Savage on our way to check off another send. 
We arrived at the parking lot, dark quite and the ominous sound of the raging waterfalls all around the valley. Dough & I planned on going fast and light hoping to get on the wall before any one else. Boy where we wrong. We saw a team racking up in the parking lot, with half the gear we had getting on South Face planning to top out in a day. 

We now realized we had competition. We made one last quick account of gear and departed off in the dark. The faster and much lighter team quickly caught up, passed us and began leading our new formed gang through the woods to the wall. 

After a quick hour, my shirt was soaked with 
Picture
Doug got a little to excited for his instant coffee.
sweat, but we found ourselves at the base of the climb, along with three other teams and we were last in line. ​
Picture
The numerous parties ahead of us.
We were really in it now. We grabbed our number and waited our turn to begin. After 20 minutes, the faster and lighter team bailed due to the amount of teams before them and Doug and I were one group closer to sending. Finally the first pitch was clear and I blasted up it, hauled up our little day bag and ran over to the second pitch to get ready to climb. There are two variations of the second pitch, a 5.10b C1 crack and a 5.11c C1 thin crack. The group ahead of us was aiding up the 5.10 crack so to get things going, I went up the 5.11 crack to the right. We got to the second belay and waited for the group ahead to clear the third pitch. I quickly ran up the 5.8/5.6 scramble and got to Dinner Ledge. At least now we have a comfortable spot to lounge about while we wait in line.
​
Picture
Doug waiting on pitch 4, The Kor Roof.
The group ahead of us kindly let us pass, since our route splits off at the fourth pitch (Kor Roof). There was one party still ahead of us, the follower began following the Kor Roof and Doug impatiently started following up right on his tail. Im not sure why he started, he was hanging in his harness for about an hour waiting for the climber ahead to work his way around the roof while I comfortably sat in the shade belaying. 

Eventually the climber ahead made it through the roof and Doug finished leading it shortly after. I quickly jugged up while Doug short fixed the pitch and was starting on the rivet hangers for pitch 5.
I threw Doug on belay and quickly followed him up pitch 5. 
Doug took the next two pitches (pitch 6 & 7) and linked them for a longer pitch. We find it more efficient to lead in small blocks rather than keep swapping leads. Pitch 6 & 7 were cruisers and went by without a hiccup. Or at least we thought. As Doug was hauling the small haul bag, the gallon of water (about 1/2 full) found it's way to the top of the bag. As the bag rounded a corner, the water fell out. Fortunately we had one full gallon tucked away and another liter on my harness. With more than half of the climb done, we were still in pretty good shape and making very good time. 

The next two pitches of C1/C2+ were mine. Pitch 8 started out as C2+ thin and did not 
Picture
Doug leading pitch 6 & 7.
seem that way at all. ​We had 4 or 5 Metolious Offset cams that seemed as if no other cam would fit, those always found a way in. It almost felt like cheating with those. On this route, leap frogging offset cams made a C2+ pitch feel like a bolt ladder. With more leap frogging off sets, I set up the anchor at the belay and am soon met with the haul bag shortly followed by Doug. Pitch 9 proved to be even more cruiser than the first.
Picture
The bomber hooks on pitch 8.
The fixed gear at the start of the route was in bomber condition and the crack system spanning after it, ate cam hooks, beaks, and grappling hooks like nothing. I found that utilizing hooks can speed a pitch up dramatically. After hooking through 15-20 feet, I reached more rivets. Leap frogging rivets with an occasional bolt was too easy. The last "C2" section leading up to the belay was cruiser. The low angle slab made top stepping a joy and the obvious off set placements made it seem like the rivet ladder extended the whole pitch. 

Doug took the last two pitch block to the top. Pitch 10 started with a C2+ crack that 
seemed to jump around a whole bunch. It seemed to also be one of the steeper sections of the climb. Doug aided through that no issue and was stoked to get to Pitch 11, the "awesome 10b splitter". I jugged up quickly and Doug was already racking up. We still had an hour or two of daylight and one free climbing pitch left. I was stoked to be rapping in day light. 
Picture
The awesome 5.10 splitter.
Doug is a super strong free climber and cruised up the crack quickly. He made a gear anchor at the top and followed up just as quick. We topped out Skull Queen in a day despite the numerous parties ahead of us at the start, and even had a couple hours of daylight to spare. It is always a good feeling when you start the descent of a climb still in the day light. I was more excited to hit the market and grab a celebratory cobra. 
The rappels were straight forward and clean. We experienced no issue with them and quickly got to dinner ledge where another party was starting their descent. As we were setting up the rappels for Pitch 1, we heard the distinct sound of rock fall across the valley on Half Dome. A decent size rock came off the middle of the dome and created a cloud of dust. By the time we got to the base and packed up night fell on to us. Doug and I raced back down the trail and made it to the truck by 9pm. It took us 14 hours car to car with a total of 10 or so hours to actually climb the route. It was a good warm up for the season and got our systems dialed for Triple Direct. 
Picture
Pulling ropes on Dinner Ledge.
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