I’m back from my second epic big wall climbing trip. This time Nathan, Gabe, and I hit up the climb known to be the most overhanging wall in North America. As crazy as that sounds, it’s a relatively easy route with many bolts and fixed pieces along the way. It’s rated C2F 5.7 and considered a 4-5 star climb. Check out the topo:
After driving up on Thursday, we found decent parking on the shoulder of the main road near Bridalveil Falls parking lot (since you are not allowed to park overnight in the lot :\ ). The approach itself was pretty straightforward, however, fairly steep involving some boulder hopping. It was pretty easily marked with cairns, although I still tried to get off the beaten track (lol) a couple times. Just look for the cairns, such as the cute miniature one I later made on Ahwahnee Ledge.
We shuttled 2x to the base of the climb and prepared for an early morning full day climb. That time arrived and, after making the traverse into the midway point of the tower / the official base, we were ready to start climbing.
Our climbing team took turns leading, cleaning, and jumaring the pitches. We also linked every two pitches and this method helped us finish in two days, rather than the typical three. Early Fri morning, Gabe started leading with me belaying and Nathan shuttling the rest of the gear from our sleeping area to the official start of the climb (which is a bit of an exposed traverse, but does come with a fixed line you should clip into).
Once Gabe reached the top of the second pitch, it was time for me the swing into jumar action…taking a big leap of faith and swinging out onto the haul line. Check out the video:
The screaming, cursing, and slight vertigo left me soon after the initial swing and I was ready to ascend 200ft up. Once at the top, Nathan let out the two pigs and cleaned the pitch. This is the zen shot:
Two more pitches full of fixed gear led us to the coveted ledges, Ahwahnee Ledge and Guano Ledge (sloped and stinky due to the birds and bats above).
At this point, the boys resorted to some double hauling, which made the hauling much more efficient.
This is a sweet picture I took while lying down on Ahwahnee Ledge.
Gabe and Nathan were at the anchors and fixed a line down from the top of pitch 6. Once that was done, they rappelled down to me for dinner and rest. There was another climbing duo behind us and all five of us ended up sleeping on the Ahwahnee Ledge…*very* tight quarters!!!
Of course, we took advantage of the ledge to stretch out as much as we could and do some yoga poses.
One the second day, we jumared up the fixed line. That’s Gabe getting his ascending on!
I then led pitches 7 and 8. Time pretty much escaped me and I didn’t realize it took me so long (it was my first lead on the route). Here I was making fun of the guys averaging a little over an hour per pitch and I ended up pushing that near two :\ However, my excuse was that these pitches barely had any fixed gear…requiring me to place a ton of pieces. For every three pieces I’d place, I back-cleaned two. In hindsight, I think spacing out the pieces more and back-cleaning just one piece would have made me a faster leader. One more tidbit…I absolutely love the Yates adjustable daisy straps! I have several non-adjustable daisies, which serve me fine but the adjustable straps provide a much more fluid aid climb. They were so much fun that I even overshot pitch 8 and headed into pitch 9, hehe. Realizing this, I finally stopped (also about to run out of rope). This was a great experience though and the leading really made my day.
But wait, that’s not all. Nathan continued to lead pitches 9 and 10 to top out at the summit ledge. He led over a sick roof and some super-exposed parts.
After Nathan anchored, I swung out to jumar up the haul line…this one was insane…probably a 3x bigger swing than the initial pendulum I did on day 1. What a ride though - you’ll love it (vertigo and all)!
We made it safely to the summit, dumped out our excess water and prepared for the eight rappels down as the sun was setting fast.
So that was fun but you may be wondering…any issues and tips? Of course! There were several things we could improve on:
- pack less food/water: we had way too much stuff, enough for at least three-four days and a ton of water (Gabe is a *reverse* camel)…we ended up only needing two days worth.
- pack less “non-essentials”: electric toothbrush, floss, metal spoons (use plastic), peanuts when Nathan is allergic to them, etc. etc.
- know the topo and don’t miss the anchor (that’s a note to myself since I lead pitch 7, 8, and some of 9 unintentionally, haha)
- don’t forget your aiders when you prepare to jumar up. Pitch 5 requires a small pendulum…Gabe realized he was too eager to clean the route that he forgot his step ladders and required them to be thrown over
- careful clipping the belay seat at anchors to avoid tangling it around/through your legs, daisies, and ropes
- big wall drops!? just a single carabiner and a jolly rancher (oh and the climbing duo who came up behind us dropped one of their nut tools :\ but they were able to recover by having the leader lower his down to the cleaner)
- for this climb, don’t pack a lower-out line for this climb…it’s so steep that you really don’t need it - just let the pigs fly!
- don’t even think about bailing…you really can’t - this climb is so overhanging, I can’t really imagine trying to rappel back!
- descending at night: be careful!!! During the rappel in the gully, it’s really easy to knock off loose rock. Gabe’s big pig knocked a sizable rock off, which almost hit Nathan…luckily he jumped back, dropping his pig about 50m down. We made it back in one piece but it sure was a little sketchy in the dark.
All-in-all, we had a great time as we cruised back to our car at an ungodly hour…classic Yosemite climber style! This is an ideal route for big wall climbers new and old (a classic). I’d highly recommend it! If you can, hit a hot tub after
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If you want to check out how the pros do this climb, I really love this video of the two uber-famous female climbers, Lynn Hill and Katie Brown doing Leaning Tower FREE. A true inspiration!
Gabe and I recently started getting into aid climbing and wanted some practice on a big wall. We decided to head to Yosemite to work through the aid pitches of Washington Column’s South Face. Here’s a quick intro into aid climbing with a mini trip report of our first attempt up a big wall.
About Aid Climbing
Big wall aid climbing is a bit of a different beast…I came to the conclusion that if you can get that haul bag up the wall, you’ve gotten yourself there too. The haul bag, or ‘big pig’, seems to be the weakest link…it’s the heaviest thing on the climb and does nothing. Plus, you have to haul the monster up after all your aid climbing :\ It’s a bit of a daunting task but an essential one if you don’t want to die of thirst, starvation, and want a decent night’s sleep on the rock.
That said, there is some pretty awesome gear which helps you get up the wall.
I made a Big Wall Rock Climbing Gear list on Amazon…don’t forget the Metolius Waste Case (LMAO). As part of this ‘Intro to Aid Climbing’ series I plan on creating a blog post specifically about big wall gear as well as another mini trip report of a great intro big wall, Leaning Tower in Yosemite. Stay tuned!
For now, I’ll start with my South Face adventure…
Washington Column’s South Face: C1, 5.8 (*****)
We decided to test out our new aid climbing skills with the South Face of Washington Column. Why?
PROs:
- easy 1.5hr approach from the Ahwahnee Hotel (not bad)
- 10 pitches including the beginning 7 straightforward aid pitches and ending 3 free-able pitches
- the Dinner Ledge found after the 3rd pitch is huge, which could accommodate us without the need to haul up our own portaledge
CONs:
- it’s one of the most popular routes and a little congestion could occur (plan to share the route with friendly climbers!)
- HOT! during the summer months (as are most climbs in Yosemite)
Getting There
We parked at the Ahwahnee Hotel (with a nicely washed car so we wouldn’t look too sketchy leaving the car there for a few days). We hiked to the base twice, dropping out water/food off first then bringing all the gear. Slept near the base and started in the morning. There’s a bit of a scramble to the beginning of the climb.
Initial Pitches
We started out with Gabe leading the first pitch and I decided to free followed up. This was fun but took a bit longer to get the big pig up so we decided against free following after that. Another aid pitch later, I took the lead and free climbed the fun cracks until we hit Dinner Ledge. Here’s a pic of me appearing to be falling off but I’m really just at a belay anchor posing in a very Asian way, hehe…
Once we got to Dinner Ledge, we were pretty exhausted! Mainly we were learning through trial-and-error the best practices for hauling the freaking pig! It was really hard for me to haul by clipping into the pulley with a step ladder + jumar and trying to crank down with my foot on the ladder. What ended up working better was the full-body haul, where you basically clip an ascender directly into your harness loop and pull back with your whole body. Sometimes having a daisy attached to the anchor allows you to set a comfortable fixed distance for the body-haul / lean-back, which helps make things a bit more methodical and (only slightly) bearable.
Dinner Ledge
This is am amazing ledge as far as rock climbing ledges go. It’ hard to leave actually. Here, you have an incredible view of Half Dome (which is a great climb!), a nice breeze, and plenty of room for 4 climbers to sleep.
It’s a great place to enjoy a climber-friendly mean and get some beta on the upcoming pitches. As it turns out we stayed another day because the ledge was that comfortable and a little hard to leave, hehe. That’s us protecting ourselves from the blazing sun with our emergency blanket - it was glorious!
Pitches after Dinner Ledge
The pitch above the Dinner Ledge is the most classic one on the route, the Kor Roof. Take a look…it’s the most noticeable roof bolted by a 6″5′ dude. That didn’t stop me from leading this pitch, it just required some pretty far-reaching moves. Check it out my aid lead and Gabe’s jumar:
After the roof and along the crack traverse, I realized I was running out of gear so had stopped at the shorter anchors and we fixed out rope to be jumared the next morning.
Climbing Friends
We met some nice people on the ledge including Brendan of Yosemite Valley (who was soloing some of the climb) and a sweet Portuguese couple (who were spending a month in the valey, preparing for the Nose climb on El Capitan).
I should note that you should probably lead pitch 6 with climbing shoes as I had a bit of trouble trying to do the one free 5.7 traverse with my mountaineering boots. If I were to do it again, I would always wear my climbing shoes if I lead climbs that involve any sort of free moves - climbs feel much more exposed on big walls and trying to do any free moves without the gear/shoes you feel comfortable in can feel really sketchy!
The next day and after the aid pitches, we were beat…and headed back home with a dinner stop at Degnan’s Loft for their delicious Chef’s Salad, pizza, and lasagna.
Washington Column was a great introduction to aid climbing and I’d highly recommend it for anyone getting into the game.
More aid climbing adventures to come with the big pig!
A couple weekends ago, I took to Tuolumne Meadows with Gabe and Ryan. Ryan just got back from a 2-month work/play trip to Google Ireland so he was overdue for some sweet multipitch trad climbing.
We decided to climb the Southeast Buttress of Cathedral Peak, left route variation. It’s one of the most popular climbs in Tuolumne due to the quality of the rock and its fairly moderate route of trad 5.6 (*****). Here’s the SuperTopo:
The plan was to get up at 4am from our campsite and head to the Cathedral Lakes trailhead. From there we’d hike the a couple hours to the base. If there were no other parties, we’d get on the rock for the quality 5-pitch climb to the summit.
Here is the first of several “capitan’s log” videos, this one is of us setting up at the trailead, debating who is the actual ‘capitan’ of this climb…and it appears that Gabe won that argument (for now):
The approach itself is pretty enjoyable as long as you don’t lose sight of the path and the sunrise on the surrounding mountains!
We brought a full rack with Gabe taking the main trad lead, I following up and cleaning the climb, and Ryan to boot. Here is the climb up close:
As it turns out, we weren’t the only ones on the climb. There were a big handful of other teams so the belay anchors got a little crowded, especially at the top. We stuck to the left side in order to avoid a few other teams (so we couldn’t do the “c” chimney variation, but maybe next time).
Here’s Gabe, getting his lead on:
Here’s a shot video I took of Ryan belaying Gabe on the 4th pitch:
During the climb, we ran into mr. marmot - what a cutie! This little guy somehow was able to scramble up several hudred feet up to our ledge…eyeing Ryan’s something something socks/shoes, shorts, what have you. At one point, I was climbing up and looked down at Ryan and the marmot was right behing him!
After the 4th pitch, we had to wait while other parties lead the final pitch to the summit. The ledge up there is very spacious, which is a good thing since it’s pretty standard to have to wait as other parties finish their climbs at this belay.
The actual summit topout is very exposed and cramped, a bit of a spire fit for max 4 ppl. I lead up first, enjoyed the summit, then downclimbed for the guys to do the same. Poor ryry was a little nervous as he took this summit vid:
The descent took a bit longer and was a bit more exposed than we would have liked but we made it back just fine.
Randomly, we met a guy on the trail down who needed a short ride (he just finished a 12 mile hike)…apparently he left his wife at the car in the morning and after a full day, he needed to get back to her and the car. Him and his wife were on vacation from Romania. Well of course we gave him a ride and sure enough we found the car and wife, who must have been real happy her man was back. Like I said, that was pretty random.
My life took a fateful turn when I moved from Canada to San Francisco. I was introduced to a one-season climate and wonderful friends who knew how to take advantage of it by being on the sharp end. It was refreshing, challenging and invited me for more.
I began traveling to the local climbing gym, Mission Cliffs, as a guest with my friends on numerous occasions and then got an intro 10 pass. Finally, on March 24, 2007 I made a commitment. I signed up for a climbing membership and joined friends in on some very memorable climbing trips to Tahoe and Yosemite.
Not long after, we were hitting up some international venues including Squamish, BC and El Potrero Chico, MX. The time had come to establish some goals as any athlete would naturally do. That being said, 1 year later I redpointed a 12a on TR at the gym - w00t!
My skillful partner Gabe and I have been enjoying a Summer of Height (& Madness)…a series of weekend projects, which will train us for some of our more elaborate schemes on El Capitan
Please join me in this journey as I meet wonderful people, climb beautiful routes, and grow as a person (who, of course, happens to climb).
