dberdinka

The Supertopo suggestion is probably more or less right on with the exception of recommending camhooks. I brought them and never used them and never felt the need to. There are many long, thin aid pitches on the Muir Wall section along with the Great Roof Pitch where a triple set of small cams and a double set of nuts would not go unused (though the triples in small cams might be a bit overkill). Above the Great Roof there are many long pitches that eat up larger cams, in particular the pitch before and the two pitches above Camp 6. A triple set of #2 and #3 Camalots would not go unused here at all. As well a single #4 C4. So at most triples of cams and at least doubles if you're comfortable backcleaning A LOT! I would highly recommend leaving Stoppers at home and bringing just DMM Offset nuts. Maybe from a #3 Brassie up to the #11 Al. Bring a double set, particularly of the Al if you've got them. Offset Aliens or MasterCams in the smallest 3 or 4 sizes are very useful as well, though I doubt it would be a show stopper without them. We had most of a set of Link Cams which I gorw more and more fond of for easy aid. They really allow you to punch it and spend less time worrying about running out of the right size gear. Piles of draws and some new tieoff webbing and you'll be good to go. Youths????? If we're young you must be in the old folks home!

A bunch of my coworkers like to gather round and ogle cigar catalogs. It always weirds me out. Road-trippin to Europe looks so sweet!

Does Puro translate as giant penis in Spanish? Looks rad!

Trip: El Capitan - Triple Direct Date: 5/19/2010 Trip Report: I basically lack words other than I feel really happy. If you develop some basic aid climbing skills, learn to be efficent and get in shape it's not hard, just a lot of work. Get on it! I spent what climbing time I could muster this spring dialing in the aid climbing while Owen just spent time being Owen, hiking pitches that I can barely follow. The hauling, jugging and leading seemed to take all of a pitch for him to sort out. We knocked this off in 5 days RT from home, our itinerary being... Day 1 (Wednesday, May 12th) Catch a 6 am flight from Seatac into San Fransisco. On the road by 9am. Grab two cases of bottled water in El Portal and pack the piglets just inside the park boundary. Pull into El Cap meadows at 2:30 pm. Immediately walk to the base of The Nose. Look at people scattered everywhere over the first four pitches. Move over to Free Blast which is essentially empty. Start climbing at 3:30 PM. Reach Triangle Ledge at the top of Pitch 6 by 9 PM. Bivi. Day 2 (Thursday, May 13th) Get up early. Start climbing, climb some more, keep climbing, race darkness across some big pendulums into the Grey Bands and a decent bivi at the end of Pitch 18. Day 3 (Friday, May 14th) Sleep in. Climb a nice Pitch of 5.9 into Camp 4. Apparently no one on the Nose has made it past El Cap Tower. Climb the Great Roof. Owen learns to lower out following it. Continue up the Pancake Flake, through Camp 5, up to the Glowering Spot and into Camp 6 by 6 pm. Camp 6 is a shower. Fix the ropes and rap back to a ridiculously exposed 18" wide ledge. Drop the food bag. Laugh. Have a surprisingly good nights sleep hanging in your harness. Day 4 (Saturday, May 15th) Start early. Get wet on the beginning of the Changing Corners pitch. Climb into the sun at a perfect belay stance at the top of Pitch 28. The exposure up here is beyond comprehension. Experience an overwhelming joy. Two short fun pitches, the last an overhanging bolt ladder and we're at the top by 3:30 PM. After a glorious descent, experience culture shock in the Mardi-Gra like atmosphere of Curry Village. Drink to much beer, eat to much pizza and crash out in the forest below El Cap where the constellations in the heavens are joined by a constellation of headlights from other climbers scattered across the wall. Breathe taking. Day 5 (Sunday, May 16th) Coffee and pastries in Curry Village. Then hike up to the base of the most beautiful thing ever. Perfect temps. Back to Curry Village to pilfer through all the cool gear in the Mountain Shop then on to El Cap meadows to repack the bags for the flight home. Leave Yosemite by 1 pm, catch a flight in the evening, stumble in the front door around midnight. Back to work! Enjoy the pics.... Geared Up Free Blast, Pitch 5 Into the aid climbing on the Muir Wall Racing darkness across the pendulum pitches in the Grey Band Climbing into Camp 4 on The Nose - no one around!? Approaching the Great Roof Owen survives the lower-outs under the Great Roof The spectacular Pancake Flake, first of many pitches in the upper dihedrals Unbelievable exposure at the top of Pitch 28 The end of it all Compulsory Team Picture at the Top-Out Tree The glorious descent down the East Ledges The Most Beautiful Thing Ever - Yosemite Falls Lazy afternoon repacking in El Cap Meadows Gear Notes: As many #7 and #8 al offset nuts as you can bring. Lots of #2 and #3 Camalots for the upper pitches.

Jermey put some serious work into cleaning that thing up. The crux pitch of Milk Run definitely seems a bit more stout than the Sword to me, but then again both have never anything but really hard.

You have the biggest heart in the world Josh. Keep killin it no matter who trys to keep you under their thumb.

Yup this guy pretty much nails it. GumbiesonCrack. An amusing if bit retarded way to waste a couple minutes. "On Sunday it was The Driller and I. Now you know you've been working too much when hauling 60 pounds of gear to the base, and spending a day hanging from ropes, scrubbing cracks and drilling bolts, is fun. Such is The Driller's life. He has learned the first lesson of yuppie cunt-hood: you take up either heavy drinking or a heavy physical sport so that you don't turn into a donut-pasty, muffin-and-coffee rounded algorithm during your nine to five. Basically you could call new-routing a version of midlife-crisis aversion. "I am still a MAN," one (mentally) roars, shirking from nightmare visions of cramming one's waist-donut behind the up-tilted wheel of a mall-parked minivan after bundling the three kids in."

Excellent. I'm continually impressed by Maria Cantwell's work as a Senator. It's like she's a real human being or something.

I have the OR. I really like it. Nice price point compared to some of the other brands.

Mmmm....rock pipes....that would make for a much more interesting thread. Are there any the Cascade alpine?

The Comb (can't remember which #) is much steeper than most of D-town. Excellent routes there as well that consist of off-vertical face climbing on knobs. Amazing 2 pitch bolted arete there as well that goes at what? 11+.

Sol was on TC or GD several years back when a large corner maybe 100' to the right exploded down onto the trail. You have to scramble over a big block now just before you get to the wall. That occured shortly after some very significant rainfall, maybe hydraulic pressure? The flake on PA jumped off unassisted with witnesses on the ground. Also recall a guy taking a block to the chest at the base of the LTC and being helivac'd out. Came out of know where. Anyway, spontaneous rockfall does occur, at Index more than elsewhere it seems.

Sol, are you saying someone was actually on it? and ripped a huge block off Golden Road? !!!

Cost of vehicle $$$$$$ Cost of Rack $$$$ Cost of Gas $$$ Costs of Gustavs $$ Cost of Camping $

Lets go bolt the shit out of it Gene!

This is a really great time to expand offshore drilling. I predict the navy's going to have to bomb it to get it to stop (seriously)

"(first climb to the right of the bolted 5.8)" So the first climb to the right (hangers have flaky brown paint) is more like 10c/d. And the climb to the right of that which is the classic 10a is petty freaking weird, sustained and hard for 10a. Ceratinly you can find many much easier 10a's in the world.

just google "comparitive testing of high strength cord". It's a very thorough and convincing analysis. If you can live with the bulk and weight nylon is better in all other regards it seems.

I recently went back to 7 mm nylon after seeing the research that showed all the high tech cords lost significant strength very quickly due to flexing. Nylon is stronger in the medium and long term, knots and handles far better and is way cheaper.

It's interesting how it's perfectly OK to cut the tails off sheep....

"The mice had their tails cut off, were smothered in Vaseline and had to be euthanized." They really do put rodents up their butts!

Found the following TR iin a random google search. Interesting stuff! Base Jump off East Face of Liberty Bell

if being on the UTW during a quake wasn't nearly as bad as rockfall on Half-Dome, WTF happened? Do tell. It sounds spicy.

PM sent

Some guy in California apparantly has climbed a few walls and has written a "How-To" guide on the internet. HOW-TO-BIG-WALL-CLIMB Lots and lots of good stuff in there. His advice of not using daisies while leading might seem counter-intuitive but on C1/C2 stuff it really does eliminate a major amount of clusterfuckage and you will climb (much) faster. Here's another description EFFICENT AID RIGof a slightly more refined setup that will get you climbing faster, lighter and safer (as it eliminates the chance of daisy falls). My advice for aid climbing is you need to treat it as a big engineering project. Break it into components then figure out an efficent process for each component that you can repeat over and over again. For example don't just clip a pile of lockers and cordelletes to to back of your harness and then fumble around at every belay station. Instead figure out a system (try googling "Alpine Cock Ring") thats strong, redundant and quick to build, then put together a set of designated carabiners and cordage that are used for that singular purpose. Also, create an ordered series of steps for building the anchor, tieing into it, organizing the ropes, hauling, reorganizing gear, etc. Then repeat in that order everytime. You can dramatically cut down the amount of time you spend at each belay. So on and so forth. Top Stepping is good to know but 95% of the time you'll move faster by not top stepping but just getting comfortably high. Offset nuts are a must. Master Cams are every bit as good as Aliens (and narrower in the small sizes). Double set of nuts and cams is more than enough for the standard UTW routes. A cam hook is nice to have. Grappling hooks seem more useful than a Cliffhanger. Don't waste to much time climbing City Park, as beautiful a line as it is, it's simply not reflective of 99.9% of aid pitches out there. Woah! This got long.