Physically challenging climbs

[Courtenay]

In terms of proper (or lack thereof) physical conditioning and preparedness, what has been YOUR most difficult climb--be it rock, crag, alpine, ice or otherwise, but keep them outdoors, unless you want to start a new thread about gym climbs)--and why? What would you have done differently to be better prepared? What advice can you share with others about your experience?

[Cpt.Caveman]

I can never do Zcrack. I have tried 3 times. I guess my arse is too fat or something.

[haireball]

good question, to which I can reply with "before" and "after" examples...

In 1981 I climbed the Cassin Ridge on Denali. I trained for this climb by cragging a lot in heavy clothes and double boots, and running mid-to-long distances. I found the Japanese Couloir and the pitch from Cassin Ledge to the knife-edge to be extremely challenging (mid-fifth-class difficulties) with a 50-lb pack.

The following year, I climbed Alaska's Broken Tooth. It hadn't the altitude challenge of Denali, but was far more technical (YDS VI, 5.8,A4) I added weights to my training regime, bulked up about 15 lbs, and was much more comfortable on the free-climbing-with-a-big-pack stuff.

In 1990, I climbed the South Face of Aconcagua with two significantly younger companions. (I was 36). I had continued weight-training throughout the intervening years, and was now nearly 30lbs heavier than I had been on the Cassin Ridge trip. Although both of my partners were guys who could carry a 5-minute-mile pace for up to eight miles, I found myself leading the final headwall pitches (@20,000'), while they struggled to follow pitches of low-fifth-class difficulty.

today, at age 49, I can do more pullups than I could when I was in college, and am closer to a one-arm-pullup than I have ever been (if I can continue the pace of my gains for the next thirty years, I'll have that move when I'm 80!)

my workouts are constructed around a very few big combination moves - deadlifts or squats one day, pullups another day, bench presses another.

best part is: my sons still let me lead!...

[Dru]

Tried a spring first ascent of "Death Route" on the east face of In-SHUCK-Ch Mountain last spring. Crawled up my partners kicked steps for 2 hrs at 3Am only to realize I just didnt have the go for it I needed. Went back to the bivi and shivered while they failed on steep snow covered slabs. I could have gone and flailed too if I had had more cardio. started riding my bike to work after that. I think I bailed mainly because I hadn't done anything using long term aerobic endurance in the last 4 months just ice climbing and bouldering. I will do some 12 hr epic slogs on skis this winter to prepare for next time.

[Charlie]

Cassin Ridge and a sport route at little si on the same page?... For me, the most physically demanding climb was the Fischer Chimney route on Mt Shucksan. I've done it twice, and both times it kicked my ass- maybe it's the final elevation gain when you pop back out of the valley. Not the most technical route I've done, but definitely the one I've gotten most worked on.

[ScottP]

The approach into the Southern Picket Range was pretty taxing, what with carrying 9 days worth of food, etc.

The approach to the lower saddle on the Grand Teton punched my clock pretty well also, due most likely to my sea level system going so high so fast. We also pretty much dogged the upper half of the Direct Exum the following day after making good time on the lower half.

Both times I was in pretty good physical condition (having run stairs with a loaded pack 3x per week for a couple of months)

I can only think of one climb that got the better of me: West Ridge of Stuart. Lack of adequate cardiopulmonary conditioning coupled with a full day on the Ingalls peaks the day before did me in. Dry heaves and inability to catch my breath forced a stop of what was supposed to be a 4th class ascent and descent of the route.

[Kyle]

Typical Picketts story... we approached Mt Fury from Big Beaver c.g. on Ross Lake, intending to climb the N. Buttress route. It took us a very long hard day and a half to reach the shoulder of Luna Pk, & by then we were so totally thrashed & exhausted we almost turned around & headed out right there. It was a humbling moment for us to realize that we didn't have the oomph (or the time and food) to do the N. Butt, and so we went & did the East Glacier route on Fury instead, which was a blast. I don't know what lesson we learned, other than reinforcing the fact that we were very small and expendable bits of meat in the vast dragon-belly that is the Pickett Range. For any trip up there I'd now allow at least an extra 2 days' time and provisions, on top of what I think I should need for a climb.

[Cpt.Caveman]

Hum Ho as Dru would say. How many days were you there?

[slothrop]

The descent from Eldorado Peak kicked my butt. I was sore for a week afterwards, walking-funny kind of sore. The climb itself was pretty easy, and we had great weather and plenty of food, but we were dehydrated by the time we got down (one of the guys I went with chugged two quarts of gatorade as soon as we got to a gas station). I guess I wasn't in spectacular shape... I'm sure Eldorado's approach is no match for the Pickets. But the DC route on Rainier was much less taxing than Eldorado's miles of talus and steep "trail".

[Dru]

after doing the n couloir of joffre I was so wasted that I hallucinated a 3 foot tall mushroom growing out of the snow super marios style.

[jblakley]

I guess I think of different types of fatigue when I think of climbing. A lot of it depends on my condition at the time. Olympus in three days when I was having back problems stands out as an ass kicker. W Ridge of Thompson in a day in late Sept last year pretty well left me whipped because of just getting back into shape after a long layoff.

Then there is the anerobic fatigue of doing sport or short trad stuff. On a trip to Red Rocks recently felt great physically finally getting a redpoint on Sweet Pain only to really feel it the next day.

Got totally mind fucked by Apron Strings up at Squamish though this last summer. Mental fatigue!!. I kept trying to sew the damn thing up and since it's a continual lyback I got pumped and gripped. That was a humbler and I think A.S. and I have a date next season!

[Drederek]

The most physically demanding day I've had climbing was Resolution Arete at Red Rocks NV. It was our third day climbing and we started hiking across the desert at 5:30 AM as it was just getting light. A bracing 2000' up got us to the base of the climb. Twentytwo stellar pitches later it was full dark and we started our descent down beautiful moonlit slabs. After an hour the slabs got steeper and steeper till we made it into the first creek drainage. 3 hours of bushwhacking and boulder hopping later we got to the end of that torturous canyon. Once I relearned how to walk on semilevel ground we made it to the car in another hour. It was 2:30 AM and I was beat. I didn't even consider climbing the next day. Climbing Mt Rainier and descending in a couple of days seemed pretty reasonable after that.

[nolanr]

A few come to mind. W. Ridge of Prusik in a single push from Colchuck Lake TH was quite the butt kicker, I think it tooks us around 18 hrs. I don't think we set a speed record. Cascadia Couloir on Stuart (we turned around at the false summit, grr!) from Long's Pass, something like 12-15 hours. Also Glacier Peak from Boulder Basin camp, spent one night, but we were basically car to car in 24 hours. Butt kickers one and all. Lessons learned...um, I don't think I've learned anything yet. Most of my semi-epics have been recently, so I'm not getting any wiser w/ age.

[freeclimb9]

My pathetic tale: a couple of years ago I convinced a buddy of mine that it was actually easier to go "fast and light". On a Friday in late October, we made the drive to the Tetons and the Lupine Meadows trailhead. Surprise! Ain't no-one in the parking lot. We head up the trail at 1:00AM and get to the frozen "lower" (11,500 don't seem low to me) saddle at dawn. Everything is frozen hard, and the wind is kicking around 35mph from the west (typical shit, and the goggles prove their worth). The Vahalla travers goes off without a hitch, though the length of it it longer that we anticipated. Trouble is, the pack is kinda fucked. We start up the Black Ice, and it's like heaven; damn that sucker pitch, because the Neve doesn't exist further up. Once we're committed to the couloir (and, BTW, 5.7 at 10 F with loose snow coverage is gripping), it's truly the black ice. Multiple swings are required on every move, and lots of brittle ice gets shucked down on the sucker second (sucker!). We do the couloir in 5 long pitches by simul-climbing a lot (do it, and then do the math: it's long). At sunset we reach the "upper saddle". Then down the de-proach. Our holiday starts feeling like an epic when my partner becomes stoopid (why are good drugs so hard to have when you need them?). We stumble into the lower saddle and brew up. Sleep becomes a necessity, and thank God for the snow flurries that keep the temps low. BUT, and there's always a "but", they don't last. Around 9:00 late, the skies clear and the temps fall. Really fall. Like below the ball-tightening level. Oooch! We have to move. The headwall goes off well, but my partner is moving funny. With about 100' to go to the cache of our sneakers (at the low end of the Moraine), he disappears. I find him stumbling 40 minutes later towards the JHG hut, going uphill. I realize that he's cooked. We basically hold hands to the caves where my partner empties his gut into the water (that's gonna leave a mark . . . on somebody). I take his gear, then perservere. We make it back to the trailhead nearly 24 hours after we left. Otherwise-gross Polish Sausage seems like a fete for Kings. After a hasty bivy near Alpine (yea, we drove for an hour. It was cool. I have DUI experience), we stopped at the Red Baron cafe. In the true light of day, my unruly demands for more coffee got us a lifetime ban from that shithole establishment.. Damn, but that beeotch ho waitress had some back on her. . . Next time, fool, I bring the rubbers. . .

Oh yeah. I went to the City of Rocks with a girlfriend of mine that very day. The beeotch gots back, and it was a perfect lay. To bad she be crazy today. Like her ass don't begin with an "A". Waay. ALL Funkay! It's the same ole funky ass shit everyday. word

[Wallstein]

I have had few really long days on El Cap that all compete for the hardest thing I have done. I think the absolute worst/hardest was going down to Yosemite for the weekend and climbing Aurora. I only had the weekend so we started friday night and climbed all through friday night, saturday, saturday night, sunday, and then topped out 52 hours later on sunday night. My partners and I ate a couple lbs of chocolate covered espresso beans and then ran down the east ledges. One of my partners had to be in fresno at 6:45am for his plane ride so he could make it to work on time. We didn't make it though. After all of us fell asleep while driving we thought we would just pull over and give up. I think the key to performing on such physically demanding climbs is eating the correct foods and consuming enough calories. I am a real believer in gu after doing numerous routes where that was my main food intake for over 2 days. I could see my partners bonking when they were low on fuel. This caused them to not only move slower but to have a much more negative attitude. I think mental conditioning is also very important to suceeding on long hard climbs. Mental conditioning started for me at a young age when I would procrastinate so much that I would be up all night doing my homework.

[sexual_chocolate]

Easy answer for me. Chronic, at Little Si.

It was a hell of a monkey on my back for the last year. I'd been wanting to red-point something of that difficulty, and somehow Chronic ended up in my lap, and it totally sucked. The route itself is awesome, with fun moves up a slightly over-hanging wall, consistently hard with two marginal rests, but it started really screwing with my psyche, 'cause I'd fall over and over again, usually right at the same spot. I knew I'd eventually get it, but since I WASN'T getting it, I started to doubt at times, and totally lost my psych. Then one day I went up after work, really tired, didn't really think about success or failure. I sat down at the base of it and meditated for about five or ten minutes, and started climbing, straight up Chronic with no warm-up or anything. I felt decent, no different really than the other times. Got to the crappy rest about half-way up, and that's where I noticed something was different- my breathing was mellow, and I was fully recovering! I milked it for probably 5 or 7 minutes, feeling better and better. Then I went. Traversed to the right a few moves, up some right-hand lay-backs (remembering to clip the bolts by my feet hips and shoulders!), got to the crux and simply breezed through with minimal effort.

I didn't do anything special to try to train for it, just my normal training and climbing. I had been lifting weights pretty heavily, and that actually seemed to help quite a bit. I was pretty thin 6'2" 155, so adding a few pounds of muscle has helped. Oh and my home-wall. That's what it's all about. Being psyched and climbing alot, smartly. Lots of timed and symmetrical routines on my home-wall.

I wouldn't have done anything differently.

And advice for anyone? If you get psyched about something and really want it, have faith in yourself and keep trying, but don't be afraid to ask for advice along the way! 'Cause it's pretty rewarding to get something you've worked for so hard. At least is was for me!

[DPS]

The most gacked I have ever been was doing Triple Couloirs and back out to the car, in a storm, 5 months after having spinal surgery with almost no fitness.

[Bob_Clarke]

Great Topic Courtney-

Thanks to a focused and dedicated training regime I was able to the 20,000' summit of Alpamayo in South America. But there's more to the story.

The first attempt we were the third party in line that day. After the brutal hike to the base I was 15' up the first ice pitch when a huge ice chunk knocked me clean out. To this day sweaty palms thinking how lucky I was to have both tools in. Bloodied we stagered back to camp. So the next day we were off again, this time the only party on the route and our mules coming the next day, we had to sprint.

I took the lead and we basically never stopped moving. Vertical ice at 19-20,000' to the summit, back to high camp, then all the way to base camp in one day. The mule driver was there when we pulled. He was amazed at our effort. One of the best routes in the world.

[max]

quote:

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Originally posted by Wallstein:

I think the key to performing on such physically demanding climbs is eating the correct foods and consuming enough calories. I am a real believer in gu after doing numerous routes where that was my main food intake for over 2 days. I could see my partners bonking when they were low on fuel. This caused them to not only move slower but to have a much more negative attitude.

I think mental conditioning is also very important to suceeding on long hard climbs. Mental conditioning started for me at a young age when I would procrastinate so much that I would be up all night doing my homework.

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I like. Food is good! A did a little climbing with another guy on this board. Watching him, I realized how much better a trip is with good food. So we always stoppped at the IGA (?) in Squamish and picked up chocolate crossaints and pizza bagels! And on more adventurous alpine trips, keeping good snack food around has made me much happier and made me perform much better!

Homework! yeah, there's nothing like finishing up a brutal night in the lab at 2 am, staggering home or to the bars, and remenicing of vector spaces and the euclidian norm over a few drinks! Love it! Masocism at its best!

[freak]

Get really stoked before the pitch that will test you the most, its all in the mind, whether in the mountains or the crag, think about the last part of a long pitch and being strong at that point, think about being strong when your reaching the summit, prepare before hand. think of how your going to fire it,

Apron strings for instance, totally mental, envision your self pimpin through the top, the gripping part. I was gripped but chick power saw me though. I got so tested on that climb though that I couldent focus on the rest of the Grand wall and ended up failing not because of phyisical limitation (hey I can dog 5.11) but mental tiredness. nic

[haireball]

food is indeed good! being one of those cursed with a RAPID metabolism, I've learned to carry a gorp-bag and a pint water-bottle on my harness in place of a chalk-bag on long climbs. (I guess that dates me - I haven't graduated to one of those new-fangled hydration packs yet - though I did buy my mtn-bike-racer-wife one for her birthday this fall).

[Dru]

I like watching people trying to onsight Apron Strings lunging for the jug-that-isnt-a-jug at the top of the flake and taking 30 foot whippers!!!

[ 11-30-2001: Message edited by: Dru ]