My plans for Summer 1997 didn't include aid climbing. The amount of gear need for a big wall had always turned me away - besides aid climbing is for freaks. I received an invitation to climb the "Big Kahuna" (El Capitan) and about as fast as you can say "rurp" I accepted. Gear was not a problem as my partner, Jim, had a pretty substantial pin rack and a double ledge. We planned on Zodiac with Tangarine Trip as a backup plan. Jim was a little nervous about my total lack of aid experience so we headed out to Index for a practice day on Green Dragon where I led my first two aid pitches. Jim insisted that we plan on six days on the wall and I told him he was out of his mind and we would finish the route in three. We packed our gear and headed out of Seattle in the morning. Our schedule was to drive during the day and get a full nights sleep before humping gear to the base and fixing pitches.
There were two parties within a couple pitches of the ground which made me nervous. I had the first lead. While I was fooling around with a hook move to the first bolt, Jim handed me a cheater stick which I used in the heat of the moment. I regretted it immediately and decided to forego the cheater stick for the rest of the climb. If I'd had some nerve and a little foresight, I'd have left the hammer behind too. Anyway, the first pitch was pretty straightforward. I had just purchased a pair of Leeper Camhooks which saw immediate use. the only tricky spot on the pitch was within 10' of the anchor. I clipped a fixed angle with a very ratty looking sling and moved onto a #0 tcu under the roof. The tcu wasn't too secure and I had back cleaned before the angle so I was kinda nervous. The next move should have been a #00 but we didn't have one so I stuffed a #0 part way in. As I moved onto it (not too gracefully), the previous tcu popped and I started sweating a little. I little stretching allowed me to clip the anchor from there. As I moved to the anchor, the second tcu popped.
Jim took the next pitch traversing horizontally under the roof and straight up with some free/aid grunting. By this time it was dark. Our progress was not as speedy as I'd hoped.
We took a while to pack our haulbags and get going the next morning. We arrived at the base in the afternoon. After jugging to our high point I set off on the third pitch, the high point of which was a long reach (second step) off of a hook to a fixed head. I was fooled by a set of fake anchors. Jim led the remaining 40' where stopped for the night. Our progress was incredibly slow but we couldn't have gone much faster anyhow seeing as there was a party of Agentinians bivying on the next pitch. While preparing for my first night on a 'ledge, another party reached us. It was a pair of Korean guys doing a 24-hour ascent. This really put our effort in perspective. We christened the pipe-bomb (our sanitation facility).
The next morning Jim led out on a low-5th ramp which gradually turned to aid on a traversing crack and then vertical crack. This pitch put us at the base of the infamous bolt-ladder pitch. Well, I'd read about this one and decided to follow the advice to back-clean the entire pitch and then string it together with the next pitch. The first excitement came with the 5th class traverse into the bolt ladder. Doing low 5.8 in boots with a 40 lb. rack on was a new experience. The horizontal runnout and injury potential were eye-opening. The pitch became more serious though. The bolt ladder was straighforward albeit some of the rivets were of questionable quality (cracked or bent). I made good use of my Fish Doubloons here. I just left one attatched to each pair of etriers. I also quickly developed a system whereby I didn't have to rely completely on single bolts. I strung together several runners into an 8' loop. Clipping this into the rivet above my high aiders, I could downclimb a few steps, hang on to the loop and retrieve my low aiders which I then installed on the piece holding the loop and repeated the performance. This worked fairly well until the end of the ladder were to-my-horror I found it was necessary to make a hook move (albeit a solid hook). This was not mentioned in the beta I'd read. Stepping onto the hook and looking 90' of rope gently curving to the belay was pure adrenaline. Above the hook were solid hand jams and cam placements and a couple of mantlish things. A short stroll to the right led to the start of pitch 6 which was relatively uneventful. The Argentinians were bivying on the pitch above so we could not continue.
I've got to say something about hauling here. I had no idea how strenuous this would be. We had between 8 and 10 gallons of water. This put our total hauling weight well over 200 lbs. I'm certain. Our pulley was none to good and it was all I could do to move our pigs 6" by turning sideways (or even upside down) and pulling while bracing my feet on the wall or anchor. I wasn't using a wall harness (it was a BD Bod) and it cut into my kidneys mercilessly. In addition I suffered my only injury of the climb when my foot slipped and I whacked my shin pretty good. Okay - enough whining.
Jim led the next pitch which began with a low-5th ramp (deja-vu) but he soon disappeared behind the black tower. This section was probably the thinnest on the climb. There were a reasonable number of fixed museum pieces but small wires & RPs were necessary in addition to a fair bit of nailing. The cheater stick was called for and applied but I couldn't see the action from the belay. I cursed a lot while cleaning this one. Pins suck.
Jim insisted that the next pitch was his since I had led two in a row with my extendo-pitch. He set off into the circle and was shortly mislead by some nice looking bolts off to the left. I can't remember the exact situation as it wasn't my ass in the sling. As I recall this pitch included a little expando action - nothing too severe though (again that's a comment from the passenger seat). The next pitch (the Circle) was the highlight of the climb for me. By this point I'd become so enamoured with the camhooks that I just left one permanently attatched to each set of aiders. There were several long stretches where one could just run it out on the camhooks and place a tcu only when the jitters set in (every three hooks or four hook moves for me). The excitement on this pitch came very near the top. I had placed a very secure cam, either a large tcu or camalot jr., under a lip, bathooked a bolt hole and followed that with a poor placement of some sort and then continued on camhooks for three or four moves when I could go no further. I fooled around for a while but couldn't get a hook I could trust or a tcu that would even consider staying put. I had some time to consider the fall. The marginal placement would certainly pull so I was looking at 50'. There was only one option left. I placed my first head (ever) and did what bounce testing I could off of a camhook. It held and the path to the anchors was straightforward. By now the hauls were completely free as the climb overhung about 30' per pitch. The pigs we're noticeably lighter too. We set up the ledge and had a spectacular view during supper.
Jim had the dubious honor of leading the Nipple pitch the next morning. It was very photogenic but our camera died two shots into the pitch. (BTW I haven't seen the photos from this climb yet - Jim insists they will be mailed shortly.) After a short bolt ladder, the line traversed right, under a small lip, to the nipple proper. The seam behind the lip went from LAs to a #5 camalot at the nipple. Jim pulled a fixed RP about half-way through the traverse and took a 5-footer. After this he became more methodical than ever. The nipple was a serious grunt followed by straightforward aid up a steep ramp. My fuse was running short by the time I reached the anchor at 4pm. I was beginning to be seriously concerned about our pace and was a little tight lipped as I racked up for the Zorro roofs. The roofs required a bit of free-style aiding (a lot of pulling on etriers) and got strenuous at times. There were also a few airy hook moves to spice things up. Following the roofs there was a thin seam that the camhooks conquered in short order to gain the short bolt ladder approaching the belay. I finished the pitch at 6pm; Jim and the pigs were up by 7pm.
By now the Argentians were no longer an issue as they had made it to Peanut ledge, two pitches up. I insisted that we get another pitch in and furthermore suggested that I lead it. Jim was not very receptive to the idea of giving up leads so he set of shortly before dusk. I spent the next 6 hours shivering in the dark, swinging on our little bosuns chair while Jim pushed the sharp end. Jim became lost in the dark but there was little advice I could offer from our low-res topo. Apparently dire hook moves were made to finally reach the anchors well past midnight. We did not bivy at the recommend spot off to the right but on steep slab at the base of the next pitch. Setting up the ledge and "mounting" it on the slab would have been entertaining if it wasn't 1am by then.
After a short night I set off on a pretty moderate pitch. The only excitement was some backcleaning on a traverse left then right (the latter primarily on hooks). A mantle and ashort bolt ladder then led to a completely free climbable crack which I aided to Peanut ledge - a perfectly flat 2' x 8' platform. Jim took the next pitch and also aided some free-able climbing to a roof. Clouds had been rolling in and we could no longer see the valley floor. Shortly, we were being rained on. The lip that Jim was about to pull began to form a waterfall. Peanut ledge was completely dry except for some blowing rain. After a quick conference, Jim decided to place an anchor under the ledge and retreat back to me. I had the ledge set up and the gear secured by the time Jim arrived. We had along a 5-season fly so this was by no means dire. We crawled in and counted rations. It was clear that we could survive comfortably (other than the smell) for at least 3 or 4 days of storm. With that assesment we took a nap. When we woke in mid-afternoon, it was clearing but the face was still quite wet. There were full fledged waterfalls to our left and right. We decided that the best plan was to stay put, get some rest and shoot for the top the next day.
Our final day started with Jim jugging to his anchor and leading the remaining 10' to the real anchor above the roof. The lip here is rather sharp and Jim took pains (much appreciated on my part) to keep both the haul line and the lead line from sawing on the edge. The following pitch began with more camhooks up a crack followed by a hook traverse. As I hooked a rather large flake near the end of the traverse it moved about 4" so I was forced to make a long reach around it. The traverse end with a steep dihedral up and to the right on solid cams. At the top of the dihedral I headed up and left. The belay was just a stroll to the right but I didn't think I had gone far enough yet. I continued up for about 40" until I realized my mistake when I pulled a mini-mantle onto a steep and blank slab. The top was within spitting distance but I was clearly off route so I didn't fool around too much. As I backed down, the belay was painfully obvious. There was an exciting no-hands traverse to get to it though. Jim let me take the last pitch which was pretty short. It began with some low-5th scrambing and then moved onto thinner things. At one point, I put a small tcu into a horizontal seam below a large block and the entire block lifted when I weighted the piece. It took some work to get over that one. Above it I was pretty paranoid about the dirt mortar which was rather loose after the previous day's storm. The climb ended with a few hook moves, a reach then then some grunting. I did the right variation which took solid pro and did not require OW climbing with the big-wall rack.
We kicked back in the sun and finished our food, hydrated and packed for the descent. I was prepared for a nightmare after having been lost on the slabs below half-dome before. The descent was mild-mannered and we were back in the valley by dusk. I sprinted for the car in the meadow as we wanted to make sure to get to the showers before they closed. We got there late and there was no one to rent us towels. I had packed pretty light and had no soap, shampoo or towel. I found a few ml of shampoo in a hotel-sized bottle which made my day.
Here's the beta we took from the excellent FISH site. You should also check out the pictures by Tuan.