Into the Great Wide Open...

I knew exactly what was coming up, and I was stoked. Tomorrow, Oz and Hobbit Book: perfect Tuolomne granite, six pitches, a super mix of bolts and bomber gear climbing. The day after, we would climb the Harding Route on Mt Conness: ten pitches of 5.9 in a spectaclar position, ending at 13,000 feet. The good Peter Croft gives both the maximum number of stars.

We pulled otu of town, loaded with food, booze and gas, and would our way up to the Sawmill Campground, where we hauled our tents to the site and swatted bugs. My partner, The Captain, was however oddly quiet. As we finished set-up, I asked him what was up, and he said that his Mom had gone to hospital with some as-of-yet undiagnosed ailment. He was worried.

The next day The Captain led us through the first two pitches of Oz, and I launched into the coolest-looking crack I'd ever seen, outside of the Split Pillar: 40 meters of overhanging dihedral, perfetc hands, and feet to take the edge off. And as I placed my third cam, it hit me.

Suddenly, I couldn't move. My right arm, jammed into the smooth clean crack, stiffened. My legs felt frozen, and yet my feet stuttered and skated on the knobby stance. My left palm dripped with sweat.

"What's up?" yelled the Captain.

"I, uhh--" came out before I realised, I had no idea. I had bomber gear, loads of it. I had no chance of hitting anything like the deck, a cam at eye-level, loads more gear, a bomber stance, and seven years experience climbing exactly this sort of route, mostly at harder grades. I was fed, rested, fit and psyched. And I was totally fucked.

Long story short, I downclimbed and down-aided back to the Captain, and could not explain what had happened. I was paralysed, scared shitless, and what was worse was, there was no reason for this.

We bailed. At the ungodly hour of 10 AM, we arrived back in the campground, and I sunk into my chair, dazed, a sick hollowed-out emptiness inside me, and yet I was oddly glad that here I sat, on a perfect climbing day.

The Captain went to town to use the phone, and I self-examined. It bugged me. WHAT was going on? I had FREESOLOED the grade I'd bailed off, for Christ's sake! Don't get me wrong-- I am as chickenshit as the next guy. I have bailed off alpine routes, ski tours, boulder problems and all kinds of climbs because I was worred about either objective hazard or my own skill. I am no stranger to wussiness! But this one...this one didn't provide me with an answer. WHY?

The Captain returned and said "bad news."

His Mom in Vancouver had been diagnosed with cancer. He might have to bail from our Sierras trip and go home. I told him I'd drive him wherever he needed to geta bus or a plane. He said "let's see how I feel in the morning, but I gotta warn ya, I might not be into this."

At 4 AM, the Captain said, "might as well" as I shook his tent, and later we trudged through mint-scented pine forest and crunched up onto a snowfield, and won the ridge crest as the sun dawned, pale and clear, into an icy still blue sky. We made our way down to the start of the Harding route. The Captain geared up and led. After placing two nuts, he stopped, hung, and said "I can't do it," before backing off.

Now if you are going to bail, the base of Conness is a great place to do it. Below us stretched a talus field, trees, and Tuolmne, and way out West in the haze was what might have been The Valley. The Captain sat, totally still, eyes closed, sweating. I drank in the still and the quiet, and my mind returned to yesterday. Still no answer.

It being obvious that we were not gonna get up the Harding Route, I wondered about the West Ridge. Croft gives it four stars and says that, outside of the first ascent of an 8,000 foot 5.11 route he did, in one day, with Conrad Anker in Pakistan, it is his favorite route. The Captain and I loaded the gear into the packs, and ambled off to the west. I wanted to see the ridge.

And beautiful it was...a low-angle start, then a cleaner and cleaner, and steeper and steeper line, on beautiful golden granite.


We sat on a lovely clean boulder and munched lunch. And suddenly the Captain stood up.

"Fuck THIS," he said.

"Wha?"

"Let's climb this."

"Are you--"

"Yeah."

I didn't ask any questions. We put on rock shoes and chalk bags, and started soloing on perfect cracks, with endless incuts everywhere. After the arch-bridge-- the part where Croft writes how he tried to make himself feel light-- we figured we'd done about a third of the route, and roped up. I handed the Captain my Tiblocs, and when he'd installed the first started climbing. Cussing not having brought the gri-gri, I decided, what the hell, u8ntied from the rope, and attached myself to the rope using only a prussik.


Here's a pic I scavenged online...what the route felt like.

With 20 meters of rope trailing below me, I followed the Captain as the rope snaked up into the sky. We did the last two-thirds of the route in three long simul-pitches. The rock flowed, the air was warm, the entire Sierra spread out below us, and at times I waved my right arm over hundreds of meters of still air off the side of the ridge. On top, I found myself high-fiving the Captain with a shit-eating grin on both our faces. The whole route must have taken an hour.

Wordlessly, we picked our way down the descent, glimpses of El Capitan and Half Done away, way DOWN, in the hazy distance.

Back at camp, we sat amongst the mosquito wail in the sun, and again the Captain said "fuck it."

"?"

"I'm not going home. You know, my Mom has cancer...but they can't do anything till tests are done. I could go home and worry, and do nothing, or I can climb."

Two days later, I began shitting myself on Sun Ribbon Arete when the only gear in the crux was a blue Alien (which is nobody's friend). And then I realised, again-- I was so worried about falling (onto an Alien, and then three bomber nuts, in utter safety), worried about things not going as planned, that I wasn't paying attention to what was right in front of me.

And then I understood. I had known what I was going to do, four days ago. The Captain had known that his Mom wouldn't get cancer, and then he'd KNOWN he'd have to leave his trip to see her. We were both wrong.

This was the real gift, it turned out: the totally unexpected happened. Failing is a part of climbing...and so is failing when the possibility seems remote. Emotional pain is part of life...and so is looking it in the eye, feeling it, and dealing with it. We got handed what we didn't expect, our plans changed, and what did we get? I stopped worrying about the "causes" of my silent, day-ending freakout. The Captain stopped pointlessly worrying about Mom. And the Universe threw in an awesome route-- the West Ridge-- we hadn't planned on.

I swung my right leg out, toed the nubbin, reeled in the sidepull, sunk my hands into a nice deep crack, and smiled.

Butch Makes Lemonade (2)

So there I was after my second day of climbing, wandering around the campground, looking for partners. My very limited set of options-- 5.8-- was used up. I now needed to step up, or rope up, and since I am WAY too much of a wuss to step up and solo some 5.9, I went a-partner hunting.

Now you gotta love Applebee Campground. You thought that the hottest people in the world were in porn films, or perhaps on America's Next Top Model, or maybe in Napoleon's new SUV, or perhaps lounging about the Gossip Girl set? NOOO! The hottest people in the world are at Applebee Campground, and when the daytime highs are 25 Celsius (that's "freakin' hawt" for you Yankees) what you get is people stripping down to the essentials: clothes that reveal bellies and forearms, and a chance to rock the coolest possible headwear. Ladies and gents alike stood around, sat around, even strummed around-- one guy and his girlfriend, who were not climbers, had hauled in a guitar, some comfy chairs and a mean stock of vodka, and sat while their buddies climbed, wailing away, even pulling some major rock-star moves one evening when dry lightning and Twi-hard clouds brooded.

There were so many sexy people around that Butch, your humble narrator, couldn't keep it in his pants. Especially when his spraying Coloradan-- Sprayradan-- neighbours were joined by more Coloradan buddies, this newest batch of whom upped the spray ante by spraying about not mere All-Along-The-Watchtower-esque 5.12-, but 5.13b! ooooh! They turned the spray into a downpour when one of them told me that "yeah, it was a couple of Germans who did it, so it might be easier than 5.13b." Pretty good, but not anywhere near as good as

THE GREATEST PIECE OF SPRAY I HAVE EVER HEARD:


(posted on the V.O.C. bulletin board after a certain climber, well known to the now-14 followers of this blog, returned from their first trip to the Valley)


"I WENT AND LOOKED AT ASTROMAN. DIDN'T GET ON IT. BUT I THINK IT WOULD HAVE GONE REALLY WELL."

After my chat with the Sprayradans, I ambled down to the Smoking Spaniards. En route, I passed the miniature tent which contained the California Girl and her husky boyfriend. I had been dutifully eavesdropping outside their tent every night, waiting, penis in hand (the Sprayradan truck in the Porcupine Lot had had a massive one drawn on it), for their sex sounds, which turn me on ever so much, but none were forthcoming. (I later found out that this was because I had forgotten to remove my earplugs before creeping around camp, which also accounted for the odd breathing sound i constantly heard the next two days of climbing, and how my partner-to-be would resort to sign language and thrown rocks to get me to haul the rope up.) The husky Yankee lay about, reading George Orwell. I said to him "weapons of mass destruction" and he said "yup" and I left it at that. The girl was nowhere in sight.

The Spaniards were gone, off to do the Becky-Chouinard, having left behind only the older guy's sick girlfriend, who complained about la grippe and her dolor de cabeza, and in true Spanish style threw cigarettes and whiskey at the virus. The Koreans were eyei9ng their new route-- now four pitches long-- with an array of binoculars, while one of them fried Spam. I then finally hit the jackpot-- I met one Nelson from Nelson, BC, and we had soon hatched plans for doing the Super Direct on Snowpatch.

OK now Butch will S.T.F.U. for a bit and show you some pictures.


This is Nelson leading P2 (5.10c?) of Super Direct. It was somewhat mossy...so...we (I) cleaned it. I spent about two hours seconding this pitch, and when I was done, an enormous shit-stain of moss, dirt and rocks spewed onto the glacier below the route, much like my computer screen drips with my saliva when I spray about my routes.


This is the route base when we finished. MMM...but seriously, now the AWESOME P2 is clean


Here Nelson follows P5. Awesome position and very easy chimney/stembox climbing.



This is Nelson ont he scary (but cool) P6, which has a hair-raising traverse, amazing position, clean rock...you know, all of the good stuff you expect of the Bugaboos (except there was no beer stashed on top).


Here, Hardman Nelson follows me on the final pitch, an epic of weird moves, traverses and end-of-route surprises.

Well anyway, we had a super day up there on Super direct-- if you are in the Bugs, and there aren't enough smoking Spaniards or Sprayoradans in camp to entertain you, and you don't want to do Sunshine Cracks AGAIN, do this route. If only because Peter Croft (and me) have climbed it, so you can be like him (and me).

Back at camp, the young lady Spaniard continued to cough and smoke away. The Koreans were now 6 pitches off the deck, tink tink tink, and as I lay me down to wait for my espresso pot, I closed my eyes for a nap, and the Yankee Girl in the mini tent ambled over and said "I hear you're massively badass, plus I was checking out your rack earlier and you're totally hot, so would you like to hook up tonight-- I'll do anything you like [at which pooint I imagined having her go to the food locker and dig my sugar out of my dry bag]-- and go climbing with me tomorrow?" I then woke from my afternoon nap, but did in fact find the Yankke Girl there. She launched into a tirade about her lazy-assed partner, asked me if I had plans, and I told her sorry, since I was, like Elizabeth Bennet would have said, "firmly engaged," at which point her face fell.

The Sprayoradans returned from their day-- "just some twelve-minus, we were tired"-- and then began spraying about tomorrow's big day, where they were sure to onsight the 13- (err, they mean, 12+) and show the Germans what was up with grades.

The Ground Crew guitar player had created a song. We sat about and chatted awhile, and discussed music. I, being the old fart in the group, said that I was amazed at how much good music was out there, and what a huge variety there was, and how many artists were selling themselves via the Internet. The guitar player, Dustin, said, "yeah, and a lot of them are really creative!"

"Like who?"

"Nickleback. Pushing the aesthetic limits."

"Yeah. First, the singer was blond, with wavy hair. Second album, even blonder!"

"Totally."

"Third album...even blonder, a-a-and he STRAIGHTENED it!"

"Yeah man. THAT is innovation."

On my final day, Nelson and I went to do West Side Story, which was pretty cool...except opposite us, on PAddle Spray Direct, were yet MORE Sprayoradans, who went on and on about what a bummer it was that they were climbing only Paddle Spray, and not The Power of Lard (5.14R, WI7+, M13, A5+, V13, VI). We enjoyed our day, and watched the leading Sprayoradan grunt nd heave through the crux of Paddle Spray. "That," said Nelson, "should have looked easier" and we both laughed. The hardest thing of course was the rappels: since McCrowd Arete shares raps with WSS and Paddle Spray, it was a veritable international village of rap techniques and knots and waits.

Back at camp, I soaked up the view, brewed more coffee, fantasised about the Becky, said goodbye to the Yankee Girl, the SPaniard Girl, the Sprayoradans, and went to bed, hoping that Lisbeth Salander would finally corral the bad guys.

And now it is time to head BACK to the Bugs...I am hoping that over the next four days I will at least get to check out some more international accents and cooking styles.

Butch Makes Lemonade (1)

The voicemail took three rambling, drawling minutes to say "A boulder crashed onto my hand and I can't go to the Bugs." Loreen, after a heli-rescue off Serratus, was out, at which point I started getting superstitious. Last year's partner-to-be, the good Mr Holgate, injured an ankle. Wanna get fucked up? Make climbing plans with Butch. Well, that's what Napoleon would-- and did-- say, after spraying about how he had done an aid climbing course with not just any old person, but with NameDrop, in this case Matt Maddaloni.

So I ended up in Golden, shopping like a Korean girl enjoying her last day ever on Robson Street. I bought Landjaeger sausages (the alpinist's power-bar), and of course granola bars (the suburban man's alpinist food). I bought a Stieg Larsson novel about the political failure of Swedish socialism, err I mean, about a bunch of pimps and perverts and murderers, and I bought a guide's tarp. This last I got mainly because I was too lazy to haul a tent all the thousand meters up to Applebee, and cos it made me feel hardcore...like, if I have this, I will consider trying All Along The Watchtower, which is 12-, 34 pitches, and majorly bad-ass.

As I arrived, muffler intact, at the porcupine lot, I had an Indian Creek flashback, set off by the assembled hordes of Colorado SUVs, one of which had an enormous grinning penis etched into its muddy back window. The symbolic import of this penis escaped me. I humped my to-me epic pack up to Applebee, and promptly turned into a climbing mendicant. I wandered the campground like the ghost of a long-dead soul, begging for a climbing partner.

This was a convenient way to scope out the whole campground close-up...and what a mix of people there were! First up were the Koreans, who were working some massive aid line, siege-style, beside the Beckey-Mather route on the east side of Snowpatch. You could tell the Koreans were in fact Korean, and not (God forbid) Japanese or some other inscrutable ethnicity, from the massive stacks of Spam tins, their shiny new haul-bags and other gear, their radio station, and the occasional blast of kim-chi that spread like a stealthy mixture of ninja and giardia fart through the campground.

Beside them were a cluster of long-haired smokers who were obviously Spanish. French smoke too but they go for shorter hair and they don't do the alpine, being pussies and all. Oh wait, that was the Iraq war. Oops, sorry to all the hot French women I have seen over the years, puffing on a cigarette, and saying "I weel climb zees roooote, I sink iss fife zirteen, fife fourteen, somesimg like zat, of course I don't know" then actually sending it.

The Colorado flashbacks came thick and fast. I found a spot to throw down my tarp and my Stieg Larsson novel (both about the same size) and heard a donkey-like braying.

"Yeah, uh--huhh, we decided that we wouldn't get on the Watchtower, there were some clouds in the morning" sprayed one. Now if you are going to announce how bad-assed you are (Watchtower) you generally don't want to appear frightened by a few hours' worth of cumulonimbal tomfoolery, which is standard fare in the Bugs. The three sprayers stood around like a bad imitation of John Long, Jim Bridwell and Billy Westbay after firing the Nose in a day in 1973 (now THAT is majorly bad-assed...imagine how many cigarettes Bridwell must have needed to keep his shit together on that one, and what a logistical nightmare it would have been to haul all them smokes, and keep The Bird adequately stoked at all moments).

Then there were a pair of Russians, da priviert, and a Yankee couple who shared what appeared to be a one-man cycling tent. Oooh-la-la, they are either in total lust, or seriously retarded, how the f&^+$$? could two people sleep in something that looked like a bivvy sack with an aluminum hard-on? There were four medical professionals from Chicago, who (loudly...what IS it with Americans in climbing campgrounds?) discussed I.N.T. insertkions, standards of care, and how the thing they were eating looked something that had recently come out of one of their patients' anuses.


Anyway I ran into five groups of three, all of whom said "naw we're OK, we don't need a fourth" which drove me nuts...why would you want to climb in three? Ridiculously slow, etc. I decided it must have been one of three things that was preventing me from finding a partner: I had not shaved for three days, or cut my hair for two months, so I looked like a red-neck version of John Lennon; I had not adequately sprayed to Coloradan standards how bad-assed I was (or wanted to be); or I was not a nubile 24-year-old girl.

So I went to bed and a moon of Falstavian immensity bellied up to the horizon and encouraged me to have irrational dreams of foolith things, like freesoloing. As the moon etched the Spires against the pale white night sky I fell asleep, and was at three A.M. awakened by hordes of climbers hissing with stoves and clattering with crampons, getting the good old alpine start.

When I awoke the campground was deserted except for a lone yogini and a Korean reading. I drank as much coffee as I could, and when I could no longer sit still, I said "fuck it" to myself, stuffed a pair of rock shoes and my 60om half rope into my pack, and headed for the Northeast Ridge of Bugaboo Spire.

i got to the base of the route in about an hour, stuffed my big boots into my pack, and put on the rock shoes. It was noon and above me was a party who were bailing.

"We're too slow," said one, "we started at 3:30 but we should have got up at midnight."

I launched into this route with barely any thought. On the first pitch, I did a slightly awkward reach-around to sink a stonker fingerjam, and then had to do one dicey move off a slightly loose flake before the bomber locks returned. On the third pitch, a rising dyke traverse that crossed the ridgecrest, I locked off with my left fingers, hiked my left foot, and swept my right across what felt like ten feet into a stem, and then, air brushing my ankles, I pulled myself across. I passed five parties on the route. At the summit, a bit of ridge-fuckery led to four or five rappels, and then the scariest part of the route: downwalking the Kain route past party after party of rock-knockers.

I got back to camp at three, made coffee, lit a smoke, and soaked up what I'd just done. My first-ever multi-pitch freesolo. Another of the fifty classics. I wish i could say that I got into some kind of Honnoldian or Croftian zone where everything just flowed, but it wasn't like that. My feet hurt. I had to piss. I wanted a smoke. I got thirsty. I got hot. Above all, I was incredibly breathing hard and had to make myself slow down and take some mental pictures of where I was.

That evening KI cooked up some KD, read some more Stieg, and then did the beggar circuit again. Again, I had no luck. People asked me what I'd done, and I told them "I climbed the N.E. Ridge" and when they asked with whom, I had to say "alone," at which point people either said "that's fucking crazy" or "wow," neither of which reaction was getting me closer to a climbing partner.

The next day I awoke, drank coffee with the Russians until again I couldn't stop myself from vibrating, and finally said "fuck it" and headed off to do Snowpatch. This one is different from the N.E. Ridge in that the crux is the last 3 pitches. I got lost on p4 or so, and found myself doing what felt like 10- stemming about 100m up a beautiful dihedral, pawing at grass in the crack, having forgotten to exit the dihedral to logical ledges. At the Wiessner overhang-- a 15 meter 5.6 hand traverse-- water poured into the horizontal handcrack, but the jams were so good that the fear didn't hit me. Above, I minced my way up slabs and cracks past the massive snowpatch, rested at the Inverted Pear, and then launched into the cruxes.

After about 20m of traversing, I did a 10m 5.7 corner-- perfect hands-- and then a 5.7 undercling, at which point, for the first time, I really noticed how much my ass was hanging out, over the snowpatch and then, a thousand meters down, the talus. Next up was the hand traverse, and finally the dreaded off-width with 5.8 climbing after it. The off-width had huge jugs in it, the 5.8 was bomber crimps and feet, and my only mistake was, at the top of the 5.8, I launched left along the handtraverse. I found myself in a blank, overhanging corner and had to reverse about 10m to the right, after which it was 20m to the summit.

As I sat on my second peak, it was the old cliche that hit me. The thing in climbing you worry about is the next move. You do not worry about falling, being tired, how long the route is, yadda yadda. Sure, you need to think about these things when you plan the day, and you better check your route, weather, etc, when you need to. But really, if you focus on one move at a time, things take care of themselves. Freesoloing clears the brain, much as meditation does, by forcing you to focus on the now. While your tiny, 16 bit-per-second conscious mind is heel-hooking or manteling, it is letting your subconscious do its own thing, and so all of those background things you can't really control, but that bug you, either get forgotten, or re-framed.

I rapped Krauss-McCarthy and was back in camp at four, buzzed out of my mind. It is no wonder that alpine climbing, and freesoloing, get used as metaphors for spiritual enlightenment. As you climb, you see more and more, and when you top out, your sense of "I am awesome!"-ness is tempered with the reality that you are only a tiny part done with the mountains. Bust out the cliches: it's a process, not a goal. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. My ass is too sweaty.

Most of all, the thing I liked about soloing was, sleep in, sit around, drink coffee, carry almost no weight, and back in camp with enough time to enjoy the sun and yet more coffee.

And then it hit me: I had just done both of the routes that I could reasonably free-solo, so I had better get off my ass and find a partner\. Round three. More later, including a few pictures.

Alphabet Soup

Climbers, like cats, are a territorial bunch. Woe unto them that piss on our territory, unless of course our territory is the Split Pillar on a hot Saturday in mid-August, at which point the Left Side becomes not just the Right Side's evil kid brother but also the route's outhouse.

Climbers are also a notoriously finicky bunch. Did it go free? How much aid was used? Did you French-free, fully free, aid, what? Is chalk aid? Yadda yadda. Now, these definitions are pretty clear, after fifty-plus years of campfire debates and Arcing Plot fistfights. There is another set of terms whose meaning also tends to be clear, and today I want to explore the meanings of the terms FA, FCA, FFA and FCFA.

After climbing, for the first time, our route from bottom to top in one go (the 5.11b A0 version), the Driller and I decided to publish the topo. We need feedback, it's dry right now, and hot (good weather for our route), the route needs traffic cos it's new, etc. Well after posting the topo, a bit of a shit-storm started. There was some dispute over the meaning of FA, FCA, FCFA, etc, and how these letters, strung by climbers after their names the way British astronomers hang FRC, D.Ph etc after theirs, should apply to various members of the team who put up La Gota Fria.

Well, as we well know, "FA" stands for nothing other than "first ass". This means, the first guy (or girl) to get their ass up a route. Or a pitch. The first time you go up a pitch, if nobody has done it (birds excluded) you get say "yea, I am the First Ass on that." Long-time hardmen (and women) get to say "I've had a lot of First Asses." It's kind of like a pedophile (or zoophile) having at the anus of a young boy or girl or Labrador Retriever (or sheep, if s/he is Scottish or from New Zealand)...ooooohh....mmmmmm...first ass....

Now, the next term of contention is "FCA," which as we well know stands for "First Complete Ass." Now this is a term used when you have a route that includes more than one pitch. So, you could have the First Ass on one (or more) pitches of a multi-pitch route, but when the route as a whole gets climbed in one go, from bottom to top, the person doing that qualifies as First Complete Ass.

"FCA" also stands for "First Colorado Ass," which refers to Indian Creek. You are camped at the Bridger Jacks, enjoying an evening of whiskey, bluegrass and pedophile jokes, when you hear the high-pitched whining sound of non-work-trucks in the distance. Then they come-- the Colorado Asses, loosed from their tedious nine-to-fives, and out to slay some 10- handcracks in gangs of seven-- and the first SUV to pull into the Jacks is the First Colorado Ass.

The, third but not forgotten, is FFA. This stands for First Full Ass. This refers to when a pitch (or problem) is first climbed in one go, no falls, without using gear to support the climber's bodyweight.

The last term of contention is "FCFA." This one, obviously, means "First Complete Full Ass." Now, this refers to the hard-person who first climbs a route, bottom to top, with no aid. You don't just want to be the First Ass, or the First Complete Ass...you want to be the First Complete Full Ass.

Just to be clear on this, I busted out Kevin Mclane's trusty "The Climbers' Guide to Squamish" to see how this worked. I asked the good Mr McLane how his book, which keeps track of who climbed what, and when, and how, and how hard, and how much whiskey they needed afterward, uses these various acronyms.

In his book, no acronym = FA = First Ass = the first guys/girls to go up a route, by whatever means, including helicopter, climbing gear and magic spells, though to be fair mostly climbing gear. Some routes-- let's take Freeway as an example-- are just loads of alphabet soup. The FA is Tom Gibson and Rob Rohn's, who used "some aid" to get their First Ass. Then, there are a buttload of individual pitches, variations, etc. Then we have this: and FFA (first full ass) of P1-6 by Mssrs. Hart, Atkinson, Eltis and Jones, all of whom had been involved in cleaning and projecting individual pitches. Finally, there is the FCFA-- First Complete Full Ass-- by Atkinson and Hart, where these two gentlemen hauled both their asses completely. and without aid, fully up the route.

So as we can see, you can be part of the FA of individual pitches, but not of the FCFA. You could be part of the FA of the whole thing, but not the FFA, or the FCFA.
As I contemplated this alphabet soup, I wondered how it applied to our route. And as nearly as I can tell, the First Ass of various pitches of route go 60% or so to Napoleon and others, and 40% to Driller and I and others. The First Complete Ass goes the the Driller and I, July 11, 2010. But the biggest prize of all-- the First Complete Full Ass-- is waiting to be claimed by Napoleon.

The work that remains...

What is left to be done with our route? Aside from Napoleon trying to free P5 and P7, here is a list of maintenance-type stuff

a) move anchor at top of v-slot to ledge.

b) do a minor scrub on P15 (undercling).

c) same for P13 and P12-- they need minor moss removal. However as it is, they are perfectly climbable, and no gear or hand will be pawing through munge.

d) Possibly clean first few meters of P2.

e) Move fixed line from top part of P16

f) Finish Upper Powaqatsi-- p17 and 18 of our route go, but we could easily add a few bolts and clean up the line (and belay).

g) Look at variations-- P11 and P16 have some interesting possibilities. Napoleon thinks that it would be possible to bypass P7,8,9 and 10 on climber's right...we'll see if he can link the features.

So far a couple of parties have had late starts on the route and bailed off P3 or P4. They confirm the grades and say the climbing is good, with one guy raving about how cool the P3 fingercrack is. There is still a bit of munge on P1 and 2, but nothing that will cause any gear or movement problems. So here's hoping that (a) Napoleon manages to send W.L.Y.W. and (b) more parties get on the route!

minor updates

So yesterday I went on a solo mission, and jugged the first 11 pitches, on Napoleon's epic (and I mean EPIC) fixed line. I drilled a variation (which will remain secret for now), removed the white fixed line from p11 and p10.

I added one bolt to P10 (the "munge traverse"). There is a cam placement near the bolt, but when I whacked it with the crowbar, i got that hollow whoomping sound that makes me head for the shitter. So now that 5.5 pitch is no hassle at all. This pitch is kinda dirty, but I left it. It is 5.5, all the trees etc have been chopped, no hassle route-finding, etc. We have this pitch, and the traverse that starts 2 pitches higher, which are "natural" so to speak, and we left these more or less as-is. HOWEVER...rest assured, if you climb the route, all of the technical stuff is clean. You will not be placing cams in muck.

I moved Napoleon's epic fixed line away from the start of P3 with one discreet bolt. Once his fixed lines come down, nobody will ever see that bolt again. So if you are up there climbing the route, you will see the fixed lines, but you will not actually be near them (except on the p7 bolt-ladder).

On P11, I cleaned up one edge of the wide-crack section and cleaned out a few placements opposite the wide crack (some wide stemming is possible for the tall and the flexible among us). Now, about the wide-crack section:

After the first ascent, Driller and I debated adding another bolt to this pitch. As it is, I used 1x #2, 3, 4, and 5 Camalot in that corner, in that order, before I got to the bolts I had drilled. We had installed two bolts, because, if we hadn't, you would have needed 2x #5 Camalot and at least 1x #6 Camalot to safely climb it, making for an epic rack. I am satisfied with our decision, in much the same way that Perry Beckham was satisfied with having put bolts on Perry's Lieback on the Grand Wall: if he hadn't, you would have needed to haul 5 #6s up there, which would have been not only a pain in the ass for hardmen, but a buzz-killer for everybody else. Now, the hard-assed tradmasters might complain-- "hey, they don't do that in the Valley"-- but those people can go to the Valley, and climb the off-width pitch on Freerider (5.11d) at 40m with two cams.

As it stands now, you put in a bomber #4, then, six feet higher, a bomber #5 (which you can easily move up as you go) for ten feet, and then you clip the first bolt. After we climbed the pitch, we debated the grade. Compare those 15 feet to Split Beaver (5.10b) in the Bluffs. This is wider, but MUCH lower-angled than the Beaver. Plus, you are gunning for a bolt, and the thing can be liebacked, and you can get a stem rest off the crack to the right. Plus the crux is shorter than the Beaver. So we think 10bish is the grade, and it doesn't need any more bolts.

On the ground, I cleaned up the arete that is to the immediate right of the v-groove. I added one bolt to this and knocked off some loose rocks. If the V-groove (a tricky, cool start) is ever wet, you can scramble up the arete (at 5.7), clip a bolt, go 10 feet higher, and step across onto the route and good gear placements.

Finally I hauled out most of the garbage, and the 100m of old static line that Ben Roy donated to us. It felt oddly anticlimactic, working on the route after having done the first ascent with the Driller.

I am now hoping folks climb it! As of today there is a week of dry weather, the route is shaded so it's great hot-day excursion, even the "wet like your wife" pitch is dry...go do it!

one-page topo for your climbing convenience

So Jeremy Frimer, aka the Squampton Janitor, is back from Peru. Having spent a month dong alpine routes, he is now something like a Tyrannosaurus Rx, with massive legs, and tiny arms. This also means that he is perfectly suited to making a nice topo of the route...so thanks Jeremy!

You can print this out and take it with you-- it should fit onto one computer-printer page. FCA Dylan Connelly & Chris Stolz July 11, 2010. FA many individual pitches: Mike Blicker, Dylan Connelly, Chris Stolz, Ian Bennett (P1). FCFA (whole thing at 12+(?))...maybe Mike Blicker, Aug 2010...