10/9 Friday
Arose fairly early from our bivvy spot and found my station wagon and 4 other cars at El Cap Meadow had been broken into by a bear. I was a fool to leave my bagels in the car; they could be easily smelled in their nonsealed bags. I was thinking only of my cookies, which were sealed and may have been OK by themselves. We cleaned up the glass and moved stuff we didn't need on the wall into Paul's car. I retrieved one food bag of cans from the bushes, where the bear had crudely extracted the cookies. In the process of straightening out the right rear car door, I managed to get a long bloody scrape on my wrist, so I had to tap into the gauze supply in Paul's first aid kit!
Our original plan was to do Tangerine Trip, but we could see parties bivvied at the ends of pitches 2 and 3. So we switched to "Plan B" - the upper Muir Wall. Paul had done the first 11 pitches to Mammoth Ledge in the spring with Evan, but they had felt slow and the weather was crummy. Evan returned later in the summer to bag the remaining pitches with a different partner. Besides Evan, I knew Brad Young had done the Muir, and I had seen two trip reports on the web, so the adventure factor was not ultra high (especially since Dave Hill had ripped off the big loose flake that Brad had warned me about). Plus, we already had a fairly big adventure last time on Horse Chute, so we were ready for a more fun wall. It also was uncrowded and I know the rock quality in that area of El Cap is generally superb (contrast with calcification on Horse Chute and the first 4 pitches of Tangerine Trip, and various known loose sections higher on the Trip).
We got a mid-morning start on the haul up the fixed lines to Heart Ledge. A Swiss pair started just before us, after Paul lent them one of our 3 pulleys (they had left theirs on Heart). Paul led off the hauling while I was the human counterweight. Everything was in Paul's new large haulbag, plus the racks were clipped to the bottom of the bag. After the usual effort, we arrived at Heart and saw a team retreating from the Hollow Flake pitch. Paul led the free pitch to Mammoth, using the right hand finish which was somewhat dirty but easier than the direct line. Paul led the pitch above Mammoth which he enjoyed, and we fixed to the anchors below the next day's lead. At the same time we could see the Swiss leader slowing succeeding on Hollow Flake, with his arsenal of #5 Camelot and Big Bros. He had been very pleased when I told him on Heart that he had just the right gear for it; it probably also helped that he had done the Eiger, so the essential confidence factor was also there. We settled in to a nice bivvy on Mammoth.
Paul writes:
Our first day on the wall was uneventful and involved sharing the fixed lines with a party from Switzerland doing the Salathe and a soloist who "had never been on a wall before" and was just hauling a load to Heart to see what it was like. It seemed everyone queued up at the Muir was lining up to do "Muir-to-Shield". I don't know how many times I heard that phrase last Spring. We managed to haul to Mammoth and free the next pitch (12) and fix lines to the belay further right. We had Mammoth ledges all to ourselves. Just before dark, a party topped out from the freeblast and started probing to find out what route we were doing, for fear we would be in there way. It turned out they were doing Salathe-to-Shield...Seems like the Shield is quite the desitination these days!
Day 2. Paul hauled up the fixed line, and I got the first lead - with its typically superb rock, and a few non-A1 gear placements in pin scars. I had to use a Z-pulley system to move the bag, and I hadn't made much progress until Paul arrived and we counterweighted it. Paul linked the next 2 pitches to Gray Ledges, avoiding the hanging belay. Paul brought a nice new 60m x 10.5mm orange bicolor lead line. I supplied a "Clint bicolor" haul line -- old 50m x 9mm purple rope with one duct-taped sheath cut, tied to a 10m x 9mm new-looking black booty rope! Fortunately, all of the hauls were under 50m, so we never had to pass the knot when hauling, and the duct-taped spot was also near the knot and was rarely under load. The extra length was handy at times for hauling up more gear at mid-pitch, and the knot ends were duct-taped and never got hung up. I took the next lead, where the initial free climbing was 5.3 (not 5.9), and the aid was easy except for a brief reach past a loose flake at the top. More counterweight help from Paul on the haul, as was my usual pattern. Paul took our first steep lead, moving efficiently with occasional cam hook usage. It was not that late yet, so I set off on the bolt traverse, with many original Star Dryvin bolts and homemade aluminum hangers! After the pendulum, there was one tough reach move past a roof to a hooking flake, where I wished I had my Fish hook instead of the Chouinard, but I held the hook in place with my hand over the top of it.... The "booty light" was on, as I could see several nice booty biners on the pendulums of the next pitch. It was getting late, but Paul fired the pitch quite quickly, finding the final corner more like 5.4 than 5.10 or A2, and I followed essentially in the dark. Paul had reached a great little ledge, where we had dinner immediately and I was pleased at bagging 6 pitches instead of the usual 4 per day. I rappelled down 20' to a long, mostly sloping ledge. I slept there with my hammock to keep me from rolling off, while Paul pitched his portaledge above at the belay.
Paul writes:
Our second day on the wall was spent blasting off from Mammoth, hauling to 12 and linking a few pitches. The climbing was very easy up to this point and twilight found us penduluming into what should have been pitch 19. It turns out if you pendo too far on 19 you end up over on the Triple Direct passage over to Camp 4 on the Nose. It was a fortuitous oversight becuase it deposited us on a nice ledge that the topo shows below pitch 19. We intended to spend the night on this ledge anyway. Clint found a fine ledge to sleep on and I unfurled the portaledge over a less than ideal surface.
Day 3. We had already realized that we had strayed slightly off the Muir and onto the Triple Direct, and scouted out various options. One was a scary-looking fixed head and shallow pin scars above the ledge to a possible hook move -- too dicey. I tensioned left to check out a flake, but its upper crack was vegetated and flared. That left the only alternative - a bush-filled but continuous crack in the middle. Being a compulsive crack gardener, it was no problem for me to plow upwards, and the gear placements were great (once excavated). Above, an easy free traverse left rejoined the Muir, but I skipped past 2 bolt belays and back cleaned to the anchors atop p20 (there was one brief aid section at the end of the pitch with a hook move). Paul then led the first hard pitch -- the "5.10d flare", which featured the first use of our old "Secret Weapon" cam ("#7.5 Friend") to gain entrance to the flare. Paul battled to aid up the flare, backcleaning #1.5 Friends, and eventually it "eased" to a vertical corner, where a loose flake unexpectedly ripped off. I noted that the fall line for Muir debris crosses Grape Race and crosses the Nose roughly at the Dolt Hole, so the danger to climbers below was relatively small. Every day we saw many parties on the first 4 pitches of the Nose, and one day I saw a party fail to complete the pendulum into the Dolt Hole corner, so they retreated from that point. p22 was more uniform beautiful vertical corner, with extensive backcleaning of #1.5 Friends. Midway on the pitch, the free variation (The Shaft) exits right, so we were off the Bosch belay anchor plan for awhile. I set up a belay 150' up, 20' below the pendulum point, at a fixed pin, fixed nut, and #2.5 Friend. Paul led up to the pendulum point on spooky rock, where the surface of the left wall of the corner was actually a very thin flake, so everything sounded hollow. I squirmed at the belay, so I wouldn't be in Paul's flight path if a piece blew. Paul clipped the fixed pins and made the interesting swing out right, where he managed to get established with a couple of Aliens. The web topo indicated pins here and Paul concurred, since the alternative was a very runout series of cam hooks with dangerous fall potential. Even with the pins (LAs, baby angles, and one thick KB) it was tough and was in retrospect the crux pitch, with quite a headwall aspect to it. It ended at a slab with a small stance and decent bolts for a hanging bivvy. While cleaning, I scored a fixed baby angle without much difficulty.
Paul writes:
The next morning however presented us with the problem of our overshoot. We were now off route and reversing the pendo into the Muir did not look easy. Clint explored a couple of options and then decided to pioneer a new A1 pitch off of the ledge (just left of the ledge is a right facing corner that held a jungle). When Clint ended his pitch he was on the top of 20 and we were facing what was the mental crux of the route for me: a wide 10d flaring slot....where was Evan when you needed him! Clint's philosophy is "If it's wide, it doesn't go" or "If it's wide, aid it". Well, this philosophy is fine if you are belaying. After what seemed like a lot of grunting, a dropped ATC belay device, and much skin lost, I topped out at two nice bosch bolts and a nice stance. Clint lead the next pitch without incident and I got to lead the final pitch of the day. I feel that this pitch (23) was the crux of the route, for me anyway. Even though it is only rated A2, it has some particularly loose/friable rock at the start of the pitch. It was a bit disconcerting to weight a friend and hear the rock creak. Following the shitty rock was a pendo into a thin seam. I made the pendo just fine by placing an alien as I flung over. I managed another alien placement and then the rock got worse and the placements thinner. I called for the hammer and LAs; our clean ascent had come to an end early. After pounding a few pins, I managed to finish the rest of the pitch clean, till the belay that is. The belay was off of the route followed by the Muir-Free team (read lots of nice Bosch bolts at those belays) and was seriously lacking in fixed gear (a pin and two 1/4 inch bolts). The bolts were simply for bivying and the pin was less than solid. I put in a nut, a few friends, and a second pin to backup the fixed pin. It was a nice stance,but the hauling was hell because it went over a slab and an edge. That night we bivyed from the two bolts, Clint in his hammock and me in the portaledge.
During the day there were no swallows buzzing about. I figured they had headed south for the winter. In their place we saw Peregrine Falcons and at night, small bats. The bats had beautiful calls or echos and made a satisfactory wildlife substitute for the swallows. The stars at night were spectacular as usual, until the moon arrived on the scene. The moon was out late in the evening and provided nice views at night. It was waning, so every evening it would rise later and later and provide less and less viewing time.
Day 4. In the morning, Paul probably got fairly tired of the small belay stance on the slab, as I took 3.5 hours to lead the next pitch, plus I had managed to soil the slab slightly when using a too-small bag for my morning business. The pitch itself was nice, sans any big pin scars like on more popular routes, and went clean mostly on solid #1 Rocks. The main problem was that we only had 3 of these, and one was in the belay anchor; having 5 or 6 would have helped. So I had to constantly move back down to backclean my 3rd-highest nut (with 2 highest nuts in place). And I couldn't always make the highest possible placement because I had to try to use my other sizes whenever possible. Finally I thought I was out of the woods after a roof traverse on small TCUs. But the short section above required more #1 Rocks, so I had to lower down and backclean all the way back to the belay at that point! Maybe if I had been willing to use cam hooks, it would not have been so slow, but I steadfastly refused to even try them. Finally I arrived at the gray alcove with its small stance, after puzzling at a small unnecessary rivet/head below the alcove. I set up a solid belay anchor using a #2.5, #3 and #3.5 Friend, all in the same deep section of the crack. For the first time, I could finally move the bag by myself without the Z-pulley, and it got to the belay just ahead of Paul. Actually I cheated slightly, as I asked him to hold up so I could get a photo of this momentous achievement! Paul had another hard lead above, listed as A3 on the topo, and early on I could hear a couple of big loose flakes grinding. He managed it clean with some hook and cam hook action. The next pitch was a brief overhanging corner past an unnecessary machine bolt rivet, to a big sloping ledge, where I pulled up some big cams and pins. After a few big cam moves, I nailed past the loose rock (former location of the big flake ripped off by Dave Hill); I used a loose horn briefly for aid, but cleaned the sling since it might rip out the horn when Paul followed. At the top pin, I reached far left to a bolt and made a few more moves left to the nice bivvy ledge. Paul left the top pin in while cleaning, as I noted I would clean it as part of the next pitch. He also supervised hauling past a deep flake that fortunately didn't hang up the bag. I settled into the ledge as he led, fixed, and cleaned the next pitch, up the big final corner system (the secret weapon was again handy for a brief 5-6" section). That night I slept on the ledge while Paul pitched his portaledge. I noted that bringing the hammock was not only light, but it seemed to present its owner with first rights to sleep on small ledges, when the other guy has a portaledge ("old Valley trick")! It's a classic bivvy spot, near the top of the wall on a great ledge.
Paul writes:
I spent the morning of the fourth day on the wall watching Clint lead pitch 23. It was a particularly even crack that required more than 6 number 1 rocks; Clint had to back clean the entire beginning of the pitch because we only had Y. The first A3 pitch (23) was pretty casual. A bunch of hooking, HB offsets, some cam hook moves, some more HBs and a great belay (back onto the Bosch Belays). Clint lead the next pitch which was marked loose on the topo and we knew gave parties a lot of grief. He blazed up the pitch, got to the loose rock and called for the pin rack (our second hammering transgression). Clint's lead deposited us on a superb ledge where we would spend the night. I fixed the next pitch as high as I could reach by nightfall.
Day 5. Paul zoomed up the fixed lines and hauled, while I cleaned the pin and a few odd pieces. My lead was 150' up the nice corner, on varied gear sizes (TCUs + medium wires) for once (enough of that slow and scary major backcleaning!). A Secret Weapon move midway on the pitch, and finally a nice clean belay anchor with a #1.5 Friend and #8 Rock. Paul linked the next 2 hard pitches, rated A3 with some nailing, to an anchor with fixed pin and #2.5 Friend. The largest pin we used was on this pitch, a sawed off 3/4" angle. Near the end of this pitch was an interesting hook move in a hole in a thin flake (shallow hook like Leeper or Talon useful). The next lead started with a long lower-off, then some easy 5.6 liebacking on a sharp flake, and a couple of aid moves to a second and much more difficult tension traverse. I never used my free shoes on this wall, but this tension traverse was near the limit of what I could do in my old patched Nike boots. I set a belay anchor for this horizontal pitch, and explained to Paul to leave the bag at the belay; I would rap down to it from the rim so we could haul it direct. I think it was at his belay that one of our full water bottles plunged off, as its clove hitch tieoff had apparently become too loose. Hazardous below, and we speculated on whether the lid might break before it reached the ground. Fortunately no rescue helicopters or bodies appeared in the fall line. Paul started to follow with the usual 3x rope method, but did not have enough free rope to do the initial lower-off! He batmanned back to the belay. He asked if there was a way to do it without untying and I told him no, he would have to set up a (2x) rappel. I freed up a bit more rope on the lead line by using the haul line to extend the anchors back right. Fortunately, Paul kept thinking and realized he could stay tied in until it came time to pull the rappel, and before untying he could still clip into the rope on the far side of the rappel. So the 3000' of air below did not become a major fright with fully untying! I took the last pitch, to balance out the 2 Paul had linked, and because it started with a 5.8 chimney, according to the web topo. It turned out to be only a few 5.6 kneepad chimney moves, then mostly easy aid with a few fixed pins and a machine head rivet. I wasted much time on this lead, with Paul starting to get chilled in the breeze below, as I tried to clean a fixed yellow Alien. I got 3 cams retracted, but just could not get the 4th. Topped out a couple of moves higher and wandered out right and back left to extend the pitch to good anchors directly above, and next to the pine tree for hauling. Paul topped out and I rapped down the lead line, past a big roof and directly to the bag. Paul hauled as I jumarred back up through space, and helped him haul it up the final slab. We selected a nice sandy bivvy area and got stuffed on our slight surplus of food. It was quite chilly and there were some good shooting stars (some with trails and others without).
Paul writes:
The final day on the wall saw us move quickly through the A3 section by linking pitches 29 and 30. It took us some time, but got us to the top of 30 by 2PM. On pitch 30 there are two Star-Dryvin bolts that remain from the first ascent. These things are timebombs waiting to blow. Someone bashed in one of the bolts and it bent horribly.
The next mental crux of the route for me was the double pendulum on pitch 31 that I got to follow. Clint suggested we leave the haul bag in place and haul from the top. No problem I thought, as long as it was he who would rap down and free the bag. Following the pendo was epic. I tried to do the normal lower out procedure, but ran out of rope before I got to a safe point. I frantically batmanned up the rope and tried to figure out what to do. Clint shouted over I should rappel off,but that I would have to untie. GULP. UNTIE, what was he talking about? Of course I tied in and untied numerous times on the route to reconfigure the belays etc, but this was different. This was rappelling! I figured out a way to rappel without untying (stay tied into one end after threading through the rap point). Because you are rappelling instead of lowering off, you only need 1/3 less rope. Needless to say, but I was pretty wigged after making it to the belay and passed off the summit lead to Clint. After futzing trying to free a fixed alien for 30 minutes, Clint made it to the summit. I couldn't make any headway on the alien and left it. The wind was starting to blow very cold now and I was starting to freeze. All our warm gear was down in the bag. Upon reaching the summit I felt no swelling of emotions like I have in the past. It was just over. The journey was over and it was a great trip with no climactic moments.
Clint rigged an anchor and a rappel and set off to get free the bag. In no time we had the bag on top and decided to bivy the night on the summit instead of hoofing it in the dark down the East Ledges descent.
In the morning, I took most of the racks and ropes, plus the bucket, while Paul had the huge haul bag. Down the usual East Ledges trail and raps. I had my stiff hiking boots and new ankle brace, so at least my ankle was not hurting like it had when descending from Horse Chute. I was pretty tired below the raps, so Paul went ahead as I trudged slowly down. At times I had the bucket clipped to a rack, and found it made a handy chair. Close to the Valley floor, Paul returned to greet me with some Fern Spring water and grabbed some of the load. He had already done the loop in his car to the Manure Pile parking lot, which is about a par pace for me these days on the descent! He generously did the base hike / cleanup, finding only a few bottles, while I did the gear sort and eventually the booty split.
The gear we used was mostly a standard wall rack, with a few exceptions.
It was a pretty straightforward wall, with several comfy ledges, which was just what we were looking for. We speculated on why it had not been popular until recently. It was pretty clear that it was the improved belay anchors by Smith and Cosgrove that helped a lot. Also, for many years, the topo of the lower pitches to Heart was quite vague. Finally, it does not have the spectacular pitches that the nearby Shield and Nose have. It was nice to be on an older route that for once did not have deep pin scars. Plus we did not have to wade through the crowds like on Tangerine Trip, so lack of popularity has some definite advantages.
Personally, I felt fairly competent on the wall, which was my basic goal. Somehow, Paul got all the hard pitches, but I figured that was fine. I thought maybe he could use the experience more than I could, since I had done lots of nailing before. I wasn't as fast as I have been on routes in the past, but I expected that, with my more cautious attitude after getting injured in falls on Horse Chute (broken finger) and the 2nd pitch of the Nose (hurt back). A question for the future is whether I want to try some walls with substantially harder pitches, like Magic Mushroom, Tribal Rite, or Pacific Ocean Wall, which have in theory been "on my list" for years. Or will I just continue to be pretty passive about walls like I've been for years, never initiating a wall climb, but being willing to go when my partners feel like scheduling one. I don't know the answer yet, but with a fun wall like this in my recent past, a harder wall does not seem as scary as it may have once appeared.