El Nino Preliminaries

At first, we were just heading up to have a look at the first few pitches. Earlier we’d befriended the Germans Tobias and Thomas before they had set off on the route, and then caught up with them again after they got down. They made the route sound pretty good and repeated what we’d heard before; that the hardest pitches were the first three slab pitches. So, we thought that if we could get these done, we should consider having a pop at the whole thing.

El Nino has a bit of history for Brits, since Leo and Patch made their astonishing near flash ascent of the wall shortly after it was completed by the Huber brothers. It’s also one of the ‘easier’ free (if you ignore the man powered rappel) climbs on El Capitan, the hardest pitches being around the 8a+ mark. This isn’t what I’d call easy, but the free routes quickly get a lot harder on this wall. For these reasons and that it’s a route we’d known about for years, we were naturally pretty psyched to give it a look.

The legendary Germans, Tobias and Thomas

Start of El Nino topo

The first three slab pitches, called ‘The Black Dike’, ‘The Missing Link’ and ‘Galapagos’ (all the features get names on El Cap), sounded hard. All slabs, and all protected by too few and very stupidly located bolts. We heard from Tobias how the crucial bolt of the Black Dike is placed out of reach, for anyone, from the good hands off rest and committing and tricky moves have to be made so the bolt can be clipped with difficulty. At this point, one would be facing a very serious fall with the potential for injury in my opinion. Thankfully Tobias and Thomas left a long sling on this for future parties, phew!

I was up first on The Black Dyke, but didn’t get very far. I was a bit spooked by the initial chossy flakes on poor pegs and came down to hand the firing ends to McHaffie. He teetered through this section, which isn’t difficult, to reach the first bolt. This is followed by a terrifying walk up the dyke itself, without handholds and just in balance, until the long sling is reached. After this is a desperate crux that McHaffie managed to on-sight, all of the German chalk had been washed off in the rain. Finally there’re a couple more bolts and some tricky moves to a ledge, and it’s pretty much over. Caff matched the crimps before the ledge, good crimps, and in the last moment that it could have possibly happened, his feet popped. He was off, after pulling off possibly the best lead I’ve ever seen. I followed the pitch falling a few times on the crux move without finding a good sequence through it. Caff then sent the missing link, I, again, didn’t have a workable sequence on this bouldery pitch. Finally, Galapagos, I was spent and Caff wentfor a look. He was also feeling pretty beat and after splitting a tip came down and we bailed from the route feeling very worked and not knowing whether to try the climb or not. We decided to leave a rope in situ, that would be easy to retrieve, and would keep our options open.

Me, setting off to follow the Missing Link

McHaffie on the mega-flash go on the Black Dike

Big Sunday

Tobias told us, but especially me, not to worry, the first time they were on the route they didn’t think it was for them either, but that second time round it was much better. We headed back up for another look at first light on Sunday for the shade and cool temps. Using our fixed rope, I jugged up and checked the Black Dike crux moves. I worked out a weak man’s sequence and came down for a blast. The lead went really well and I really enjoyed climbing the pitch - it is an incredible pitch. Second time around I also cracked The Missing Link and managed to lead it cleanly just as the sun hit the face. As it was hotting up we decided to head back down to the valley for food, drink and a few games of shithead.

We were back at the start of Galapagos for about 3:30pm once it came into the shade. Caff set off for blast, despite the rock holding a lot of the sun’s heat. McHaffie then pulled a phenomenal lead out the bag, flashing the rest of the pitch, making use of a few tips from trusty Tobias. I flukily managed to flash the pitch on second, with Caff shouting down detailed beta, getting through each hard section by the skin of my teeth! This was a brilliant day for us. 

Freeing these pitches – the alleged cruxes - now commits us to trying the route. Today is a rest day and tomorrow we set off for 3 to 4 days, in an attempt to free climb all of the pitches. I feel as anxious as ever about setting off on a big wall, just through knowing how much hard work the next few days will be. But also because I’m not sure how it will go trying to free the upper pitches, there are a lot of tough pitches up there, and I don’t have nearly as much reserves to draw on as McHaffie. 

Psyching up for the Black Dike

Caff on Galapagos

The morning of Big Sunday

McHaffie after the Black Dike

Never Never, Land

A few weeks earlier... 

The Dark Lord and I had just arrived in the valley and hadn’t yet started thinking about trying Salathe Wall. The primary plan was to check out the potential for new free climbing around the area of Never Never Land and Aquarian Walls. Apparently, McHaffie had heard from Hazel who had heard from Tommy that it would DEFINITELY go free – sounded pretty promising. What Caff had forgotten to tell me was that a rough grade had been suggested as being somewhere in the 5.14s, so somewhere between French 8b+ and 9a... on a slab. Not knowing this at the time we set off for a look at the first few (crux) pitches a few days after arriving in the valley.

To make things even more of a challenge I was climbing in my trainers, because Charles De Gaulle had lost track of one of my bags, so for the first few days I was without any climbing gear whatsoever. This meant Caff was doing most of the leading, and we set off up the initial easy corners and cracks that lead to ledges on the left hand edge of the Great Slab, before the tricky climbing kicks in. Caff then lead a long rightwards traverse pitch that follows the aid lines out onto the slab. This would make a great free pitch, mixing some slab climbing with pocket pulling over the lip of a roof with poor footholds, which we thought would go at about 7c+. 

I followed Caff across, climbing where I could but mostly pulling on gear. The next pitch was a bit of a different story. The aid line takes a bolt ladder straight above the belay and when Caff aided up it he discovered that it is almost completely blank, and it turns out it isn’t a slab either, but overhangs about 10 degrees. Our assessment was that it was probably impossible, but if not then it would be at the upper end of the V scale. 

This meant a quick end to our dreams of climbing a new free route on El Cap. We made a hasty abseil retreat from here and headed down to make new plans. My bags eventually arrived at camp 4 and we started prepping for our adventure on Salathe wall. We thought that there may be other ways of tackling the Great Slab and therefore reaching the upper pitches on either Never Never Land or Aquarian Walls, but that this would require a lot of exploring and weaving around between climbable features, and also probably lots of bolts. We chose to leave this for a team with more time and stronger fingers. 

El Cap looking as big as ever

The Great Slab

Mchaffie scoping out the first pitch

Seconding the first pitch in trainers

Running away

Salathe Wall

I’m planning on hobbling around Yosemite Valley for the next few days until a time that my legs feel sufficiently recovered to contemplate going climbing again. I think it was the descent that broke me, and trying to keep up with Mchaffie who goes about descending in exactly the same way he goes about everything else he does; fast, unrelenting and without showing any sign of weakness. We’d topped out on Salathe Wall on Thursday afternoon, our seventh day on the wall. This was the longest that either of us had ever been on a big wall, which, having probably only done one previous wall each, isn’t too hard. 

A couple of days before setting off we’d been on the wall to give our haul bags a headstart and minimize the amount of hauling required once we set off. The plan was to ascend in-situ fixed ropes to the Heart Ledges and then climb a few further pitches to the hollow flake ledge, leave the bags, descend, rest and then set off for real. This was going well until we were caught in a freak hail storm whilst we were in one of the worst possible locations. I was belaying in a thermal top on an exposed slab in the wind and hail worrying about getting hypothermic. Caff, however, was in a far worse situation being 2/3rds of the way up the hollow flake squeeze chimney, hideously run-out with hail pilling up on his rock shoes. Luckily it didn’t last too long, I managed to get some clothes out the bags and Caff managed to skilfully slide back down the flakes and get back down, across and up to the belay. We bailed from here, back to camp, reasonably content that our bags were only one pitch from where we wanted them.

Freeblast first pitch

Crux slabs on Freeblast

Caff pouting at the Salathe headwall

Alcove bivi

There were more setbacks to come when at the specified set-off time of 2am it happened to be raining. We delayed getting up for a few hours, most of which it rained, and then were in two minds about whether it was a good idea to set off, or whether we should wait another day. I hate waiting - any time between knowing that I have to lead the monster off-width and actually doing it isn’t time I canfully enjoy life – so I suggested we go. Fortunately, we got away with it, some of the starting pitches on the Freeblast were moist but by the time we hit the harder slabs conditions were good and we made good time. We inevitably slowed down once we hit the bags, Caff had a much better time on the hollow flake and at around 5pm we were at the Monster. It was my turn to lead because Caff had led it last time we were on the wall. I got up it, but it felt harder than ever before and I was feeling pretty shaky once we reached our bivi in the Alcove.

View down on El Cap spire

A lunatic on El Cap spire

Day 2 was an easier day, thankfully, because I was trashed. No hauling, only climbing three easier pitches followed by the Freerider boulder problem pitch. With a bit of beta from James Lucas - who appeared at just after the right moment to tell us we were going the wrong way and prevent Caff from falling out of a desperate corner instead of climbing easily around it – Caff flashed the boulder problem. Emulating Caff move for move I also managed the flash and we were stoked that we’d done the pitch so fast and could relax on El Cap Spire for the rest of the day. James and Hazel were able to join us for tea and bagels because, bizarrely, the entirety of Freerider had fixed lines on it. So for a few days the route was a motor-way of people either coming up on mini-traxions or just abbing down for some incomprehensible reason. Needless to say, these ropes were an eyesore, detracted from the experience of adventure of everyone on the route and generally resulted in frequent cluster-fucks when ropes or haul bags got caught up in them. 

Caff enjoying a protein cookie too much

Salad wraps, cheers Hazel!

Day 3, involved leaving the Alcove and... well, using those fixed lines I mentioned earlier to ascend to our high point above the boulder problem. We were going to fix these pitched anyway right. Awesome climbing ensued, followed by the retched endure-corners. I managed to fall out of both of these and did them second go. If they weren’t so vile, these pitches would be amazing. This is then where Salathe leaves Freerider, or Freerider leaves Salathe. An incredibly exposed pitch through some roofs leads to the base of the headwall. We dogged the headwall to reach Long Ledge at the end of a long day, exhausted. Long Ledge was then our base for the next four days as we set about tackling the headwall pitches. 

Enduro corners

Looking down from the base of the headwall

Messed up hands on about day 6

The headwall is simply incredible. Fully 60 metres from above the roofs to Long Ledge, with two intermediate anchors separating sections of 13a, 13a and then 13b. We opted to try the pitch in two sections which, I gather, is often how it is attempted free. The first section tackles the meat of the headwall in a 50 metre pitch. There is then an anchor at a good kneebar rest before a bouldery ten metre section of 13b. We quickly realised that this top section on its own was not likely to be a problem and that it was the main lower crack pitch, especially the final 7 or 8 meters before the anchors that would decide the style of our ascent. On day 4 on Long Ledge, day 7 overall, Caff sent the pitch. I knew I hadn’t made enough progress working the pitch to make a lead attempt so I resorted to give it my best effort following Caff up. Off the belay it’s techy 13a and I got numb hands, tore a tip, fell off and then an RP ripped and hit me in the face drawing blood. For me, this was the lowest point of the climb. I lowered down, took a rest, and had another go. This went a lot better, I got into the final 7 or 8 metre hard section of the crack before coming off. Then, after approximately another 50-60 rests on the rope I made it to back to Long Ledge. 

Long ledge bivi

Being baked in the sun on Long Ledge

The Long Ledge days were some good days, involving no hauling and only small amounts of climbing. This was what I’d hoped big walling would be like; wine, cards, reading, sunbathing interspersed with a little bit of tope roping. We had plenty of food and water and could recover from our big days hauling. We even had a batch of protein cookies, thanks Freeman ;), for optimal recovery. In the middle of our time living on Long Ledge, Hazel appeared from the sky somewhere with red wine and a cup cake to do some filming.

5.12 off Long Ledge

Summit :)

I was a little disappointed that I fell so far short of the mark on this pitch, thinking myself a reasonably well rounded climber. But, I clearly have a lot to learn about climbing in granite land. Once Caff had sent it I had had enough of the headwall and we were both keen to get down and start drinking beers in the meadow. This is what we’ve been doing the last two days and it’s been just as good as I had imagined. I doubt I’ll be back for a rematch with Salathe any time soon owing to its awkward location and there being so many other walls to look at. At the end of the day though, this was some of the best 7 days of climbing I’ve done and an amazing experience being on the wall so long.

Me on the boulder problem pitch taken by James Lucas