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scott_morrison
Dec 16, 2004, 10:28 AM
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Registered: Dec 16, 2004
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(there's a better formatted version of this TR at http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~scottm/wiki/index.php?title=Leaning_Tower_Trip_Report )
Yesterday Yossi (http://math.berkeley.edu/~yfarjoun) and I climbed the West Face of Leaning Tower. It was mostly an unremarkable climb, except for some interesting discoveries; firstly, winter climbing in Yosemite can be quite pleasant, if you get the right weather, and secondly, even mediocre climbers can climb fast, with a little practice.
We'd been talking about the possibility of some winter climbing for a while (spring is too far off! damn you skiers! :-), but were somewhat worried about the weather; Sierra storms can be deadly, and arrive on short notice. Leaning Tower was a good candidate; I'd climbed it before (http://math.berkeley.edu/~scott/trips/TR-LeaningTower.txt) (with Owain Williams, over two days), and was a plausible 'in a day' route for us (we'd done Half Dome in a day, modulo some fixing, and the Nose in 36 hours). Climbing in a day meant better chances of getting good weather, but less insurance in bad weather! We had limited choices for the day, and as the time came closer we decided it was Tuesday or not at all. Fortunately, the weather was perfect; a ridge of high pressure dominated central California for a week, and, climbing in thermals (or just a thick nylon shirt in Yossi's case) we were sweating most of the day!
So -- Monday night we drove up, and crashed near the Bridalveil parking lot, then woke at 4:40am. Our bags had been packed before we left Berkeley, so all we had to do was say goodbye to Nina, eat breakfast and take a shit! We hiked to the base, unpacked the backpack full of ropes and harnesses at the bivy spot, and headed out along the fourth class section (there's a nice rope fixed the entire way).
I left the ground at 6:50am, heading up the bolt ladder on pitch 1. Our plan was to climb the route in two blocks, with me leading through to pitch 5 or 6, and then Yossi taking over to attempt the 5.10 on pitch 7. We shortfixed every single pitch; more about that later. Everything went pretty uneventfully at first; the short section of fixed gear on pitch 1 was all stitched up, although the first piton is looking a little wobbly, and the hook move I remembered on pitch 4 was trivial this time; it's only about a foot above the last bolt... Somewhere during pitch 3 I used the zip line to pull up the draws Yossi had cleaned on pitches 1 and 2. The final free move onto Awahnee Ledge took a few minutes longer than it should have; for some reason I was wearing sneakers still, instead of rock shoes, and spent some time ditzing around on the last bolt, working out how to step off. (Just do it -- either clip a sling on the last bolt before clipping your aider, or simply reach down and unclip it after stepping up.)
By 9:05 I was lowering off the first bolt on pitch 5, above Guano Ledge. I lost quite a bit of momentum here, taking a fall on the first C2 diagonal crack. I'd placed a nut at the very start of the crack, where it joins a vertical crack, then a blue alien, and was just stepping up on a blue/green hybrid alien placed in a pin scar. The nut had a draw on it and I had a daisy hooked to the blue alien with a fifi hook. I was still shortfixing, and I'm not sure how much rope I had out. Anyway; the top alien popped, I landed on my daisy on the blue alien, which snapped the fifi hook (!), and was then caught by the nut. So I got a little airtime, with a bit of an upside down swing at the bottom. As far as I can tell, the shortfixing system worked perfectly; the fall would have been no better or worse with a conventional belay. Fortunately no damage was done besides a little scrape on my right elbow, and some shaken confidence which slowed me down on the rest of the pitch. Once I'd climbed back up to the nut, I reclipped the blue alien, this time using the biner on my daisy (interestingly, I must have known the blue/green alien wasn't great, because I'd actually clipped it, rather than using a fifi). If you're interested, a black alien 6 inches past the pin scar works great, and gets you back to easy ground. I free climbed a few metres through the blocky middle section of the pitch up to the fixed gear, then squirmed up the flaring crack to the belay. Yossi began cleaning, and, after a moments reflection, I decided that the 5.7 face climbing looked easy enough (and the first two moves, which feel airy, it's a walk), and began shortfixing the 6th pitch. By this stage I had pretty much no draws left, so left single biners on 3 of the bolts on the bolt ladder, then fixed the line directly to the anchors, just as Yossi arrived at the anchor below. As this was the changeover point, I had time to relax; after 6 nonstop pitches, I was pretty thirsty!
Yossi arrived soon after (we shook hands; it was the first and only time we were in touching distance the entire climb!), and after our shenanigans of re-racking, changing shoes, etc. (I guess we wasted some time here; we probably spent about 20 minutes sitting at the belay), Yossi started up at 11:20am (4:30 hours from the bottom). I can't give so much detail from here... Pitch 7 is the longest pitch on the climb (although probably took less time than pitch 5); Yossi did a fine job of mixed free and aid climbing. Pitch 8 is a tiny section of slab, and the Pitch 9 is the real thing; a huge roof. Yossi backcleaned furiously, so I has lots of fun cleaning; at one point I used the zip line to lower myself out off a bolt, and ended up about 4 or 5 metres out from the wall, looking straight down about 800'! Jumaring in free space, with a backpack, is too much hard work :-) By the time I arrived at the anchor, Yossi was half way up the final pitch, working out the C2, and not long after at the top. I had to aid across the final traverse in order to clean; I'd hoped to be able to lower off, so Yossi backcleaned the whole traverse, but once I got there it seemed to much work.
We arrived at the top just before 4:00pm; total climbing time 9 hours! Before starting, we'd been talking about a 7 hour target, but in retrospect that seems a little ambitious. If I hadn't fallen, and if Yossi had seen the route before, we might have saved an hour.
The descent was straightforward; much easier than last time with a haul bag! It's certainly possible to rappel with just one 60m rope, but we did the first and last rappels using our 6mm cord, to go a full 60m. (We just rap on the lead line, and use the cord to retrieve.) We reached the ground just on dark, raced back down the boulderfield, and were eating burritos in Oakdale by 9pm...
-------- Some beta -------------
I don't think we're particularly great climbers (I climb easy 5.10 trad, Yossi climbs hard 5.10 trad, for the most part), but we've been climbing forever (12 or so years?), so most things happen pretty quickly. On the other hand, we're starting to log some respectable times (nowhere near the records, obviously!) Below I've given a little pitch by pitch beta, our rack and other gear, and some lessons learnt about shortfixing and using fifi hooks!
Here's some pitch by pitch beta, valid December 2004. We were shortfixing, and fixed pretty much at the recommended belays (except pitches 3 and 4, which I linked directly).
Pitch 1 & 2
Very fast, mostly bolt ladders. Clip, step, fifi in at the top, unclip previous bolt, second steps, push out and up, clip next bolt, repeat! Every so often add a draw and clip the rope in!
Pitch 3
don't really remember; easy enough. A few cams to begin -- red camalot in a flaring crack, piton, red alien under a flake on the right, then fixed gear to the anchor. There's an easy free move at the top; you can place a small cam in a piton scar a foot below the ledge to make it really easy; just step out left.
Pitch 4
a dicey old piton, then easy cam placements to bolts. One hook move on a good ledge to the right of a bolt (or an easy free move?), then bolts to the final slab to Awahnee ledge.
Pitch 5
climb up to the bolt, lower off (easy if you're shortfixing with a grigri), then place a nut at the beginning of the diagonal crack. From what I remember blue alien, black alien, green alien, yellow alien, green alien gets you back to easy ground :-) The flaring crack at the top is a bit of a pain, but takes good cams in the back. There's also a placement that looked good in the crack on the left. There's an easy free move to the belay.
Pitch 6
the facing climbing is easy, and gets easier as you go, but no pro.
Pitch 7-10
Yossi lead these, so no advice from me!
--------------Gear---------------
We took:
* one 60m rope
* one 60m 5mm zip line, for pulling up gear, and rapping on the descent. (Pass the rope through the anchor, tie a figure eight, clip it to a figure eight tied in the end of the zip cord. Clip this biner around the rope on the other side of the anchor... then rap single line on the rope, and use the zip cord to pull. Makes sense? Sometimes it's hard to pull, and a jumar on the cord makes it much easier.)
* an A5 double gear sling, with some modifications
* two aiders each (see below for my setup with fifi hooks)
* a grigri each, for belaying and shortfixing
* kneepads, leather gloves, runners/hiking shoes for the follower
* the rack (we took too much; we should have left 1 ea of the 1/2 to 3" cams, and the tricam)
o 1 set HB brassies
o 1 1/2 set nuts, mostly smileys, some metolius curve nuts
o 1 pink tricam (not used, useless)
o 3 cam hooks (only placed 3 times)
o 1 BD talon hook (placed once, on pitch 4; or do an (easy?) free move)
o 1 beak (not used -- just there for heads without cables)
o hybrid aliens, black/blue thru green/yellow
o aliens, 2 black, 2 blue, 2 green, 1 yellow, 1 red (yossi said he destroyed one of these; I still haven't seen it)
o a few other random cams ~1/2"
o camalots 2 red, 2 yellow, 1 blue, 1 purple
o 18 runners
o 8 loose lockers
* food (as usual, too much... we barely ate)
* 4L water (only drank 3L)
* 1 bivy bag, 2 space blankets for an emergency!?
* spare fleece jacket (we each wore it once, and got too hot)
* spare fleece shirt
* spare fleece hats
All the gear was carried in a Arcteryx daypack, by the follower.
Shortfixing is great! We used it on every pitch. Here's the sequence:
* Leader arrives at a belay
* Clips in, yells `off belay'
* Builds an anchor (usually just a double length sling to two bolts, and two lockers)
* Pulls up rope, ties an figure eight, and clips it to the anchor
* Yell to follower: `rope is fixed', they start jugging
* Attach grigri to rope, with short length of slack between grigri and anchor
* Double check; grigri is directly on your harness not the belay loop (we -didn't- do this, but should have!), and the `climber' end is the strand going to the anchor
* If you have a big loop of rope, tie a backup knot, and clip it to your harness
* Start climbing, paying out slack as necessary (obviously this makes more than a move or two of free climbing difficult!)
* When the follower arrives the belay, put the leader on belay -below- the knot on the anchor, remove the knot, yell on belay
* When the leader has a moment, and is on good gear, they either pay out all the rope through the grigri, and remove it, or remove it immediately, while the belayer to taking up all the new slack.
Essentially the leader is rope soloing until the follower catches up. Pay attention to my note about putting the grigri directly on your harness, not on a carabiner on your belay loop. It seems this should significantly reduce the chance of the grigri crossloading, which has (apparently?) been the cause of a grigri failing (!) during a rope soloing fall (not fatal, thankfully!). (Does anyone have the link for this?)
We weren't doing this, and I only thought about it while relating the tale of my fall while shortfixing...
Fifi hooks are also great, but not for everything! I use a BD fifi hook on my harness (directly on the harness; I might try it on the belay loop again sometime). Sometimes, I also put one on each daisy. To do this, I girth hitch it (wrapping around twice!) around -both- the daisy and the aider. (I used to just girth hitch it around the aider, then clip the daisy and aider together with a locker. Don't do this; ask me why if you can't work it out :-) (If you're using two aiders on each daisy, you can try girth hitching by wrapping once around both adiers and the daisy, then an extra time around just one aider, to use up the rest of the sling.) I then `clip' most of the placements with the fifi, not the biner. This has two advantadges; it's fast both to place and remove, and easy to remove (in particular for making a free move; just step out of the aider and tug on the daisy -- usually the fifi will come out easily). It's got two disadvantadges. Firstly, if gear pops that you sitting on with a fifi, you'll probably lose the piece. Secondly, if you take a daisy fall on a fifi, you may well snap the fifi... That's what happened to me on Pitch 5! Perhaps sometime I'll take a photo of the half I still have, and post it here :-) Just to be clear; the hook itself broke, about half way up, not the webbing.
So -- in future, I think I'll occasionally use the fifi technique, but only in moderation; in particular, if I don't like the gear, and I'm at all considering a fall, then I'll clip instead (note in my setup, there's also a locking biner on each daisy, so it's easy to decide each time). The fifi still has two roles; on bolt ladders, they're super fast, and when transitioning to free climbing, they're much easier to pull off the last piece, instead of having to reach down and unclip.
If anyone's got some questions or advice, please contact me at scott at math dot berkeley dot edu. Eventually this will move to a permanent home at http://math.berkeley.edu/~scott/trips/TR-LeaningTowerIAD.html
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ryan_m
Dec 25, 2004, 1:42 AM
Post #2 of 5
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Registered: Jul 5, 2004
Posts: 5
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Hell yeah, nice job! It's rad that you guys were afforded good weather as well. Keep it up!
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lambone
Jan 7, 2005, 9:58 AM
Post #3 of 5
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Registered: May 1, 2003
Posts: 1399
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cool!
hey...curious, why do you say this?
In reply to: * Double check; grigri is directly on your harness not the belay loop (we -didn't- do this, but should have!)
why don't you like the belay loop on your harness?
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healyje
Jan 7, 2005, 11:52 AM
Post #4 of 5
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Registered: Aug 22, 2004
Posts: 4204
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In reply to: Essentially the leader is rope soloing until the follower catches up. Pay attention to my note about putting the grigri directly on your harness, not on a carabiner on your belay loop. It seems this should significantly reduce the chance of the grigri crossloading, which has (apparently?) been the cause of a grigri failing (!) during a rope soloing fall (not fatal, thankfully!). (Does anyone have the link for this?)
Yeah, fabulous post. Thanks for all the putting in the effort and detail. Here is a link to one of the extended "GriGri for Soloing" discussions (don't need to rehash it here - I'd personally rather hear more about folks' experience on the route):
http://www.rockclimbing.com/...&topic_view=&start=0
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lambone
Jan 8, 2005, 7:47 AM
Post #5 of 5
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Registered: May 1, 2003
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thanks bro, read a hundred different threads on gri-gir soloing. I just disagree with the comment and since it's posted here, I am going to post my 2 cents. first off if you attatch any belay device through the waist belt and leg loops of a harness (as opposed to the belay loop) you are cross-loading the biner.
I use the DMM biner with the plastic piece (don't know the name). it keeps the gri-gri from swiveling around to the spine of the biner.
anyway, back to the climb...interesting you guys jugged with a pack on! Must have been a real bitch up there. In december I expect you had warm coats and a decent size pack.
we did it in a day this September and hauled a small bag (although took about twice as long as you)...great time, really the best way to do this route.
cheers
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