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TonySF
Feb 3, 2009, 5:59 AM
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We're planning/training for a Nose ascent, and trying to figure out a good itinerary. We're currently doing one pitch in about 1.5 hrs, including hauling, jugging, gear transfers, etc. We're freeing 5.8 and under (except for mandatory 5.9). Our goal is to avoid sleeping at Camp IV and never do more than 10 pitches in a day. (The whole plan is of course subject to change due to slower parties ahead of us.) Thanks in advance for your advice.
Day 1: Up to Sickle Ledge, Fix 2 more, Sleep on Sickle Ledge.
Day 2: Up to Dolt Tower, Sleep on Dolt Tower.
Day 3: Up to El Cap Tower, Fix 2 more (up to right before King Swing), Go to bed early on El Cap Tower. (easy/rest day)
Day 4: Get up Early and fire all the way up to Camp V. Sleep at camp V.
Day 5: Go to the top.
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skiclimb
Feb 3, 2009, 3:48 PM
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Looks pretty reasonable. If you have done a couple walls already you might be able to get it done in 3 or 4 days instead of 5. (saves a bit of weight.
If this is your first major wall 5 days can give you the ability to just slug it out with determination.
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xtrmecat
Feb 3, 2009, 6:48 PM
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I don't want to burst your bubble but have you ever done grade VI climbing? I looked in your profile and see your plans, but I don't know if your ready to find out if your ready.
What climbing have you done that you feel the Nose pitches will all go at around 1.5 hours? Also other people/parties will affect your plans. Have you seen the Nose? Just asking as I took a new aid climber with me last year and he freaked when he saw just what it was we had been training him for, and fell on his face when we went for it. When we lost a half day to a rescue and the temps went to over 90 all day, and not much better at night, the reality was just too much for one in our party.(temper tantrum and throwing bags off to follow)
Have you several/a buttload of grade V's under your belt? What happens when your plans do not work out and you cannot get a ledge to slumber/rest day lounge on? Got a ledge/plan?
If you cannot answer all of these with absolute confidence and certainty then I would say maybe get some other looks at the Nose, like from across the valley, or from the meadows on you way to the tower, or .......
Just playing devils advocate here. Have a great adventure.
Bob
Oh yea the itinerary looks good, but write it in pencil, and keep the eraser handy. You did plan an extra 5-7 days in case others were already in the conga line didn't you?
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ptlong
Feb 3, 2009, 7:20 PM
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Camp IV is a lousy spot but unless you're an old guy I wouldn't worry about one night there. You'll live. Sickle isn't all that hot either.
Contrast this with the guy on the other thread who's planning on sharing one portaledge with two other dudes. In the winter no less! You can bet they're all under 40.
What stands out about your itinerary is the short day 3 and long day 4, no doubt a result of your aversion to Camp IV. People tend to get bogged down on the traversing and you might find yourself getting to Camp V kind of late.
My suggestion is to be more flexible. Budget at least a few extra days so you can pick the optimal start date. And reconsider Camp IV and Camp VI. Bring along some alcohol and advil and those spots will be just fine.
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skiclimb
Feb 3, 2009, 7:29 PM
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Seems they are preparing pretty well if they have found somewhere to lead/jug/clean and haul. Do enough of that anywhere and you will have the basic of wall climbing down well enough for the nose. The Pendo transfers might mess with you a bit.
Hopefully that 1.5hr pitch time isnt a pitch they have done over and over though :)
Once you are walling you are walling...5 pitches or 30 only real difference is the size of the pig. everything else is mental. Some people (few) look at el-cap the first time and are just excited to go for it.. most others are a liitle too overcome to handle it well without a couple warm up bails lol.
I've seen people blast up the salathe first try without any problems and... then there is me who bailed the first three tries on el-cap. I wasn't intimidated AT ALL lol.
My first attempt on el-cap was so sad..dragging some n00b from camp 4 into an attmpt.. I didnt even know how to jug or aid with 2 daisy chains... Got 3 pitches up the free-blast hauling and relized I had a ton to learn technically.
My last bail was from the triple-crack pitch on sheild...yeah we retreated the roof..heh.. I really should do a TR on this. that was another try dragging a newbie up a wall..going a bit too slow..shoulda taken 5 days of water instead of 3...the morning waking at triple cracks realizing we had a day of water and at least 2 days of climbing made me decide to bail...The greatest challenge was keeping the complete mewbie from totally freaking when lowering past the roof..really not that bad but he didnt seem to be enjoying it..lol...oha and he dropped one of the ropes that fortunately tangled in another rope and i was able to pull it in..
But I was never remotely inimidated..just overenthusiastic. :)
(This post was edited by skiclimb on Feb 3, 2009, 7:36 PM)
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shimanilami
Feb 3, 2009, 7:30 PM
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Your itinerary looks good to me. But unless you've got a lot more wall experience than your question or profile would indicate, you'll have no chance of actually sticking to your itinerary.
My advice is to prepare a number of contingency plans (e.g. if you don't make it to Point X by Day Y, what will you do?), and then get yourself ready for a beat down.
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elcapinyoazz
Feb 3, 2009, 8:07 PM
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WAY too much planning. Your only itinerary should be "get to the top, preferably before running out of water". Flexibility is the key to getting up popular trade walls, especially something as mobbed as the Nose.
I'd recommend the Salathe as an equally high quality route with less traffic, but you actually have to do some rock climbing to get up the Salathe, whereas anybody with a set of aiders can get up the Nose if they are determined and take enough water.
(This post was edited by elcapinyoazz on Feb 3, 2009, 8:08 PM)
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sspssp
Feb 3, 2009, 8:45 PM
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TonySF wrote: Day 1: Up to Sickle Ledge, Fix 2 more, Sleep on Sickle Ledge.
This isn't an unreasonable plan, but I would give some thought to fixing ropes and hauling the bag directly to Sickle. Hauling the bag, especially with 5 days of water, up the first four pitches of the route is awkward. Sickle isn't much of a ledge to sleep on and, depending on when you climb, since nobody has yet bailed, there tends to be a lot of parties crawling around the vicinity of Sickle (hard to get a good night's sleep). You don't save that much by fixing the 2 pitches above Sickle. These two pitches lead fairly fast and you can't haul until the morning anyway.
Have fun.
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TonySF
Feb 4, 2009, 12:15 AM
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We did Leaning Tower (2 days) and the Prow (3 days) in the past 6 months. We did the first four pitches of the Nose last weekend to test our speed and did it in <7 hrs, including hauling.
Thanks for everyone for the advice.
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sspssp
Feb 4, 2009, 8:31 PM
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From your original post, it didn't sound like you were local/weekend distance from Yosemite.
If you catch another nice weekend before the hoards start, just climb up the nose as far as you get in a day (no hauling) and rap down. It will make those pitches go that much faster. And the pendulums are good practive, even without a haul bag.
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graniteboy
Feb 4, 2009, 10:02 PM
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That's probably a workable nose itinerary...but why not do a few other walls first this year to get your act together on some (less crowded) grade V stuff first? Th Nose ain't going anywhere that I've heard of....
The bailout rate on 1st attempts on the nose is still pretty high....like >50%.....so, as royal robbins said in his old 1970s book "advanced rockcraft"....the way you get ready to do bigwalls is to do lots of little ones first.
And that advice has never been more true than now.
Also...a comment: if you plan of 5 days, I doubt very much that you'll be the ones crawling up someone else's ass and getting slowed down by
them........quite the opposite.
And of course, remember that 5.9 with a big bad wall rack on feels alot more like 10c. I'd definitely recommend that you go do some "starter" walls first...preferably some of the stuff that isn't always a busy freeway of aspiring wall climbers.
(This post was edited by graniteboy on Feb 5, 2009, 12:28 AM)
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yetanotherdave
Feb 5, 2009, 7:27 AM
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that sounds doable - hope you have a better sleep on sickle than I did. That ledge sux!
El Cap Towers will more than make up for it, tho :)
My only other advice is to practice up on big cracks. We ended up aiding lots of 5.9 fist/off-fist that we should have just breezed through free. 5.11 thin crack is easier than valley 5.9 wide!!!
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baffinislanders
Feb 6, 2009, 3:55 AM
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Well, skiclimb, if you want to make public your experience with a Newbie on the shield in 1999, why don't I be the one to explain that the said Newbie had actually completed a big wall at that time, unlike you. Your lying about having completed the Triple Direct the year before, in addition with said newbie having completed a grade V made him think he was capable of the ascent if he had a partner who actually had climbed El Cap as opposed to simply lying about it. Newbie was not stoked to reverse the Shield headwall with you and was super gripped, but part of that was because you didn't display any of the courage and confidence that a typical El Cap veteran would have. Furthermore, part of the lagging on that climb was because you had no portaledge, and insisted on a $9 walmart hammock that took you hours to set up underneath my single, leaving you sleep deprived and malnourished as a result of your soda theory.
The first and only time you climbed El Cap, you were the Newbie, and your strategy of drinking only soda pop based on a rationale of intaking both calories and hydration backfired on you. Apparently the sugar shock and crash impeded your performance enough to cause one of your only leads that your teammates were willing to grant you --on the Shield headwall -- to take over four hours.
Since then, you have stopped climbing entirely yet continue to post on this site as if you are even remotely credible these days. Newbie has climbed about 20 walls (6 on El Cap, including the Nose) and has completed 6 international expeditions, and even he doesn't have the desire to spend time commenting on the strategy for the Nose (which you haven't even come close to climbing), or any other matter unless he's looking for expedition partners or expressing condolences for deceased friends.
Newbie's advice to you; stop spending time behind the computer giving unproven advice to beginners, dig out your dusty harness, and do something for god's sake.
(This post was edited by baffinislanders on Feb 6, 2009, 4:10 AM)
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skiclimb
Feb 6, 2009, 7:10 AM
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baffinislanders wrote: Well, skiclimb, if you want to make public your experience with a Newbie on the shield in 1999, why don't I be the one to explain that the said Newbie had actually completed a big wall at that time, unlike you. Your lying about having completed the Triple Direct the year before, in addition with said newbie having completed a grade V made him think he was capable of the ascent if he had a partner who actually had climbed El Cap as opposed to simply lying about it. Newbie was not stoked to reverse the Shield headwall with you and was super gripped, but part of that was because you didn't display any of the courage and confidence that a typical El Cap veteran would have. Furthermore, part of the lagging on that climb was because you had no portaledge, and insisted on a $9 walmart hammock that took you hours to set up underneath my single, leaving you sleep deprived and malnourished as a result of your soda theory. The first and only time you climbed El Cap, you were the Newbie, and your strategy of drinking only soda pop based on a rationale of intaking both calories and hydration backfired on you. Apparently the sugar shock and crash impeded your performance enough to cause one of your only leads that your teammates were willing to grant you --on the Shield headwall -- to take over four hours. Since then, you have stopped climbing entirely yet continue to post on this site as if you are even remotely credible these days. Newbie has climbed about 20 walls (6 on El Cap, including the Nose) and has completed 6 international expeditions, and even he doesn't have the desire to spend time commenting on the strategy for the Nose (which you haven't even come close to climbing), or any other matter unless he's looking for expedition partners or expressing condolences for deceased friends. Newbie's advice to you; stop spending time behind the computer giving unproven advice to beginners, dig out your dusty harness, and do something for god's sake.
Well Hello Pete ... Your unusually grumpy today. Whats new with us eh?
Yep About 3/4 of what you said is true.
Dead wrong about how much i did on the salathe. Granted me? Those guys were excellent free climbers but I did almost all the aid pitches as they were slower on aid. I did 7 of the last 24 pitches, 2 of those being linked pitches (ie like 4 pitches) The only Aid pitch i didnt do was the roof BecauseI had just done a linked double pitch to get to the roof. The guy who fixed the roof that night wasnt happy about it.. and i'll admit I was pretty tired at that point and just didnt have the will to do it.. he wasnt happy becuase his aid setup sucked and the drag really sucked. Didnt feel too bad about since I had led to fix the pitches the last couple evenings before that.. ending as always by headlight.
On summit day I did the headwall 2 pitches as one linked and it took me almost exactly 2.5 hrs (you know how anal i used to be about my pitch times)and the whole pitch took us 4 hours we all were a bit frustrated with the time on that one. The other 2 did the last four pitches that day. We were back at the cars by 5 or 6pm as i remember.
Nothing I said above to the OP was bad advice or false.
Your climbing experience is way beyond mine on walls these days. I was bit of a creep back in the day and apologized to you years ago about misleading you and outright lying about what I had done.. Things do change in 10 years. I was way too motivated for my own good. A bit of an insecure kid back then. Still that Sheild trip was a blast and I wouldnt trade that experience for anything.
I don't know if it occured to you but we were doing Ok on that climb. Especially considering our experience level. Our speed was fairly average from what i've heard from people who have done the sheild. I was the main reason we had to go down because i thought we'd be faster and I did not plan enough water.
Still I apologize again if what I said in an earlier post offended you. I can see how it might. I certainly wasn't trying to make myself look good at your expense.. I meant it to be a funny story about a couple newbs trying to do too much but it not being a big deal in the end.. how trying and failing is quite worthwhile. 9 years or whatever it was is a long time ago I'd think.
Anycase Next time your in town i hope to see you again. I'll buy the beer and enjoy hearing about your latest fantastic trip as always. Was what, less than a year ago we were enjoting a few beers in the garage while you and Blue were making final preps for a really great trip to Nepal.. I enjoy those times and hope they continue for years to come.
Your Freind as always Derek
(This post was edited by skiclimb on Feb 6, 2009, 4:16 PM)
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baffinislanders
Feb 6, 2009, 4:11 PM
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OK dude, truce. How can I be mad at you? Points noted. And you buy the beer next time, DEREK ROLAND of RENO NEVADA.
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skiclimb
Feb 6, 2009, 4:15 PM
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baffinislanders wrote: OK dude, truce. How can I be mad at you? Points noted. And you buy the beer next time, DEREK ROLAND of RENO NEVADA.
Lol yes and my phone number is 775-379-1897. Call ya bum.
BTW I edited my above post a bit.
PPS the first number was wrong is correct now. My typing sucks arse.
(This post was edited by skiclimb on Feb 6, 2009, 4:30 PM)
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graniteboy
Feb 7, 2009, 12:20 AM
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Now that you two lovebirds have had your little spat and kissed and made up, maybe we can get back to the OP's question.
I started thinking about it, and if you guys can only expect to get from Sickle to Dolt on day 2, then from dolt to El Cap ledge on day 3, it's a pretty thin likelihood that you're gonna do El cap ledge to Camp V in a day, and then V to the rim the next. I'd say the probability is near zero.
Again.... I suggest you set aside you captain aspirations for this year and do some shorter walls to get your act together.
As a partial list, Think about SF of the column, the regular on 1/2 dome, North buttress middle cathedral, Goldwall, skull queen etc. do a few of those, then next year, you can fire the Nose in a more normal 3 day push.
But then again, maybe you're thinking: why just READ about climbing accident statistics when you can actually BE one, eh?
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skiclimb
Feb 7, 2009, 12:36 AM
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5 days is probably the most common ascension time for most parties.
3 days would be pretty fast for standard haul and aid guys who arnt freeing solid 510
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bandycoot
Feb 7, 2009, 12:48 AM
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Don't have a plan that detailed. Spend your time understanding the pitches, where you can sleep, and being prepared to handle parties in front of you. I would guess that knowledge of options trumps planning on the Nose. When I did it there were MANY other people on route and we had to change plan a little as a result. We dealt with it and it was fine. Good luck, and enjoy. Remember that bigwall is a commitment to suffering. My motto on big overnight routes is "suffer with a smile." A good attitude is the most important thing you can bring on a route, besides a partner with a good attitude. :)
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graniteboy
Feb 7, 2009, 1:07 AM
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skiclimb wrote: 5 days is probably the most common ascension time for most parties. 3 days would be pretty fast for standard haul and aid guys who arnt freeing solid 510
Which is EGG-ZACTLY why I suggested they do some other walls first...beef up their skill set B4 they do the nose. Maybe even learn how to french free some of those "desperate" 5.9 and 10a moves on the pancake flake, stovelegs, and upper dihedrals.
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dingus
Feb 7, 2009, 1:10 AM
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baffinislanders wrote: OK dude, truce. How can I be mad at you? Points noted. And you buy the beer next time, DEREK ROLAND of RENO NEVADA.
Well done gents.
DMT
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dingus
Feb 7, 2009, 1:12 AM
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Re The Nose - me and a partner got hosed on the conga line, too many parties for the available bivi sites.
I recommend taking a solid look up on the route and taking note of party number and size.
If the route is crowded I'd take a portaledge or climb another route. With a portaledge you can stop and bivi anywhere and all that bivi site hussle bullshit evaporates.
DMT
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ptlong
Feb 7, 2009, 4:22 PM
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graniteboy wrote: Again.... I suggest you set aside you captain aspirations for this year and do some shorter walls to get your act together.... But then again, maybe you're thinking: why just READ about climbing accident statistics when you can actually BE one, eh?
Give them a break with the attitude. They have already been up grade V routes. The OP said that in the last six months they climbed the Prow in 3 days and the Leaning Tower in 2 days.
TonySF, good luck to you guys.
(This post was edited by ptlong on Feb 7, 2009, 4:24 PM)
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