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mrhardgrit
Apr 8, 2003, 11:50 AM
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Registered: Nov 28, 2001
Posts: 153
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What was your favourite/most memorable aid pitch on El Cap?
My vote goes to the the Seagull Pitch on Mescalito - few nice pendulums, bit of hookig and was done in semi-darkness to make it a bit more fun.
Second best is Pitch 2 on Eagles Way - Again a traverse (yes I like those!) and more than half the moves were hook moves interspersed with good natural gear. Final moves to the belay were 6 hooks in a row. Excellent fun for someone with not much hooking experience i.e. safe but got the heart pumping.
Tom
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hollyclimber
Apr 10, 2003, 8:50 PM
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Registered: Apr 27, 2002
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Hi Tom!
Well, I passed up that 2nd pitch when my choice was to do it in the rain, or come down and wait for better weather! glad to hear it is nice, and glad I didn't do it in the rain....
Hope we will see you in the Valley again this year? Tommy and I will be there in September again.
Oh, and I guess my favorite pitch is the great roof. Not hard climbing, but just really classic and sort of surreal to find yourself in a spot that is so often photographed, etc.
Holly
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apollodorus
Apr 10, 2003, 9:01 PM
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Registered: Feb 18, 2002
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P9 of the Excalibur (yeah, I know, it's a 5.12b OW . . . Steve Schneider freed it ) was the textbook crack-jugging crack. It started out really wide and got wider and wider. All I had to do was slide two cams up in sequence: C0. Near the top, there's a short section about 10 or 11 inches wide that took a #12 quite nicely. Above that, it became awkward, and it was easier to free the 5.10 OW (hand stacks, knee locks and foot stacks) than try to aid it.
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brutusofwyde
Apr 10, 2003, 9:26 PM
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Registered: Nov 3, 2002
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The hook pitch on Zenyatta.
Also, the roof and headwall pitches on Salathe.
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ambler
Apr 10, 2003, 9:32 PM
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Registered: Jul 27, 2002
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I'm way old school....
Pendulum into Stovelegs was great fun.
Boot Flake with pitons! Expando excitement.
Salathe Headwall, for the view.
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crswallrat
Apr 10, 2003, 11:37 PM
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Registered: Feb 12, 2002
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Hmm, a couple come to mind. Definately the headwall pitches on the Shield. I got the one after the roof and the triple cracks. The box scars are kinda ugly but the location was unreal. I also thought the nipple pitch on Zodiac was super fun, with some inverted cam hooks thrown in to spice thing up.
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passthepitonspete
Apr 16, 2003, 5:08 PM
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Registered: Oct 10, 2001
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I had to think about this for a while, but it keeps coming back to two pitches.
I loved the Coral Sea on Native Son. It is loose, scary and dangerous. I've soloed it twice, and bailed off above it the first time due to bad weather.
What was memorable was that every pin I drove actually moved the rock in some way! The second time I climbed it, I did so with more finesse - I used lots of taped-down nylon and taped-down hooks, and far fewer pins. [I used duct tape to hold down the pro - this was before I learned the trick of using a long prusik to hold down pro while soloing, which I figured out a few years later on Zed-Em when I ran out of duct tape!] Prusiks are clearly the Better Way to hold down marginal pro, plus it saves wear and tear on your lead line when done properly.
But the favourite aid pitch that keeps coming back again and again is the A5 corner above the A4 ramp on Jolly Roger. The ramp had me stumped for two hours til I figured it out. It was about an eleven-hour lead, focused and intense.
But the heading - OH! - the heading. Head after head after head up this perfectly clean corner, with the most horrifying bone-shattering splat onto the ledges at its base should I rip the thing, which was a distinct possibility.
That pitch really had my attention.
The only thing that kept me from totally freaking was that it was dark, and I couldn't see the landing. Plus my partner Jon Fox kept shouting up in his Mock Italian accent:
"Hey, Michaelangelo! Whatsa you-ah doin' witta the chiz...."
If you're gonna die, you might as well die laughing.
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