Photos by apollodorus

Dr. Piton moves out to the pigs on dicey socks-only A0 to fetch something. The inconvenience of the bags' position was more than compensated by the clean, straight haul. We also wanted all the room we could find on the ledge, so we could clutter it up with our junk. The Freerider traverse from the Salathe comes in just below the lowest hanging bags.

This is a shot of the really nice Round Table ledge at the top of P23 of the Excalibur. Notice how nicely the pigs hang from the great hauling station. You can somewhat see the multi-level, park bench aspect to the ledge. You can also see my twisted wreck of a portaledge, which required that I sleep on the narrow ledge my feet are on. YOWZA! What isn't shown in this photo is the great view from a rather spectacular position.

The cracks are big on the Excalibur. Bring your mutant cams, or some wooden blocks to shim up 5 camalots or 6 friends.

I'm kickin' it, high style on the Wall. No need to hurry. PTPP and I have plenty of water for his coffee machine. Besides, if we hurry, they'll charge us $5.00 a night at Camp 4. This campsite is free, and so are then next three (Pete says six....) days on the wall.

This is a photo of my big cam rack for the Excalibur, minus the one I sold to Mike Mather because he gave us beer at the base. The lighting is bad, but you can see the pins, wall hammer, jumar and rope for scale. I didn't drill out some of the cams because I ran out of time. They were heavy. I would suggest that all gear rats drill their cams to reduce weight.

How's THIS for a very smooth and continuous 5.11+ OW? At 10 inches, it's the worst possible size for a vertical crack. You can't get inside, and there's no way to get a positive upper body lock-off. Only thirty feet long, but enough. The descent is a fire escape ladder, or a jump over razor wire to the adjoining parking garage. Find this climb just right of the hobby center; squeeze past or jump a 4' fence. Five or six moves will change your mind about going all the way up, totally unprotected. Giant cam not included.

Here's Pass the Pitons Pete scraping his face on the Excalibur. Contrary to popular belief, there are hot chicks all over the place up there, and you need to look good. His efforts paid off at the summit when an Australian hottee hiked up to meet her friends on the Nose and got a bit lost. Pete mesmerized her with his clean-shaven mug. He has that effect on women.

Pass the Pitons Pete demonstrates his ultra-fast cleaning on the Excalibur Wall. Notice that he has outraced the two pigs using his Better Way. This was the 9th pitch. The wide crack is not visible here, but believe me, it is WIDE.

Pass the Pitons Pete goes for the morning jolt, high up on the Excalibur. His amazing Wall Stove (that metal thing right in front of him) is all that got us moving, providing two/three pots of hot Uptown Espresso coffee each morning. Middle Cathedral glows in the background, a fine sight.

I'm off the couch, and running out P9 of the Excalibur. It was my fourth lead on the wall, after 18+ years on the couch. I crack jugged this entire pitch, using Valley Giant cams. PTPP got nervous and yelled for me to put in some pro, so I did: the one piece you see, and another about 40 feet higher. I kept the cams daisied to my harness, and just slid them up. A more conservative method would use an extra cam or two. No need to top step when you're crack jugging. I duct-taped my aiders to my feet. On a left leaning crack like this, keep your lower piece to the right. Photo by Pass the Pitons Pete.

This is what you see as you approach the SW face from the notch between Mt. Broderick and Liberty Cap. The original SW face route (5.9/5.10) goes up just left of the shadow line. Snake Dike (5.7R) goes up close to the shadow line. Both routes converge close to where the shadow merges into the skyline; it's a 1000 foot class 3 walk-up from there. Further right are the Autobahn (5.11) and Southern Belle (5.12). The huge arch to the right is part of the South Face route (VI 5.9 A2+).

This is a shot of the awesome 9th pitch of the Excalibur, a fantastic ride that any amusement park would be proud to offer up. Look how clean the rock is, and how bitchen it would be to layback this overhanging offwidth at a modest 5.12b level. From start to finish, nothing smaller than 8 inches will fit. Higher up the pitch, a short section of 11 inch madness ensues. Camalots and Technicals Friends need not apply. Try the scissors jack from your Toyota.

Yeah, right. Well, at one time (c. 1972) this WAS considered the hardest aid lead in America. And now? The 6th pitch of the Excalibur is nothing more than a mild hammerfest in the Park: A3 or A3+ using pins, heads and hooks. Dr. Piton is shown here surgically making short work of this "approach pitch" to the real reason we went to the Valley to party: the W-I-D-E stuff. The off-offwidths of P8-P9 are clearly visible directly above his head. The shallow V at the very top of the rock is where the climb ends, a mere 2000 feet or so higher.

Another leisurely late morning: hot coffee with a view few ever see. This time, it's our fifth day on the Excalibur. And only at P12 after fixing the first five. Note how high the sun already is. It was probably ten or eleven o'clock and we were just coming to life. The great thing about the SW face of El Cap, and especially the Excalibur, is that the sun didn't hit us until early afternoon. Sleeping in ("It's too cold") was our M.O. for the whole climb. We spent ten days hauling our circus up, fully aware that stretching the awesome experience as long as possible was not a bad thing. Hey! When you haul 125 pounds of water and another 75 pounds of food, including oranges, grapefruit, avocados, whiskey, cheese, salami and Degnan's mustard packs, who cares? Photo by Pass the Pitons Pete.

Here is an unknown climber pulling the second roof moves during a free solo of the Nose.

This is a PhotoShop doctored image of El Cap and the Valley. You can actually follow the major features of routes from the bottom to the top!