Photos by passthepitonspete

This photo goes with the post that describes the 4:1 Lower Out.

I took this photo while soloing The Shortest Straw. First thing you need to know is that I am not leading here, I am cleaning an aid pitch.

I have my Grigri rigged up on my harness as one of my ascenders, as per usual.

On the right side of the photo, you can just see my regular handled ascender. Note that the ascender is rigged with an orange-coloured designated sling, and that this sling is attached to the ascender with a quick link to reduce the clusterf*ckage.

The top end of the rope is anchored at the top of the pitch. The bottom end is as you see it, clipped into the wide gate "backup" autolocker. You can also see that the backup autolocker is on its own designated short sewn sling. This sling is girth-hitched through my doughnut. [Canadian spelling of "donut", eh?]

It is obvious that I have just started cleaning the pitch, because you see the end of the rope clipped into the backup autolocker.

I've taken an oval crab, and attached it to the blue autolocker that is on the Grigri.

It looks as though I am lowering myself off of a sling tied through a fixed head.

So the rope starts at the backup knot, goes through the sling, down to the oval, back through the sling, and to my hand. There is plenty of friction with the sling - you do not need to put a rappel device on the free end while you lower yourself off.

The only time you would need to use a rap device would be if there were a fixed carabiner on the piece that you could not booty. This, at least for me, is extremely rare.

One thing to remember when you are lowering off of a bunch of slings - just put the rope through the best one. If there is no best one, then put on one yourself. You will come to grief as I have, if you run the rope through a bunch of slings of unequal length. When you have finished lowering out, you go to pull the rope, and the damn thing hangs up!

Be careful!

Tom's a bitchin' engineer, at least when it comes to him making his big frickin' cams.

But his portaledge design needs a bit of refinement....

It looks a bit taco'd, eh?

I took this photo the morning after the storm on Excalibur while looking through the window of my rain fly.

That home made blue tarp of Tom's is not the Better Way!

I found this little guy nosing around my climbing gear at the base of El Cap as I was preparing to solo The Shortest Straw.

As I was removing him to a safer place, I came upon Natec, who was schlepping a load up for me.

"He's carrying a RATTLESNAKE!" I heard him scream from nearly a hundred metres away. "Don't come any closer!"

Sheesh. It's just a snake.

You can click here if you want to see me holding another 'snattlerake'.

If you know anything about Dr. Piton, you know that he can't even get out of bed without his morning coffee!

Fortunately, there is a Better Way. There is always a Better Way!

You can see my hanging stove assembly on the right side below Tom's big frickin' cams.

Hey! What the.....?

What's that can of Guinness doing lying there? Must've been left over from the night before, eh?

Oh me, oh my - my double ledge is empty. Isn't there a little hottie somewhere who'd like to share it with me?

By now you should have solved the riddle:

Frosty's Claustrophobic Bivi is a cave. It is about ten feet square, and little less than a foot high. The floor and ceiling are perfectly flat - it's obvious that the block has dropped from above to form the cave. You can't help but imagine the rock suddenly closing down on top of you while you are sleeping, squishing your guts out the front like a bug beneath a flyswatter.

The claustrophobic need not enter - but to a caver like me, the place felt just like home. The bivi is a flat-out belly crawl, and I slithered deep into the back where the ceiling raised just enough that I could (barely) turn my shoulders sideways and sleep on my side.

Tom bivi'd in the middle, where it was completely impossible to turn over! The only way you can flip is to go outside the cave, or back to the enlargement where I slept!

It's photos like this that make the girls run - in the other direction!

Please click here to go to photo #4 of 5.

Note: If you somehow reached this photo directly by accident, please click here to return to the first photo in this five-part series.

Here you find Tom Kaspar [apollodorus] and me enjoying our morning cup of joe at Frosty's Claustrophobic Bivi, located nearly three-thousand feet high atop El Capitan's mighty Southwest Face.

This is a riddle:

Frosty's Claustrophobic Bivi on Excalibur has an area of one hundred square feet, and it has a volume of one hundred cubic feet.

Describe the bivi.

Can you guess? Please click here for Dr. Piton's [hint] and to go to photo #2 of 5.

I took this portrait of Tom from inside of Frosty's Claustrophobic Bivi, looking outward at the treed hillside half a mile away. Have you solved the riddle yet?

Note the awkward position of Tom's body. The dimensions of this bivi force him to assume this position!

Hint: You're seeing the whole bivi!

Please click here to go to photo #3 of 5.

Note: If you somehow reached this photo directly by accident, please click here to return to the first photo in this five-part series.

What a great place to drink our coffee!

This was our last night on the wall, and by then we were pretty darn ready to reach the summit.

Please click here to get a better view of us and our coffee.

Prime real estate on El Cap. Beauty view, eh?

Let's just say the balcony is a bit more spacious than the bedroom!

Please click here to go to photo #5 of 5.

Note: If you somehow reached this photo directly by accident, please click here to return to the first photo in this five-part series.

Just a little closeup of Tom's enormous twelve-incher.

If you want to see the full-size photo, and get the full story, then please click here.

If you want to climb the endless offwidths of Excalibur, then you had best be properly equipped. You're gonna need a really BIG piece.

Tom is gaining a Valley-wide reputation for his ENORMOUS twelve-incher! In fact, Tom's Valley Giant is second only in size to the massive fourteen-incher of the late great John Curtis Holmes.

[Photo taken by "Pass the Pitons" Pete with MY enormously long piece of equipment - my 300mm lens]

This has to be some kind of a record - Tommy gets up off the couch after eighteen years (!) and steps into his aiders, right onto the second pitch of Excalibur on the Southwest Face of El Cap.

Tom went on to lead ten of the route's twenty-eight pitches, which is pretty damn good in my opinion.

I told this to a lot of the Valley Locals, and they were amazed!

The consensus of opinion among the Yosemite hardmen was, "that's proud, dude!"

When you've climbed off the couch after eighteen years, you might find yourself in an awkward situation, like on the sharp end of the rope halfway up El Capitan!

Tom took a whipper just before this photo was taken - after bouncing off of me, he promptly got back up and sent it.

This is what Dr. Piton calls The Right Attitude.

Tom has graduated from Big Wall Theorist to Big Wall Gumby.

BRRRR!!!!!

CRIKEY! It's frickin' cold, mate!

Filling water bottles at Fern Spring prior to our ascent of Excalibur.

Photo by Tom Kaspar

Beauty colours, eh?

Photo taken by Tom Kaspar (apollodorus) from across the valley on El Capitan

Pretty easy, really.

Just look up on El Cap for the Crab-O-Ledge, and there you are certain to find me and Wee-Wee the Big Wall Crab, both of us in our portaledges, as you can see here, and enjoying a nice warm Olde English.

Dang, that little guy can put those beers away!

[BURP!!]

Wherever I hang my ledge, that's my home. And no morning can begin until after I've made a brew of coffee.

See that coffee cup? It's an old Tim Horton's cup I've had since my caving trip to Belize in 1979. The piece of tape I used to mark it with on that trip is still attached! I added the clip-in loop to make it a Big Wall Coffee Cup.

You can see my hanging stove assembly in the foreground - a big aluminum pot with a small hole cut in the bottom through which I screw the burner of my Primus stove into its fuel cylinder. The pot renders the flame fairly windproof.

On the right side of the photo you can see Wee-Wee the Big Wall Crab.

Don't even talk to him until after he's had his first couple cups o' joe - he's a real CRAB first thing in the morning!

OK, ladies - give the man some space....



"Oooh, Dr. Piton," cooed the Yosemite Hottie, "you've been up there how long?? Twelve days?!" she exclaimed with glee, a gleam in her eye. "Come with me - I have something for you...."

LATER...

"Oooh, Dr. Piton, have you had enough yet? I'm soooo satisfied..."

"Hell, no!" replied Dr. Piton. "I can eat another pint of Ben & Jerry's - no problem, eh? And like, would you pour me another beer please, little Hottie?"

This is my partner, Wee-Wee the Big Wall Crab.

He is the bitchin'est Big Wall Crab on El Cap.

Since he is also the only Big Wall Crab on El Cap, I suppose that also makes him the least bitchin'...

Yes, it's Hard Man, a character from the Canadian Alpine Journal in the late 70's and early 80's.

Evidently there is some sort of a time warp happening, because clearly and unequivocally, Hard Man has been modelled after our very own rrrMadame!

Please click here to see the resemblance! To get the full effect, I suggest you right click on the "resemblance" link above, and open it in a separate window so you can see and compare both photos side by side.

You have to agree, it's uncanny!

Note that "Bald Enigma" is an anagram of Adam Bingel - thanks to the brilliant Juliana for that one!

PETE AND TOM'S

SCORCHED EARTH PHOTO ESSAY

This is where it all begins! Welcome to "Camp 5", the "Yosemite Branch Office" of me - Dr. Piton - in the centre of the Curry Village Parking Lot. Tom and I used the BFC's [Big F*ckin' Cams] you see here for our successful ascent of Excalibur on El Capitan in May of 2002. They were so bitchin', we used them again for Scorched Earth in September.

In this photo essay trip report of our trip up Scorched Earth, you can assume that whomever has submitted the photo is the one who's doin' the talkin', but we'll let you know when we interrupt each other. [But like, if you "get it", you'll probably know when I'm the one talking, eh? We will also give you a [HINT] from time to time.]

From left to right, "Pass the Pitons" Pete Zabrok, Nathan Chaszeyka [Natec] and Tom Kasper [Apollodorus]. Tom designed and manufactures these bitchin' 9" and 12" cams, and you can click here to open the Valley Giant website in a new browser window.

Photo by Lisa Reedy

Please click here to start the photo essay, eh?

"Uh, Pete...?" asked Grog, one sunny summer morning in 1985 at the roadside in West Virginia where we had camped during a caving trip. "I can't remember from my Boy Scout manual, but are the poisonous snakes the ones with the triangular-shaped heads?"

"Uh, yeah," I replied, "why do you ask?"

"Because there's one sitting right here.

We had been walking right beside this guy in our bare feet all morning! I removed him to a safe location.

You can click here if you would like to see my El Cap Rattlesnake.

Damn!

I wish I had arms like that!

Neal Weiss cleaning the second pitch of Zodiac during our epic clusterf*ck ascent.

Here you can see a properly flagged portaledge being lowered out for hauling during my solo ascent of Native Son.

Beneath my pigs dangles my Wall Flower, which Krusty points out in his comment below!

You can click here to read about how to "flag" your portaledge.

You can also click here to see a flagged ledge in an early draft of Chongo's book.

Uh-oh! It's a Big Wall Theorist!

ME!

Now, what ya have to do here is take a close look at the TWO haul lines which go down to our two loads. In case you didn't notice, it's because the haul lines are twisted to shit!

Too bad I didn't know 'flag' my portaledge. Had I known The Better Way, I could have saved myself a bit of heartache.

I would like to think that I am past the BWT stage by now, but sometimes I wonder!