East Buttress of El Cap

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Many years ago, apparently back when I was fitter and a better climber, with my buddy John Black, we climbed the East Buttress of El Capitan (13 pitches, 10b) and then went and climbed Snake Dike (7 pitches, 5.7) on Half Dome. When I told my friend Hans about this, he said it was the first time both El Cap and Half Dome had been freed in a day. At least to his knowledge. So, it might have been done countless times. It certainly could have been done by countless climbers. When people say someone “free climbed El Cap and Half Dome in a day”, what they really mean is someone “free climbed Free Rider (30+ pitches, 12d) and the Regular Northwest Face (24 pitches, 12c). So, John and I dubbed our outing the Poor-Man’s Link-up (PMLU).

It used to be that Nose-in-a-Day (NIAD) was the absolute mark of a hardman climber. At least until I did it and then the Climbing Council got together and decreed that to be a real hardman you have to link El Cap to Half Dome in a day, though not free mind you. We’ll get back to free in a second. The first people to do this link-up were Valley legends John Bachar and Peter Croft, and they set speed records on both routes, not surprisingly. It’s now been done many times. Though it has retained its status, the ultimate link-up in the Valley is the Triple of Half Dome, Mt. Watkins, and El Cap. This has only been done three times. First by Dean Potter and Timmy O’Neill. Then the ante was raised monstrously when Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell free climbed all three, climbing Free Rider instead of the Nose (14a). Then then it was raised yet again when Alex Honnold soloed all three, via the Nose, since he didn’t climb them entirely free.

So, back to Half Dome and El Cap all free. Obviously Honnold and Caldwell did it. Dean Potter was first to do it. And I think that’s it. Except, of course, for me. So, to sum up: Potter, Caldwell, Honnold, Wright. That’s a nice grouping. Known to many climbers throughout my entire household.

So, back to me. And Derek. We were thinking of repeating the PMLU. Turns out, and I should have realized this, but just thinking about it isn’t enough. We set the alarm for 5, but then snoozed it a couple of times. We weren’t packed and ready and did that at El Cap Meadow. We saw Caldwell’s van there. I walked back to it to see if they were still there (they weren’t) and just caught a base jumper going off El Cap. Actually, I didn’t see him until the chute opened. His friends were cheering and then jumped in a car to go pick him up. He did not land in El Cap Meadow, but further east, on a beach alongside the Merced River.

We hiked into El Cap and paused to watch Caldwell and Honnold, who were moving up the Stovelegs, having already passed two parties. Just two days ago they climbed the Nose in 2:01:50. Today? 1:58:07. That’ll do.I predict it will stand for ten years. Unless they break it themselves. It’s so significant that I think it will discourage others. This is probably a good thing, since it is significantly dangerous.

Approaching the East Buttress along the base of El Capitan

 It was a lonely walk up along the base of El Cap. We saw a party of three still waking up at the base of the New Dawn and that was it. Until we got to the base of our route and met Nathaniel (Ph.d candidate in BioEngineering at MIT) and Kyle (also MIT grad, I think, now assistant professor at some small college near Boston…Harvard? Just kidding). Before we left the ground another twosome showed up — two people of Indian descent I think (rare in the climbing world, at least in my limited experience). The woman, Neha, seemed to be the leader. Go Girl Power! Oops, that’s not PC. Go Woman Warrior! It was her first time climbing in Yosemite, but she’s probably an international crusher. Speaking of ethnicity, and it probably comes as no shock given they are from MIT, but Nathanial and Kyle were both Asian. I don’t think whites are allowed in any more. My son Danny didn’t get in and he’s probably smarter than half the faculty. Definitely smarter than anyone working in admissions at MIT. My brother, an MIT grad, pointed out that it’s highly unlikely that anyone in admissions actually went to MIT themselves.

Well, that intro probably cut down significantly on my readership… Where was I? Oh yes, waiting in line. Nathaniel led the first pitch and that team would swing leads the entire way. I gave Kyle some space before starting up the first pitch after him. This pitch is just classic Yosemite climbing. It starts with a 5.6 tight chimney section and then some easy climbing leads into the crux chimney. This is pretty neat climbing. It looks intimidating as the chimney is pretty tight, but holds appear just as you need them. Further up it gets wider and some stemming helps matters, but you’re deep in this maw for about a hundred feet. The crux is at the very top and is awkward hand jamming that gets tighter and tighter and it’s over a bulge, so very difficult to use your feet. I did this section with both Nathanial and Kyle giving me encouragement and pointing out the finishing jug at the back of the pizza-pan-sized ledge.

Derek nearing the top of the first pitch

It was crowded on the ledge, but these guys were cool about it. I tried to plan my arrival after Kyle had left on the next pitch, but I was close below him and he was afraid he’d fall on me, so he waited for me to get on the ledge. Kyle then led off and I put Derek on belay. Derek did great on this pitch, at least until he got to the crux. While Kyle and Nathanial were both wearing packs, only Derek carried a pack for us. They were carrying a second rope for the rappels. Derek was carrying the Escaper and some food and 60 ounces of water. The pack wasn’t that heavy, but it was too bulky for the chimney and Derek clipped it into his harness on such a short sling that it interfered with his lower legs, making the climbing doubly awkward. I offered to take him on the rope and haul up the pack, but he wouldn’t have it. He struggled for quite awhile. I was impressed with this preservation, but was a bit concerned he wasn’t have any fun.

Derek had to wait down in the chimney for Kyle to finish leading the next pitch. This team had already held us up over an hour and I was concerned about our link-up chances if this continued. Talking with Nathanial, I mentioned that we were hoping to link Snake Dike to this climb. He said he knew there were some variation above and we could take one of those and pass them if we wanted. He then asked, “Are you guys local?” I responded that we were from Colorado and he said, “That was my second guess.” We’d share belays with these guys on the way up, but they didn’t slow us down any further. They were quite good climbers; at least my equal.

Derek got on the ledge and we re-racked. Having watched both Kyle and Nathanial style the crux moves at the start of the second pitch, I was hoping to follow suit. I stepped out onto tiny edges on the the small, slick face. I reached right and got my fingers in a pin scar. I grabbed the left edge of the face, an arete with my left hand and stepped up higher to an even more precarious edge. I was stuck, though. I couldn’t let go with either hand. I retreated back to the ledge. I tried once again without success before I changed tactics. I put both hands on the right, into different pin scars and backstepped by left foot. I could then reach up with my left hand and grasped the rounded top of the face. I matched and stood up on tiny edges. I reached my left hand up into a pin scar in a higher crack on the left. It was a bad hold though and I started cruxing a bit. I tried to step high onto the rounded hold my right hand was still on, but feared I’d fall off. I put my foot back down and reconsidered. I was getting pumped and needed to do something. I matched hands again on the rounded hold and reached to my right, around a blind corner. I found a good hold there and was able to step up and place some bomber gear. I had Derek a bit concerned here. Me too. The rest of the pitch is rated 5.9 and is quite awkward. A flaring, pin-scarred crack lies in the back of a slot that is about a foot wide. The saving grace is that the angle is more gentle here and I could smear my feet and barely get marginal jams and fingers in the pin scars.

Climbing the airy and runout third pitch

I bypassed the infamous “ant tree”, which was once again (perpetually?) crawling with ants. It made me question the longevity of an ant colony. I first climbed this route more than 25 years ago and it hasn’t changed. Do the ants just eat the leaves of this one tree? I wonder why they haven’t branched out and colonized some of the trees on the ledge thirty feet higher, where I ended up belaying Derek.

Derek rushed the opening moves, thinking that the rounded hold that I had used for so long was a good hold. It’s not. He dyno-ed for it and found out, taking a fall back down level to the ledge. He got the moves on his second try, but hated the upper 5.9 section, finding it frustratingly awkward. I was disappointed that Derek wasn’t enjoying the climbing, but confident that it would get better, as the climbing above was less awkward and had much better position with huge exposure.

I led up the photogenic 5.6 face pitch, finding it more runout than I remembered, but the climbing is solid and wasn’t stressful. I then did a long 5.7 pitch up to a couple of bolts, linking a low-angle 4th-class pitch into the start of the two-pitch buttress. The fifth pitch is 5.8 and is mostly easier but has a neat roof/bulge at the top that had my attention. Derek followed all of these easily and quickly and we caught Kyle and Nathanial again. We took a break on the small ledge there to eat, drink, and watch Kyle follow the crux of the upper half of the route.

Heading up the fifth pitch

The East Buttress breaks down into two halves at this ledge. The two hard pitches in the first half are the first two pitches. The same is true of the second half. There are two 5.9 pitches here. One is a burly 5.9 crack pitch that traverse nearly as much as it goes up. The jams vary from solid hands to off-fingers with some flares as well. It’s tricky, but pretty short at 65 feet. Nathanial had linked this pitch with the next one, also 5.9. The second 5.9 pitch has two options: offwidth straight up or tricky face climbing out to the left and then back to the right. With nothing bigger than a #3 Camalot, I opted for the face climbing out to the left.

Where exactly to traverse to the left is not obvious. I found some tiny crimps and some smeary footholds, placed a #3 Camelot in the crack and committed to the moves out left. I moved around a tiny corner and blindly felt around for good holds. Finding them, I stepped up and, with delicate balance, was just able to reach all the way back to the right and place my second #3 Camalot. I then continued upwards to two fixed pins and above that, back into the crack above the offwidth section. The offwidth section looks burly, awkward (because it leans left a bit) and slick. I’ve never climbed it despite four trips up this route. I probably need to return with a couple of bigger cams and give it a try. Derek loved this pitch and styled it. He climbed directly to my second #3 Camelot, jamming the wider crack, until a face hold allowed him to move left.

The traversing, pumpy sixth pitch

Kyle had gotten off route above us, so we didn’t share any more belays. He missed the traverse to the classic white pillar where Timmy O’Neill is climbing on the cover of the Yosemite Free Climbs guidebook. I messed up a bit with my belay here, and climbed a bit too far towards the pillar. The topo had shown an alternate belay along this route, but, if so, it is a build-your-own belay, without a ledge and massive exposure. I built my own belay a bit early at a terrible stance, enough for only one person. I put in four cams to secure the belay. They were solid, but it was an exposed, scary belay. Or at least I thought until Derek got there. He wasn’t stressed at all. He inspected the anchor, thought all pieces were bomber and put it out of his mind.

The next pitch is considered the psychological crux of the route, as the route finding is a bit difficult and the climbing is very runout, 5.8 climbing, albeit not very sustained. Every ten or twenty feet I’d find very good footholds so that I could stand there indefinitely. I needed the mental rest and to plot my route up the wall, which isn’t obvious and probably has many viable options. But it might have had dead ends as well. And I did not want to get into a situation where I was down climbing tricky 5.8 thirty or more feet out from gear with Derek out of sight at a hanging, gear belay.

Leading up the eighth pitch

The pitched started by climbing the left side of this white pillar and then I had to down climb the other side in order to make a traverse across a feature-less section of the wall. I was very attentive to the rope when Derek followed this pitch, waiting for the rope to come tight while he downclimbed this section and checking every couple of seconds whether I needed to let out more rope or start pulling it in again.

I found my way up to a huge ledge after 150 feet. There was supposed to be two pins here, but extensive search didn’t reveal them. The only piece I had was a fixed #4 cam in a wide crack fifteen feet above my ledge, but I wasn’t worried. My feet started to hurt me at the last belay and I immediately took off my climbing shoes before putting Derek on belay. He did the same when he arrived. Derek followed fine, but remarked it was “thoughtful” climbing.

Looking down from the belay at the top of the eight pitch.

I ran the next two pitches (5.7 and 5.6) together and stretched out all 70 meters of our rope before belaying on the low-angled slab at the top of the route. Kyle and Nathaniel were up there coiling ropes and snacking. Derek soon joined us and we packed up quickly. Nathaniel took a photo of us and we led them down the familiar East Ledges descent to the top of the fixed lines.

I tried to rappel on the first fixed line, but it was so fat I couldn’t get it into my Petzl Reverso. We didn’t bring our GriGri’s on this route to save weight, so we used our rope on this first rappel, which was less than 35 meters (the furtherest we could go and retrieve our rope without using the Escaper). The next rappel looked really long so Derek went down on a single line. He ended up stopping at a hidden (from above) anchor. With the guys above us, at Derek’s suggestion to avoid the use of the Escaper, I asked them to drop our rope for us. So, I went down the full length bypassing Derek’s station. From Derek’s station was another fixed rope and I confirmed there were no knots in it, so Derek rappelled down that fixed line and joined me. Derek did another 70-meter rappel on our rope and confirmed one of the fixed lines was free of knots, so I could rappel down that line and bring down our rope again. We did one more rappel on a fat fixed line where I got to show Derek how to rappel with biners, since our devices didn’t work on the rope.

Heading up the runout, ninth pitch.

We then hiked out on the trail, past the Manure Pile Buttress, and down to the parking lot. We just missed the shuttle, so walked the mile back to El Cap Meadows. Derek had now climbed El Cap twice. Once on the far west side and now on the far east side. I know he wants to go up that middle route… It’s probably in our near future.

At the top of the East Buttress with Half Dome in the background.