ElCap Reports

ElCap Report 5/20/07

 By Tom Evans

 Yo....this report is brought to you fresh from the shores of the mighty Merced river at the ElCap Bridge... A beautiful, warm California day with a strong up canyon breeze shaking the Aspens along the river and the sun warming the climbing lizards basking in the glow at the bridge. Anyway....the ElCap news covers the Big Stone from the East Butt to the West Butt... the latest... direct from the scene!!

Zodiac: The team of two from yesterday at the mark of Zorro topped out today at around 3pm after a speedy and efficient ascent... I got some nice shots of them this morning on Peanut ledge and later going over the top... congrats!! The Infamous "Ricardo" last seen lurking on ST suddenly materialized at my shooting station across from the Manure pile picnic area and told of wild plans to climb Zodiac with a friend and low and behold there the lad was hanging off the first pitch at 3:30 pm on a fixing mission to the third pitch.. looking good.. An unknown to me, solo climber was doing the 4th pitch this afternoon and was wearing a red/orange shirt... sweet!

LA.... next door on LA, Kate and handsome mike continue to cruise the upper east side of the Captain with a couple more days left in the sun...

NA Wall... The two women are making good progress up to Big Sur ledge this evening and the pendulums to do in the morning.. looking strong girls!!!!

Space/Mescalito In a clearly rational moment Eric and Mo decided to cruise up the remainder of Mescalito and finished around 2:30 this afternoon.. crusin old dudes rule!!

Mescalito: I saw the party of two do the molar arch and the pendulum today with a link up to the belay at the start of the wide 5.9 crack/chimney and they are moving along well... Also.. Ottawa Doug has shown up fixing on Mescalito solo... He soloed Zodiac last fall, and told some members of my posse that he was avoiding me because he thought I might bruise his fragile psyche and say he was "going to Die up there"!! Anyway... go Doug, enjoy the suffering man!!

Nose: various parties are mulling about in the bushes at the base but seem reluctant to make the charge! I hear that the Wyoming woman’s team is switching from the 3D to the Nose for some reason known only to themselves... only one party on the route today and they were last seen settling in at the lousy ledge of camp 4... Several teams have announced intentions to start early in the morning... we will see...

Freeblast to who knows where.... two teams with haulbags in tow made their way up the freeblast today ... one guy had a hunters orange shirt on that could be seen from Fresno!! Where they are all going is anyone’s guess... one party seen climbing above Mammoth terrace on the Muir pitches to gray ledges.. Shield?! That would be nice as the route has been empty for a long time and the Tourons need someone to gape at on a good route, besides the Nose...

Salathe: A party of three climbed to ElCap spire this day and I was able to get some nice pics of them on the Ear pitch and the crack above it... you know the one that goes straight up instead of doing the Monster crack... the 13.b/d (?) one that most of the people claiming to have freed the Salathe mysteriously avoid in favor of the monster variation... did they really climb the Salathe? You make the call!!

Dihedral: The solo guy had a burst of rational vision and decided to think about it some more... heading home tomorrow with an easy lesson learned... West side... nothing seen moving over there...

Well that's all the dirt I can dish out today... From my rocking chair at the center of the Big Wall Yosemite universe... check your knots..

:) ElCap-pics