ElCap Reports

ElCap Report 6/9/07

 By Tom Evans

Yo... Here it comes... the line of sight report... not some cheesy 2nd hand account in some advertising rag posing as a climbing mag two months after tthe events... nope... right from the heart of the Bridge at the gates of big wall heaven.. the ElCap Bridge. Brought to you today wrapped in the extremely nasty pair of shocks that Cedar Wright wore on yesterdays send of Free Rider with Nick.. man those are some god awful hunks of fabric... I CAN SMELL'EM NOW! The weather here today.... PERFECT.. The Captain... NEARLY EMPTY ... climbers on the big stone... mostly POSERS doing tricks for the cameras... the Bridge, calm and cool... even Ricardo and his better half hung out today, bringing food and drink and HOMEMADE BROWNIES.. not those kind of brownies.. So here it is, totally unedited, uncensored, grammatically incorrect with turible spelin, today's ElCap Report...

Zodiac... the party of two from yesterday climbed the Black Tower in perfect conditions and were last seen around 3:30pm settling on the ledge at its end...

The Ranch: Piton Pete made a quick appearance at the bridge and the NPS ordered an alert to all Tourons with young daughters to watch them carefully as he could appear crashing out of the brush at any moment... did see a huge pile of water bottles at the base of said route and Pete was seen leaving the Bridge with a coolie hauling a bag for him to the base.. reports will follow adnauseaum... for the next several weeks most likely!

Mescalito... 4 pitches fixed and awaiting actual climbers to appear on the route... heard a rumor that they will start around the 13th...

Nose: I can't begin to tell you what a huge clusterfuck the old classic was today... filming a movie on the route is hard enough but doing it from the top down is worse... anyway a battalion of riggers, camera men, famous poser climbers, miles of fixed lines etc etc dominated the route today... and at the same time there were said to be 4 Nose in a day teams on the route and one 3D in a day to boot... it looked like the Carthaginians locked in hand to hand combat with the Roman legions!! It was impossible to tell the posers from the real climbers and after a time I just gave up and shot them all... Linc Inc. was supposed to be the head man up there but it was a free for all... anyway the posers, Hans, Steve, Tommy etc exited to the bottom late in the day and the real climbers went upward and for the first time it became apparent that only 10% of the people on the route were actually climbers doing the route!! I did see the two guys, Dan and Scott, from yesterday climb the great roof at the head of the pack of snarling dogs who were dying to get past them ... they graciously let the thundering hordes pass over the next few hours and were themselves seen climbing into camp 5 around 4pm...The rest of the route seems empty... so if you are in the market for a Nose Job then now just might be the time...

Salathe Free Rider: I already mentioned Cedar and Nick doing FR and coming down... they passed Ranon and Amee and also Jean and Anna at the Block last evening... never saw Ranon and Amee today but did see and shoot Jean and Anna as they went over the Roof pitch onto the headwall early in the evening bound for Long Ledge where rumor has it that DP is hanging out finishing up a free ascent of that route in redpoint style....maybe it was pink point ... or perhaps yellow or maybe green point.. get all that point stuff confused.. anyway he is working on freeing it... Sean and Timmy O'Neill headed down the east ledges this morning after a good time on that great route... well done lads and the locals appreciated the jobs you provided too.... did see a team of three come up to the ear and forgot about them for a while until I noticed them later hauling up to the Alcove.. got a few shots of them.... think they did the real Salathe route above the ear as they seemed to be looking up there and sorting some of the big gear on the rack...

Lurking Fear...Since I was over that way I did look at that route but didn’t shoot anything... several parties higher on the face.... ran into George Lowe and partner who were heading out for a one day push on that route... pretty cool as George is 62 and still doing the good stuff while I am a year older and the poster child for the typical overfed, fat, couch potato... Go George!!

In other news... Ran into Ragan, of recent soloing SSPO in 14 Days fame... the man looked great!! And he ranted and raved about what a wonderful time he had, with the exception of the 3 days of cold and stormy weather... seems he went a little light on the clothing and described the conditions as "mild winter conditions in Poland".. At any rate he had never used a portaledge before having use hammocks in the past... he was thrilled.... well I GUESS SO!!!! He actually slept well and enjoyed the beauty of the wall and climbing... the man had a great time!!! He went slowly the first week so he could look at the rock and bask in the great position of the route... you know... all the things that speed climbers miss out on!!!

Ricardo and Aime came by and spent several hours hanging out and talking climbing and recent engagement, plus feeding the masses and talking to Tourons about how to go to the bathroom... the man wants my job!! Climbers too numerous to remember passed by and chatted... the weekend brings them out of the cities to hang for a few hours and recharge the old batteries for the next week... Also our well armed climbing ranger made a cameo appearance to assuage our fears of authority.. Around 4 I headed to the woodyard to shoot Jean and Anna on the Salathe roof and across to the nose where the angle makes the view stunning... should shoot more from there but it is some trouble and expense to go down there... Anyway the Van was then packed and with a sigh of relief I quit for the day.. another sweet one here in the valley... Erik Sloan... where are you?...

So that is it from here at the epicenter of the center of the big wall scene direct from the Valley of valleys...Heartbreak Hotel will be busy this weekend but I will manage to get the rocker off the deck and swing by the most famous Bridge in all of climberdom... Miss you Ottawa Doug and hope your family is well and happy to have their Dad home... especially your only son...(the pet dog, Doug has 3 girls!!)

So signing off for now.... ElCap-pics