ElCap Reports

ElCap Report 6/13/07

 By Tom Evans

Yo... kinda hot here today with a nice breeze down here at the bridge.. this report comes to you from a bag of grapes that Micah and Matt brought down today after sending Free Rider... Seems this is the one ElCap Route that the lads have a good chance to free if they put some honest effort into it.. Without any further adieu... here's the ElCap Report..

Zodiac: Peter and Martina were up early and on the wall at the start to the bolt ladder pitch when I arrived and were finishing up the infamous Black Tower pitch when I left... one of the Pushers has decided not to push this one and was seen coming down from the end of the bolt ladder.

Lost in America: The Korean team has bags and baggage handlers at the top of the first pitch and the leader was seen working on the 2nd when I departed to go down to the west side..

Aurora... the other Korean team has fixed to three and was hauling the two blue barrels and a yellow grade 6 bag another three man team it would appear. ???? got me on this route... just right of the ranch..

El Nino?? Anyway I spotted two guys fixing there this afternoon and dressed to the nines in bright yellow shirts etc.. what is that route... I don’t have my Reed guide here..

The Ranch: Spotted Pete going up the 3rd pitch this morning and by afternoon was hauling his weirdly adorned ledge to the stance this afternoon... Kate had gone down to the belay at one and was hauling some bags to that belay... looked warm over there...

Mescalito: The two climbers did the molar traverse today and I got some nice shots of the pendulum pitch...

Nose: There was a team on the last pitch that supposedly started late yesterday so I didn’t see them... friends of Megs she said. SAR heroes Jon and Ben did the nose in a day this day. I saw them climbing the boot when I arrived and followed them as they climbed higher... did get some nice shots... went down to the west side and shot them in the big corner above camp 6 and they had done the changing corners when I left at 3:30 The Pink party, a man and a woman in pink, were nice enough to let the SAR party pass on the boot flake and then they did the king swing and were last seen a pitch below camp four after having some problems with the bag getting stuck in the gray rock... There was a party of three in the stovelegs today for most of the day... they were a pitch below dolt when I left... lots of bags ...

Jolly Roger: The lads left this morning around 10 and were seen this afternoon on the big flake at the first rap on the heart rappels which is a belay station for the route... they had climbed a pitch higher and Bill said it was pretty sketchy going for some time but he prevailed to the belay... looked hot over there on the west side!!

Salathe; Saw two guys on Heart ledge just above the Jolly guys and their third was leading to lung ledge.. It was a nice day here today ....

In other news:  Ragon came by on his way out of town to get a flight home...said to say hi to Ottawa Doug... Micah and Matt came by for a visit and lunch ... talked about their recent send of FR. Anna came by with some refreshments and a bad case of poison oak after her climb of the Salathe... A couple of teams just off the nose were here and some new guys showed up and were going on various routes in the immediate future and came by to say hi and let me know their plans.. All in all another sweet day here at the bridge of adventure... hope you had a nice day and that you will be able to get here to share the good will and cheer... Ragan said he will not be back for the fall as his wife had nixed that idea... we told him to get her a boyfriend so she would let him come back. He got a big laugh out of that one!! Timmy and Sean O'Neill are still around and are thinking about another ElCap in a day try... they came pretty close the last time they tried on Zodiac... like 26 hours!! Anyway the van is packed and the leftover beers are safely stored in the back until tomorrow when the ElCap scene starts up again... nice to see some good action on the routes and am looking forward to reporting to you from the front lines...

So that's the way it looks from here at the Bridge for Wednesday June 13, 2007...

Later ElCap Tom