ElCap Reports

ElCap Report 6/27/07

 By Tom Evans

 Yo... another sweet day here in the center... Tourons were not too bad and we even got Aaron (KFC) to pose with some Tourons who were very impressed with his 15 ascents of the Cap and just had to get the little ones in the picture with the big hero.. just one of the lads here at the bridge. Plus all the climbers in view were seen going upward for the second day in a row! Shack and his kids came by today and fed the bridge rats some great franks right off the grill... thanks bro... so brought to you straight from Shacks grill and smeared with mustard is the ElCap Report for this day....

Zodiac: The three man Korean team continues its push up the route and were seen leading toward Peanut ledge when I left this afternoon... The solo who fixed the first pitch didn’t show today...

Trip... did get an email from Todd who soloed the route last week... turns out he injured his back early in the climb but decided he could continue if he just took his time and got rest between pitches... said he just had enough food and water to complete the climb...so that explains a lot about how he climbed and his speed on the route... good effort under conditions that most of the rest of us would have bailed under... congrats Todd!!

Ranch: Didn’t talk to the team today but they were seen heading toward the igloo with a top-out shooting for tomorrow afternoon. The will spend the night on the top and come down Friday morning if all goes as planned...

Mescalito: Seems that part of their portaledge was lost over the side yesterday as they flagged it in strong winds.. Didn’t know if that was serious or not but they continued today and did the molar traverse and were at the start of the chimney/wide crack when I left. Team is a polish team of a man and a woman.... who are they?

Nose: The Canadian Kyle, from Ottawa, and the Austrian Klaus were seen at the top of ElCap this afternoon... so they made the improbable ascent ... some said impossible. Way to go men!! Klaus’s attractive, but injured, girlfriend watched most of the climb from the bridge and was gullible enough to believe everything I told her... until day 2 when she figured out that I was kidding around 98% of the time... The Fins were seen doing the great roof this morning and were last seen belayed at the Glowering spot when I left. The Korean team was done with the king swing when I got there this morning and were in the gray bands when I left... camp 4 for them tonight.

Salathe: did see Chris and Oli a couple of pitches above the spire this morning and on the block in the afternoon... off tomorrow..

In other news, Gene Fisher showed up today after a long absence. "Shack", from our SuperTopo site, showed up with the kids and fed everyone... many thanks!! Most of the regulars were on hand as Aaron was back from an 8 hour solo of the WFLT yesterday...nice job KFC!! The cavers continued on the big rope and several went up the line with their special ascending rig. Pretty cool to watch... A slack line was set across part of the river and got a good workout later in the day... several of the guys walked quite a ways on it...I was going to do it but was afraid that my weight would pull down the trees... All in all it was a nice day here... hope yours was a good one too.... Signing off for June 27th 2007 this is your man with the plan...

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