El Cap Report 10/27/07

ElCap report 10/27/07

 By Tom Evans

Yo... another killer day... started out with some clouds but buffed up real shiny... action back on the Big Stone too... Today’s report is brought to you by our man, Gene Fischer, who was actually seen climbing on the Zodiac this afternoon... really, witnessed by a slew of the local gang who watched with fascination as Gene was able to blast some of the features right off the rock with some hard driving piton placements! Sorry lads ...the first 40ft of #1 is now A-4...

 

Today’s ECR... Zodiac: Watched Adam top out on his solo climb of this route around 3pm today... nice ascent Adam!! Lower Down... two guys who fixed a couple yesterday were on the route sporting a purple double ledge ... they were at the end of 4 when I left around 3... Even lower down... yes as reported above, our man Gene, resplendent in a bright yellow shirt and white helmet and sporting a sweet rack of gear was seen to actually leave the ground and climb upward at such a pace as to cause various Tourons to ask...."Is that guy spending the night there just 30 off the ground?" Aaron quickly stepped in to save Gene's, reputation by saying that the first section is extremely difficult and takes even seasoned climbers several days to ascend. Phew! That was close! I left before the 40foot barrier was breached.

Nose: Yep .. there was nothing going on on the rest of the SE face ... I did spot a party of two who were on dolt tower when I arrived and didn't lead toward ECT until 1pm. What is up with them? They do have a ledge however and will most likely be glad they do.... The rest of the route is open.

Salathe/Free rider: Saw the Swiss team from yesterday climb off the block to Sus Le Toit in the afternoon... Lower down on the FreeBlast. Saw what appeared to be Lucho and a woman climber climbing the FB around the Half Dollar and hauling a big old bag up the route behind them... ough.. that hurts! Lower down a couple of gumbies were decked out in great colors and were a few pitches below the above mentioned team... funny thing was that they were pointing and gesturing from the top of the 5th pitch like they had no idea where to go... Get a topo!!! Loved the shirts!!

In other news: Ivo arrived back from the Drop Zone with that ledge for Gene so his excuses are starting to run thin.. High five to Jesse, Jack, Lorna, Sako and others, for the job they did on the top clean up... however it seems that our buddies tagged all the stuff they could find that climbers have stashed on top so they could work on various projects from the top... so this has initiated a mad scramble up the east ledges for several climbers who have stuff they don't want confiscated...rumors abound that the East Ledges ropes were removed but are without any confirmation thus far, Jesse?... Alert !! Alert!! ...the monkeys are scrambling!!! Still nice here and there is time to get in that late season route you so wanted to do... I will be out of here next week so won't be around to cover your backs... got to go you know...

 So that's the way it is for this the 27 day of October 2007... the day of the scrambling Monkeys!!!

Tom Evans