ElCap Reports

ElCap Report 10/29/07

 By Tom Evans

Ok... its Monday and I am still holding on here in the Valley... got to the cafe this morning and Ivo told me the weather was going to cave in this afternoon... Balderdash! Bull shit!! I can see the sky for myself and things looked good... well.... anyway.... around 1:30 pm this very dark cloud filled the sky and several long peels of thunder reverberated around the valley and I ran for the van! It looks nasty out there folks. I have retreated to the comfort of my cave behind the Maintenance garage to write this report... At 10am I arrived at the bridge and found the cliff to be in good shape with no visible water on it and various teams headed upward... So here it is for today, the ECR brought to you by the little old lady Touron who sneered at me when I told her that climbs on the rock often take 3 to 5 days.... "you're a liar" she said to my face and walked off!! So much for the ElCap Bridge moto.."treat all Tourons as if they are your friends".

Today’s ECR...

Zodiac: Well when I arrived today I saw the team of two from past days at the top of the white circle with the second coming up the nipple pitch cleaning. As I left they were just finishing cleaning the Mark of Zorro pitch... they should be fine when the rains start pounding. Lower down: The Norwegian team sent two members up their fixed lines to pitch 4 and they soon came down without doing much of anything... what's up with that? Probably got word about approaching weather... Even lower down: My Man Gene, decked out in the best looking yellow shirt on the rock, was seen here and there about the base this morning... didn't go up his lines. You know I have been giving my friend a lot of good natured flack of late but I have to tell you that I do admire his determination... I would have bailed long ago if this was my project and yet he seems as determined as ever and has put a lot of his time and energy into this thing...as most of you know, tenacity and determination go a long way to make an EC climb possible and Gene has both in spades... it is a big jump for him as he has never done an EC route and not much aid climbing at all... I hope he gets it done no matter what it takes... best of luck Gene!

Trip: Yep it is official... the butt kicking Trip (75% failure rate of late) has a team of three on it... come on guys get it done!! Not sure who they are but they looked organized and ready for the task...

Nose: Did talk to Scotty in the cafe this morning after his 13 hour NIAD yesterday... I was nice and didn't even bring up the awful clothing they wore... he said the worst thing they experienced was the sore feet from not having done such a long climb in recent months! The pain of De Feet. Actually the climb is TOTALLY empty at the moment but I hear from my sources deep within the foreign climbing community in camp 4 that a team, with mega experience, is going on it tomorrow to rage on the rock... that should be nice!

Salathe/Free Rider: Caught a glimpse of team Lucho going around the roof to the free rider exit pitches... just in time to get away from the approaching storms...maybe... Lower down: Team Gleason/Mad Dog don't to appear so lucky as they were seen hefting huge bags two pitches above ECS and maybe heading for a night on the block.. being SAR heroes of considerable merit they are, of course, fully prepared for any eventuality.... Stay dry lads.

 Golden Gate: I watched young Alex and partner Chris work on the downward traverse pitch, one of the cruxes of the route, this morning and it must have been pretty warm as Alex was climbing sans-shirt in the best Huber style... when I left Chris was dogging it hard according to young Justin, a frequent partner of young Alex and a recent sender of Free Rider himself, who stopped by for a look early in the afternoon

In other news: ... impending doom about to rain from the skies... but our stalwart climbers are moving upward with grim determination... except of course the Norwegians, and Gene who are so close to the ground that it would be foolish to head up... even though the route is dry from steady rain but not wind driven rain... good move lads... Miles and Liz Smart came by to say hi this morning... of course they haven't read the back Reports yet... so it was very pleasant!!! I am hiring a body guard to protect me when the AMGA Boys come for my butt!! I was just going to call our well armed climbing ranger but it seems I am on his "bad boy" list at the moment... where is the law when you really need it?!! Hear that a speed record attempt is in the offing when the weather clears a bit... popular aid route it is too... should be fun...

So that's the way it is for this the 29th day of October 2007... come on out and watch the rain cleanse the Valley, we really need it... and be here when it clears as the weather looks to be good again real soon... there is still time for that project of yours to come to fruition...

Later Tom Evans

Even Later.... 5:00pm... well there was some nice thunder and rain around 3 to 4 pm but now the sky has cleared and the sun is out... the storm has passed as quickly as a summer T-storm.. maybe... so anyone on the Cap has plenty of time to dry out before dark if they even got wet at all... nice little rain... maybe it will have put out that controlled burn in the west that has been smoldering for a couple of weeks now... Cheers!! Even Later at 8:20 pm... seems there is a lot of booming noise off to the west.... ugh oh... don't put away that rain gear yet!!

Next day 7:50 am... did rain hard last night but today it is crystal clear... going down to the Cap a little early to see what is up ... should be ok though.... have a nice breakfast...