September 1999

For what would turn out to be my last wall of the summer I planned to try a route on the Column called Southern Man. Sharing the first three pitches with the South Face (up to Dinner Ledge) and technically more demanding than the classic beginner's route, Southern Man was going to be a good wall to push my skills a bit and teach some basic aid technique to my partner, Steve. He and I had struck on an interesting deal in a ratty basement climbing gym some nine months earlier: he would teach me to climb ice if I would teach him to aid climb. After a great winter cranking around our homes in Hanover, NH, it was my turn to turn him on to the big stone. Southern Man was to be our warm up…but as the content of this TR makes pretty obvious, we ended up on the South Face instead. But as usual, I am two or three placements ahead of myself.

Day 0: Well, maybe not hard climbing…
Our first day dawns in San Francisco. I picked Steve up at the airport the previous night after making him wait some interminable 5 hours while I attended a wedding in Santa Cruz. Hard to balance climbing and social obligations, but we finally got underway early Sunday morning. After checking the weather report, which predicts warm and nice in the Valley (much to our surprise, it had been super hot the week before) we head out. The energy field is strong as we pull into Yosemite and I began to feel incredibly at home, which is odd since I had basically been living the past months as a homeless guy, sleeping in my truck and relying on the generous hospitality of friends as I worked in SF for the back half of my summer internship. Anyway, we head straight to the Mountain Shop to augment our rack. After a less than short delay as I realize that I've forgotten my credit card at the gas station on the Valley rim we head over to the Lodge lot to get sorted and packed. Here I had kindof an odd interchange:

Weird guy in a golf cart wearing a lodge badge: "Are you guys coming in or out?"
Ed: "Huh? Oh, we're going up."
Weird guy (looking relieved): "Well, okay, but you'll have to move this stuff."
Ed: "Ehh," [Beavis noises]
Weird guy: "Because we can't sort our karabiners in the parking lot anymore. You know, we have some parking problems."
Ed gazes circumspectly at the 20 or so open spots around the truck
Weird guy: "And, well, the guests complain"
Ed (Ahh, but making no motions for departure): "Well, okay, we're almost done anyway"
Dirtbags across the lot: "Don't move, don't move"
Weird guy drives away muttering incoherently

To this day I'm not exactly sure what was going on, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out. In the three seasons I've spent significant time in the Valley it has gotten harder and harder to be a climber dirtbag. Maybe a good thing, maybe not. Anyway, we finished packing up and headed out to the Awahnee. After parking the truck we wandered up into the woods by headlamp following the vague trail to a great bivy site close to the base of the route. Here we negotiated a rudimentary bear hang and drifted off to sleep.

Day 1: To Dinner and beyond.
Waking with the sun bright and early we headed up to the base of the climb. As usual, the "third class" that preceded the route sucked, and we struggled to get the pig to the base of the route. Once that was engaged, we got our systems set and I fired off on the first pitch. An easy free pitch, I strolled up to the anchors on hauled the pig. After an uneventful drag over to the base of the second pitch Steve was on lead on his first real aid pitch ever. I don't really remember the pitch very well, but Steve-O dispatched it in good style. I quickly fired up the short third pitch (which goes free) and we got the bags up and dragged over to one side of Dinner (where they would stay for a while, it turns out). The plan was for us to fix the 4th and 5th pitches of Southern Man, haul and sleep on the ledge, then fire off for the upper pitches the next day.

Once we get settled in, we debated a bit over whether we should choose the harder route or just take off on the one we know is easy. After some discussion (and my hope that we can get prepped for a hard El Cap route by doing Southern Man), Steve takes off on the 4th pitch of that route, which is supposed to be a bolt ladder. Six or seven bolts up there is a blown piece, with nothing but a hole…bathook territory. Hmm, thinks Steve-O. Later he says, "this is where the ambiance of terror set in." Steve decides that a bathook move on his second aid lead might be a little too much to ask and decides to back off. I take off, clipping Steve's pieces, pause a minute at the bathook move, which actually looks pretty solid, and continue on. As it turns out, I passed the fourth belay and got midway into the fifth pitch, but I didn't know it at the time. After a few more moves I confront an odd sequence for what I think is an A1 bolt ladder: Top stepping off a rivet I can reach a reasonably good mashie placement to a blind crumbly cam. I look down at the rack for the mashies and realize they are back at the belay. Hmm, thinks I. If the A1 on this route is this hard, maybe we should opt for the South Face. It will be more fun for everyone concerned, and in any event I've got to head down to get the mashies anyway. So we bail off Southern Man and set our sights on the South Face.

First thing's first: the Kor roof. As Steve is racking up for the pitch a couple of what we dubbed "the punk rockers" arrive at Dinner. Neither of them had done a wall and they were fired up for their first "night out." Their enthusiasm was catching and Steve took off on the famous 4th pitch of the South Face. He was a fast learner, and he pretty much strolled up this pitch. It starts off with some rather easy free to aid to a bolt ladder as you pull the roof. Ahhh, I haven't mentioned the wind yet! As we were negotiating the pitches on Southern Man, the wind decided to pick up in a pretty big way. By the time Steve was on the challenging moves to pull over the roof, the wind had really started to blow hard. At one point I remember looking up at Steve's aiders and seeing them blowing around like crazy. They not only were blown completely horizontal, they were whipping around like eggbeaters gone haywire. Anyway, after a bit of negotiating Steve called off belay and I headed up on jumar. Cleaning the traverse didn't give me too much trouble as I employed the hook-on-a-quickdraw technique that I learned bailing from the Tower so many years (it seems, not that long actually) ago. Actually pulling the roof turned out to be a nightmare, though. As I unclipped the last piece and swung away from the wall the wind picked up with a fury. It was so strong that it actually started moving ME around, and soon I was spinning around out of control! After 20 or so revolutions I realized that this SUCKED Beavis. I started kicking at the wall with only limited success. Then I remembered the punkers. "Hey, I shouted, grab that line!" [pointing to the bottom of the haul line that was still resting on Dinner]. They did, and I used the tension to slow my swing, then reverse it enough so I could make some vertical movement up the line. Once I pulled up and over the lip I was able to use the rock to combat the wind and I was off to the races. As I approached the belay I was laughing… "I just had a total epic cleaning that pitch…my own personal epic." Steve, never one to exaggerate his talent explains, "that pitch was sheer unadulterated terror, start to finish."

I don't remember much about the little bit of the fifth pitch I led that night except for the pendulum. Having cheated my way through leading the King Swing I was pretty psyched to go agro on the penjy. I asked Steve to lower me out to where I thought would be the right amount of rope. Not quite "One more foot." Steve lowers me four inches. "Stop!…Okay, one more foot." Four inches. "Stop!…Okay, just one more foot." And so on until I finally got it right. Learning curve, very flat. Soon we were at the belay, fixed our ropes, and rapped back to our comfy ledge. Steve's first wall dinner was a gourmet feast of Chef-B and pudding. I teased him about munching both his puddings optimistically, set up my ledge to relieve the cramping on dinner (and just because that thing is oh-so-comfy) and drifted off to sleep to the beautiful stars and rejuvenating energy of the Valley.

Day 2: The inflection point
The next day dawned early and we were up and jugging our lines in the morning light and stillness. What a different place the wall was without the howling wind. A quick trip up to our high point and I was on lead to finish off the bulk of the 5th pitch. After about an hour of what seemed like an awfully long set of A1 cracks I finally called off belay. The only really interesting part was the end. Blind blue alien placement…bouncie, bouncie…free move, belay. Whew!

Steve cruised up and we talked about the climb. I think Steve was pretty gripped at that point, but he sure hid it well. Anyway, I was pumped, we were makin' good time and I was psyched to finish this bad dog out today. (We had decided to leave the bag on the ledge. Our plan was to top out and rap the route, picking up the bag on the way down.) Anyway, I looked to Steve, asking if he wanted to lead the 6th pitch. I could tell he was vacillating and unsure, but I didn't pressure him at all. "I suppose I should give it a try." He says. Yee-haw, a wall rat yet, and off he went.

Pitch 6 is long and looked reasonably hard for a starter wall as I jugged by. "Nice job dude! That pitch looked hard!" I was really impressed…my partner held it together and worked his way up some long and challenging aid on this pitch. This was clearly the inflection point of the climb in terms of technical difficulty…all the pitches above are almost all free and really easy to boot. But it was the spiritual inflection point of both the climb and the trip in so many more ways. We were really late…it was almost 2pm by the time we got everything sorted out, and my partner was still pretty gripped. We talked calmly about our options. As I saw it we had three:

We talked about it for a long time. I didn't want to keep going because I thought it would ensure an epic. But Steve didn't relish another day on the wall, especially right after that lead. So we talked and talked and finally agreed to option 3, (especially after I offered to come clean the ropes if we decided to bail in the morning). Off we went. It turned out that the punkers bailed, but we got a ride on the ropes of this really cool dude from Vermont who had planned on heading up Skull Queen. The plan worked and we had the ledge (mostly) to ourselves on our second night out.

Steve later describes the decision: "Ed was very fair in his presentation of the options [A damn consultant to the end], but I desperately wanted to go down." Nice rally, Steve-O!

The second night was punctuated by a visit from a ring-tailed cat, which is somewhere between a raccoon and a weasel. It climbed 5.13 slab, forcing us to hang our food from a tree, then proceeded to crawl into the haul bag and snuggle up to our water bottles until we chased him away. Weird little critter! I fell asleep again to the beauty of the sky and the energy of the Valley, really happy. Funny how wall climbing is so miserable, but feels so good when you stop!

Day 3: Up and off
After the high emotions of the second day summit day almost paled by comparison. We awoke refreshed and jugged our lines to our high point at the top of 6. The dude that was heading up Skull Queen decided to bail and asked if we would turn in his gear to lost and found. We agreed of course, and ended up meeting his girlfriend who told us that Patrick had said "I am absolutely positive they will return it." Nice vote of confidence and good to see that trust still exists in funny corners of the world.

Anyway, we got up to the top of 6 I and led off. Steve hadn't brought his foo-foo shoes, so I was on tap to get us to the top. He got the crux pitches anyway! I took off on 7, which I remember as short and fun. Time was of the essence, and I was French freeing with abandon! Pitch 8 was a nightmare chimney to a slab move to some aid to some 5.10 free. I remember thinking the free was awfully hard, then realizing that I'd popped out of the aiders too early and oh, now this feels like 5.10. I fixed the rope and soon we could see the summit gully we had heard such bad stories about. Nine was free moves to an exposed traverse and halfway into 10, which we then polished off without incident. After fixing the rope on the summit I strolled around, remembering the feeling of my first time on the summit of the Column after soloing the Prow. It was snowing / hailing / groppling then (both physically and in some weird way metaphorically) and I went back there for a bit while Steve made his way to the top.

We spent only about 30 seconds together on the summit before we were gearing up to rap down. The first few rappels through the chimney were an absolute nightmare with the ropes getting caught and dislodging little pebbles on us. We almost had an epic that required two rappels to clean, but we managed to back to the vertical ground. The last few rappels went without incident and soon we were back on Dinner, where we encounter team poser. This couple was planning on heading up Southern Man, but had mostly brand new gear and didn't seem to know even how to haul effectively (is arm hauling a technique?). We negotiated our way around them and rapped with the pig on down to the base, wandered over to Curry Village and had a shower and great pizza 'n beer. We also discovered the "Big Ed" ice cream sandwich which became a mainstay desert in the nights to come.

At the end of the day, it wasn't the wall I'd set my sights on but it was a great experience. Every climb of that magnitude has its emotional ride and we had an awesome time. My partner was bomber and we ticked it in a pretty good style, epic-free ascent. Team New Hampshire: 1, Wall Demons: zippo.