ElCap Reports

ElCap Report 6/17/07

 By Tom Evans

Yo... well now the weekend is over and you are jonesin for something to keep your interest for the rest of the day and the dismal week ahead... you are in luck my friends.... the weather is cooling down a bit and they are even talking about temps in the 70's tomorrow here in the center of the epicenter of the "Glory Hole", the ElCap Bridge.. So straight from the slackline set up down by the river, on the back of a poser who was flipped off and knocked silly, comes today’s ElCap Report... so throw down on that comfortable chair, clear your head, turn off your sense of decency and get ready to be in the shitt... here it comes without any clearance from anyone, or any caution by the writer.... Today’s ElCap Report

... Zodiac: The beautiful German woman and her man have not shown up today but were not expected until day after tomorrow.. somehow I thought my slide show from last night would galvanize them into instant activity and the wall would be an irresistible force drawing them up... well, it didn’t happen. But... I did talk to the Korean team leader from yesterdays Bailing off Lost in America (seems a hammer was broken just before the mandatory 5.10 free climbing pitch and the men thus came down to get another one at the Mt. Shop). He said that they were launching an attack at dawn on the unsuspecting..... Zodiac route. Personally I think that Zodiac will be ready for them. I was instructed to take "Many Pictures" of their team on Zodiac. I instructed the lads as best I could in my poor Korean, actually my 14th language, thus I am not too sharp on it. We ended up using their broken English and sign language to "discuss" the proper fashions to be worn on the wall... I grabbed up a hand full of T-shirts of various bright colors and shook them in his face, stressing the importance of being visible to the camera...I pointed to his shirt and told him that it was comparable to a pile of horse dung and was not to be seen on the side of "My El Capitan"... he seemed to understand the terminology, and left speaking loudly in Korean into the radio with renewed enthusiasm and knowledge about the proper attire for climbing in the US of A.

The Trip: Well the saga continues with the American solo, you remember the one. Todd… who refused to wear the colorful outfit I strongly suggested for the route... he chose instead to wear all white, including the same shirt he wore on 8 previous wall climbs... Todd is making progress up the climb a half pitch at a time... maybe he is short of equipment, injured or just likes to set up belays... anyway he was at the start of the free climbing section on the slabby part of the route when I left this afternoon. He looks fine and seems to be having no difficulty. He is sporting only one haul bag which I hope has a lot of water in it... most solo climbers take huge bags in hopes of carrying every piece of equipment they can lay their hands on... he is more of a traditionalist... I like that...

Aurora: The highly touted Korean "Leader" has arrived in the valley and was whisked up the fixed lines and belay stations to the front of the line. He was seen leading out of the Bat Cave this morning, moving along using direct aid techniques... who in Hell dressed this man? He has a Black shirt, maybe to induce the maximum suffering possible in the heat? His helmet and attached neck shade have the appearance of that creature in the Arnold movie that hunted humans for sport.... what was that things name?  Oh yes.. Predator was the name of the movie.  Anyway it will be difficult for me to make him look good in the shots, especially since the rest of the 7 CLIMBERS on the team are dressed to the nines in a variety of brilliant shirts and other attire ...the haul bags look better than the Leader... maybe it is their way of getting back at him... tell him to dress the wrong way so he looks bad and they look good!! Anyway I noticed that the other members of the team are split into groups, some to handle logistics, and 2 to also lead and climb the route two pitches behind the leader ..so that way several others get to do leads too... sort of like a top roping party at the local crag... pretty cool idea. The group is about 8 pitches up now... interesting stuff...

The Ranch:.... Oh.... My.... God... I looked through the scope this morning for the first time and there stood Pete on the portaledge ...... STARK NAKED... I turned from the scope and wretched my breakfast up....I dared not look again for 10 minutes and by then he was sporting some underwear which was bad enough... You can be assured that I dared not take any shots of the man for fear that the sensor would blow out of the camera...Kate was dealing with the morning logistics of moving and sorting the 14 bags they are escorting up the face... funny thing about this climb is that I have not seen anyone actually climb for 3 days now... I show up and there is a pitch fixed and they spend the rest of the day, until I leave, moving the junk show upward.... I assume they climb early in the morning or late in the evening which of course makes perfect sense on these hot days and they seem to be doing just fine... but the sight of Pete this morning... oh the Humanity!!

NA Wall... a couple of fast climbers snuck past my eagle eye but were caught by the gaze of Lance at the bridge later in the day as they traversed out toward the black dihedral... one guy had a red shirt too... just missed them... didn’t see a bag so figure it is some kind of a push ...

New Dawn... Got to say that my almost "Walk of Shame" crew, Josh and Ian are ripping up the route in almost record time... they were seen this afternoon headed into the corners below the big Harding Roof a few hundred feet from the top... off tomorrow late in the day if they continue climbing like madmen... Damn!! I paid the Mariposa High school band in advance to play music at their walk of shame too... hate that!!!

Nose. There was one party in the stovelegs that made dolt tower about the time I left this afternoon.. two guys.. Also a couple of guys from Wisconsin were seen lurking around on the pitches to sickle and rumored to be going for the route in the morning... they were wearing bright orange wedges of cheese on their heads in place of helmets....

Salathe: Three parties have suddenly appeared on the route with the mixed team of John and Julia at the head of the line... they were seen heading to the ear when I left.. one of those parties dragged their bags across the lung ledge and dislodged some rocks that fell 600feet and struck Bolous in the left shoulder piercing it deeply with a spike of rock... his partner was uninjured and they gave up on their attempt on the Muir and retreated to the hospital where stitches were required to close the wound... he is going to be ok but the strike was like being stabbed with a butcher knife.. very deep... back to CO...

In other news:   Well that is about it from here... the weather was better today, cooler, and it appears that a cooling trend is in order now...there is soon to be some slackline activity on the LA spire in a few days which I may get up to shoot.. things here at the bridge are a little more congested as the shuttle is bringing more Tourons do the location... the monkeys are being as polite as possible but some find amusement in giving directions that lead people to take the longest way possible to their destination.... we regulars here at the bridge take the opposite view as we want them off the roads at the earliest moment so as not to cause congestion... All the leftover food from the birthday bash was consumed today and the area policed up... now don’t get me wrong... we don’t have police here... it is a military term meaning to clean up an area and pick up anything that is not supposed to be there... the van is packed and all the Bridge groupies have gone away... I am out of here and back up at Heartbreak Hotel where I am enjoying a nice sunset and lifting the last of the "left over beers".. so you have a good night and get ready for a really fun Monday when I will be here hanging out and you will be there grubbing for a living... I only do this because you can't!!!

So that’s the way it is, here at the Glory Hole for June 17th, 2007...

Signing off for now.... Telephoto Tom