ElCap Reports

ElCap Report 9/05/07
 By Tom Evans
Yo... Alright.. I actually hiked up to the base today and hung with Dave Turner at the base of Mescalito. Very nice up there late in the day... yelled up at Chuck Pratt and some Spanish guys and watched 3 Americans go up to sickle and fix above. Earlier, I got down to ElCap after breakfast in the cafe, and everyone seemed in control of things... nice day, blue skies, cool breezes... anyway here comes the ElCap report for today straight from the base of Mescalito.

Zodiac... Andy and friend were well into the white circle this afternoon when I went down to the west side... took a couple of long shots of them.
Trip: The Navy Seals, not Army Rangers, and Reticent Steve, were last seen at the end of the top bolt ladder heading for the top... Haven't seen Young Strong Dave and his platoon yet. NA Wall... did see Cam and Scott heading for the roof pitch late this afternoon... right on schedule. The Euros that were due on the route behind them bailed this morning.
Tempest... Aaron got the crux done this morning and a pitch higher before the ledge came out around 2pm. Looks kind of sunny up there Bro!
Mescalito.. Matt is a pitch below the ramp up to the Bismarck as I write this and seems to be moving right along although he did hit the portaledge about the same time Aaron did..
DNR... Dave’s New Route...The lad has three fixed and is actually thinking about committing to the wall soon.. as mentioned earlier I went up to the base with him and Mara and we just enjoyed a quiet hang there at the base... very nice up there, so glad the tourists don’t go up there much. Ivo Direct... Did have breakfast with Ivo and later saw him at the bridge as he was about to take a large load of water up there. I saw his bags when we were up at the base.. he also is talking of blasting on the route.
Nose:.. Two teams of Spanish climbers were working up the Stovelegs most of the day until I left... slow but progressing. A three person team, 2 men and a woman, jugged their own fixed lines and fixed the pitch to the top of the sickle late in the day as chuck and partner were coming up the first 4 and planning on blasting early in the morning... kind of crowded at this time down low...the team of 3 from yesterday were gone today so I guess they are off ok.
Muir: The Team from yesterday that was on 3D or Muir did go to the Muir and were up leading the slab pitch when I last saw them. Our well armed climbing ranger Jessie and what’s his name did climb 5 pitches of this route yesterday but suffered a "core shot" when Jesse's 9mm accidentally discharged and hit the rope.. they came down to get a new rope after making it over to the normally fixed lines down from heart... mmmmm wow.. these are the guys who don't want the fixed ropes there and yet used them to get down... is there a lesson here? The rest of the Mountain seems to be empty, everything left of the Muir at the moment...
In other news, did have breakfast with Dee, Shawn O'Neill’s shadow, and Little Biscuit showed up too. Scott Stowe gobbled breakfast and headed off to get his guiding clients who didn't show so he had the day off, hung at the bridge for a while. Chuck Pratt was there too getting ready for the nose climb later today. Jon Gleason stopped by the bridge to give his warmest regards to all. Dave Turner was around the bridge for many hours until we went up to Mescalito... I of course packed up 100 pounds of water to the base for the lad and arrived at the base of the route 15 minutes before Mara and Him. Just trying to help out... did get some nice shots from the bridge today. The BIG NEWS IS THAT THE ELCAP SHUTTLE BUS WILL CONTINUE RUNNING UNTIL 8 OCT. Nice!! So that's the way it is here in the Glory Hole for Sept 5th 2007... take care and come by and say hi.... Later Tom Evans