ElCap Reports

ElCap Report 10/10/07

 By Tom Evans

Yo... A little rain blew in last night late but nothing to worry about... some wind too. When I arrived at the bridge everyone was encased in expensive aluminum and nylon cocoons, living in fear of a drop of water touching their skin. Fortunately there were no reported instances of water-skin contact... phew... it was touch and go for a while!! The sky soon cleared and a nice wind from the west felt good but brought in the smoke from the "controlled burn" down valley. So the photography was not the best for most of the day... after a time the teams of climbers and solo heroes ventured out into the daylight and proceeded to climb up the great rock. Unfortunately for me they were working on the road, and will do so for many moons to come I hear, and all the traffic in the valley passed across the bridge today... it was loud, smelly, nasty, and generally unpleasant. So brought to you from the back of a dump truck unloading boulders at the northeast corner of the bridge comes today’s ElCap Report.....

Surgeon General: Aaaarrrrrhhhh, once again McNeeley kept his plans close to his vest and it was anyone’s guess when the lad would emerge from his quarters... but around 1pm he did appear on deck and proceeded with the voyage... he climbed out of the White Circle via a long pitch of hooks and sketchy rivets and some crappy heads it would appear... the lads on the bridge watched in awe at this flawless lead... the man seems to be way up to speed and was answering monkey calls sent in his direction..

Zodiac: Soloist Michael decided to spend the day in this portaledge doing who knows what.....? Maybe he will climb something tomorrow...

Trip: I did shoot the two guys up around pitch 9 but then in the excitement of the activities here on the bridge forgot to look at them again all day... Duh on me!! They are a pretty fast team so they could be anywhere up on the upper part of the route.. Lower down the mysterious woman soloist did the 2nd pitch today and was finishing when I departed...

PO Wall: The Everest-Ivo team was down late yesterday and the thin air guys vanished into the outside world... Ivo was in the cafe this morning with the look of a man who had spent a few too many days on the wall of late... in other words.... the man could use a bath and a shave.. for gods sake Ivo... Oh the Humanity!!!

Mescalito: Well it seems the two guys caught up with T2 late yesterday and they were all camped at the end of the Molar traverse last night .... they were among the first to get climbing late this morning and T2 was doing the leading... did they join forces??? Stay tuned for late updates... they were all doing fine when I left this afternoon... Upper and lower down the young free climber was fixing more ropes today all the way down to the Molar traverse where he has lines in place... Jean and Laurie managed to clear his first line down from the flake at the end of the molar and it appeared none the worse for wear...

Nose: The new dawn team who got spanked on the king swing spent the night a pitch below camp4 and later today climbed to the start of the great roof as I left... not so easy over on the Nose lads? A party of three climbed from Dolt to ECT later in the day ... no one in the stovelegs today... maybe the route is clearing off now... NIAD on your mind?? This may be your chance.

Salathe/Free Rider: Saw my German friend, Gerhart, or is he Austrian?. Funny how the Germans are always quick to correct you when you call them Austrians by mistake!! Anyway he was slugging it out with the monster crack which seemed to be in much better condition than he was at the end of the pitch... lower down a two man team came up from hollow flake and took the left fork in the route that avoids the Ear entirely and goes straight up the heretofore mentioned, Monster crack... I was distracted for some time this afternoon with various filming and general partying on the bridge and only caught the leader, dressed in a nice little green number, very visible it was too, as he finished the ramp to the belay.. he was obviously still alive so I figured he did it just fine...

Golden Gate: Watched the Aussies, Lee and Lawrence, working on some pitch a few above the cutoff from Salathe and they seemed to be a bit on the lost side... but later when I looked they were a pitch higher so I guess they found the way after all.

Other routes to the west were out of sight for me and the road construction make it impossible to go down there to see what was up... so PTPP... hope you guys are ok down there..

In other news:  The bridge was pretty empty this morning and it was nice .... but the construction, as I said, sent every car in the Western Hemisphere past my telescope and the Tourons were rabid for a look and the full Monty explanation for every phase of climbing... so it was not easy to be a climber in that gaggle of Tourons... but later a surge of local climbers, and our German pals, showed up to make the scene much better...so many so that the Tourons were forced to use the other side of the bridge or suffer the consequences in "unusual" odors and, shall we say, a more "progressive" treatment of the English language than they may have wanted... all in all it was a fine day to be at the bridge... we got to watch some hard aid climbing a la McNeeley, and some nice bright portaledges sprinkled about the Cap... All the climbing teams are healthy and having a good go at the ElCap experience... So that's the way it is for this 10th day of October 2007...the season is in full swing now so it is time for you to get off your duff and show up in the Valley... Signing off .... Telescope Tom Evans