K3-Hem -> Artiklar -> Till Next Time

by Rick McGregor

Rick, Martin and Calle Peter on top of El Capitan
(photo: Rick McGregor)

We got down off Zodiac late. By the time we'd lugged the haulbags up to the rounded summit of El Capitan and walked down the Yosemite Falls Trail back to Camp 4 in the dark it was 11.30 pm. Our campsite booking had run out while we were on the climb, so as the first to wake at 7 am, I joined the queue outside the ranger's kiosk. Andy from Sheffield was in the queue. He and Kate Finnerty from Green Park south of Christchurch had been a day ahead of us on Zodiac - we met them at the base when we carried up a load of water the night before we started fixing.

"That was a great winger Kate took off the Mark of Zorro Roof," I said. "Was she fazed by it at all? It must have been 20 metres or more - she ended up hanging a good way out from you."

"No," replied Andy, "she just jumared back up, banged in a peg and finished the pitch."

"So what are you guys doing next?" I asked.

"Well I go back to Britain in a couple of days, so I'm just going to hang. Kate's around for a little longer, but then she's leaving, too. What about you?"

"Well I'm keen to get up on Mescalito , but I haven't run that idea past Martin and Calle-Peter yet. Might let them recover from four days on Zodiac first! None of us has been on anything for more than three nights, and Calle has only done this one wall, period."

" Mescalito 's a real good route. I soloed it over nine days last year."

"Any particular gear you'd advise us to take?" "Sawn-off 1 1/2 inch angles."

"How long?"

"About half-an-inch to an inch."

Coming to a consensus with Martin and Calle to climb Mescalito was no overnight matter. After climbing Zodiac , which had been an ambition for Martin and me ever since our last trip to the Valley two years before, we were on a high, but when we came down from the high, both physically and mentally, we all went through a bit of a down period. We had a rest day or two, did the usual valley-floor, between-climbs chores such as showering, doing a load of washing up at Housekeeping Camp and buying gear to replace things dropped or left, and spent a day free climbing up in the High Sierra air of Tuolumne Meadows (paradise on earth for a rock climber, but don't tell too many people). Then we sat ourselves down on the bear boxes (bear-proof food storage) in Camp 4 to read Chris McNamara's topo book.

Martin was keen on Tangerine Trip (about the same length - 16 pitches - and difficulty as Zodiac ). Calle and I thought it sounded too similar, especially since it goes up more or less the same section of wall, just a hundred metres or so to one side. (And I didn't much like the sound of one of McNamara's comments in his SuperTopos: "Unfortunately, the most memorable pitches are the rivet ladders where falls of 50-plus feet have been taken when a string of dowels snapped.") Martin, on the other hand, thought Mescalito , with six nights on the wall, was too long. With the weather, even in the middle of September, still very hot (30°C on the valley floor) we would need lots of water (63 litres at 3 litres per man-day for 7 days). So I countered with North America Wall - probably four nights for us, and a route with lots of history. Who hasn't seen Chuck Pratt's classic picture of the others in the first ascent party (Royal Robbins, Tom Frost and Yvon Chouinard) hanging in their hammocks in the Black Cave, one above the other "like laundry between tenement flats"?

Finally Calle found a solution to the dead-lock - he read out the key sentence describing each of the routes: Of North America Wall , McNamara says "It attracts those who want something a little off the beaten track but not too difficult";   of Mescalito he says "Mescalito is steep, sustained and exceptional. It is hard to imagine a better route up a more incredible wall". The decision was made.

It was late afternoon, and we planned to feed up large at the Camp Curry Buffet before starting work on the route, but we had time to drive the few kilometres down the road to El Cap Meadow to take (another) look at the line, and to check whether there were any other parties just starting up it. I took a photo of Calle-Peter and Martin looking up at the wall - they looked like I felt - pretty nervous! Calle admitted months later, "That was a pretty bad moment for me".

Next day we started on the route. We had decided to spread the fixing over two days. The usual strategy on Mescalito is to do the first four and then rapp and fix three ropes down a line straight down from the fourth belay. Like much of the rest of the route, the first four pitches are very diagonal. While Martin and Calle cranked out a pitch each that first day, I carried loads of water and food up to the base of the wall in 30-degree heat. The next day we planned to fix two more and haul the bags to our high point. Calle and I managed to fix two while Martin did ground duty, but we only got the (three) bags up one pitch by dark.

OK, day three. We blast off - haul the bags to our high point at the top of the fourth and then start climbing. That was the plan. We had checked the weather forecast. Fine weather continuing. Temperature today 30°, tomorrow 31°, the day after 32°. Would three litres of water per man-day be enough? We asked around. Some people said four litres...

Another buffet at Camp Curry, another early start. To save time, we thought, the plan was for me to haul the next two ropelengths while Calle belayed Martin on pitch 5, our first pitch for the day. Even using a 3-to-1 mechanical advantage, I could hardly move the bags, especially once they fastened under a small roof. Calle abseiled back down and continued down to the bags and freed them. It was hot, we were frustrated, time was passing.

The Merced River looked green and refreshing. I don't know whose idea it was - maybe we all thought of it at about the same time - but the proposal was: let's just finish hauling to the top of the fourth then knock off early, abseil down, go for a swim, have a relaxing afternoon and start the climb proper tomorrow. So we did.

As I mentioned earlier, Mescalito leans. It's also very steep. And after the double pendulum traverse on pitch 6 (called the Seagull because of the shape of the roof above the pendulums) it is very difficult to get back down. The wall below the Seagull overhangs radically, and our three 60m ropes all tied together wouldn't have got us back to the ground (even if we'd been prepared to leave them). So once we had done the Seagull we were going to the top. All 26 pitches.

So how was the climb? It was great. Ever since turning down the chance to do this route with a couple of American friends 20 years ago, I've wanted to do it, and to spend a week on a wall. And it was worth waiting for. Good climbing, good company and very little drama. Martin took a fall, I took a fall, neither of them very long though I hurt a finger - Calle almost fainted while I dressed it at the top of the pitch, but once it was bandaged up I could still lead the mostly-free next pitch in the dark, up to the Bismark Ledge at the top of the 18th which we reached a day ahead of schedule.

Cirrus had been moving in for the last few days. The next day the sky thickened and the mist came down as I led the Bismark pitch itself, a magnificent 40m corner widening to overhanging (but laybackable) offwidth at the top. Martin and Calle spent the day on the ledge that the corner leads to, an inwardly-sloping ledge that we dubbed "Granite Beach", while I led an awkward pitch in mist and drizzle. (Hot tip: take the standard route on pitch 20, not the supposedly 5.9 hands variation.)

With heavier rain threatening we opted to fix the pitch and spend the night in the relative shelter of Granite Beach, so I did an awkward abseil back down - Calle hauled me in like a harpooned whale - and then jugged to clean the pitch in the evening. I can't remember why that task fell to me, but it might have been because I'd hogged so much of the leading, or because there was a nasty traverse at the top of the pitch that I didn't feel happy about committing anyone else to following. Whatever, it was as awkward to follow as it had been to lead, especially once it got dark - doing the desperate free-climbing traverse on wet rock being dragged off by two heavy 60m ropes. Followed by an awkward diagonal abseil back down.

That night I told Martin that next morning's first pitch, the crux of the climb, was his. Better that only one of us got a bad night's sleep, rather than that all three of us should lie awake worrying about it! Martin did a great job of leading the C3 21st pitch - clean A3, no hammered placements - mind you, this pitch is rated A3 anyway, pegs don't make it any easier because it consists of a fragile flake that you climb largely on skyhooks and camhooks with only the occasional RP placement for (illusory?) protection. To make matters worse, there's a ledge to hit at the bottom of the pitch if you fall off. As if that wasn't enough, there was a helicopter working a rescue on the far side of the valley and landing in El Cap Meadow for most of the four hours Martin spent solving the pitch.

After that there was only one night left on the wall, on Granite Beach II, another sloping ledge perched out on a promontory - I got there in the dark, following a short pendulum in the pale blue light of my diode headlamp.

The last day was sunshine, fun climbing (including a long, easy free-climbing traverse across a flake system) and those mixed feelings you have at the top of a good wall climb. Like reading a good book - you're keen to find out how it finishes, but wish it could go on for ever. But then it was over - at least for this time.

We had a few more days before we flew back to Sweden, but there was no question of going up onto another wall, and barely even of going free-climbing. In The Yosemite (1912), Yosemite's self-appointed prophet, John Muir, describes El Capitan as "...a plain, severely simple, glacier-sculptured face of granite, the end of one of the most compact and enduring of the mountain ridges, unrivaled in height and breadth and flawless strength." (Muir is so revered in Yosemite literature and lore that some irreverent soul was goaded into inscribing on the wall of a Camp 4 toilet the graffito "John Muir died for your sins.")

Mescalito was first climbed over ten days in 1973 by Charlie Porter, Steve Sutton, Hugh Burton and Chris Nelson. When asked why the route was named Mescalito , Sutton replied, "It's the power of peyote." As Martin commented, few of these routes on El Capitan would have been climbed in the early seventies without drugs. For us, the climb itself is drug enough. We're high, and it takes several days to come down. By then it is time to fly home to Sweden. We hung out at the Yosemite Lodge Cafeteria, we wandered around the valley floor taking photos, we enjoyed being up and we enjoyed being down. Till next time.

Mescalito (VI 5.8 A3), El Capitan, Yosemite Valley, California, USA. A "clean" ascent (no hammered placements), Rick McGregor, Martin Morell, Calle-Peter Engström, 26 pitches, 7 days on the climb plus 3 days fixing, Sept. 2002.

 

(Published in New Zealand Climber 2003) 

Senast uppdaterad: 2004-10-17