Classic Big Wall. Great for someone getting ready to try something on El Cap. The Route has some great exposure and will test anyone new to walls. The bolt ladders are reachy and there are some sections that you need to get high up in your aiders if your not tall. There are some sections that you need hooks but the hook moves are really bomber. Pitch 6 has a section of hooks and heads with good pro in between. The hauling on the route is good till you get to pitch 10. At pitch 10 watch the haul bag eating flake cause it will eat your pig then your right into the gully. Pitch 11 is more gully then into a blocky section for more crappy hauling, then the last pitch sucks to haul also. The Super Topo gear list is a bit heavy but offset cams and offset nuts make things a lot more easy. I didn't think pitch 7 was C2 but that may be because I had 2 sets of hybrid aliens and a set of HB offsets. As far as Bivy goes, there are no god natural ledges so your on you portaledge the whole way up. Oh and bring a small beak to get past heads with broken cables, or look around for bat holes.
Location
Washington's Column
Protection
My Gear list would be
Cams 1 each .4 2 each .5 to 3.5 1 each hybrid aliens (double green/yellow)
Nuts 1 set nuts 1 set offset nuts 1 set micro nuts 1 set micro offset nuts
Hooks 1 cliffhanger 1 talon 1 cam hook (I never used it) 1 beak (to get passed dead heads)
You can bring heads if you want but I'm sure you can bypass the bad ones by hooking.
All the bolts are super bomber so leave the drill on the ground.
By Jon Richard From: St. Louis, Missouri Jan 24, 2007
Classic Big Wall Route. The route was first ascended by Royal Robbins. It offers a great introduction to moderate clean aid. Super steep and super fun. This route is more exposed than the South Face.
[Bring a] standard Free Rack. Bring some heads and a hammer in case the fixed heads blow.
Robbins took heat after the FA for the 38 bolts placed. Quoting TM Herbert from McNamara/Roper's Supertopo Bigwalls book: "Robbins, Robbins, not you, not you, man. Hell, you'll set a bad example. Pretty soon we'll have guys bolting up blank walls all over the valley." Robbins' response: "But man, it's all a question of the climb being worth it. Worth the number of bolts. Look at the line, man, look at the line." (The Supertopo Bigwalls book is full of good history, and worth picking up on that merit alone; the topos ain't bad either;).
Great Wall. My first and I lead and hauled every pitch. The "haul bag eating flake" is just that. There are a ton of bat hook holes that I never used once. The only hook I used was my sky hook. Some of the heads look like the cables might go soon but bring a beak to bypass that. All in all a great route and super straight forward.
Washington Column
RSS Feed
