Salathe trip report

Salathe trip report

[cross-posted at BigWalls.com - sorry, I'm a ham.]

Outstanding. Sounds like a slog. Awesome write up.

Excellent work! How you made it up that wall hauling 160lbs is beyond me...

Awesome Report!
My wife and I saw you guys from the meadow...

David Aguasca wrote:Excellent work! How you made it up that wall hauling 160lbs is beyond me...

The pigs got a good bit lighter each day.
We actually left 3 liters of water at Heart Ledges because we figured ~20 liters per dude was too much. Without the extra water Dave hiked up to the top, we would have ended up 3 liters short...

Great send, Greg & Wally!
Did elcap-pics see you up there?

was the hollow flake as bad as it seemed? you had a homemade cam for this pitch? how far did you have to run it out?

though it sounds like the roof pitch up high was more eventful.

Steve - We gave Tom a beer at the bridge. His photos are labeled in the slideshow.
Paul - Wally led that pitch, and I think it was as hard or harder than expected. I'll let him chime in on the particulars, but the cam made it more than 3/4 of the way up.
I made the #7 VallyCamaFriendAlot specifically for that pitch, but we ended up using it on 4 different pitches to good effect (Hollow Flake, the chimney after that, the Ear, and the exit chimney on P34.) I got the strongest torsion springs I could find so that it still worked well when tipped out near the 9" mark.

Greg,

That thing is absolutely amazing, thanks for posting the picture!

Which factory in China did the fab work?? Just kidding.

Congratulations to you and Wally ( and Dave ) Awesome work!!!

Thanks for the kudos guys.

David - we used the Chongo 2 to 1 system to haul. The temps were warm - therefore the bags were heavy! - we drank about a gallon of water per person per day, not including all of the applesauce, fruit cocktail, etc. that was also consumed.

Paul - the Hollow Flake certainly has my respect. I thought it was pretty hard. The pro beta for that pitch is right on - bring a #5 for down low, and a #6 - and then you have to run it out for a long way on Yosemite 5.8 (or 5.9??) OW. Having Greg's homemade #7 camalot certainly took some of the commitment out of that pitch for me - I slid it along just about all of the way to the anchors. Lame - sure.!

:<). I am okay with that.

Great climb with very memorable pitches. Harder than the Nose - mostly because of the wide pitches. The Ear was nasty hard. Good stuff.

Climb Ohn. Wally

real nice TR !!

Gregger, that cam is beautiful!

That is an absolutely wonderful TR.

Awesome! I would have shit my pants if I fell below the roof!

how the hell did you make that cam? I know valley giant makes huge 12" cams that you can buy for around 200$ how much did that cost to make?

keenan18 wrote:how the hell did you make that cam? I know valley giant makes huge 12" cams that you can buy for around 200$ how much did that cost to make?

True, I could have bought a Valley Giant -- But I wanted to make a cam. I'm currently working on an offset cam design somewhat similar to an Alien, (but better).
I bought the aluminum for $40. The springs cost about $5.
I build guitars for a living, and one of the tools I use is a ShopBot CNC machine. I made a 3D model on the computer, then cut out the parts using the machine. Voilà: cam.

nice! how'd you get your hands on a machine such as that? great TR, I would love to get on that route at some point.

keenan18 wrote:nice! how'd you get your hands on a machine such as that? great TR, I would love to get on that route at some point.

Thanks - it is a classic route.
20 years ago, buying a CNC machine was a $100K proposition.
Now there are machines in the sub-$2K range.
Learning 3D modeling isn't as easy as getting the machine, though.

Strong Work! Thanks for sharing! That cam looks Sweet!

make me one? I'll sign a wavier so my family won't sue you when the cam breaks and sends my body sailing off on a monster whipper into the slabs below.....

What does the sucker weigh?

I looked up ShopBot CNC machine and they are $8000.