Rescue after Rockfall on Freestone (Yosemite) - Avoid or Proceed with Caution

Also- what's wrong with all the other belays that didn't blow? They gotta get drilled up too?   I'm so confused

Conner, I haven’t climbed in Yosemite for years for various reasons, but the last time I did, it was the FA of Milestone on Basket Dome. 19 pitches, one 12b pitch, fourteen 5.11 pitches, all new climbing, and all bolted belays. I’m sure JC will have some punkass Bingo quip, but you asked. Are you implying my opinion on Freestone is immaterial because I didn’t climb there in the last year?

Imagine no fees or camping limits in Camp 4. Camp boundaries were the road and the horse trail, you could drive your car to your site. There were maybe a dozen routes on El Cap. When I did The Salathe Wall there were no other climbers anywhere on the entire Southwest Face for 5 days. There were a few 5.11 routes, and nothing harder. Bolting was kept to a minimum, over bolting and hangdogging were ridiculed. Routes that are classics today were untouched. This environment bred climbs and climbers that are few and far between these days. 

If Ron or Dale is cool with adding bolts for the candyasses who can’t endure a hanging belay on a 75 degree slab, bust out the drill. Otherwise it’s a breach of ethics. If it was my route, I’d say no. You kids have camming devices that can build a bomber anchor there, so why bolt the belay? The FA did it with hexes in cracks that size 50 years ago, and I didn’t hear any whining about dangerous anchors when they got back to camp. Only about Dale running it way out on the 11c off width, and what a great day out it was. You guys will likely be pushing a cam in front of you up that same corner, and hanging on it if you get pumped. That’s fine, because it doesn’t alter the route.

Bridwell’s enhancement of the finger locks is unfortunate, but it’s part of the first ascent story that will endure. One of the only “rules” in American climbing is that you don’t add bolts to an existing route without approval of the FA, and there are still some climbers that will protest it and chop added bolts even if it’s not their route. Hopefully that will happen here. That route calls for a big rack - use it on the belay. The leader doesn’t need it for the next pitch.

Millennials’ attitude of entitlement is antithetical to the spirit of Yosemite classics.

John Clark wrote:

1, 4, 5, & 6 on KW bingo

refresher from the sport thread for the uninitiated

JC- link to said sport thread?  This is too good to not have the full context.

John, it's extremely rude of you to continue referencing this silly bingo game... and not provide a link to the original thread!

Kevin Worrallwrote:

Conner, I haven’t climbed in Yosemite for years for various reasons

So why don't you just shut up

There’s a distinct difference between seizing opportunity and being entitled

Just A Climber wrote:

Do the "rules" provide instructions on how to get their approval after the FA has deceased? 

Also where can I buy a copy of the rulebook?  

Kevin Worrallwrote:

There’s a distinct difference between seizing opportunity and being entitled

That difference is called perspective. 

The “rules” say if all members of the FA team are deceased - “sack up n go or pack up n go”

Bridwell uttered these very words to me the day he died. You guys that want to put belay bolts next to A1 cracks on a fifty year old Yo classic still have Dale and Ron to talk to. Dale’s a nice guy, Ron is too, sometimes. 

Upgrading FA bolts, in their original holes, is always appreciated. Maybe those that want to drill on established Yosemite classics should do that instead.

You guys disrespecting older climbers should be able to do what we did with the same protection we had, no problem! Y’all train in the gym, and are so much more skilled, right? Plus your shoes have that new sticky rubber and you have harnesses and those expando crack thingies for pro.

some of KW’s #3s have been redacted or retracted (un)fortunately.

Hope the virtue signaling pays off for you, JC

edit: I look forward to schooling you guys when the cancel culture clock runs out

John Clark wrote:

Come on people. 1,4,5, & 6 on the bingo card just isn’t getting anyone beer, except for me, because I am like KW and get to make up the rules since I was playing the game first

Doesn't "sack up" count for #3? Getting #2 seems really hard, you should just pin out that section of the rules to make the whole thing go.

Andy Shoemakerwrote:

Also where can I buy a copy of the rulebook?  

I’ll settle for “used in good condition.”  But really looking for one signed by the author(s). 

Kevin Worrallwrote:

You guys disrespecting older climbers should be able to do what we did with the same protection we had, no problem!

Kevin, we're about the same age with the same perspective on climbing from our formative years. With that....

1. I agree with much in this thread (from the younger climbers) about adding bolts where needed. We're not talking about the comfort of a hanging belay; we're talking about a belay where one of the primary anchor flakes/cracks has fallen off and the other doesn't look much more stable.

2. I'm really getting tired of your old man screaming at the clouds shtick. BITD, if you could have put in a bolt with 40 seconds of drilling, you would have instead of dicking around with crappy knifeblades behind questionable flakes.

This thread has become a really nicely and neatly consolidated list of people to adamantly avoid tying in with though, so not just entertaining, but practical as well!

I agree with much in this thread (from the younger climbers) about adding bolts where needed. We're not talking about the comfort of a hanging belay; we're talking about a belay where one of the primary anchor flakes/cracks has fallen off and the other doesn't look much more stable.

2. I'm really getting tired of your old man screaming at the clouds shtick. BITD, if you could have put in a bolt with 40 seconds of drilling, you would have instead of dicking around with crappy knifeblades behind questionable flakes.

1) I see 3 different sections of crack that could provide a gear anchor. I know granite well enough to know that there’s a bomber anchor to be had w/o drilling.

2) Wrong. You obviously don’t get the mindset of the era in Yosemite when Freestone was first climbed. Have you ever done one of my face routes on MCR where I dicked around “with crappy knife blades behind questionable flakes?”. Or are you presuming? The goal of those routes was to climb the chosen face using as few bolts as possible, simple as that. Even if we had a power drill, that goal would have prevailed. This is a mindset you apparently don’t get, Marc, and basically all climbers 40 years or younger can’t viscerally grasp.

There was an evolution of attitudes towards bolting climbs which led to that place that made perfect sense at the time. If you weren’t there then, and in the years  before then, you’ll never fully understand it. Call it ego if you like, I call it boldness and commitment mixed with good style, vision and minimal gear.

Nuff said

Your turn JC

For those who haven't been the route:

• The top "belay spot" is a hollow and decomposing flake immediately below the runout face crux. I know multiple people who have broken the rock and ripped cams there, even when the 40' fall wasn't directly onto the belay.
• The middle "belay spot" is a paper thin flake you can flex with your hands.
• The bottom "belay spot" is fully hanging in the middle of the crux of the previous pitch.

Adding a couple drilled threads would be a ridiculous but "bolt free" solution.

Austin Donisanwrote:

For those who haven't been the route:

• The top "belay spot" is a hollow and decomposing flake immediately below the runout face crux. I know multiple people who have broken the rock and ripped cams there, even when the 40' fall wasn't directly onto the belay.
• The middle "belay spot" is a paper thin flake you can flex with your hands.
• The bottom "belay spot" is fully hanging in the middle of the crux of the previous pitch.

Adding a couple drilled threads would be a ridiculous but "bolt free" solution.

Wait one minute. Are you saying the stone isn't 100% fixed in time and space like our honorable camp-forefathers' rules are?  Bogus. 

This is flake news.

And I said “he took a factor 2 fall?” He continues to look at me utterly perplexed and says “what the hell is a factor 2?” He didn’t have a clue lol, said he’d never heard the term in his life.

You should have said he took a 20 footer and Ron would have understood immediately. Why give him newfangled dumb shit like  2 factor fall statements to old school dudes?

From the OP:

The climber on pitch 4 took a factor 2 onto his anchor which consisted of 4 cams in a downward facing flake.

Apparently there is an anchor there that held a factor 2 fall. I’m sure the climbers were freaked out after this incident, and their assessment of the new anchor possibilities was likely influenced by that. They also rapped off that anchor. I doubt the flake is actually “paper thin” after all that.

I haven’t done the route, but I have been up there to photograph Jeff Perrin and Ken Yager climbing it. The pitch below uses small gear, and the crux pitch in the corner up high  calls for bigger stuff, meaning the leader of pitch 3 should have big stuff left on his rack when he reaches the belay. Adding an anchor cam a few moves above the belay in the right facing flake would seem to make the belay even more solid.

And bryans - I have no desire to win a popularity contest with modern climbers. I do feel obligated to remind them of the roots of Yosemite climbing. Feminism has obviously convinced you that what was once respected as bravery is now to be denounced as toxic masculinity.

JC - I have an 18 year old daughter off to college this year. Milestone on Basket Dome was named for her just before she was born, and as expected, the last serious climb away from San Diego County that I’ve done. As to repeats of MCR routes - I have redone Bircheff Williams, Jigsaw, Freewheelin, and Quicksilver. By nature I’m motivated to explore, rarely repeat routes, and have almost exclusively climbed new routes since I left Yosemite in the mid 70’s. 

So Kevin you haven't and will never climb this route?

I have a simple solution that I think would work for the both of us for all these expando flakes around the valley. We can keep the gear anchors and shitty pins but we should fill all the cracks with sika to make sure they don't fall off like on freestone. Much better than drilling 2 3/8" holes I would say. 

Hey Kevin LOL

Same old shit as ever with these over intellectual forum wankers eh  LOL

FreeStone is one of the most awesome routes in Yosemite Valley

And yeah , I've done it 12 times