RNWF IAD strategies

Does anybody have a good beta breakdown for climbing RNWF in a day? What does it make sense to simul? What should the follower climb vs jug? Obvious points to switch leads?

I probably have plenty of margin to just yolo it, but it would be nice to have at least some strategy going in.

I think if I did it again I would bring a tagline and haul the pack. Jugging with it sucks. Your choice if the follower jugs or TR solos. 

We did no simuling. 10 hrs base to summit. Switched after the Robin's traverse  and again after the Thank God ledge.

Hey! Me and my buddy are hopefully going up on Saturday, anyone know if the springs are running?

Wow I would not have expected anybody to say haul a pack. I hate packs so much, but jugging with one is the only thing that seems ok. I'd almost considering not bringing one at all, though.

Did you shortfix at all for that 10 hour ascent? I'm guessing not if you want to haul a pack next time.

Many of the approach hike fixed lines were missing or covered in waterfalls during our May ascent.

My party did a 23hr base to summit time. Follower jugged. I hauled a small pack sometimes.  I mistakenly did not shortfix. Instead of short fixing we were linking pitches whenever available with our 70m rope. Overall I think this slowed us down. I linked all three of the middle chimneys and that was the worst. Pretty much ran out of rope while trying to fix the line for jugging and communication was impossible. After the next bit of climbing we took a 15-20 minute break on big sandy ledge.  

The first 10 pitches go pretty quick and are relatively easy free climbing maxing at 5.10.

The next 15 pitches were not as fast for us. On Thank God Ledge traverse pitch, the rope lodged itself stuck inside of some cam lobes in the middle. Don’t let the rope go in there; extend pieces over the lip with slings. This pitch began in fading daylight and ended with headlamps. 

The last 3-4 pitches were dripping with snow melt in May and were totally soaking wet so the 5.4-5.7 climbing to casually finish up the top out felt wayyy harder than reading the topo implied to us. There appeared to be many variations of bolt lines to follow on some of the slabs. 

If I did it again I would short fix with shorter pitches utilizing every anchor as a rebelay. Follower could jug, or TR solo. Figure out how to ditch the backpack. Have a 100-200ft 4-6mm tag line for exchanging rack while short fixing. Otherwise, just being a stronger free climber to move over the 5.10-5.12 terrain faster would help the most. The second could still fix and follow. 

I heard they rebolted the rope toss knot trick so you don’t have to do that anymore. 

Austin Donisanwrote:

Wow I would not have expected anybody to say haul a pack. I hate packs so much, but jugging with one is the only thing that seems ok. I'd almost considering not bringing one at all, though.

Did you shortfix at all for that 10 hour ascent? I'm guessing not if you want to haul a pack next time.

No short fixing. Jugging in the chimneys were especially bad with a pack. I would have preferred to just free climb without it. Down low my partner didn't appreciate the 6L of water we carried up. It was also November and we had a fair amount of layers in the pack for when the sun went down. 

Hauling a pack would also allow the leader to refuel more often, which I think is a huge benefit. 

Thanks for beta all. Treat this as a mostly normal free climb is what I'm getting. Mabye we'll still short fix and tr solo some pitches.

Where would a mid-11 valley onsight climber want ladders as the leader? The new bolt ladder? The zig zags and commit to aiding them? I'm trying to decide how many ladders to bring total.

Bring a full pair of jugs? Or have 2 micros for tr soloing and make do with those? Or maybe 1 and 1.

Rack recommendations? Currently planning on bringing .1, .2, 2x black totem, 3x.3-.5, 2x.75-1, 1x2-3, no hooks, no nuts

Definitely going to check out the approach 2 days before instead of onsighting it in the dark. And 2L of water each harness is what I was thinking instead of a pack. Probably just walk the long way back down afterwards.

Austin Donisanwrote:

Rack recommendations? Currently planning on bringing .1, .2, 2x black totem, 3x.3-.5, 2x.75-1, 1x2-3, no hooks, no nuts

Can't comment on the route as I've not done it, but TBH, I can't imagine going on any long Yosemite route without a basic set of nuts.

Bring a stiffy for one move on the upper pitches. 

Awesome, thanks for all the suggestions. The recommendations for larger cams are all over the place. The Sloan guide is surprisingly light (1-2 ea 2”-3”) compared to say the SuperTopo (double to #4). Single 2-4 was fine on the Nose so I think going on the low end here should be fine.

I'm guessing the stiffy is for p22? It seems like some people bring a hook, but a stiffy might be more useful in general.

As someone who has gotten caught out by snow and cold twice trying to do this in Sept/Oct, my rec is to do it in summer when there is more light and lighter clothing

after reviewing our 24 pitch topo, we did it in 20 pitches using a 70 m rope. A solid 5.11 leader could probably get away with super light aiders, probably just a pair of nylon double slings tied into a pair of two step ladders. You could girth hitch a sling to the end of the two steps to extend as needed. I was happy to have double cams to 3 and 1 #4, but I have not yet free'd 5.11 in the valley! I don't really recall placing any stoppers though. 

I'm a mid 5.10 valley climber and did it 14 hours base to summit last week at a casual pace, leading every pitch, and felt like I could have gone faster with a more experienced follower. I didn't short-fix other than the super easy pitches before the Robbins traverse. Im a decent aid climber and the zig zags felt scary for my to try short fixing on and I would have had to backclean and extend much more than I did. I wouldn't overthink it too much if you're a 5.11 climber and have some decent aid experience for the zig zags. The first half of the route goes very quick and from the zig zags on went much slower for us. I remember placing very few nuts. Triple totems with a few offsets made it a breeze and for sure could have gone lighter. Used a set of metolius pocket ladders with an alfifi and no daisies. Spring was going strong last Thursday. Bivied two nights at the base and fixed three pitches which helped our speed quite a bit. Follower only free climbed a few pitches mainly right before the zig zags from what I can remember. I French freed on most pitches and fully freed only maybe 6-7 pitches the entire route, all under 10- or so.

Got back from HD c2c, I lead all but ~2 pitches and it was pretty fun. Our plan was to shortfix and tr solo/jug everything, but I led faster than my partner followed so it didn't work out the best. Got stuck behind a party that we hesitated to pass for 5 pitches before passing them in the zig-zags. My partner also hurt his heel in a fall which slowed us down from the zig-zags on.

• Onsighted the slabs in the dark in 2:45, so not terrible. A combination of the Steph Abegg photo overlay + Google Maps worked great.
• The start was comfortable, but pitches ~13-20 were cold. 2L pp of water was way too much; 0.5L pp would have been enough. Glad I brought a shell+puffy. Valley forecast was 65F.
• Never placed a 0.2, only placed the black totem twice and could have brought just 1. Only placed the 2+3 on Thank God Ledge; next time no 3.
• Brought ~5 small offset nuts and really only placed 1, but they were good to have because I relied on a lot of fixed nuts. Offsets cams would have been nice in a few spots, but really not necessary.
• Brought 1 pocket ladder for the leader and it worked well. I faked my way up the aid climbing at a reasonable pace, probably french free half of the bolt ladders and using the ladder for half of the zig zags.
• Splitting pitch 12 isn't actually a great idea because the gear for the anchor is the gear you need for the rest of the pitch.
• Pitch 22 was a bit exciting (but also marred by a drone hovering right above me the entire time). There was nowhere a stiffy would have helped, but I wound up doing a 5.10 deadpoint to a mini-jug above the final bolt.
• Going down the death slabs was incredible slow and sketchy and I'll never do it again. The trail would've been 1.5 hours faster.

Edit: The gear described is for me personally and please don't get sandbagged by it. I ran out most of the 5.9 and easier climbing and freed almost all of the 5.10.

The 10+ (ish? at least the section I freed) of off-finger crack towards the end of of p12 is pretty sweet. Probably the best crack climbing on the route since I love corner cracks.

The sun first hit just as I stood on Thank God Ledge and it felted staged. I was pretty wrecked and at a few points of the traverse I was just resting flopped on my stomach looking down.

On the p22 slab I looked over and saw people watching from the summit and it definitely made me feel heroic and try a bit harder.