Rope Solo El Capitan

What is a good route to rope solo for a climber that is a novice (But been climbing many years) on rope soloing on El Capitan. Of course I would have trained on a bunch of easier single and multi pitch routes. Seems like the following criteria may be appropriate:

  Bailable

  Easier climbing

  Little thin pro

  Ledges

  No traverses

  No overhangs

  Not too steep

  No nailing

  Fixed anchors

  Not crowded

  No mandatory free climbing harder than 5.9

  C1 or C2 max

  Not Too many Mashies in a row

Can you think of other criteria?

Nose. Have fun 

I think any route that meets the majority of your criteria is going to be very crowded, and I also don't think any route actually meets those criteria.  lurking fear is maybe the closest but that can get busy, and the bivy ledge situation is pretty fickle. 

zodiac seems to be a popular first solo wall, but misses your mark in various ways.

great objective goal, but i think you'll need to budge on some of your criteria.  goodluck, and if you go for it be sure to post up a trip report! 

In my experience a route that is tough to bail off of increases your chance for success. 

In my initial post I used the word "may" regarding the criteria. I realize no route meets all the criteria but what routes meets the most of my criteria?

I don't know about you but I'd take desert C3 over 5.7 free climbing while rope soloing. Wall free grades don't fuck around.

Haha, I remember well my first few introductions to “mandatory 5.7 free move” on valley walls, pucker factor was at 11.

John, the nose is bailable from ANYWHERE, and easy at that. Free climbing is plentiful - and fun, IMO - if you’re competent bouncing between ladders and freeing/frenching, you should have a blast. Traverses are all mild, ledges are plentiful, and (hopefully) nothing stops you from doing it mid-week, when there’s often no crowds. I’ve used a purple C3 and red Z4 but there’s literally no C2 if you have those+black totems, and are tall. Only 3-4 pitches are “steep,” most everything else is laid over or mild enough. With a 70m, you can link at least half the route, or more - that’s a massive time savings.

Maybe rope solo the Column first, to get the kinks out?

Always amazed how many people ask these questions when there is such incredible amounts of beta on all these routes already out there. Perhaps do some research and think a bit on your own?

Brandon Adamswrote:

Always amazed how many people ask these questions when there is such incredible amounts of beta on all these routes already out there. Perhaps do some research and think a bit on your own?

True. One method I like is to go actually try the first 2-4 pitches of something, find out what a PITA it is to rope solo, and vow to never do that again, haha.

Brandon, your comments were not helpful. I have done a bunch of research on this but was just using Mountain Project as another resource. I've been climbing for 35 years and have been to amazing places and done some amazing things so with all this background I have slowly acquired some limited ability to "think on my own". In the future why don't you engage your brain before you engage your mouth or maybe you don't have the ability to "think on your own"?

Thanks loads for all your help. In past years I have climbed, with partners, Zodiac (led all the pitches, with my largest cam being a #3, Matt dropped the number 4 on the second pitch), Salathe, Nose, etc so I have some experience but very little rope soloing.

Brandon Adamswrote:

Always amazed how many people ask these questions when there is such incredible amounts of beta on all these routes already out there. Perhaps do some research and think a bit on your own?

Personally I’m amazed at comments like this one. Internet forums literally exist so that knowledgeable people can share information with less knowledgeable people. Asking experienced people for their opinion is, in fact, research.

I clearly understand why someone would ask “I’m thinking of rope soloing el cap, here are some criteria I’m considering, what do you think?”

I really don’t understand the person who says, in response, “why don’t you figure it out for yourself?”

I would encourage you to just go try it, especially as the lower pitches of EC will be reasonably dry enough in march, most likely… and just do a sickle run, no hauling, see how it goes. 

I had kicked around the idea myself, then I did one sickle run and it was so ridiculously laborious and slow that I immediately texted a buddy (who had done the same thing the week prior and given me the inspiration) and said “eff this, I am NEVER doing this again.”

Who knows, you might be hooked, but at least you’ll have a very clear, real world answer as to how plausible it is to achieve your goals, or at least better understand what it’s going to entail. Good luck

I'd say go for Tangerine Trip or Zodiac. The hauling is easy, the routes are easy, the walk off is easy and you can bail upwards at any point!

I reckon you'd annoy a lot of people on the Nose/Salathe/Lurking Fear unless you're really quick and dialled and as a result wouldn't have such a good experience.

Initial post I was 90% for calling this a troll but after several replies 50/50 that OP is for real?

I think that the criteria are probably more or less the same as for new big wall climbers doing their first route. I'm coming round to the view that not having crowds around is an underrated criteria and more inexperienced people should back themselves on harder less trafficked routes. Not that people don't think that less crowds would be nice, but it should be higher up the list.

Increasingly I feel like telling all the first time big wallers to go to Washington Column and do the SWF is a ploy by guidebook writers / experienced big wallers to keep the noobs contained in one place out of their way! That's (hopefully) not really the case, but it does cause problems. Trying to do your first big wall is not easy, it's even less easy when there's a team infront of you messing things up all the time, making you wait for belays/do weird stuff at belays and another team behind you making you feel pressured and yet another team bailing/abbing the route and getting in the way. All this exists when you're soloing as well, plus there's no-one at the lower belay to stop the team behind setting up a really inconvenient belay on top of yours, plus you're probably even slower.

Whereas if you back yourself on a harder less trafficked route: Maybe it takes you longer to lead the pitches, but you don't have to wait just under the anchor for half an hour for the team ahead to leave. You still have your massive cluster at the anchor, but there's no other team also attached to the same anchor making it worse and there's no team behind making you feel time pressured to fix it quickly.

I suppose there's a few reasons people don't do this:

It's scary to try a hard route.

It's more embarrassing to bail off a route because it was too hard than because of traffic.

People don't want to nail (me included).

People want to do routes with gear they already have, not buy a load of beaks/hooks/rivet hangers.

Disclaimer: I do very little aid climbing or big walling...

I'm 79 years old and really like to do things. As Fell Over and others have pointed out, climbing popular routes makes the climbing much more difficult. Thinking about my other criteria, what would be a less crowded route but probably harder and what makes it harder?

Many moons ago I was headed for a day of sport cragging at a local crag. Me and my mate like to start early and leave early, so we got there early. The sun was just barely up. As I pulled up to park at the trailhead, surprise, a flat bed rancher's truck was already there. What? Someone here earlier than us? Unheard of!

This flatbed had apparently just parked, because the door flew open and this old guy leaps out (I swear, he lept!) and proceeds to busy himself. What was he doing?

Some idiots had decided to have a campfire, right in the middle of the dirt parking trailhead "lot," right in front of a road-closed sign. The guy in the pickup had a bucket and a shovel and he had taken it upon himself to clean up this god awful mess. 

I'm 79 years old and really like to do things.

Like hard sport climbing and hard crack climbing, and now, soloing big walls maybe too.

This Mr. Robinson is not new. And he's probably still climbing circles around the likes of me.

Damn! 79 and thinking of soloing El Cap!

Good luck finding a route (Tangerine Trip or Virginia are my suggestions)

Keep me posted! This is cool! 

Does Tangerine Trip have fully bolted anchors?

The route you would most likely want to solo on El Cap based on your criteria would be Lurking Fear.  It is lower angle and easier, but tends to be crowded.  There are a few crappy bivy ledges, but you would want to bring a portaledge. Your pigs will get stuck so you will need to be familiar with far end hauling.  You might get it clean, but everyone should always carry two each #1 #2 and #3 peckers/beaks/Tomahawks.  

Zodiac is somewhat harder, and has some decent A3 climbing on it. If you're a real pro like David Allfrey, you could climb it clean.  Pretty much the rest of us need to nail in a few places. The route is steep and so the hauling is much easier.  

The Trip has good bolted belays as noted above, but it's not the greatest route. It is less likely to be crowded accordingly. An easier way to get up is to start on Lost in America, move onto Virginia and climb Virginia to the 4th belay of the Trip, then follow the Trip to the top. The next pitch is a diagonal traverse called the Avatar pitch - it's not that hard if you know what you're doing.

If you don't already own a copy of our book [with Fabio Elli] please message me! The book is called HOOKING UP - The Ultimate Big Wall Aid Climbing and Big Wall Manual. Not only is it El Cap-centric, but it has the best chapter on soloing big walls you will find anywhere. By owning this book, reading it and applying it, you will save enough time, money, heartache and effort to completely underwrite the cost of the book many times over! This is not Big Wall Theory, this is Big Wall Fact.

You can read about it here: mountainproject.com/forum/t…

You can message me directly through this website, and I can get the details out to you. I am mailing out a bunch of books this week, so hit me up straight away!

Cheers, eh?

"Pass the Pitons" Pete aka Dr. Piton

P.S.  79, eh?  Dang. I wanna be just like you when I grow up*. I'm 64, and my "most recent" solo of El Cap was in 2015.  I was about to say my "last" solo, but maybe not.  
*Growing old is inevitable. Growing up is optional.