Next El Cap route recommendations?

I'm trying to make another valley trip happen in the fall and was wondering if anyone has beta/comparisons on the difficulty of aid pitches on routes on the big stone.  I've done Lurking Fear, The Nose x3, and the Muir.  I would love to make zodiac happen, maybe new dawn or mescalito for something bigger.  What do the hammer swinging hardos think? Is zodiac a good next step after the muir or is there something more moderate to help prepare for more thin placements?

Nose —-> Lurking Fear —> Zodiac 

Is a totally reasonable progression. The wild card on your resume is the Muir- which I haven’t done in a long long time- but I’d guess it’s harder than Zodiac- if only because it’s twice as long and way less traveled.. I would think that you’d find Zodiac cruiser with your experience.. we hammered zero pins and hand place 1 beak a few years back.. nothing on it is harder than Lurking Fear- just lots more of it IMHO. 

Quinn, when did you climb lurking fear? I have heard it is much easier now than it used to be. I climbed it last fall and found it very cruiser. I hardly placed any pieces which I would not whip on, but I probably did get around a few weird sections via 5.10 climbing. On zodiac this spring I found myself praying to the aid gods more than a couple times.

That said, I agree zodiac is fine next route. A hammer solves all of the problems you might have, and you just have to decide how much to use it.

Heya Ben,

Here is a great post by Mark Hudon laying out route difficulty.

https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/123344297/el-cap-routes-i-have-done-by-difficulty

This post = gold.

+1 for Zodiac.  If you’re comfy on camhooks I doubt you’ll need a hammer.

Mescalito is freaking awesome. Zodiac is great, too, but not in the same league IMO. The shield is also very, very cool. Less classic climbing pitches in total but the great pitches are really great and the headwall is probably the most amazing place on all of el cap.

Tree Trujillo wrote:

Heya Ben,

Here is a great post by Mark Hudon laying out route difficulty.

https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/123344297/el-cap-routes-i-have-done-by-difficulty

This post = gold.

I love Mark-

But I’ve done 10 of 14 on his Beginner to Intermediate list and a couple off the Intermediate + ….. 

let’s just say not everyone agrees with that order of difficulty 

@Quinn - fair enough. I'd love to see your list as well. I find them helpful, but more than that, motivating. 

To quote Tom Brady when asked which is his favorite super bowl ring... "The next one!"

I would agree that if you can tackle the Muir Wall then you should be fine on Zodiac.  One thing to note when people start comparing free ascents is how much fixed gear a route has.  This tends to change from time to time and I have seen people go up trade routes with the intention of pulling every fixed piece on the route and putting it back into its "natural state".  So yea when I did Zodiac we did it hammerless with a couple hand placed beaks but there was also fixed pieces in several of the crux sections.  The same was true of Muir wall....we did it clean but there were fixed beaks in the middle of the 3 crux pitches.  I lead the 3 crux pitches of Muir and felt like they were all more "heady" for me than the Black Tower pitch or Mark of Zorro pitch on Zodiac (I didn't lead the 1st pitch or Nipple pitch).  If you want to test yourself go up and lead the 1st pitch of Zodiac just to see and then rap.  My partner felt like that was crux pitch of the route and I would probably agree.  Comparing the above routes to Mescalito, I would say that Mescalito has a harder single pitch and it is just much more sustained difficulty wise.  Definitely a step up from Zodiac and it has almost twice as many pitches.  Mescalito did not go clean for us....we hammered on 2 different pitches.  Can't speak to New Dawn other than it is on my list to do and looks good!  

Thanks everyone. FWIW, I did break out the hammer after a fall on the 24th pitch and zippering some micronuts and smashing into the belay ledge. There was very little fixed gear on the crux pitches in the fall of 21. Trying to psych myself up for a fall trip. Kevin, I think I met you too before starting up the muir that year!

Quinn Hatfield wrote:

I love Mark-

But I’ve done 10 of 14 on his Beginner to Intermediate list and a couple off the Intermediate + ….. 

let’s just say not everyone agrees with that order of difficulty 

Thank you for the love!

No kevin we were a team of two about to start on moby dick

I found Zodiac (clean) easier than the Nose! The Nose is way longer. I also found that the Nose feels like aiding a free climb (easy angle, wide cracks), whereas Zodiac felt hard, steep and thin. On the Nose everything kept getting stuck, me, the ladders, the ladders on me. On Zodiac it was all out in space. I could see my feet and my waist. The hauling was super easy. Possibly I just had more experience (and had read the 2:1 thread), possible because I'm a UK trad climber so much more used to difficult thin placements than 2 inch cracks. I also seem to just trust cam hooks. (Use a quick link to attach one semi permanently to each ladder.)

Just do it, Ben!!!

Did Ben do it?

Haha classic Kevin the ol thread necro police. And yeah Tony, I ended up doing Never Never Land instead of zodiac. Not sure what made me wanna do that, but the route was cool and worth it. Zodiac should be going down this spring! Between my last post, I managed to add more surgical hardware into my body (this time a broken femur) so we will see if I can make it down to the valley in May.

Although zodiac can be climbed in the spring, it's proximity to horsetail falls makes it a better fall route imo. The trip/Virginia gets more ascents in the spring from what I've seen.

I found the Prow + Lurking Fear to be sufficient prerequisites for Zodiac.

Ben Thompson wrote:

Haha classic Kevin the ol thread necro police. And yeah Tony, I ended up doing Never Never Land instead of zodiac. Not sure what made me wanna do that, but the route was cool and worth it. Zodiac should be going down this spring! Between my last post, I managed to add more surgical hardware into my body (this time a broken femur) so we will see if I can make it down to the valley in May.

Pretty hard to break a femur, but I done one too since the last time I climbed El Cap. Hope your recovery is going swimmingly.

Bailey Moore wrote:

Although zodiac can be climbed in the spring, it's proximity to horsetail falls makes it a better fall route imo. The trip/Virginia gets more ascents in the spring from what I've seen.

I found the Prow + Lurking Fear to be sufficient prerequisites for Zodiac.

A bunch of years ago we got like 3 pitches up Zodiac in April.  I was belaying in the sun and things were going well. Suddenly the little mist of water turned into a legit waterfall and my partner was totally drenched.  He went from happy to hypothermic in minutes and I had to lower him off of a piece!  Don't underestimate the afternoon "showers" that happen on that side of the wall.  (This year we have less snowpack than usual, though, so maybe it's not as big of a concern.)