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The Nose - But All The Pitches
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My climbing partner (Bailey) and I climbed the Nose over 7 days (8 if you count fixing pine line and getting supplies ready at the base). We mostly aid and French freed the wall. Bailey and I had been loosely planning to do the Nose at the end of April. The weather had been splitter most of April, but by the time our PTO lined up we checked the forecasts and it didn’t look good. Rain Saturday, Sunday, Wed, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Maybe Sunday. We were really really psyched, but this being my second wall (first was the South Face of Washington Column) made us pause. We flipped between bailing to Tangerine trip or taking our chances and still trying the Nose with rain flys and extra rations. After a couple days of flip flopping and consulting with friends I told Bailey I still really wanted to do the Nose. He agreed and we started hiking loads to the base of pine line. Day 0 - Saturday April 26th   We woke up, met at the El Cap Trailhead and started hiking loads to the base of Pineline. We brought food for 8 days and 15 gallons of water + some gatorades + belay beers. I don’t really drink, but hey if it helps the team I’ll haul it. I remember hiking my last load alone while Bailey was grabbing some supplies while listening to the song “stay” from the film Interstellar thinking “I can’t believe we are going to climb that, we are going to the moon”.    It's raining. Bailey and I meet up in Yosemite lodge to find an outlet to charge our phones and discuss our goals for how many pitches per day. If we can do 5 a day we should be okay. I always struggle with this part of a trip since you really have no idea how you are going to perform on a new type of adventure for the first time. Sometimes you just have to try hard and see how things unfold. I think Bailey felt much more confident since it was his 5th ascent of El Cap. As we were chatting the rain stopped and the sun illuminated the wet pavement outside. This was the sign we had been waiting for. A signal that we must go up.   And up we went - only to pitch 3. Wow 3:1 hauling like 200lbs+ up pine line is really hard. We had one party pass us on P1. by taking the left 11a variation. They were nice dudes and I’m glad we didn’t hold them up. There were a few other parties that were hauling gear to sickle who had already fixed lines. We consulted with those teams while they were jugging and they told us they’d be up early in the morning to start climbing, so we opted to setup our ledges on the top of P3 and put aid ladders through our camp so parties could pass through easily. In retrospect I think we’d get yelled at for doing this when the route is buiser, but since no one wanted to be out there it worked out. No one climbed through our camp at night and we got a good night's rest. I had a salami wrap with Sirachai Mayo for dinner Setting up my BD single ledge was kind of a nightmare. It was tangled and Bailey helped me figure it out. I was kind of losing my mind with all the tangles. So much gear, so many tangles, and figuring it out while hanging required patients I hadn’t quite figured out yet. This would come later in the climb when I fully accepted I needed to be one with the tangles. Bailey told me something on the ground that now was echoing in my head: “Climbing a big wall is just solving one tangle at a time”. I now understand.    As the sun rises we start to eat food and pack up gear. Several teams (4?) are now queued up at Sickle waiting for a party that has built a belay in the middle of Sickle below the 5.9+ hands. We continue to get our stuff packed. I lead pitch 4 and we make it to Sickle ledge. There is now only one party in front of us, but I still need to haul this pitch. As I’m hauling Bailey is lowering out the bags, but by the end of the lower out cord the bags aren’t nearly far enough out underneath me. Bailey lets the cord go through the end of the munter and the bags swing out below me. Time to haul!  It's dark now and we setup camp in the middle of the stove legs. We make sure to setup a set of aid ladders around our camp and make a dedicated master point for people to short fix with on top of our anchor. This turns out to be a good call as a NIAD team passes our camp that night in the dark.
Day 3 - Tuesday 29th - Pitch 8 to 12 I awake in the early dark morning to the shouts of a climber and belayer far below us. They are moving fast. I rest my eyes, the sun rises, and I see Justine making her way up the Stove legs.   Her and Ryan are on their first NIAD attempt - they sent! I met Justine a while back while cragging with my friends Sam and Gareth in Red Rock. The more I climb the more I keep bumping into the same people but in different locations. We pack up camp and get to work. While climbing I hear bird noises emanating from the crack I’m putting a .5 into and I realize there are some Swifts in there:  We have a cruiser day and make good progress. I feel like I’m past the learning phase of hauling, docking, and lowering out bags. Dolt tower was pretty cool and we met one more party doing a dolt run. My anxieties about our pace are slightly waning. The hauling is getting easier as the wall gets more vertical and we drink more water.   As I’m freeing the last pitch to El cap tower I pull on a mega jug. It moves and I almost take a huge whip. I scream and get back to a safe stance, find a place to get a blue totem in and blast up. El cap tower is totally empty and we camp out on what is now my favorite ledge in the valley. We sleep well Day 4 - Wednesday 30th - Pitch 13 to 15   We awake feeling rested. Being able to stand feels good. I lead the start of the Texas flake starting on the left side of the flake looking towards El cap. I make my way all the way level with the bolt and start to freak out. I don’t have a ton of wide experience and my legs are really starting to burn. I slowly traverse to the bolt and clip it. I try to make my way up and one of my legs slip. I don’t fall but I’m scared. I down climb to the bolt and rest. I try one more time and get maybe 7 feet above the bolt and down climb. I radio Bailey that I’m pretty spooked and I don’t want to fall, get hurt, and potentially risk our climb. He graciously agrees to lead the rest of the chimney and we switch. This was a low point for me. On one hand I feel like I should have crushed a 5.8 chimney and I’m a loser for backing off. On the other hand I know if I fuck up there it could be very bad and Bailey has much more wide experience than I do. In retrospect I should have trained more wide runout climbs. The nose is not the place to learn how to chimney climb. Ultimately I’m glad I backed off. It is what it is. Bailey cruises the chimney and tells me that I had bad beta. He ended up getting out left and putting his back against the flake. He used the foot holds on the face to make his way up. While I’m belaying Bailey up the Texas flake a Raven joins me   Many times during this climb I think to myself “wow the free climbing up here looks amazing, one day I’ll be better and free this”. The boot flake looked so sick.
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(2/2) That attitude didn’t last very long as the rain started to build. And build. And now it's hail. I think “a little bit of hail, no biggy, the climbing will keep me warm”. More hail, my fingers are getting cold. The hail and rain blur my vision. I’m soaking wet and it’s time to stop. I call Bailey on the radio and we come up with a plan. Bailey sets up his ledge with fly while I build a bomber gear anchor and fix the haul line to it. During this process the hail, wind, and rain are just getting worse. My fingers are cold. I’m cold. I descend/ traverse/ ascend the haul line back to the top of the boot flake and crawl under the rain fly on the portaledge. I strip off as many wet layers as I can and put on some dry jackets. A NIAD team watches us from the valley floor and grabs a picture just as the hail rolls in. red = Grayson, yellow = Bailey  We use the stove to warm up the air in the rain fly and make some warm meals. The thunder roars and the portaledge illuminates with flashes of lighting that seem to be coming from somewhere across the valley. It's LOUD. It reminds me of the daily thunderstorms I encountered on the John Muir Trail. The rain stops for a few minutes and I fish out our sleeping bags to warm up. The portaledge is now 40% filled with puffy jackets and sleeping bags.  The rain passes and there is still some sunlight left in the day, so I lead rope solo the last of the pitch while Bailey finishes setting up camp. I sleep well hoping that finishing off that last pitch will put us in a good spot for the next day. Day 5 - Thursday May 1st - Pitch 16 to 21 I’m tired. I’ve been tired. Still tired. Exhausted. My arms hurt, my hips are bruised from hauling. My lips are chapped and I feel sunburned, but I’ve been applying sunscreen. Tired   We pack up camp and start making good time. For the first time on the climb I’m starting to feel more secure in the idea that we will make it to the top. The forecasts show potential rain today and tomorrow and a storm on Saturday. We need to finish by Saturday. Well technically we don’t - we have food and water until Monday but we don’t really want to take that long.    I lead the Great Roof - which was so sick. The sun begins to set as Bailey works on leading up to Camp 5  
Last night was a late night. We get a late start. It doesn’t matter - we are determined to top out.    15 hrs later we top out. I took a 30ft whip at the 5.6 trough on P27 I fell asleep hauling the second to last pitch. It was an overall brutal experience. Day 7 - Saturday 3rd 4:17 am     I awake to small rain drops. I see a storm building in the West but it doesn't look too bad yet. I face time my parents and tell them I’m alive. The rain rolls in and we pack up as much stuff as we can haul down. We debate on taking the East Ledges or Yosemite falls trail. As the rain continues we decide to go down Yosemite falls as slipping on the East Ledges and dying would be super lame. The hike down was brutal and we were post-holding through snow in El Cap meadow. It took like 8 hrs for us to get down. Wet shoes, a 70lb pack. Pain.   We still had like 80lbs of gear up at the top of the Nose we needed to get, but we were too wrecked to get it Sunday. Rest day. I was thoroughly destroyed and just ate food and hung out with new people I met at the church bowl parking lot. Bailey had work and had to leave. Which meant I had to deal with the remaining gear on top of El cap. Pain I jugged up the East Ledges alone and enjoyed a serene hike up to the top of El Cap. Getting the gear down was the most brutal hike of my life. Never ever ever ever again. I could walk for like 4-5 minutes with all the gear on my back before I had to rest. As I made my way down I bumped into a friend who was rapping into work Freerider. Sick! Good luck Xaiver! I had almost made it down to the fixed lines when a NIAD team took pity on me and helped me get my bags down the rest of the East Ledges. To Kate, Laura, and Nate ( I think I got your name wrong, sorry!) Thank you so much. I was so tired and delirious. I owe you one. Kate and Laura got a time of 7:39:30 for their NIAD - congrats again! Wow. The biggest adventure of my life. Over. My hands are still slightly swollen as I type this. Bailey, thanks for climbing with me!  Lessons learned:
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 Here you are hauling Pine Line! |
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Adam J wrote: I have your .5 and I think Bailey has your 1 if you want them back. Did you guys get stuck behind anyone or was it cruiser? Nice job on your ascent too! |
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Was driving back to the valley from Wawona during the Wednesday downpour. Couldn’t believe how much hail had accumulated on the road when we got back and the lightning was very intense. Congrats on the successful ascent! |
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Sweet climb! I we had the same ledge twisting problem on zodiac a few weeks before, there's nothing worse (except maybe the descent with the bags). |
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We passed you in the night! Stoked that you guys didn’t bail, despite the shitty weather. Congrats on the send!!! |
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I really enjoyed reading an account by "normal climbers" as opposed to the elite, so I was able to identify soooo much. Very inspiring and honest writing. "...slipping on the East Ledges and dying would be super lame."--sobering and hilarious at the same time. Congrats on your climb and your determination to not quit, despite the crappy weather! |
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Inspirational, Thanks. |
Daniel Joder wrote: Second this! What an amazing write-up and trip! Congrats! That's a lifetime climb in the books right there! Sure I love my Tommy Caldwell Reelrocks and reading about Ondra and the Wideboys, etc. on El Cap but nothing has compared to reading about someone who, at least, appears actually human, gritting it out and keeping on keeping on! Almost makes me think that I could possibly get on it in two years when I retire at the age of 55! But I would definitely need a strong backed young punk partner to help with the hauling and ferrying! Time to get my 24 year old son into Big Wall aid climbing! ;) |
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Way to get it done Grayson (and Bailey)!! |
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In all reality, a 200 pound pig for 7 days is not heavy. 3:1 would have made it brutally slow but not difficult. |
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Epic adventure! |
Mark Hudon wrote: We didn't actually measure the mass of all our stuff, but now that I'm going back and thinking about it:  |
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Great write up Grayson! The 3:1 hauling wasn't too bad compared to other heavy ascents I've done. One observation I had of Grayson was he was quicker to try hard rather than untangle to solve problems. Although it felt like we would need to work harder to make better pace in the beginning, in reality pacing ourselves was more important as we would get faster on the easier and steeper climbing above. I definitely agree that we over packed a bit, but the weather forecast was not great at blastoff. I decided to teach him 3:1 rather than 2:1 as it was simpler and the power of the system was appreciated during the initial 3 days. One major point for improvement in our hauling was the pulley placed on the ascender for both 2 or 3:1 was a cheap smc one, a higher quality more efficient one would have helped significantly as that wheel does lots of weighted turning. Above el cap tower I switched to 2:1 while he was able to brute force 1:1 allowing us to go much faster. I think the biggest tactical mistake made was not bringing a dedicated lower out line. I wrongfully assumed that we could simply use a pcp to tie in the bags short and lower out off the tail of the rope. This definitely contributed to excessive pig flying and a beat to hell haul rope. The long pitches lower down on route over many edges and ledges meant the 200' haul rope did not have enough lengtg for this operation. One tactic that worked well to counter this though was using a monster munter to lower out, this allowed me to safely be out of the way while the friction of the hitch allowed to lowerout hands free. |
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Your drawing shows a 2:1 system. In your drawing, let's asume that from the Pro Trax down to the ascender is 1 foot. Let's assume that from the Pro Trax down to the pulley is also 1 foot. Grab the rope right next to and on the right side of the pulley and pull up. 2 feet. Classic 2:1. Are you guys in the Bay Area? |
Mark Hudon wrote: Is that not just a 3:1 with a redirect? |
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Mark, I appreciate your advice, but I'm quite certain that's a 3:1. Having extensively this system on 3 walls now, it might not be the fastest but is simple and powerful, it is definitely moving the bags at 1/3 the distance the body moves. When i did the haul to the upper anchor of sickle ledge, I would partially reset by pushing the ascender down the length of my wingspan (6.5') taking 13 feet of slack out, then pull the remaining 6.5 feet through on my belay loop for each ~20' stroke as i hauled by walking down past the lower anchor. The distance i pull through the belay loop represents the progress made while pushing the ascender is simply reseting the system. My 2:1 used a separate cord fixed, redirected through a pulley on an ascender lifting the load then redirected back to my belay loop tied in with a clove, classic chongo ratchet. With a 2:1 your hand needs to pull the rope through the main pulley after each stroke, but not a 3:1 One underrated advantage of the 3:1 is you can make huge strokes between resets without being limited by the length of the 2:1 zed cord. By removing slack by both pushing down the ascender and taking in on the belay loop I could walk up and down the slabs/terraces/ledges and move myself as much as 20ft/stroke. |
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Do the exercise I described. |
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Loved reading this! I could feel the pain & joy. Congrats! |
