First El Cap Route: Lurking Fear or Triple Direct?

I think triple direct is more appealing due to its shorter approach, higher quality pitches/position and bivy ledges. LF has a lot more hooking and is a bit harder overall. The aid crux pitch on TD is thin, but not too tricky, bring a few beaks.  Triple direct tends to have more people, but the heart lines and free blast both make finding your position on the wall easier. Plus when you reach the nose at camp IV, nose teams will have found some sort of groove.

Freeing 5.10 is awesome and can be useful, but not required. In my 7 ascents of el cap I have never pulled a 5.9 move and usually keep my approach shoes on. Packing, plan/strategy/weather, organization, mental and being an efficient aid climber are what will bring you to the top. When starting out I always took a day zero to approach and pack. While hauling extra food and water sucks, it only takes ~20 lbs to push your duo an additional day. If you really want to top out, practice hauling heavy loads and don't give up. On my 4 ascents of nose/TD with new partners, it has taken 5-6 days each time. Not taking enough time/rations for an ascent is an extremely common and disappointing reason to bail. While Lurking fear can be climbed a bit faster, the longer approach and descent cancel out any saved time.

Bailey Moorewrote:

....LF has a lot more hooking and is a bit harder overall. The aid crux pitch on TD is thin, but not too tricky, bring a few beaks. 

to be clear to the OP, LF has exactly two "mandatory" hook sections (1-2 mellow hook moves and then back on bolts) on the entire route, which are both very well protected, and one possible camhook move, though the camhook is not necessary if you want to bust a free move and/or use a very small offset cam. TD has 2-3 possible camhook sections and (debatably) one potential hook section, though those can usually be aided w/ careful placement of small cams (offsets, c3s, black totem, etc). I would be hesitant to counsel someone to climb one route over another simply b/c of 2-4 hook moves over a 20 pitch span. After P4 on LF you will put the hooks in the bag for the rest of the entire route. I can't think of anywhere on TD that you would be able to place beaks, unless maybe you had zero small cams and zero camhooks (or two). Good weight training to carry though :)

Ben Hostewrote:

I found the Lurking Fear approach easier than Washington Column, for what it’s worth (did them back to back). If you bailed off Lurking Fear before, i would guess that climbing freeblast is going to be a very long and hard day of mixed free with much more aid than you anticipate. 

Boy, that's not how remember it. WC I remember being much easier and half the time than LF.

Depends how big your bags are maybe?

Although the physical aspects of the approach have been well covered, not to be discounted are the psychological implications. I would compare starting up a wall to launching a rocket, where a tremendous amount of energy is expended getting off the launch pad. The rocket barely moves ahead of the huge inferno at first!

One must embrace the suck of the approach. Acknowledge you will be totally knackered looking up a huge wall and unsure of how to assemble the junk show into a haulable unit. Know that it gets better and harness the SRB lurking within you.

Christian Heschwrote:

to be clear to the OP, LF has exactly two "mandatory" hook sections (1-2 mellow hook moves and then back on bolts) on the entire route, which are both very well protected, and one possible camhook move, though the camhook is not necessary if you want to bust a free move and/or use a very small offset cam. TD has 2-3 possible camhook sections and (debatably) one potential hook section, though those can usually be aided w/ careful placement of small cams (offsets, c3s, black totem, etc). I would be hesitant to counsel someone to climb one route over another simply b/c of 2-4 hook moves over a 20 pitch span. After P4 on LF you will put the hooks in the bag for the rest of the entire route. I can't think of anywhere on TD that you would be able to place beaks, unless maybe you had zero small cams and zero camhooks (or two). Good weight training to carry though :)

Isn't pitch 12 of LF quite a few hooks? Nothing to be intimidated by, but as a new aid climber at the time it was memorable.

You don't have to climb Washington Column first to judge your speed/ability to climb El Cap.

Instead you can do a 4+ pitch clean aid route in New England to see if you are fast enough.

Something like Direct Direct on Cannon Cliff or maybe Mordor Wall on Cathedral Ledge (suggested in an earlier post).

On most aid routes on El Cap, like Lurking Fear and most others, you normally climb 4 pitches a day, then set up your hanging bivvy.

So you need to be fast and efficient enough to climb 4 aid pitches, plus break down and set up hanging bivvies, and do the hauling.

All in daylight and without being so tired that you can't climb the next day.

The Gunks are good for doing some awkward and steep aid, but you need to go get 4+ long pitches to really judge your speed and efficiency.

Lurking Fear is a fun and beautiful route where the 4 pitches a day rule works.  The main disadvantage is that you have to haul portaledges and take the time to set up and break down each hanging bivvy.

Triple Direct is different.  There you have mandatory free climbing (5.10 slab on the Free Blast) and more pitches per day, but it does have bivvy ledges.  So you don't have to haul portaledges.  But you have to be fast enough to do more pitches and reach the bivvy ledges.  If you choose it, you should not prehaul, but just climb the Free Blast and descend via Heart Ledge, then get good sleep on the ground and spend half a day hauling to Mammoth.  If you epic on the Free Blast, then you were not ready for the whole thing, but you would gain experience.  If you are behind other parties starting the Free Blast, you can fix 3 pitches with 2 ropes and be first up it the next day.  You are not likely to encounter significant traffic on the Nose section of Triple Direct.  Most of the Nose traffic is on the first 4 pitches and getting to Dolt Tower.  If you are unlucky and there are 2 parties ahead of you and bivvying at Camp 5, you can fix 2 pitches above Camp 4 and bivvy there.  May is a good month for El Cap with lots of daylight.  The most crowds are in September/October.

Like others have mentioned, you seem possibly a little too fixated on getting up El Cap any way you can.  I think it's better to have your goal be mastery/efficiency/speed.  Then when you are good enough, El Cap will be an option that you know is within your reach.  And you would be choosing a route based on what is the most fun / beautiful.

I’ll add “the Prow” at Cathedral Ledge, NH as a cool east coast option to practice skills necessary for El Cap climbing. When I was living back east, and the ice was dismal, we would pivot to the Prow and practice our mixed free and clean aid skills. This was in the late ’90’s. In general, NH granite is a great training ground for the big climbs in Yosemite. 

In my opinion, SF of Washington Column is a shit route to get wall experience on. If you must do it, speed aid it in a day and rap. WF of Leaning Tower or The Prow are much better options to dial in your wall systems. 

If you do decide on Triple Direct, don't underestimate the effort it takes to pre haul and climb Freeblast. You have to be reasonably fast to make it to your bags before night fall. 

Max Rwrote:

In my opinion, SF of Washington Column is a shit route to get wall experience on. If you must do it, speed aid it in a day and rap. WF of Leaning Tower or The Prow are much better options to dial in your wall systems. 

If you do decide on Triple Direct, don't underestimate the effort it takes to pre haul and climb Freeblast. You have to be reasonably fast to make it to your bags before night fall. 

Why is there so much resistance to climbing in the “dark”? Modern headlamps are great, and if there is really any moon overhead, the wall seems to glow. The wall becomes alive with the activities of its nocturnal residents. The temps are great too. Some of my best El Cap memories were from my night shifts. 

Daniel Shivelywrote:

Why is there so much resistance to climbing in the “dark”? ...

Climbing in the dark is fine if you are already fast enough and know what you are doing.

But for a first wall, climbing in the dark is usually a sign that you are not fast enough and are failing.  On a multi day wall, each day is a lot of effort and you need a good night's sleep to recover for the next day.  Usually pitches done in the dark are slower, so if you do them in the daylight that leaves more time for sleep.

It's a n00b mistake to continue climbing in the dark, as your speed is reduced significantly. Always better to finish early and start earlier. 

The exception is if you are gunning for a nice bivy ledge in which case you might want to go for it. 

There is good beta here. I have thought about the comparison, as well.

How hard is the 5.9 wide crack that takes you to the Nose after the Crossroads traverse? Is one #5 cam reasonable for mere mortals? 

Can't wait for spring!   

I'm an east coast (Gunks) climber, who gets out to Yosemite about once a year for a big wall.

We went Prow (Washington Column), LF (Bailed to Storm), LF (5 Days), Triple Direct (5 Days).

In between I did some stuff at Cathedral Ledge (Prow, Mines of Moria) and home at the Gunks (Twilight Zone, Simple Suff).

LF was easier aid and free, but the belays on the first 12 pitches are pretty shit. Two close/low bolts seems to be the theme, and that sucked. Also - when the topo says you're done, you are not even close to done. We had the penultimate pitch fixed when we bivied on Thanksgiving Ledge, and that jug/easy-slab-final-pitch/400some feet of slab-to-the-top/descent still ate an entire day.

Triple Direct we lost a full day to a storm we sat out. The free requirements were harder (thankfully my partner is a much better granite climber than I am). Traffic got real once we joined up at the nose. A lot of our success was based on doing freeblast without hauling, then taking a day off to rest / get shit to the base, then blasting up to heart ledges and continuing on.

John Shultzwrote:How hard is the 5.9 wide crack that takes you to the Nose after the Crossroads traverse? Is one #5 cam reasonable for mere mortals? 

plenty. you could probably get by w/ a single 4, honestly. also won't use the 5 again, and will only place the 4 to get rid of it, not b/c you actually needed it, the rest of the route.

Can't wait for spring!   

same, it's been over two weeks since I was on el cap (in a tshirt)!  ;)