Commitment Grade VII

I am a bit curious about the little-known world of the big VII. It seems like places such as the Trango Towers are grade VII because of the approach and climb combination, but the actual Towers are shorter than the buttress lines on El Cap. So that leads me to my question: are there any VII lines that are grade VII because one would reasonably expect to spend 7+ days on the wall and not because of an extreme approach combined with V+/VI climbing? In other words, are there any walls out there taller than El Cap (~2,900')?

supertopo.com/tr/Superbalan…

1300m-1500m tall. Drive up approach.

Topo here:
reganclimbing.com/pliki/Sup…

This is a cool site as well:
climbandmore.com/climbing,0…

Regarding "extreme approach", I suppose that is all relative to desire or at least open to interpretation.

Jim Beyer spent 57 days on Mount Thor in Baffin and gave his route a grade VII. Someone should repeat that and post it up here on MP;)

With link-ups more grade VII might be possible. Evolution traverse in the Sierra's might be that grade. I wonder what grade the el cap/half dome/watkins linkup gets (if any).

You can camp at the base of Mt. Dickey in the Ruth Gorge and it's east face is about a vertical mile, granite. It's reported that the quality rock turns to kitty litter something like 3/4 of the way up so there aren't a lot of routes on that face.

pic from alpinist.com/doc/ALP01/clim…

Mt. Barril right next to it looks tiny compared to Dickey but sports an El Cap sized face minus the kitty litter. The Cobra Pillar is probably the best known line on that face.

The approaches are criminally easy these days although there is potential crevasse danger in the summer. So no Grade VII for them I guess.

Daniel Winder wrote:Jim Beyer spent 57 days on Mount Thor in Baffin and gave his route a grade VII. Someone should repeat that and post it up here on MP;) With link-ups more grade VII might be possible. Evolution traverse in the Sierra's might be that grade. I wonder what grade the el cap/half dome/watkins linkup gets (if any).

The linkup idea is interesting, but the Evolution is definitely grade VI, not more. There is a huge amount of really great climbing, but not much is actually hard. Besides, there's no way I'm capable of pulling off a grade VII climb. The climb was very reasonable as a three day adventure (not counting approach in and out), which should put it squarely in grade VI terrain.

John Wilder wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremes_on_Earth Google reveals that the Great Trango tower has a 4,300' wall. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliffs More info. So yes. There are plenty of cliffs bigger than El Cap. El Cap just happens to reside in a very nice, temperate area with an extremely short approach, making it famous and very popular (deservedly so, obviously).

It seems you are right, there is a 1500m line that goes up the Trango Towers, although I supposed it may traverse a bit. I was looking at the tower's prominence value which is about 2,600'.

Speaking of grade VII, I recall reading that some company is now offering guided trips up VII walls if the client can meet some intermediate requirements. Did anyone else hear that? I imagine it would cost a pretty penny to get guided up a VII wall. But if you can hire a guide to climb Everest, then why not, right?