Rapping El Cap

Definitely a bummer, but more of a celebration, a very good friend of mine has hopefully not terminal cancer, with an outlook of less than a year. He's not a climber, though he does have some experience and certainly knows how to rappel, and he's always told me through the years that he would love to rappel El Cap. Having climbed the Captain myself, I do realize this would be something of a fiasco, so I'm tossing the idea out there into the MP world to get some opinions on such an endeavor.

I doubt we will actually do this, but if we did, it would probably be a posse of 6-8, and we would bring portaledges to minimize our impact on ascending parties, spending a single night on the wall. We would definitely bring extra food, water, drugs and booze to hopefully compensate any folks we would inconvenience on the wall. We would also take down any of the litter and trash we find along the way.

Going down the Nose seems the grandest of plans, but for those in the know, is there a better route down you might suggest?

Rapping something on the west side makes a little more sense, since you could more easily summit then walk over and rap. Freerider to thanksgiving, spend the night, rap LF. Sorry about your friend, stay positive.

Very impressed with your planning to mitigate your disruption of climbing parties. Even still, you're probably going to piss people off.

Fuck em

You're a great friend, you buddy is lucky to have you in his life. I wish ya'll the best of luck!

Everything you need to know about rappelling the Captain is in the link below.
It covers the whole shebang, from the initial inquiry to subsequent rescue and analysis. The finest entertainment. The actual event starts around post 63.

You sound much more experienced than the great Googlymoogly so I would guess the outcome would be more favorable. As you said a party of 6-8 would be a fiasco but some fiascos are pretty fun. I doubt you'll be able to avoid pissing people off, so do the route you want to do. Lots of parties rappel routes as they bail.

Have fun and best of luck to your buddy.

Rappelling El Cap

You should absolutely read this Supertopo thread on the same subject: thread

First of all, the sheer entertainment value might cheer you and your friend up. Long story short, guy asks for advice on how to rap El Cap, is told it's a bad idea, does so anyway, gets stuck halfway down, needs a rescue, and then RETURNS TO THE THREAD to ask for legal advice. It's a true internet gem.

But it also contains good advice on why this is neither straightforward or easy.

Jason Todd wrote:Everything you need to know about rappelling the Captain is in the link below. It covers the whole shebang, from the initial inquiry to subsequent rescue and analysis. The finest entertainment. The actual event starts around post 63. You sound much more experienced than the great Googlymoogly so I would guess the outcome would be more favorable. As you said a party of 6-8 would be a fiasco but some fiascos are pretty fun. I doubt you'll be able to avoid pissing people off, so do the route you want to do. Lots of parties rappel routes as they bail. Have fun and best of luck to your buddy. Rappelling El Cap