Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Nose Solo in a Day, 8/21/10

On August 21, I became the sixth person to solo the Nose of El Capitan in under 24 hrs. Rode the bike from camp 4 and stashed it in El Cap meadow. Roped up for the whole route minus the sickle ledge traverse. Ran into a team of 4 Koreans on the ledge, told them "don't touch me" as a nod to Potter in MoS V and put in an anchor when I reached their leader. This team of 4 would end up being rescued in the gray band's later that week, I'm glad they didn't touch me. Rope soloed the stove legs to Dolt where I took a break and drank tons of gatorade left by a team bailing earlier in the week. Took the Jardine traverse as I was roped up the whole time and would feel kinda dumb jugging the 5.6 from Dolt to the Boot Flake. I took another break at Camp IV and fueled up for the coming darkness. Linked the great roof into the triangle ledge after Pancake flake and rap cleaned the great roof so I could lower out it's whole distance while cleaning. Took a final break at Camp 5 as darkness fell. I could hear all my friends in the meadow cheering me on so I knew I couldn't stop now. I didn't even pause on Camp 6 because it is to tempting to sleep on that late in the game. Finally tagged the tree after 20:43 on the route! I was very happy and very tired on top. Staggered down the east ledges until reaching my bike in the meadow. I drank an IPA as the sun rose and had a very wobbly bike ride back to the lodge!

Cathedral Traverse, Solo



Tagged Cathedral Peak, Tressider, Columbia Finger, the Full Matthes Crest, 3 of the Echos, Cockscomb, and Unicorn Peak in 9 hrs CTC.