A Nose in a Push

April 2013 with Vitaliy M.

As I traversed out from under the Great Roof and clipped in below the Pancake Flake at one of the most sacred, vertiginous belay stations in the world, my heart went the wrong way: down, down to my guts, which gurgled with the dreaded mid-climb wave of peristalsis. I had no wag bag, no TP, and more significantly no time to clear the way for my explosive stream of diarrhea before it erupted through half-dropped pants, leg loop elastic straps, and a couple coils of rope. Luckily Vitaliy is a nurse and was at least outwardly unfazed by the odorous brown spots on the rope, but I returned to The Nose a month later partly to experience the upper pitches without the inescapable stench of a portapotty.

Hamik on The Prow. Credit: Vitaliy Hamik on The Prow. Credit: Vitaliy

I did the West Face of Leaning Tower with Nicole and The Prow and Southwest Face of Liberty Cap with Vitaliy before attempting the Nose in a day (NIAD). I slept at the famous Ahwahnee Ledge on Leaning Tower, but Vitaliy and I did The Prow and Liberty Cap as day climbs without short-fixing. I onsight 10d in the valley and can squirm my way up harder routes. Most would say this isn't the glittering resume of a NIAD climber, and they'd be right. This first encounter with the big stone was a bit... impetuous. But that's exactly what made it fun: I knew it would hurt, and I wasn't sure I'd have a NIAD to show for it afterwards. But climbing is all a gigantic contrivance anyway--why not walk up the back? My little contrivance was doing this a couple Dolt runs before I was truly ready. I wanted to have an adventure. A six hour NIAD is an Olympic performance--incredible, but not adventure. Adventures have uncertain outcomes. They are a little stupid. They twist your insides and loop your mind through implausible failure scenarios as you lay awake the night before. They might make a hermit of you. If you don't wonder why you didn't do the more sensible thing, it certainly wasn't an adventure.

Our plan was to start early Saturday morning and to finish sometime that night. On the Tuesday before the climb, back in Pasadena, I emailed my housemates--partners in many grand, sometimes ill-conceived, always amusing adventures--to write that I'm moving out. I had had no intention to move out before; the trigger was that one of them didn't say "good morning" in the kitchen--which is of course pathologically trivial. Next I stopped talking to all my friends, not just my housemates. I was irritable. Depressed, even. I did muster the energy to send a few prep emails to Vitaliy and managed to keep the muck out of them, but that was about as much social interaction as I could manage Tuesday and Wednesday.

By Thursday, however, I was essentially manic, like I'd jacked ten cups of espresso straight into my veins. I was going to do The Nose! I backpedaled on my email and began to pack. I apologized to friends for ignoring messages and promised to respond after the weekend. Vitaliy and I exchanged more emails about our rack and strategy--Pakistani death loop (PDL) or gri-gri self-belay? 2 mm tag line or 6 mm tag line?--and I confirmed the itinerary for my carpool. Vitaliy was driving to Yosemite from the Bay Area, and I was carpooling with folks from the Caltech Alpine Club. I was aware of my massive mood swing, and it was a good thing I was off on an adventure because otherwise I'd just have been bipolar.

Four of us piled into the car early Friday evening. Someone else offered to drive, but as a man whose mind reels for an hour before quieting for sleep on the best of nights, the odds of sleep were slim the night before The Nose. I thought about waking Vitaliy as soon as I got to the valley at 1 am.

My friends dropped me off at El Cap Bridge. Vitaliy was lying awake in his car a bit past the bear boxes and greeted me as I walked up--no need to convince him to start earlier than we'd planned. As he ate breakfast, I wandered into the forest to purge my bowels, hoping in vain that my next time would also be on flat ground. I returned to the car and sat with Vitaliy as he finished eating. We glanced over the topo and repeated our block plan:

The plan was a bit blurry after the Great Roof, but that was a long way off. We got up, geared up, and walked briefly under pines until we came out onto the bridge, next to the meadow, under half a moonless, starry Sierra sky--the other half obscured by the 3000 ft tall mass of granite we were going to start climbing in fifteen minutes. With its textures and famous pitches blacked out, the scale, which is almost oppressive in the daytime, was lost. I imagined sunny splitters and airy, glorious ledges. Without color El Cap looked as surmountable as a good Saturday morning project before it's stretched out into four weekends. We continued across the bridge, and the "adventure" argument for this premature NIAD attempt was hatched on our hike to the base.

I led up Pine Line and placed three pieces--headlamp travel messing with my head? Or just bedtime long past, since I'd woken up at 9 am the previous day?--then made the only gear anchor of the entire route atop this pitch. Vitaliy followed and cruised by onto pitch one, barely stopping to grab some cams. He free-climbed a ways above the belay before transitioning into aid and dispatched the pitch. I jugged quickly and grabbed our bloated rack at the next belay.

I climbed the next two pitches in an unmemorable mix of free and aid. If freed these pitches are 11b, and as the cruxes are just crack climbing they're good candidates for free climbing in the near future for both of us. I freed most of these pitches with some bolt steps, bolt grabs, and cam yanks at cruxes. Vitaliy took us to the end of four, fixed the line for me at the hundred foot mark, then continued to climb, unbelayed, on a hundred-foot loop of slack--run the PDL and really go for it! The terrain was only fourth class, but still.

As I arrived at Sickle Ledge at the end of pitch four a rope snafu involving a giant loop caught on a flake below meant I had to delay belaying Vitaliy, who was already sixty or seventy feet above the anchor. Fortunately I was able to free it quickly and get him on belay. The sun came up.

Early in the morning around the Stovelegs! Credit: Vitaliy Early in the morning around the Stovelegs! Credit: Vitaliy

From Sickle Ledge you follow broken ground to a corner, make a belay just around an arete, then rappel diagonally to the right into another crack system. Vitaliy did this while I cleaned the previous pitch, so he was halfway up the next one when I arrived at the anchor. I put him on belay again and he took us to Dolt Hole. Here the route goes through a pendulum which would easily be the highlight of any other route in world--the only reason it's not on The Nose is that there's an even bigger one later. To get to it you climb chimneys and cracks for a pitch, makes a belay under Dolt Hole, then go up a bolt ladder. From there you lower, run back and forth until you have enough momentum, then lunge for a dynamic hand jam in the Stoveleg Crack to the right. I followed this pendulum with a lower-out but was rewarded with all the free climbing from the next belay to the top of El Cap Tower--pitches eight to fourteen.

My block started with the top half of the famous Stoveleg Crack--so named because the first ascensionist, Warren Harding, used wooden stove legs to protect it. These pitches were the free-climbing highlight of The Nose for me--killer jams over a thousand feet above the forest.

After the Stovelegs you follow widening fist cracks to Dolt Tower. The topo showed a scary-looking 10c offwidth right below the top, but Vitaliy told me that it's easy to French-free it by holding two #4's as jugs. I cruised on to Dolt Tower, and soon the only other people on The Nose, another in-a-day party which started hours after us, caught up and passed. Vitaliy lowered me from the top of Dolt into some broken terrain and I scrambled across to some easy cracks. I climbed it at 5.7 until I was directly across from Dolt Tower before placing my first piece; I tried not to think about what would happen if I fell. I got to the belay soon after and got all of ten feet up the next pitch before Vitaliy arrived at the belay and saved me from the cluster of unpracticed self-belaying on a grigri.

The next pitch was seventy feet of steep, tight fours, which is pure fun for those with meaty fists. I sewed up the first twenty feet, since the crack is foreshortened from the belay, and only remembered that Vitaliy told me to slide gear on this pitch when I was way above my last piece. I managed to not freak out, finished the pitch, and even short-fixed the beginning of the next one. After a couple of minutes on Vitaliy's belay I was at El Cap Tower, the top of pitch fourteen and as glorious a ledge--flat, 50 ft long, 3 ft wide--as could be expected on this earth. We'd averaged thirty minutes per pitch from the ground--a bit more than Alex Honnold and Hans Florine's average of five, but not shabby at all. Seventeen pitches to go.

Vicky, Lea, and Hamik waking up on El Cap Tower a month later. Credit: Vicky Vicky, Lea, and Hamik waking up on El Cap Tower a month later. Credit: Vicky

Vitaliy passed his jumars to me at El Cap Tower and we made our first major block change. He ran up 5.9 to the imposing chimney behind Texas Flake, for which the other party had advised "don't clip the bolt in the chimney--it will force your follower to jumar inside with a pack." The alternative is to run it out forty or fifty feet in a slick 5.8 chimney. Vitaliy clipped the bolt. I did the same a month later when I led Texas Flake.

The next pitch was the famous Boot Flake and King Swing. There's some tricky aid then glorious 10c thin hands up the side of the boot. Then you untie, thread the rope through rings, lower, clean, and run like mad back and forth to stick an edge in a crack system light years to the left. Vitaliy got it on his second swing. This was the pitch I'd looked forward to more than anything, so I was thrilled when it was my turn--there are ways to keep your follower from repeating the pendulum, but luckily we decided against those. Vitaliy belayed me as I aided up a few bolts on the ladder under the Boot Flake then locked off when I was at the right height. I stowed my aiders on the back of my harness and looked down at the meadows, up at the Great Roof, and across the valley to Middle Cathedral. Then I ran like mad.

[YouTube video of Vitaliy on the King Swing]

Hamik on the King Swing a month later. Credit: Tom Evans, from El Cap Bridge Hamik on the King Swing a month later. Credit: Tom Evans, from El Cap Bridge

I almost stuck the edge on my first try but was off-balance when gravity sucked me down and only half hopped over the concavity in the wall. I managed to grab the edge on my second go, and with all French-free shame out the window I grabbed a fixed loop and batmanned to the anchors. Pumped from 20 feet of batmanning and just off the wildest swing in the universe, I screamed. I don't think I had the privilege of feeling so awake for many days after this adventure.

Vitaliy led two pitches above the King Swing to a high bolt, from which he lowered to a ledge to the left. After following I lowered out from that bolt and reached the same ledge, but when I pulled the rope a loop caught behind a flake twenty feet above the belay. After a few sputtering efforts to retrieve it from below, we realized that it had lassoed the flake and would be impossible to retrieve except by going back up. Vitaliy ingeniously suggested that we fix both ends of the loop and that I jumar up one of them. He put me on a back-up belay as I ascended the rope to the flake to fix the problem, but we lost a ton of time and took a big hit to morale. And another when one of my climbing shoes spontaneously unclipped from a non-locking carabiner and fell 2,000 ft to the valley floor. And of course, there was that Pancake Flake incident a few pitches ahead too.

The next block was mine, so I continued left on a short free-climbing traverse and aided up to Camp IV, where I started to short-fix the pitch to the Great Roof. Unfortunately, the 2mm tag line we'd brought for shuttling gear from belayer to leader while short-fixing kept tangling, which meant that we weren't efficient in aid mode. I'll take 6 or 7 mm cord next time--it would be more than worth its weight for ease of handling.

The next pitch was the approach to the Great Roof. I climbed 90% of Red Dihedral in approach shoes, so you would think that this mostly 5.7 pitch would be easy even with my second climbing shoe at the base of El Cap, but I was scared to climb just ten feet above gear. There are the obvious reasons why free climbing on El Cap is hard: transitioning out of aid is a cluster, there's more gear to carry, and fatigue is cumulative, but--and maybe this is obvious to others--sometimes the exposure just fries your brain. The Great Roof was looming just above.

Hamik aiding under The Great Roof on The Nose. Credit: Vitaliy Hamik aiding under The Great Roof on The Nose. Credit: Vitaliy

Too intimidated to short-fix, I waited for Vitaliy to join me at the next belay before leading up to the Great Roof. This pitch is 11d until the roof arches right, and 13+ or 14- under the roof to the next belay. Lynn Hill's free ascent of this pitch is one of the most mind-boggling accomplishments in the history of climbing. As Vitaliy said, "I have no idea how a human could climb that." Even the famously brave El Cap frogs keep clear of that thing. I may not have free-climbed the Great Roof, but I did employ a time-honored climbing technique from Vertical Limit: dynamic cam placement. Faced with a finicky micronut move before the next bomber crack section under the roof, I opted to guess the size of the crack five feet to the right and to lunge for it. My yellow Metolius fortunately stuck and I didn't fall back on my daisy chain.

When I arrived at the next belay I had to use the bathroom. I'd had to go for the last few pitches but had been praying it could wait until Camp V, which was just two pitches above and immeasurably less awful for shitting than the hanging belay just after the Great Roof. Jugging is fast, I'd reasoned, so if I really needed supplies they'd arrive at the belay in no time. However, I'd made a classic newbie mistake and back-cleaned some of my placements--I should have left them all or removed them all. Instead of lowering out or aiding smoothly under the roof, Vitaliy had to redo half my placements. There was no way my impatient little groundhog was going to wait for the pack.

I aided the next pitch, which is reportedly the best free climbing on The Nose, as some kind of self-flagellation or atonement. After the Pancake Flake and the awkward next pitch, we were at Camp V, the sun was gone, and I had just one more pitch--the Glowering Spot--until it was Vitaliy's show to the top. The aid through the Glowering Spot was the thinnest on the route, and it may have been the only place I used nuts.

Vitaliy took over around midnight at the triangular ledge above Glowering Spot and took the rope to Camp VI. We had been going for twenty-one hours after a full day of work, and I had woken up thirty-nine hours ago. Our water had run out around sunset, and the drops that fell from the lips of invisible roofs hundreds of feet above fell just beyond reach into space. I'd burned up my six or seven bars long ago, and my hands were swollen from clutching jumars all day. Yet we had only one rope and couldn't go down. As I belayed I turned off my headlamp. There was no reason to keep it on. When I nodded off, the rope would tug on my grigri and I would pay out slack.

At the next belay station--Camp VI--water dripped on me and soaked my down sweater as Vitaliy crept up the Changing Corners. I tried to get them to land in my mouth, but they moved unpredictably in the breeze. I didn't nod off at this belay--I couldn't--it was Chinese water torture. The topo showed that you "change corners" at the second bolt of a bolt ladder, but Vitaliy changed at the first bolt and it looked like the rope ran over a razor-sharp arete. I jugged slowly and smoothly, hoping I wouldn't bounce off the Camp VI ledge when the rope broke. When I arrived at the arete I noticed that Vitaliy had routed the rope well--I hadn't been in danger.

Lea jugging Changing Corners a month later. Credit: Vicky Lea jugging Changing Corners a month later. Credit: Vicky

The next belay was the worst of the route--almost completely hanging. Vitaliy crack jumared the long red camalot crack above. When I finished following and joined him above, he asked me to take the next pitch. Blocks are efficient, but tired minds need variety--I was as happy to be off belay duty as he was to be on. The next pitch contains the final route-finding difficulties of the route; the topo shows a rightward traverse at the end of the pitch, and I took what looked like easy ground to the right after what I thought was most of the pitch. I free-climbed twenty feet to the right out of a corner looking for the "wild stance" mentioned in the topo, but all I found were hard moves a pelvis-crushing distance from the dihedral I'd left. I scampered back to the corner, fified into a piece, and took out my topo. I realized my mistake and continued up past some aid into a wet 5.6 trough. A centipede wriggled over my foot, which was cammed in a flaring, vegetated, wet crack. I climbed twenty feet up the trough and found the beginning of the traverse. I aided up and right under a roof, but I was too tired to understand which pieces to leave behind and which pieces to back-clean to make Vitaliy's job easier. A few free moves after clipping a flexing piton, I reached the belay. When I fixed the line and looked around I realized that my headlamp was ineffective; the sun had come up and I hadn't noticed.

As Vitaliy jugged I tried to take in the wild stance. The Nose splayed out for nearly three thousand vertical feet below. The pastels of dawn were probably beautiful. My memories of this place are from another trip; this time I was too tired to form memories and too cold to care. Pitch twenty-nine was done, and as Vitaliy jugged I saw the sunrise for the second time that day.

I led the next pitch, which was short and easy. The next belay was under the final pitch's bolt ladder, which Warren Harding famously hand-drilled through the night after his partner prusiked three thousand feet to deliver a fresh batch of bolts from the ground. Fortunately for us, Harding's fifty-year old bolts have been replaced with shiny new ASCA ones so Vitaliy confidently skipped bolts and led the overhung pitch quickly. Once the line was fixed I undid the anchor and swung twenty feet into space. Having gone without water or food for twelve hours, my body had a hard time coping with the strenuous free-hanging jug. I would bounce up a couple of moves, fifi into my daisy, and try to catch my breath for a minute. I had run up Iron Mountain--7000 vertical feet--in 2:24 a month ago, but it took me almost half an hour to jug a hundred feet that morning.

When I finally saw the famous El Cap Tree, I stumbled up to it, tripping over loops of rope on my harness, and patted it good morning. The sun was warm on top, so I found a flat rock and passed out for forty-five minutes. I would have insisted that we nap longer, but Vitaliy mentioned that we would cross a creek on the hike out. We shouldered our one 30L backpack, coiled our one rope, and hobbled down the East Ledges descent. I would have traded anything for a sip of water that morning, never mind a little giardia, so when we found it an hour below the summit I dunked my head in and sucked water on hands and knees. We continued the East Ledges descent, and Bryan and Gleb were waiting for us with chocolate under the fixed lines! I remember a glorious shower at Curry Village later, but I'm not sure where I went or what I did until I met up with my carpool back at El Cap Bridge. My friend, Fanny, apologized preemptively for snoozing on my shoulder in the backseat of my ride to Pasadena. "No problem," I said. I woke up six hours later with my head on her lap in Pasadena.

We'd certainly had an adventure.

At the El Cap Tree sporting the dumber relative of the thousand yard stare. Credit: Vitaliy At the El Cap Tree sporting the dumber relative of the thousand yard stare. Credit: Vitaliy