Ascents in West Face

3 stars. Got up and back down in the daylight. Very chuffed.

We aided it and free climbed some.

3 stars. Got up and back down in the daylight. Very chuffed.

Mostly clean, but had to pull on some gear. Long day!

A big 19hr day out with Rose , lower half had some hard slab and face climbing and the top half some tricky route finding and steep cracks. It started raining in the afternoon so I had to aid the last 10d pitch. Rose grovelled to the top up slimy corners and chimneys to finish in the dark, and a slippery walk down East Ledges

Grandiose Route, gelang uns damals am einem Tag. Bin alles vorgestiegen

Almost in 1 day. I got monstrously sick 4 pitches from the top & had to bivi on a non-bivi ledge with no bivi gear/food or water.

Seconded aid route up to pitch 3

El Cap is AMAZING! We were the only ones climbing it given the storm warnings and cold weather SUMMIT OR DEATH!!!

Speed record in 7h 15min

In 16 hrs round trip with Will. Great route. First time short fixing with a silent partner.

2 p, fix plus 2d1n with bivy on top. Should have listened when people say just get good and do it in a day. More grade 5.5 then VI. Great top out bivy.

Compared to the usual El Cap intro routes (Zodiac, The Nose, The Triple, Freerider/salathe) this is certainly the least classic, shorter, uglier, easier cousin.

4 Tage. Alles kontrolliert.

Three days on wall.

Bailed at the top of pitch 6. We had hiked in 2 loads and fixed the first pitch in the evening. The next day we jugged and I went to haul however sandbagged myself with the anchor set up and it took almost 2 hours to haul that first pitch! Lessons were learned. We managed to get to the top of the 4th pitch by the end of the first day through a mixture of aid and free climbing, all of which was spectacular. We set up the ledge. I had every intention of leading and fixing pitch 5 at night however after a brew and some food all motivation was lost haha. Pitches 5 & 6 went relatively quickly the next morning though we were still on the slow end of the scale. When I got to the anchor Andy said his back was quite sore. We had 3 options - push on and top out probably Saturday night; set up camp and climb as many pitches as we can before night then descend in the morning, or go down. When Andy mentioned the pain was such that he really had to concentrate not to make a mistake with the rope systems we decided to go down which definitely turned out to be the right call given how he felt the next day. When we descended we met a keen young Brit who was planning on soloing the route in a day. We brewed him a cup of tea and chatted while he waited for a party to descend who were climbing and fixing to pitch 3. We ran into him again the next day as he was hiking back to camp 4 and he had indeed soloed the route in under 18 hours, doing it in 7 monster pitches! And onsight to boot! An absolutely amazing effort. The climbing was definitely not the crux and we both learnt a lot in terms of systems and efficient hauling. Would love to come back and try and do this a bit lighter and quicker. Beta if you want to fix the evening before. Climb the first 3 pitches and haul straight to 3 via the rap route. That first pitch is the worse hauling on the route.