Anne, Brad and I headed up to Country Club Crack on Saturday morning for some aid climbing and jumaring practice. We arrived at about 10:30, and the base of Castle Rock was freezing cold in the shade. My planning proved to be almost perfect, though, as the sun hit the rock no more than 20 minutes after we arrived. We hauled the gear a grueling 15 feet to the base of the climb and, after taking a few minutes to compose myself from the arduous hike, I geared up with every single piece of gear I have so far that we'll be taking up El Cap.
A small part of the gear we'll be carrying 2,900 feet up The Nose.
My plan is to always practice while carrying tons and tons of gear, both so that my body is ready for climbing with the extra weight, and even more so that I can figure out my sorting systems and stay relatively organized. With five sets of cams, four sets of nuts and RPs, hooks, assorted biners, slings, cordelettes, quickdraws, and every other small miscellaneous thing hanging off you, it's easy to lose track if you don't have a good system worked out.
Once I was suitably loaded up with gear I had Brad start a timer (it's important to track progress) and began working my way up the climb as smoothly and efficiently as I could. The first two aid moves up the relatively featureless 5.11b/c start are on well-spaced bolts that require some high steps to reach, and then a slightly awkward but easy enough transition right to enter the start of the crack system. Once in the crack system all of the placements are fairly straightforward and trustworthy—it's an easy 5.9 first pitch except for the opening moves, very doable when not weighed down with all the aid gear—and the whole thing is made much easier if you can creatively combine free climbing with aiding to get high in the etriers.
I finished in about 27 minutes, which is much better than previous attempts, and a decent enough pace. I'll improve on that, of course, so I think it's a good start.
Once I was suitably loaded up with gear I had Brad start a timer (it's important to track progress) and began working my way up the climb as smoothly and efficiently as I could. The first two aid moves up the relatively featureless 5.11b/c start are on well-spaced bolts that require some high steps to reach, and then a slightly awkward but easy enough transition right to enter the start of the crack system. Once in the crack system all of the placements are fairly straightforward and trustworthy—it's an easy 5.9 first pitch except for the opening moves, very doable when not weighed down with all the aid gear—and the whole thing is made much easier if you can creatively combine free climbing with aiding to get high in the etriers.
I finished in about 27 minutes, which is much better than previous attempts, and a decent enough pace. I'll improve on that, of course, so I think it's a good start.
Rappelling off of Country Club Crack. After I fixed the rope and rappelled down Brad started jugging up the rope for practice, and to clean the gear I placed. Once he was at the top he changed the fixed rope to a toprope and rappelled down. He has very little experience placing gear, so he aided the crack on toprope to start learning. He did great and made it to the top, fixed the rope again, and rappelled down. I ascended the route myself one time to practice a technique a friendly Neptune Mountaineering employee named Brian had shown me, and then we headed down for the day.
Unfortunately Anne's ankle was still pretty bad so she wasn't able to do much except belay me and babysit the flask, but I saw her at work today and she seemed much more mobile. Pretty soon we'll be able to start some serious training for this crazy El Cap thing!
Unfortunately Anne's ankle was still pretty bad so she wasn't able to do much except belay me and babysit the flask, but I saw her at work today and she seemed much more mobile. Pretty soon we'll be able to start some serious training for this crazy El Cap thing!
