I screamed at the granite
wall. The sound bounced off Yosemite’s
Fifi Buttress and drowned into the roar of Bridalveil Falls. I lowered to the belay, where Katie stood at
a small stance. I was six inches from a
free ascent. It felt like six miles. I’d cleaned the route. Pulled out old
gear. Placed bolts. Climbed on the pitches a ton. I’d trained hard. I stopped sleeping- Would the work ever pan out?
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Mikey Schaefer photo of me climbing the penultimate arch pitch |
Dan McDevitt established The
Final Frontier, a Grade V 5.7 A3 route in 1999 with Sue McDevitt, Brittany
Griffith and Sue’s sister Penny Black.
He climbed the route again with Jim Karn, the first American to win a
World Cup in climbing and America’s best sport climber in the 80s. While they were climbing, Jim Karn told Dan
“It’ll go free.”
|
The Final Frontier on Fifi Buttress |
Last spring, Lucho Rivera
freed Dan McDevitt’s Romulan Warbird, I climbed a few times while he was
working on the first free ascent of the 5.12 route. Gabe Mange, an El Portal climber, had ropes
on the Final Frontier. Mange wanted to
repeat The Final Frontier and worked his way up the route 200 feet left of Romulan
Warbird, fixing lines as he went. One
day, instead of climbing with Lucho, I jumared 600 feet up The Final
Frontier. Dan mentioned Jim’s comment to
me. The route looked like it would go
but be a lot of work.
|
Nik works the 5.12+ Lower Corner Pitch. |
|
Nik finishes up the 5.13 traverse |
“This
route was a savior and a gift for me.” Nik Berry said. In April, Nik and I started up the Dihedral
Wall on El Capitan to scope a free ascent.
After 2 pitches, I scanned my phone and realized the wall was closed for
peregrines. We bailed. Remembering the Final Frontier, Nik and I
hiked to Fifi Buttress. Gabe’s lines still hung off the 900 foot wall. We jumared the route and examined the free
line. Nik had an immense amount of
psyche from listening to Katy Perry all morning and a limited amount of time in
Yosemite. “The next day, we started to put all our
energy into this route with many hours of cleaning moss, weeds and sticks out
of cracks and edges.” said Nik in his OR Blog.
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Gabe Mange photo of me climbing on the 5.13b Upper Corner Pitch |
|
Eric Bissel executes the cross move on the 5.13 traverse pitch |
One
of the first difficulties was connecting two thin crack systems. McDevitt had aided up a thin seam and then
pendulumed across the face. Through the
creative inspiration of “California Girls” across the wall, we found a few
technical smears and spanned the gap between the crack features.
|
Mason Earle linking the crack systems on the 5.13 traverse |
“Within
a few days, James and I had figured out where the free climbing should go, how
to do the moves, and where the bolts should go. A week of bad weather came in
and we were forced to boulder and climb at Jailhouse, which is always a nice
change from Yosemite. This worked out well anyway since we needed to wait for
our bolts to be delivered.” Nik wrote.
|
Nik and I on the summit. You can see Ribbon Falls behind us. Every day, we watched a rainbow form at the base of nearby Bridalveil Falls |
After
getting all the bolts in, Nik went for the redpoint, leading all the pitches.
While he rested at the belays, I tightened the bolts he had placed the day
before. Nik freed the first corner and
sent the traverse pitch. On the upper
corner, he climbed the thin crack but fell at the boulder problem near the top. He tried again but fell. The boulder problem involves tenuous smearing
on polished granite. He rested and I toproped up to the boulder problem. I grabbed a loose hold that broke off and put a serious gash in my arm. We headed down
to tend to my wound and Nik’s wounded ego.
A few days later, Nik managed to redpoint all the pitches and I toproped
behind him. Being on the summit was fun-
Nik sent! The route went free! A nagging
feeling persisted as we descended.
|
Bronson on the last 5.12 pitch. I removed a few heads, a pecker and pitons from this pitch and others on the route, replacing the fixed mank with bolts where necessary. |
It
was rad watching Nik send the route.
He’s an exceptional climber and hard to keep up with. ““After sending the final pitch, all the work
and energy put into this route gave me an incredible feeling of
accomplishment.” Nik said in his OR
Blog. I knew what he meant but felt as
though I was unfinished.
|
A topo of the route.
|
Mason Earle climbs through a sea of knobs on the penultimate pitch |
|
I returned to the route. I took down all of Gabe’s fixed lines and
placed my own. I pulled all the heads
and bad pins out. I added bolts where
there had been bad fixed gear. I managed
to send all the moves, then to send all the pitches. I climbed the route one day with Walker
Emerson but I fell on the upper corner pitch.
|
When I got to my car, I found this ticket on my dash courtesy of Officer Smith |
I worked the upper corner pitch again with Aaron Smith. I drove to Tuolumne to sleep at 9000 feet, hoping that the increased
altitude would boost my red blood cell count and make the climbing easier.
|
Delicate smears and a difficult boulder problem cap the pumpy corner. This proved to be the crux of the route. |
“You
just have to let yourself do it,” Katie said as I rested at the belay below the
corner. After a long bit of pouting,
wondering if The Final Frontier would be another mega project left undone, I
started climbing back up the finger tips corner. I reached the boulder problem and casually
grabbed the crimp and threw to the jug hold.
|
Mason flashing the crux pitch. Mason made the 3rd ascent of the route. Tobias Wolf made the 4th. Katie Lambert and Ben Ditto returned to try the route and Will Stanhope and Brad Gobright climbed on it as well. |
The
next pitch, which I had well rehearsed, went smoothily. On the second to last arch pitch, I
floundered a bit trying to get off the belay.
The moves felt hard. I felt
tired. After a fall, I returned to the
belay and then climbed to the top of the pitch. Katie followed solidly,
climbing the entire route with no falls.
|
Gabe Mange picture of climbing sporty moves on the Upper Corner pitch |
At
the summit, I was psyched. I beamed as
Katie climbed the top. I sent every
pitch leading the entire route in a day. It was the hardest climb I’d ever
done. I’d had an amazing experience
establishing the route with Nik and then climbing on it with other friends. It was really fun. I felt very proud of myself for investing so
much into the route and I felt great about the successful ascent.
|
Mikey Schaefer photo of me on the Penultimate Arch Pitch |
That
night, I slept well.
1 comment:
Hey James -- Do you still ever check this blog? I borrowed a slide and a quote from your blog today, teaching a course in positive psychology. Hope you are doing well!!
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