 |
| We were heading towards the right side of this big thing... |
Team Biskrem was also aiming for this climb on the same day. We didn't get to talk to them the night before to plan it out though, so we weren't for sure whether they were going to climb it or not. They had gone to Toulemne for two days while we stayed around the valley.
We got up even earlier that day. I think it was 4:30AM or so, so that we could leave the campsite at 5:00. Team Weneedananny were getting up early also to climb and be back for baby Autumn at noon. They dropped us off at the base of our climb and headed over to do Central Pillar of Frenzy.
It was pitch dark, and we progressed up the talus field with our headlamps. The approach was going to take at least an hour, similar to the approach on Cannon in the Whites. During our hike, we could see some headlamps on El Cap. There were people up already, looks like on the Dawn Wall. Before the sun came up, we heard a loud swooshing noise. I looked up, and there were two parachutes open right on top of us, heading towards the valley. They were climbers that BASE jumped on the descent. Maybe it was Dean Potter? That would be pretty impressive.
Then suddenly, at dawn, the light gently glows on the side of El Cap that we were heading towards. The air was still chilly, but it brings hope of some warmth. It was truly a beautiful and peaceful time of the day.
With the sun filtering into the valley, I started sweating under my layers of clothes. But at least now I can hike the talus field without using my headlamp. As I was about to turn off my headlamp, I looked up at the cliff that we were approaching. It was near the Zodiac climb, and we had to cut more to the right once we hit the bottom of the cliff. Max was about 50 ft. ahead of me, cutting more towards the right already.
I suddenly heard an unfamiliar low rumble noise. With sheer luck, I looked up at the right spot on the 3000 ft. tall cliff, and saw a piece of rock the size of a piano (it looked sort of like a roof) peeling off the cliff. It may actually be bigger than that, because it's hard to judge the size of anything with El Cap in the background.
ROCK! I shouted, just in time for both Max and I to react and dive to the closest place to hide. He jumped to a tree, and I hid under a really large boulder. I seriously didn't know what else to do at that point. Upon impact to the ground, the rock triggered enough of a shock to the talus field that it sent an avalanche of rocks down the area directly below it. It kept going down until it hit the flat part of the hike, basically to the parking lot. Lucky for us, we were not directly under the path of the rock avalanche. But we could definitely feel the dust from the slide, as well as the earth trembling.
We escaped death by about 50 feet.
Are you guys okay? A voice asked from above.
It wasn't God - just some dude on the Dawn Wall. But we were glad that there were other witnesses there in case something did happen to us.
We decided to keep going for the East Buttress climb, but both of us were shocked from the rockfall.
Since that morning, for the rest of the trip we would have PTSD symptoms every time we heard a loud bang, even at the campsite.
By the time we got to the base of the climb, there was unfortunately a line of people. To be exact, we were party No. 6 or 7. A bunch of people must have all gotten there within 30 minutes of each other. There was one party that got there behind us, but after waiting for another hour at the base of the climb, there weren't any more new climbers.
I heard a familiar laugh above from us. I knew that it was Adrian. We couldn't see them, but they were somewhere still on the first pitch, one of the harder pitches. After a bit later, I saw Carlos, leading up a chimney with very little protection. He moved up slowly and carefully.
Then suddenly, we heard a struggling sound from Carlos.
Then sound of fear as if he was slipping.
Ahhhhh! He yelled as he took a lead fall down the chimney, with a lot of metal clanking noise along with it.
An extremely discouraging noise to any climber.
If I heard the story right, Carlos was caught by his own backpack and a nut that he placed way way below him. Lucky guy.
This was around 8AM, an hour after we had gotten to the base of the climb. We found out that Team Biskrem was Party No. 3, which means that there are still at least two parties between us and them. And that Carlos was still struggling at the first pitch.
After some discussions with Max, we decided to retreat. We probably would only get to start climbing at 9AM at the earliest, and there are 13 pitches. In the best scenario, we would top out at around 5PM or 6PM. But if there was any chance that we have to wait for a slow party above us, we would definitely top out in the dark. The guide book made the descent sound really horrific, so we really didn't want to hike down El Cap in the dark.
It was an emotional retreat, considering what we went through earlier that morning. Later on that day, we went to climb Super Slide. But both of our hearts were just not there. It did not satisfy our desire to do a more epic climb.
That night, we heard from Team Biskrem about their day on E. Butt. It sounded really intense and much harder than the other E. Butt we had done just three days before. They looked exhausted.
 |
| Photo of Carlos by http://www.alexandrebuisse.org/ |
For the remainder of the trip, we continued climbing a few pitches here and there.
We will have to wait for the next trip to do the other E. Butt and Snake Dike.
One week is really not long enough in the valley!
 |
| We'll be back, East Buttress. |
No comments:
Post a Comment