UKC

Dawn wall project: It's business time

© Björn Pohl - UKC
Björn Pohl UKC

This has been read 9,254 times
The Dawn wall project © Björn Pohl - UKC
The Dawn wall project

Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson have now begun their first serious push to free their Dawn wall project on El Capitan, Yosemite.

After having worked the route for six years, all the difficult pitches had finally been climbed free in mid November. Tommy and Kevin then worked some of the pitches a bit more before taking time off the wall to prepare for the big push in December, as soon as the forecast looked promising enough.

That time is now.

They began their attempt a couple of days ago and have now finished the first 10 pitches, and although they haven't reached seriously difficult part, with three ~9a pitches back to back, yet, this "warm up" part would be a news worthy feat in itself anywhere else:

P1: 7b
P2: 7c+
P3: 8a+
P4: 7b
P5: 7c wet
P6: 8a+
P7: 8b+
P8: 8b
P9: 8a
P10: 8b+ wet

High winds are expected now and the boys are in need of a rest day anyway before they tackle the crux of the route.
After an easy ~8a+, an ~8c takes them to two traverse pitches followed by the infamous dyno pitch. Again: all of these weigh in around ~9a!

Then, the rest is "easy" as in, ~8a+, ~8b, ~8b, ~7b/c, so basically a stroll in the park...

Fingers crossed for good conditions and unsplit tips!

Tommy Caldwell is sponsored by: Black Diamond, Bluewater Ropes, Clifbar, Climb On, La Sportiva, Patagonia and REVO Sunglasses

Kevin Jorgeson is sponsored by: Black Diamond, adidas, FiveTen, Sterling Rope, Asana

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Comments

james.slater
30 Dec, 2014
This will surely be one of the most impressive feats in climbing history. For me its by far the most inspiring! Go on boys!
purplemonkeyelephant
30 Dec, 2014
If Tommy can pull it off then it will be a fantastic achievement for him. He's put so much into this route, year after year, he deserves all the success.
Stevie989
30 Dec, 2014
It's been great to watch the guys progress on the route recently - really inspiring. How much of the route is bolted and to what extent are they placing gear? I also got the impression from on of Jorgeson's posts that they are each trying to lead all the pitches?
remus
30 Dec, 2014
Just an educated guess, but I suspect it's a mix of bolts, fixed gear and normal trad gear. Bolts are only usually where they're really needed as you can only use a hand drill in yosemite. On the easier pitches they're probably placing most of the gear on lead, no point leaving it in when they're most likely to do the pitch first or second go. On the harder pitches I suspect they're leaving a lot of it in. The hard pitches will probably need 10s of attempts and to strip the gear every time would add up to a lot of effort over the course of the route.
Ian Parsons
31 Dec, 2014
A prevailing ethic in Yosemite - an arena in which bolts have played a substantial part for decades - is that subsequent ascents, in whatever style, should not increase the bolt count. This has, of course, been modified over the years; time was when bolts were only placed at belays if natural anchors were inadequate or absent, whereas nowadays multiple and very sturdy bolts are more-or-less the default scenario at the majority of belays on most remotely popular routes. This is in opposition to those who believe that on a wall the belays, too, should be "adventurous" - but theirs tends to be a minority view. But leaving aside the belays, it's still considered very much bad form - or whatever that is in American - to get the drill out in the course of a pitch if you're not doing the FA or the rock hasn't in some way altered since somebody else did. But people are sometimes weak, and climbers are people, so there are are many instances - often very specific and subject to ridicule - in which the "rules" have been bent; the results are generally known, for obvious reasons, as "chicken bolts". Of course, all this tended to apply mostly to aid climbing; such extra bolts would appear where somebody's aid skills were insufficient to make a particularly tricky placement stick, or where their nerve cracked during the course of a section of hooks or expanding nailing. The point to remember, though, is that the ethic also still applies when free-climbing an aid route; unlike in some parts of the UK, where bolted free routes have replaced largely or completely boltless old aid routes, in Yosemite such an outcome wouldn't generally be regarded as an improvement in style. It's likely, therefore, that people attempting free ascents on El Cap and similar will go to considerable lengths to avoid adding bolts to the pitches that they are working on, and I'm unaware of any reason to think that Caldwell might be any different in this respect. On something as big as a wall, of course, it would be unusual to find a viable free route that exactly followed an existing aid route throughout its whole length; free versions of walls tend to involve substantial variations onto more practicable free-climbing terrain, including, as in this case, onto quite separate routes. Such departures from the original line often involve completely new sections of climbing on which it is up to the climber involved, as with any first ascentionist, whether and how to equip the new climbing with fixed/drilled gear. As these new links often follow discreet lines of usable holds, rather than the more obvious features of interest to the original aid-climbers, they tend to be on blankish rock and can hence require bolts for protection, or nothing. At least three such link pitches are to found on the "Free Dawn Wall", two of which appear to constitute most of the crux. These two topos should give an idea of the number of bolts on the existing pitches that the free route uses; x = bolt/"drilled placement". http://yosemitebigwall.com/mescalito http://yosemitebigwall.com/wall-early-morning-light It follows the first five pitches of Mescalito; three on Adrift; link traverse (new) back into Mescalito pitch 9; pitches 10, 11, 12 of Mescalito; two link traverse pitches (new) leftwards into Wall of Early Morning Light - arriving (I think) somewhere near or just below the point at which New Dawn arrives from the other direction; five pitches (the first being the "dyno-pitch") following WoEML to a pitch above Wino Tower (with the possible exception of one which might be on Reticent); a short link up and round onto the ledge atop Mescalito's Bismark (the two routes are very close at this point); whereafter it follows the next four and-a-half pitches of Mescalito before traversing right and climbing up to finish either on or just right of Mescalito's final pitch (probably the latter). It should be remembered that some or many of the "bolts", particularly those on the ladders on the WoEML pitches, are likely to be of an ancient and spindly variety such as an aid-climber might gently ease his weight onto, rather than the sort of Petzl-branded product onto which one might cheerfully take successive and increasing lobs during the course of a redpoint project! Hope this is of some vague help and interest.
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