UKC

This week's Friday Night Video follows Tyler Karow and Peter Foster on a ground-up attempt of Freerider (5.12d) on El Capitan, Yosemite. The pair spend several days on the wall and eventually hit the crux pitches, having to choose between the Boulder Problem (made famous by Alex Honnold) and the Teflon Corner...

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Nice video...and brought back mixed memories in both extremes from my two visits.

Tell me, do all Americans speak like that, or just sportspeople, or just climbers, or just Californian climbers?

What a nightmare... going on Salathe only to get mixed up with these two dudes.

Does it count as ground up if you work individual pitches on a top rope? Or had they given up on it by then?

It was a ground up attempt but they did not succeed. Reading the Youtube comments, whilst they failed the ground up attempt, the video shows what it is like on the route for normal people and that you can still have loads of fun and challenge yourself.

I think ground up on routes like that just means not abbing in from the top to work high up crux pitches. Aiding a pitch, and then working it to try and free it, is fair game. 

As GDes said, in the context of free climbing Yosemite big walls, ground up seems to mean that they didn't ab in beforehand to pre-practice any pitches. Once on the wall all kinds of shenanigans seem to be accepted, mainly aiding pitches to then practice them on top rope, and sleeping above a pitch you've not freed, possibly quite a way above. Commonly seems to be combined to allow people to ab back down and free a pitch they previously aided, but in the dark when conditions are cooler, then once they're done they've already got their ledge etc set up for the night and don't have to do that in the dark. Makes sense, but not particularly satisfying.

Certainly pragmatic rather than aesthetic. I wonder if you have to do all the pitches in the correct order. In fact could you just frig the whole route and then climb it top down (so to speak), with all the hauling and aiding out of the way and top-roping always convenient?

Opens a completely different perspective on things ! Doing them in reverse order would save a lot of effort with the bags. 

Top down big-walling.

Well not what I thought was ground up and certainly not on sight. However, was interesting to compare an ascent we made in 1974 of the normal Salathe wall,being the only team on the wall.. ... Nice clear video 

My first though was “why don't they just climb something easier, this looks daft”. But then I remembered that there is nothing easier, so I guess the style makes some form of sense.

My (limited) understanding is that, by the local standards, no you don't have to do all the pitches in the correct order in order to be considered to have freed the route, or even freed it ground-up (because ground-up really just means haven't abbed in before). Though generally you would do, because you come across them in that order...

Tends to be the hard pitches that are the exception, for example in this video I think they go down to work the boulder problem having already made it to 'The Block', which is a bivi site above the Boulder Problem/Teflon Corner. The BP/TC and The Block are separated by one 5.10 pitch, which they freed before they attempted the boulder problem free. They didn't manage to free the boulder problem in this instance, but if they had done I don't know whether they would have 're-freed' the 5.10 pitch or just jugged back up their fixed line (think they had one).

As far as I can tell, big wall free climbing lost any semblance of a rigid rule set very early on when someone (I forget who) doing an early repeat of the free Salathe decided to have their portaledge above the headwall pitch which they were working on, rather than below it.

Despite what I said above about no semblance of a rule set, I suspect that this would be pushing things a bit!

Another point is that at least one of the guys in this video has aided the Salathe before, which given it shares the majority of ground with Freerider is another point of dubiousness on the ground-up thing. I'm not sure what the local ethic is regarding whether it's possible to go ground up on a free climb you've previously aided.

Awesome video thanks.  A bit of tough-man Camp 4 Culture sillyness at the start, but otherwise just some guys having a great time on the wall.  The best part was when they gave up trying the hard bits and cried "We give up -- Celebration!"  It's hard to find good watchable footage of people who are not climbing heros.  Actually sometimes climbing-hero footage is pretty unwatchable too -- or unlistenable.

I bet you no one has downclimed free the whole route top-down ! 
Still chance for me to become famous yeee …

Yes, a bit weird really. I mean this is the tactics used to open up a lot of pioneering big wall routes but no-one talks about them being done ground-up. I guess the routes are in a sense but the individual pitches are clearly redpointed.

Are you sure you don't mean: Free Falling?