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Sentinel Rock, Steck-Salathé Route By: Bill Wright | Climbers: Bill Wright, Lou Lorber, Tom Karpeichik, Judy Morgan |Trip Dates: June 5, 2001 |
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Photo: Gary Clark |
® The author(s) and naclassics.com | |
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Back in 1985, this was the first wall route I ever did. Some will question whether this is a "wall" route at all. Nevertheless, my partner Fred Yenny and I chose this route to prepare us for Half Dome. We did it wall style because that was the only way we'd be capable of getting it done. We hauled, spent a night at the Flying Buttress and got down at 9 p.m. on the second day. I didn't remember much from this ascent, but figured if I could do it in two days then, we should be able to cruise it in a day now. I forgot that I had jugged half the pitches on my first ascent. We were up at 5 a.m. and, after some breakfast and the drive down to the Valley, hiking by 5:45 a.m. up the Four Mile Trail (incidentally, this trail is about 5.3 miles long and leads from the Valley to Glacier Point). Our plan was to climb the route as two parties of two: Lou and I and Tom and Judy. We each carried small Camelback packs with water, some food, and a headlamp, but once we pulled off the trail, we decided to strip even lighter. We went with one Camelback per team, dropped our extra shirt and our headlamps. We were committed to a fast ascent. The approach to the base of this route is long, 4th class, and quite exposed in spots. We moved cautiously but expediently up this terrain to the base of the route. The first pitch looked hard and long and it was both. This pitch is rated 5.8 (the squeeze section is rated 5.7) and we assumed it would be one of the quicker, easier pitches on the route. It wasn't. This pitch and its crazy rating is probably very useful in turning back people unprepared to climb 16 more pitches like it. [Editor's note: The author unknowingly climbed a direct variation, which is much harder than the standard first pitch.] The pitch starts steep and burly, but with hand jams. Forty feet up is a serious, though short, squeeze chimney that was all I could handle. We brought along a #5 Camalot per Bruce's suggestion and I placed it, tipped out, in the bottom of this squeeze. I then thrashed my way nowhere for a good five minutes. I took another look at it and desperately tried to jam my helmeted head into the crack with no luck. Things were not going well. Of course, I'd have cruised it if my helmet were smaller… Sweating profusely, I finally got up this section and then balked at the next wide section. Damn, I thought, what a bitch. Here I stemmed up the outside until I could clip a fixed sling and launched into a very committing lieback to avoid the wide section. Finally, fully spent, I arrived at the belay. My antics did not install confidence in my partners. The Lou followed much more quickly than I had led, but pulled a couple of times on gear to conserve strength. Nevertheless, he was still worked at the belay and immediately expressed second thoughts about continuing. We dilly-dallied a bit on the ledge due to these thoughts, but eventually, I started to move up the second pitch. I figured at least I'd do that pitch and then could still rappel off. As Tom approached the ledge, Lou expressed his concerns to him and wondered if he thought Judy would feel the same way. If the first pitch also worked Judy, then they could rappel off together and Tom and I could continue. Tom assured Lou that wouldn't be the case: "Judy likes wide cracks. This pitch will be no problem for her so stop thinking about going down Lou." I heard this, as I was only thirty feet up, and Lou yells up to me with confidence, "Okay, Bill, I'm committed. We're going to the top." "Alright", I think and cruise up the long 5.8 pitch (which, incidentally is much easier than the first 5.8 pitch). After I arrived at the belay ledge and clipped into two old pins, I yelled down "Off belay." Once I pulled the rope up and called "On belay," I heard Lou respond, "Tom will be coming next." It turned out that Judy had the same doubts. There was an emotional scene and Lou and Judy bailed. Tom needed to wait for them to rappel off, so that he could drop their line. We'd continue with just my 70-ounce Camelback and the single lead rope we had. I led the 3rd pitch, a real 5.7 pitch, up to the base of the Wilson Overhang. This pitch is rated 5.8 in the topo, but we knew from Bruce that it was more like 10b. Tom took his time figuring out the protection at the start of this bulging flare. He backed down from the moves once or twice before committing and grunting his way up. Following, with the security of a toprope, I found some easier combinations. I solved the opening moves with a high-step and some judicious palming on the left wall. Above this move the climb is a serious grunt, but stemming the left foot makes it reasonable. The flare is overhanging, but it is a nice hand size for the right hand. The difficulties involve moving up the right hand, since you can't really get your left hand in the crack. This is done via chimney bridging and stemming. The next pitch is a 5.9 squeeze, but the topo shows an alternative out to the right that is 5.8. This alternative is completely invisible from the belay and I started grunting up the squeeze. Thinking I was tricky, I found a nice placement for a red Alien in the wall behind me, but all this did was help macramé myself into the wall as if I was caught in a giant spider's web. Extricating myself from this mess, I spied a hidden crack out to the right. A huge stem and a dicey step-across move gained me this lieback crack and I ran it out until it merged back with the squeeze chimney. From the top of the squeeze, I made a mostly unprotected 5.7 traverse around to the right. There are some good holds here and it ends at a small stance with a belay anchor. Most of the belays on this route have a fixed anchor of either pins, old bolts, or, occasionally, new bolts. I usually backed up the belays with another piece unless the bolts were new. The next two pitches are rated 5.7 on the topo, but the first is a long, wide, burly affair with sections of 5.8+ offwidth, fist, wide hands, etc. Use your wide pieces judiciously here, as they have to last a long way. There are rests to break up the climbing, but it is hard and tiring. There are a number of options on the next pitch. I climbed up the right corner above the belay for about thirty feet before traversing across to the left and headed for a right facing corner system on the left side of the face. The climbing over there is fun and pretty easy - probably really 5.7. I ran out the rope to the sloping bivy below the passage through the Flying Buttress. Doing this takes about 180 feet of rope and combines the "4th class" pitch, which is really 5.7 jamming. Tom joined me and we climbed over the tree and burrowed through the buttress to the other side. Here we found a nice two-bolt chain rappel anchor. Attached to this anchor was a laminated picture of Derek Hersey who died when he fell off this route while unroped soloing. We rappelled sixty feet, past a great bivy ledge, to the base of the 5.9 variation pitch, where there was a bolt anchor. Looking back up this rappel, I can't imagine the downclimb is rated 4th class. It looked 5.9 to me. We finished the rappel at 12:30 p.m. and I figured we'd make the top by 5:30 p.m. We might have been close, if not for a couple of mistakes. Tom led the next 5.9+ pitch and I found it long, tiring, and thought provoking. I thought the crux was a thin section before the wide overhang at the top. To pass the small overhanging with the wide crack, I used some stems and liebacking. Above this more physical, 5.8 climbing led to a belay ledge. The next pitch (5.9+) works up and right to get onto the lower angled slab, then straight up to a difficult high-step move over a small "roof." I protected this section with a yellow Alien and then ran it out twenty feet above this with no sign of gear. I was started to get very concerned and called down to Tom about the situation. Just then I noticed a shiny new bolt at about ankle height. Clipping this bolt from my high position was probably the crux move on this pitch. Above this the climbing is really well protected by small Aliens (I used both greens, yellows, and reds on this pitch) and some other fixed pieces. The climbing is thin cracks and face moves and the angle is much less than the rest of route. It provides a nice respite from the wide burly stuff, but it doesn't last long because the next pitch is one of the hardest on the route. The face pitch ends at the foot of the great chimney that cleaves the upper half of the face. It starts with a difficult 5.8+/5.9- offwidth and after seeing Tom work so hard on this with his right side in, I climbed it left side in and things seemed to go a lot easier. Above the offwidth is a very sustained, insecure, runout, back-feet chimney. It is possible to rest most anywhere on this pitch, but every inch gained takes a lot of work and this is a time consuming and tiring pitch. It ends on a block deep in the chimney at the base of the famous Narrows pitch. The Narrows pitch was one of the biggest reasons for coming back to repeat this climb. Since we hauled the last time we climbed this pitch, we had to go outside the Narrows, as the haul bag wouldn't fit through. I felt deprived of one of the more famous pitches in the Valley. At first glance, the start of this pitch seems to require levitation. It continues up the back-feet chimney for ten feet and then the chimney is roofed off except for a fist crack on one wall. This fist crack opens in one location to allow a body to pass through. Getting the body up into this pod isn't that hard as your feet are pushing on the far wall. Once here I could place a bomber #4 Camalot and, in fact, you can pretty much have gear over your head throughout the crux of this pitch by walking the Camalot up once or twice. So, I was in the back-feet chimney position and my thighs were pressed against the underside of the roof. To go any further I needed to bend my legs at the hip and when I do this, my legs will be dangling uselessly beneath me. The crux moves involve shoulder rolling and chicken-winging up into the slot until you can get legs in the squeeze. Once I got my legs in I felt secure and pulled the #4 Camalot completely. I squeezed up, snaking my way through the widest section for about thirty feet until I found a place for a #1 Camalot at a nice two-inch ledge. Having attempted and failed to get through the Harding Slot on Astroman, I can attest that this pitch is much, much easier because it is considerably wider. Before climbing this pitch I stripped off all my gear: Camelback, helmet, rack, approach shoes, etc. I led this pitch with only four Camalots: 1, 2, 4, and 5. Only the #4 and #1 are necessary for this first section. Once at this stance, I placed the #1 Camalot and pulled up all the gear, including Tom's helmet, shoes, etc. I was still deep inside a squeeze chimney, so I left all the gear here except for a few pieces of gear and continued up and out the squeeze into a dihedral. In the corner of the dihedral was the squeeze chimney crack, now turned into an offwidth. There is a fixed piton belay out on this face, but I didn't belay there as it sucks. I continued up a fairly challenging offwidth, which I protected with the #5 Camalot and then another #1 Camalot in a smaller crack on the face just before the belay. Thankfully some stems for the left foot make this section more reasonable. I arrived at a big, sloping ledge that filled the whole gully and found an old bolt and a new bolt at the belay. I belayed Tom up to the first #1 Camalot inside the chimney where he released the gear and I hauled it all up to the belay by dropping him a loop of rope. Tom led off and across a sandy ramp to a corner/chimney system behind a huge wall/boulder that is in the main gully system above us. Once above this barrier, Tom got off route to the left. He noticed the wide, long, intimidating chimney in the right corner but figured it couldn't possibly be 5.6. It wasn't. He belayed off route and when I can up, I set him straight on the right direction to go. He headed off again up the chimney and had a hellacious time squeezing behind the lower chockstone (there are two prominent chockstones in this chimney - you go behind both and belay on top of the second one). He went left side in, so I followed right side in. I hung all the gear below me, including my helmet when I followed this section and didn't find it that bad. Above this chockstone is another long, feet-back chimney. These wide chimneys are a bit scary as they are so easy to fall out of. The tight chimneys are more difficult but they are almost impossible to fall out of. The belay on top of the chockstone has two new bolts. While re-racking here, I dropped a quickdraw and it fell clear down to the bottom of this pitch, but no further. Tom didn't want to leave it and volunteered to go down and get it. I think he just wanted to re-climb the pitch and prove to himself that it wasn't as difficult as it felt the first time. He stripped off all his gear and I lowered him down for the draw. The roundtrip probably took about fifteen minutes. I led off on the "5.7 mantle" pitch. It ascends a left-facing corner via a nice crack and good protection to the mantle move, which is probably about 5.7. Above here the ground is easy and broken and I was soon at the base of the next pitch. Since I had a lot of rope left, I elected to string the pitches together. This would prove to quite a test for me as I was now, finally, full-on in the sun and sweating strongly. The next pitch is a very steep, 5.9 hand crack with wide sections that can mostly be passed via reaches. I found it quite strenuous and was tired at the top, but still had to climb the 5.7 double cracks up and right. I was out of gear that would fit the 3-4" crack on the left and the right crack was a seam. I thought I was in for a scary runout and even contemplated belaying where I was when I noticed two fixed pins in the right crack. Climbing up this section really drained me. I felt it was more like 5.8. At least with the rope drag and hot sun, I was working very hard here. I was very glad to exit right onto 3rd class terrain and I stretched the rope to its full length in getting to the belay tree. The topo lists the top section as 3rd class, but this is incorrect. I remember my first trip up here where we unroped and I put the haul bag on my back. The route goes right out to the edge of the face and is insanely exposed. The climbing is low 5th class and the final slab is probably 5.5 or 5.6. I demanded a rope back then and now we just treated it as the final pitch. Tom ran out most of the rope to the summit and I soon joined him, thankful to be able to take off my shoes and untie the rope. We didn't linger long, and after getting out some food, started down. We had started the climb somewhere between 7-7:30 a.m. and we topped out at 7:09 p.m, so almost exactly 12 hours to climb this route. We had done 17 pitches instead of the 15 shown on the topo. Doing more pitches instead of less was a big change for me, but combining these long wide pitches wasn't much of an option with our rack. Hence, simul-climbing was even more ridiculous. We were absolutely flabbergasted that Timmy O'Neil and Dean Potter had simul-soloed this route, trailhead to trailhead, in 2.5 hours! I just cannot comprehend that. We're pretty fast hikers and it took us two hours to just do the descent! The approach had taken us over an hour. Those guys are simply amazing. The descent from the top was a bit easier than I had remembered it, but both previous times (I've also climbed the Chouinard-Herbert route) I've had a haul bag with me and once we came down in the dark. Without the bag and in the light, the descent isn't too bad, though still serious, tiring, and long. We did one 20-foot rappel that we probably could have avoided, but wanted to be safe. Thankfully, we hit the Four Mile Trail just before dark. Lou and Judy, who spent the day lounging about the Valley second-guessing their decision, had retrieved our stashed packs. Our late arrival did wonders towards confirming their decision to retreat as the correct move. Lou and Judy had already hiked up the trail a couple of times to meet us and listen for us with no avail, but Lou made a third trip and we met him ten minutes from the car, which we reached at 9:05 p.m. I was totally whipped. Tom and I collapsed into the back of the car for the ride back to Hans' house. We told stories of the endless difficulties on the drive. After a shower and dinner, I didn't get to bed until about midnight. Editor's Note: This report can also be found on the author's web site. The author is a Major Contributor to the North American Classics project. |
