First One Day Ascent - Scorched Earth

‘Alright, heads up, I’m getting on this hook!’

Ammon, stepped over onto the talon hook that was barely perched on a fingernail of rock.  He started laughing.  I remember glancing at Sky.

“I can’t believe its holding!” Ammon shouted.

I looked back down at the belay, clipping and organizing things, although I can’t remember what exactly I was doing.  Maybe trying to get Sky onto the belay?  Then I heard it, ping!  The unmistakable sound of a hook popping off its perch.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Ammon go flying past the belay.  I looked down over my right arm to watch him fall another thirty feet or more before slamming to the end of the rope.

When we asked Ammon if he was Ok he told he had a rope burn on his arm.  “How bad?” we asked him.  “It’s not to the bone!” he yelled back.

After the fall, I admit, some hesitation and negativity crept in.  The mediocre belay, the bolt hanger that Ammon’s fall bent, the insanely steep wall, they all started creeping into my mind.  Ammon remained psyched, but I think a little 50 footer is not likely to turn Ammon away.  Plus, he had a point, isn’t that all the more reason to push on? 

I'll let the pictures do the talking from here.

About to go

Luckily a passerby warned me that
the first pitch is pretty spicy.

Whats he doing?

uhhhhh...

Hey Ammon, how's that hook?!

That good, eh?

ARRRRRR!

The Lovetron.

The Big Brother

Steeper than God

Yeah, it's steep.

Jugging. Yay.

The Poison Pill

Son of Poison Pill

Our only ledge.  It was a nice one.

Stayin' comfy

It's still #$@%ing steep!

Sky takes over heading up wondering when
he will get to the Leavitator

Oh we're still psyched!

ARRRRRGGGG!  Success!
22:28 - First One Day Ascent of Scorched Earth

We slept here for about an hour.  I kept sliding down
farther and farther, but the rock was warm and felt so nice

We had a little mishap on the Leavitator.  Everything
was ok, but it was a little bit of a scary moment.

The De-Rack

Tribal Rite - A New Speed Record

Tribal Rite follows the yellow line, starting on the
Nose but breaking right at Boot Flake.
Photo: Mark Hudon

I was in the middle of my lunch break from my EMT refresher when Luke came by.  We were hoping for a speed record on Tribal Rite that coming weekend with Skiy Detray.  Looking a little distraught, Luke told me how his bike had just been run over at El Cap meadow.  Coupled with a rain-stormed journey up Lurking Fear, he was ready for new venues. 

I couldn’t blame Luke for wanting to take off.  Hanging out in the Valley without a solid plan or place to stay is, to say the least, difficult.  We had a pretty huge season and were ready for some free living and free climbing.

I knew I couldn’t bail on Skiy, I was committed; so we tracked down another friend, Kevin Prince, for the push on Tribal.  We knew Kevin would be fast and fun to climb with, even late into the night.  When Skiy and I started talking about the best tactics for gunning to Boot Flake with six gallons of water and a haul bag, the level of misery this mission would entail became clear.

The plan was for Kevin to lead us to Boot as fast as possible, Skiy and I jugging behind him with a backpack with three gallons of water each, clothes, food and other things.  This could be over 24 hours of wall climbing push if things didn’t go as hoped. We wanted to be prepared.

It ended up working out pretty much as planned.  We jugged.  The packs were heavy. It sucked.  But we did it.  It was hard, but we got to Boot Flake about half way up the wall (in terms of vertical distance) in about four and a half hours. That left nineteen hours to climb thirteen pitches and break the standing record of 23:33.

Photo: Tom Evans www.elcapreport.com

At the Boot, we shared a stance with two Argentinian climbers headed up the Nose.  They were on their third day of climbing, and had three more days on the wall. We were on our fifth hour and headed to the top.  They seemed more perplexed at our objective than anything else.  Maybe they were wondering the same thing many of us wonder:  What are we doing? Non-stop? Why?!

Skiy took over at the Boot, leading out into some A3 terrain and then into the formerly A4 pitch. He navigated loose rock while Kevin and I chatted on about this and that.  Skiy later remarked about how casual the whole route was.  Not in terms of the climbing, but in terms of our attitudes. Chatting away at belays, laughing and joking, then exploding into a flurry of motion when ropes were fixed and upwards movement required.

Sky coming up on the grey bands

Passing through the grey brands
Photo: Tom Evans www.elcapreport.com

Skiy put away four pitches of climbing quickly and efficiently.  On a nice ledge below the iconic feature dubbed ‘The Carrot’ I geared up to take us into the dark of night and through the next block of climbing.

Things go by in a blur at this point.  On hard pushes, once my block begins on these hard pushes I go into the zone, my eyes always feel like I am holding them open wider than normal.  My mental processing feels accelerated and heightened.  My hands move swiftly from cam to aider to fifi hook, to cam and aider again, up up up.

The pitches run together in my mind, even as I climb and think back to moves I just made I can’t always remember if they were on the previous pitch or the pitch before.  I think this is common for climbers: Many of us become ‘now’ centered machines, taking care of the task at hand, thinking of little else and focusing on quickly moving the team up the wall.  And this feeling, the hyper-focused state, is what I love. The hours of sitting in the harness waiting for my block melt away, and I become more focused than at any other time in my life.  The rhythm that I get into becomes a moving meditation, stilling my mind and that feeling keeps me coming back.

Three pitches from the summit, well into the darkness, Kevin took over for the final push to the summit.  Nineteen hours and forty-eight minutes later we arrived on the summit with a new speed record on El Cap and it felt good.  Sitting on the summit, despite how tired we were, we begin talking about what was next.

Eagle's Way - In Photos

Kevin Prince and I pushed Eagle's Way on September 23, just before the Search and Rescue Season came to an end.  It was only the second time we had roped up together but climbing with the Prince Factor is always exciting, despite forgetting all of our food, and Kevin sprinting back to the car, we spent 11:57 on the route...

Food Recovered, Parke 'Gunnit' Bags loaded.

A long way up...

Kevin quickly mixing the free and aid climbing up

I go now?

Steeper than expected

The Secret Weapons

Classic Kevin!

Hitch Hikers

I came around the corner at Crane Flat headed for San Jose and the two of them were standing there, thumbs out.  I was blowing out of Tuolumne Meadows a day early; I was sad to leave but ready to go.  It's weird to love a place so much, to spend all year wanting to be in that place more than anything, and then to leave early, anxious to move on but knowing that in a month I will be eager to go back.  

As I drove by the hitch hikers I gestured towards the back of my van shouting "I'm totally full up, I'm sorry!" and I drove on.

About a mile up the road I looked in the back and felt bad, knowing I could move some crap around and make room for two people to ride with me.  Maybe they'll give me some gas money, that would be helpful.  So at the first turnout I flipped the van around and drove back to get the couple that was headed westbound on Highway 120.

They were an interesting pair, him from Calgary with scraggly Johnny Depp-style facial hair and a keffiyeh around his neck.  Her from the UK, tall, beautiful and quiet.  She climbed into the back and him into the front.

"Where ya headed?" I asked them.

"Out of the Park I guess.  Nowhere really," he told me as we wound and barreled our way down highway 120 towards San Francisco.

They truly had no plans, I found out.  They were thinking about heading north on Highway 1, but didn’t know how they would get to Highway 1 or their ultimate destination.  In fact, they didn't really know what their destination was, only that they were headed somewhere on the North Coast.  I suggested they avoid the central valley like the plauge.

"It's hell, really.  Just farmland and the cities are kinda dangerous.  I think hitchhiking will be tough."

He looked at his California road map, contemplating, looking at San Jose and the central valley, thinking.  I suggested they ride with me all the way to San Jose then find their way to Santa Cruz, where they could pick up Highway 1 and head north more easily.  

He turned around and shouted into the back of the van, "He says we could go to Santa Cruz, on the coast, he says its a cool town.  Highway 1 goes right through town."

"Yeah, I heard," she yells forward.

"What do you think?"

She glances forward, "I don't care," then looks back out the window, smiling, and the conversation was over.

They were wandering and had been wandering all the way from Calgary to British Colombia, through Washington and Oregon.  "We got stalled out in Ashland that was a cool town, we liked it there!"  Then they had headed south to Sebastapol for a wedding, where they caught a ride with the groom’s parents to Yosemite, and here they were.  Roaming.  So I drove them to the bus station in downtown San Jose.  I wasn't really sure where they would spend the night, but they didn’t seem concerned.

I helped them get their stuff out of the van.  Carefully unloading around my precariously packed junk. I had told them when I picked them up that nothing was breakable except a stick and pinecone mobile carefully sitting on the back seat.

"So what did you guys steal?"

The girl laughs, swearing she didn't take anything.

"And you didn't break my mobile?"  I knew it would be a miracle if it made it through the drive home and that was before I picked up two more people.  But she promised me it was just fine.  
I wished them luck and, eager to get home for the night, I didn't hang around.  I fired the van up, waved, shouted another 'good luck!' and headed out.  I saw them as I drove away, stretching out their arms and legs, hug and a quick kiss.  They exchanged a few quick words and shot a smiling glance in my direction.

I hope they liked Santa Cruz.

Totem Cams - The Aid Review

Totem Cam Review – Aid Climbing with Totems

I heard about Totem Cams a year ago when some friends saw them at Outdoor Research and said they looked cool.  Over the winter I read an excellent review by Josh Higgins.  Josh’s review was superb and sparked my interest in these cams.  Josh talked a lot about free climbing with the cams but didn’t get into the details of aiding with them.  I recommend browsing over the Pullharder review and Totem Cams website for an in-depth analysis of the technical specs behind these cams.

I am no machinist or engineer, what I hope to provide is a good look at how these function in the real world of climbing.  So I got my hands on a set of Totem Cams and set out to use them for big wall climbing (and a bit of free climbing).  I wanted to use and abuse these things, to test their ‘two lobe placements’ and see how they held up in flares like they say they will.  I wanted to see how the intricate and complex design held up after being beaten on big walls.

So lets start at the beginning…

Out of the box you have to notice the feature that makes them so unique.  Totem cams lack a stem giving them greater flexibility than any cam I have ever seen.  They are lightweight, and while a little bit bulkier than other cams, it has not bothered me at all when they hang from my harness.  

Totem’s claim is that these can maintain holding power in 40 degree downward flare and that they can be used in 2 lobe placements (when clipping a single thumb loop).  

Flares?  Oh yeah, they hold.

My plan was to really try to utilize these as much as possible for all of that aiding trickery that is required Yosemite Valley on walls.  I hoped to use the Totems in placements where I would normally reach for an Alien or offset Alien in pin scars and blown out placements.

I was eager to get these things out to the stone, especially for aiding, so off to El Capitan I went.  I substituted both a red and yellow Alien for a blue and yellow Totem Cam.  I also substituted a purple, green and red Camalot for their corresponding size Totems.  Over the course of several months I took them up The Shortest Straw, Native Son, Mescalito, and The Nose.  As well as dozens of pitches of free climbing over the next several months.

After the first few pitches of The Shortest Straw I really noticed how solid the Totem cams feel when placed in normal placements (places where you aren’t having to put much thought into how to make the piece stick).  They have a stability that I haven't noticed with any other cam.  Because of their unique lobe design and the way the cams are loaded onto the lobes (via the clip-in wires as opposed to the axle), the Totem Cams seem to cam with more force than other cams on the market.  

The orientation of the wires on the lobes seems to create a lever, similar to a tricam in some ways, providing more force and a stronger camming feel.  This proved to be an awesome quality while aid climbing, allowing the cams to stay in places I didn’t think they would, like pods, and flares.  I was able to turn horrible, blown out pin scars into decent placements.  Many of these placements were far more solid than they look.

Two lobes or is that three?

Learning the trickery

Barely in there, yet I could jump on the aider

Over the three days on the route I became more and more comfortable with the Totem Cam. I admit, I had to learn how to use this new tool, the more I used them, the more comfortable I became with them and the more I figured out what they could do.

One of the aspects of Totem Cams that I was originally most interested in is the ability to clip a single set of cam lobes, essentially creating a two-lobed cam.  At first I was nervous to use this feature, it was so unlike anything I had done before.  However, I quickly learned how useful this is.  A few examples:

Clipping just the inside lobes can be essential

I couldn't make anything stick in this 3/4 inch deep sawed angle scar except this Totem, and it was bomber.

One of the best tricks I have learned with the Totem cams is how you can clip through both of the thumb loops, orienting the biner of your aider through the inside lobe set first, then through the outside lobe set. 

This has the effect of applying more force to the inside lobes (the set that you almost always want to pull harder on, as they are deeper in the rock and gain more purchase).  The outside lobes are also weighted but see less force.  This is an incredible trick in shallow flares and pin scars where the outside lobes of the cams are far more open than the inside lobes.  Below are several placements clipped like this.

Weird pin scars, no prob.

Several times I placed cams and clipped them like this thinking there was no way it would hold, and found myself jumping on the aiders in amazement while the cam didn’t budge.

Issues:

I have now taken totem cams on 4 El Cap routes, nearly 100 pitches, and double that of free climbing pitches.  I worried that the metal of the lobes (I would compare it to Alien lobes) was going to wear, dent, ding, and mushroom easily.  This has not been the case at all.  The cams still look and perform perfectly.  I had one issue with a trigger spring on the largest cam (red) popping through the trigger plate.  With a bit of pulling and tugging I was able to pull it back through and it works fine. 


One of my climbing partners has remarked that he wishes the smallest two cams were different colors, as they do not correspond with Black Diamond or CCH aliens.  However, within a few pitches I think you get used to it.  

Overall:

Totem Cams have designed a new and innovative piece of protection.  This is a new tool in my arsenal of big wall climbing equipment.  While I wouldn’t say that Totems replace Aliens/Mastercams and their offset counterparts, they are great for big wall climbing.  Totems will go with me on all of my big walls from here on, they have been with me on some of the hardest pitches I have lead and I have been extremely happy to have them.


The complex design is very well made and seems to be holding up as well (or better) than any other cam I have owned and used on the wall.  I can't wait to see the basic cams and the offsets.


The way that one lobe set can be clipped and some of the tricks open new doors for clean climbing on big walls as well.  While I am not one to preach clean climbing, it is a fact that better rock preservation means more people enjoying routes for longer (myself included).

Overall, I would highly recommend Totem cams for both free climbing, and especially, for aid climbing.  I need to thank Totem Cams for donating this set for a review.  I informed them I wanted to write an unbiased review and I tried to portray my experiences with the Cams honestly and truthfully.  I hope the climbing and big wall community find this review helpful.  Let me know if you have any other questions.