Eldo Speed Climbing

August 22, 2003

Today was my youngest son’s first day of Kindergarten. I didn’t want to miss Derek riding his bike to school with his Sponge Bob Squarepants backpack. I didn’t want to miss him meeting his fellow students and the teacher. I didn’t want to miss him marching off to his first class. School starts at 8:30 a.m. A sane person might sleep in a bit, get up, take a shower, and have breakfast with the kids. But I wanted to do a bit of climbing in Eldorado before. I told my partner, Hardly Manson, that I needed to be in the car and driving for home by 8 a.m. Naturally, he didn’t suggest anything ridiculous like climbing the Yellow Spur (7 pitches, 5.10b with the direct finish) in such a short time period. He suggested the Long John Wall (5 pitches, 5.8)…to be followed by the Yellow Spur…to be followed by the Bastille Crack (5 pitches, 5.8). He’s such a nut…

We met at 5:45 a.m. in Eldo and donned our harnesses and even our climbing shoes in the parking lot. We took a rather large rack since we’d be doing a touch of simul-climbing, but only brought 100’ of 7.8mm rope. We were hiking by 5:55 a.m., headed for the West Ridge and the Long John Wall.

Hardly led the Long John Wall as a single pitch and I simul-climbed behind him. I think Hardly placed 5 or 6 pieces on the entire route! This is such a fun route with a number of steep 5.8 sections in dihedrals and over small roofs. The rock is excellent and the protection is very good, that is, if you decide to place any. We climbed it in 19m06s, a new record for this route.

We downclimbed the east side of the West Ridge and traversed across the talus gully directly to the base of the Yellow Spur. It was my turn to lead and I started up without much delay, only seven and a half minutes after topping out on the Long John Wall. I clipped three fixed pins on the steep 5.9 first pitch, turned the roof and traversed over to the first belay at the tree. I didn’t stop here, though, and just ducked under the tree on the left side, didn’t clip the belay, and ran the rope out to the steep dihedral of the second pitch (5.8). I placed a good piece here and immediately climbed on. Hardly would simul-climb the 5.9 roof below me. That’s why I was leading. He’s the stronger climber and I knew he wouldn’t fall. In fact, I was nearly betting my life on it.

I clipped another fixed pin and soon I was climbing through the second belay. I clipped two or three fixed pins on the third pitch (5.7) and then ran the rope out completely on the easy (5.4) fourth pitch. I placed three pitches on the fifth pitch (5.8) and started up the steep, airy sixth pitch (5.9 to 5.10b direct finish) without many slings left. I skipped a few fixed pins here to conserve gear and had fun with the beautiful, exposed climbing.

I decided to finish on the 5.10 section since I hadn’t done it my last couple times up here. By the time I was on this section, Hardly had me on a regular belay, but I didn’t know it at the time. I clipped a two of the three bolts here and the final fixed pin and pulled over onto easier ground. This felt a lot easier than the last time I did it. I climbed up thirty feet or so and stuffed three cams into a good crack and put Hardly on belay. We wondered how much time we lost by belaying this section. The only time lost was in setting up the belay and climbing a hundred feet of 5.6 climbing (the terrain above that I could have been climbing if simul-climbing). I can climb that distance in about a minute. It probably took me a minute to set up the belay, so maybe two minutes lost. But then Hardly says that he can climb 5.10 fast a lot faster with a toprope belay than while simul-climbing, so it might have been even. It’s moot, though, since we weren’t about to simul-climb 5.10. It’s not worth the risk.

Hardly led through to the summit and immediately downclimbed off north to the notch, where we unrope. We climbed the route in 34m22s – faster than Hans and I climbed it by ten minutes, but still 12 minutes off the roped team record. We descended the long, scrambling east slabs and back down by the Wind Tower.

As we descended the trail we spotted a team climbing Wide Country on the Bastille and breathed a sigh of relief that they weren’t on the Bastille Crack. Then we spotted a team gearing up at the base. I let Hardly go by to speed to the base of the route and ask for permission to go in front. The team graciously allowed us to go first and Hardly was soon halfway up the first pitch.

Figure 1: Elevation profile for our morning. The first peak is for the Long John Wall, then the Yellow Spur, followed by a huge descent, then the Bastille Crack and finally Calypso/Reggae.

The team on Wide Country (5.11a) was Jon Krakauer and Bill Briggs. Bill’s a good friend of mine and I chatted with him before I blasted on up the route. Bill said to me, “Sort of a late start isn’t it, Bill?” I told him about our other two routes and he was nice enough to act impressed. The team that let us go first then said, “Wow. I don’t think we’ll be waiting on you guys.”

I started up the first pitch before Hardly ran out all the rope and got to just before the step-across move. I belayed here until most of the rope was out and then continued up. Hardly had placed one piece at the bottom of the crack, then clipped the belay, then two pieces on the next pitch. When I got even with Jon I told him how I was enjoying his new book, Under the Banner of Heaven, and that Sheri had already read it. I know Jon only a little bit, having met him a few times on the rocks and in the gym.

Hardly towed me up the rest of the route and I topped out in 12:53 – only six seconds off the team record! Dang! I didn’t know we were so close. We’ll have to return and claim this record from Hans and I. Josh Wharton holds the solo record at 5m44s over Hans (5m52s) and Ben Hoyt (6m03s). We descended off the backside and I mentioned to Hardly that we still had time for Calypso/Reggae if he was game. If he was game… What a silly statement. He was soon racing past the base of the Bastille. The leader of that team was just finishing the first pitch. Bill Briggs was just halfway up the first pitch of his route. I called up to him, “Have a good climb, Bill!”

We ran across the bridge and up to the Boulder Direct start. Hardly led again and he soloed the first pitch of Calypso (5.6), just clipping the belay bolts. He started up the second pitch before I corrected him and said, “Aren’t we going to do Reggae?” He said, “I thought that didn’t look right, but I had such a head of steam up…” He downclimbed a bit and then traversed right to the start of Reggae (5.8).

Hardly placed two pieces on Reggae and then downclimbed off to the right to the top of The Bomb (5.7). He immediately started downclimbing that route while I was still climbing up Reggae. I topped out on Reggae 7m41s after Hardly started up from the ground. This was a new record, as well.

I downclimbed the Bomb in less than four minutes and we hit the bridge with all our gear 2h06m28s after we started. We had climbed five routes (one was a downclimb), done a total of 21 pitches, and covered about two thousand vertical feet. I was driving out of the canyon at 8:03 a.m. and was able to bike over to school with Daniel and Derek. What a great way to start Kindergarten!

Note: We thought we had put in a good effort, but when I got to work I had a message from Josh Wharton. He and Phil Gruber had also done a speed climb in Eldo that morning. They climbed Touch and Go (5.9) to the Naked Edge (5.11b). They completed this 7-8 pitch route as a single simul-climbed pitch in 1h0m5s! A new record for the most classic route in Eldo! Awesome job, Josh and Phil!

Speed records can be viewed at www.speedclimbing.org.

Photo 1: Derek ready to ride to his first day at Kindergarten.

Photo 2: Derek marching off to class. Mommy (left) doting on her son.