Fatiron with Timmy O’Neill

May 7, 2003

Two months ago I climbed the Fatiron with Ben, Kreighton, and Bernard. Conditions were a bit snowy and Kreighton and Bernard simul-climbed the route. Still we did the roundtrip in 2h19m. See the trip report here. I really enjoy this scramble and decided to go back this morning in the hopes of breaking two hours. Only the peripatetic, ebullient Timmy O’Neill agreed to join me and he was the ideal partner. It is always a thrill to do adventures with him just to pick his brain about his historic climbs. Today he gave me the beta on climbing Mt. Watkins, which I hope to try on my next trip to Yosemite. I was a bit worried when Timmy first told me that Dean Potter and he bailed on their first attempt! They went back and did it in 8.5 hours and then 5h15m (the record, of course) when he climbed it after doing the Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome and just before the Nose of El Capitan in a monster triple Grade VI link-up in a single day.

Anyway, back to my 5.5 scramble. Magoo was there also, but just to run. We gave him a couple minutes lead and then ran him down. We wouldn’t see him again until we were done, but at least we motivated each other to get out there. Timmy and I ran up the Mesa trail to the Bluestem and then back south on the Mesa trail again before heading cross-country to the base of the route. We got to the base of the route in 31 minutes, despite me doing a bad job on finding and staying on the climbers’ path. We were eight minutes ahead of “record” pace, but we’d do most of the damage on the route itself.

We scrambled up the Fatironette, stripping off our outer layers as thinks heated up nicely. It was 36 degrees at the start and we were both in tights and had extra layers on top. Now I was in short sleeves and very comfortable. The rock on this route is so featured and solid that it is a pure joy to climb. This time of day yields such beautiful light and the views of the Maiden are striking. This rock is rarely visited and you can all alone on it any time of day and any season. You don’t have to get up in the dark to find this solitude.

We topped out after just 21 minutes of climbing, including a bathroom stop. We never really pushed hard for speed at any time during this outing. We chatted non-stop and I can’t do that if I’m pushing my aerobic limits. Last time it took us 45 minutes to climb the route, so we were already comfortable ahead of a sub-two hour pace.

We did the really cool chimney downclimb descent and scrambled down the north side of the rock. A moment of inattention netted me a nasty fall on the lichen-coated talus. Thankfully my ample backside padding cushioned the impact and resulting bounce down the slab. Unfortunately my skinny arms didn’t have as much padding and I acquired some new scrapes in the exact location as my White Rim mountain biking mishap. We had just talked about why we couldn’t go fast on such terrain and indeed we were going slow. Slow, but apparently not carefully.

Once back at the trail, we reversed our route back to the parking lot, finishing in a surprisingly fast 1h25m19s. A concerted effort could easily drop this time by ten minutes. Bill, Buzz, or Timmy going flat out might be able to break an hour, but that would be huge. This is about 6 or 7 miles for the roundtrip, 2000 vertical feet and 1000 feet of fun slab climbing, up to about 5.4/5. I do so love the Flatirons…