Arguably Salathe Wall vies with the Nose for the title of one of the best routes in the world. It’s certainly an amazing line but being harder than the nose, we didn’t seriously consider it ourselves, but with Massons experience and confidence, we had a new lease of life. However, stood below a wall that stretches up for a vertical kilometer, with a slightly dull head, we both felt pretty nervous. But we were super psyched to finally get to climb on El Capitan!
We had lots to do to prepare, we needed to check we had the right rack, and we needed food and water. Masson decided he wanted to have a look at freeing it. Now, he was certainly strong enough, but would need time up there to work the route, so we decided we would spent 5 days up there to stand the best chance. 5 days of food and water for 3 people = some very heavy haul sacks!
Sorting Kit in Camp 4
We headed to the supermarket and filled a trolley with: 36 bagels, 6 bags of gummy bears, 30 energy bars, 15 tins of chilli., 5 packets of pop tarts, 6 packets of beef jerkey and enough chocolate to make a stick obese. Luckily a friend had a staff discount card from the valley so we got all this half price! Now came the next problem. Water. We reckoned on needing 50litres for the 5 days. Great, no room for beer then.
We had nowhere near enough water containers for a start. So, we trawled through the big bear proof garbage bins that Yosemite has, for decent bottles…. But find barely any… Sean the Belgium realises the garbage bins are a bit of a treasure trove, all the bottles in there are worth 5c each if you hand them into the recycling. And the bins a pretty big in typical American style. We hear about a couple of Brits a few years back who couldn’t climb because their rope got damaged, but after 2 weeks of this bottle “collecting” they had enough money to buy a new rope!
As if by magic we manage to ‘acquire’ big blue, a big solid blue plastic 35l container that fits nicely in bottom of haul sack, we then ‘acquired’ a hose so we could siphon the water out of it up on the wall! It all seemed like a really good idea, though getting water out of it would prove easier said than done up ont the route!
So we’ve got all our food and equipment together and we begin to hike the 150l of it all to the base. Now this was a very sweaty task in the humid forest, there were times I thought my shoulders were going to implode under the weight of the sack – I was carrying big blue! Good job El Cap is practically roadside!
There is a line of fixed ropes that join the route part way at a point on the wall called heart ledge, you can take your bags up here before starting to climb the route. So we undertake the god-awful task of hauling our bags up the fixed lines, no mean feat sweating profusely with a hangover, knowing it will save us loads of nasty hauling if we were to take them on the first day of Salathe. We then head back down to the valley to sleep the night in camp before starting the route the next day.
Haul Bags up on Salathe Wall
Walking past the queue at the base of the Nose we have a deep sense of satisfaction that we are the only people on our route. When we get to camp we realise we made a schoolboy mistake and had left our sleeping bags up on the wall! It was a cold night in camp, wrapped in borrowed clothes! But at least our food was safe away from bears up there, friends of our were not so lucky on half dome when they left their food at the base. All that was left when they got down was 1 tin of chilli and a tea bag between 4 of them….!
Last blog on this tomorrow – do we make it?!