Dreams of Icarus

[JC w KC redux]

Rad.

Totes!

[clink]

The climbing from the SOTW bolts up to the aid pitch was def heads up and I'm glad that Brad...

Typo? Deaf, and other impairments? You guys probably watch AFHV and mutter to yourself "I can do that" after all the really painful wipe-outs.

[cobbledik]

Your old man is showing.

[clink]

Embarrassing.

Speaking of old men, where's Brad?

[mungeclimber]

Tahoe

[cobbledik]

Totally OT but I remember watching the British version of AFHV in England and that show is much more vindictive over there. I distinctly remember one video that was a baby walking on a diving board, slipping, hitting its head, and falling into the pool. Not really in a funny pratfall sort of way, more of a holy shit that baby just died sort of way. My English family just laughed and couldn't understand the difference between funnyhaha and cringyomg.

[clink]

Hilarious take on that one Cobbledik.

[Brad Young]

Nice job getting on it!

...I then led the second pitch bolt ladder with just a quick draw and a double length sling with some knots tied in it, plus runners for pro. I didn't find it reachy even with limited gear, although in a few spots I pulled on some manky body weight kind of pieces and made one 5.10+ free move. I aided all the way to the start of the Son of the West variation...

Curious, did you use aiders; it almost sounds like you just muscled up it! Did we leave enough old bolts on the ladder to provide a little spice?

...We rapped from here after Nate struggled up behind me. I was kind enough to not bring him gear for ascending the line. This is typically how I haze new climbing partners. I like Nate. He smiled the whole way despite the lack of equipment. Now he's a certified ninja aid climber...

And maybe a budding Master of Mud too 

I joked how I felt like Honnold and that I should go for a NIAD. Ironically another climbing partner called me for a NIAD attempt next Thursday. I quickly felt my rack of nuts shrink and declined, not feeling like Honnold much anymore.

Reminds me of how bad-ass we thought we were, doing thirty something pitches on Dark Star by late afternoon one day. Until we saw the summit entry by Peter Croft!

[JC w KC redux]

Curious, did you use aiders; it almost sounds like you just muscled up it! Did we leave enough old bolts on the ladder to provide a little spice?

Didn't he say a quick draw and a knotted sling?

I thought you and Cobble used dental floss and paper clips

[Brad Young]

No, he wore dental floss, and I pounded paper clips into the rock.

It sounded to me like the "knotted sling" was a daisy chain, but, you're right, maybe he used it as an aider.

[mynameismud]

That means it is now A0.

[kylequeener]

Nice job getting on it!

Curious, did you use aiders; it almost sounds like you just muscled up it! Did we leave enough old bolts on the ladder to provide a little spice?

And maybe a budding Master of Mud too  

Reminds me of how bad-ass we thought we were, doing thirty something pitches on Dark Star by late afternoon one day. Until we saw the summit entry by Peter Croft!

Brad, I didn't use aiders and I didn't feel like I muscled up it. I simply used the quick draw much like a fifi hook allowing me to stand up tall, kinda like top stepping, in a sling I had clipped to the same bolt then clipping the next bolt with a quickdraw then choking the cobra on that draw while I would move my tied sling up and match the new bolt, pop off the quick draw below and climb up until I could clip my fife draw into the quickdraw. There were enough foot holds on the pitch to allow me to do this. And if any of the cobra choke moves got too hard I could simply clip the lead line and pull up on the rope, just like I do when I'm hang doggin.

It sounds confusing when I re-read this. Hopefully it makes some kind of sense to you. It's just a whatever works style. Definitely helps out in a pinch.

Oh, I also don't worry about those old bolts too much. I'm 140-145 lbs. I assume if they hold everyone else they'll hold me too.

[Brad Young]

It's as hard to follow what you wrote as it would be to write it myself.

But now that I understand what you had with you, it's easy to visualize how you did it.

[cobbledik]

Brad, I didn't use aiders and I didn't feel like I muscled up it. I simply used the quick draw much like a fifi hook allowing me to stand up tall, kinda like top stepping, in a sling I had clipped to the same bolt then clipping the next bolt with a quickdraw then choking the cobra on that draw while I would move my tied sling up and match the new bolt, pop off the quick draw below and climb up until I could clip my fife draw into the quickdraw. There were enough foot holds on the pitch to allow me to do this. And if any of the cobra choke moves got too hard I could simply clip the lead line and pull up on the rope, just like I do when I'm hang doggin.

It sounds confusing when I re-read this. Hopefully it makes some kind of sense to you. It's just a whatever works style. Definitely helps out in a pinch.

Oh, I also don't worry about those old bolts too much. I'm 140-145 lbs. I assume if they hold everyone else they'll hold me too.

Attach sling to bolt, step into sling and clip one side of a draw into the bolt and the other side of the draw into the belay loop. Use free moves while connected via draw to bolt until you can reach up and clip the next bolt. Rinse and repeat.

A lot of the confusion in writing this process seems to be in explaining the process of moving a single sling from the lower bolt to higher bolt. The whole thing can be eased by using two separate slings. I'm assuming you tied knots in the sling to give yourself more "steps" in the sling; if you didn't, consider that next time, especially if there's not a lot of features to use or the bolt ladder is overhanging.

If you're going to do more routes at the pins with bolt ladders, consider getting a pocket aider (http://www.metoliusclimbing.com/pocket_aiders.html). Only 6oz and packs up small in its own pouch. You only really need one in conjunction with a long sling used as a daisy on your belay loop to hang off off while transferring the pocket aiders from the lower bolt to the upper bolt. Even better, make your own ladders from webbing (http://www.climbing.com/skill/tech-tip-aid-cheap-aiders-and-daisy-chains-2/) I've made a pair of these for fun. They're not comfortable but they're cheap and get the job done. Plus you get hardman cred from the crusty old dads around here.

Be careful trusting your weight to the idea that manky bolts (or fixed pins and heads) have held heavier climbers before you. The failure is less likely to come from extreme weight than it is the degrading metal and freeze/thraw effects over time. What might hold 200lbs one year might fail under 100lbs a few years later. This is why early spring ascents of wall routes with fixed gear in Yosemite are inherently scarier than the rest of ascents later that year.

[Marco]

Saturday was another great day questing for mud. Cole and I did Icarus, which was another great experience overall.
Cole always said Icarus was the most obvious line on Machete in terms of a long route up a classic face. We are hoping to get more aid experience and it seems Icarus is the only aid line in pinnacles that isn't a bolt ladder and actually goes somewhere. I always thought Son Of Dawn Wall was the most obvious, and Icarus looked too hard.

On Saturday, we got the good weather window, as it seems to rain every weekend this winter.
We got to the parking lot around 7:45 AM and to the base at 8:30.
 
The rock-paper-scissors gods did not smile down upon me that day and determined Cole lead the first pitch.
We racked up, flaked the ropes, and realized we were at the base of Shortly Tooloose 5.8 R.

Once at the actual first pitch of Icarus it was 8:45 and Cole headed up the first pitch. It started off really secure rock for the first 30 feet then once on the slabby section the rock was less than bomber. Cole made the mistake of looking at a flake wrong and a couple foot section of rock came down. He got up to the belay and I followed wondering why I had only heard about how spooky other pitches were. If this was the chill warmup pitch, we were in trouble.


Cole on P1


Looking down P1



At 9:30 I was leading the 2nd pitch and that was the most reachy bolt ladder I have ever done. There was a black totem I had to high-step somewhere on the upper bolts but that was the only gear in the bolt ladder. After pooping my pants for 15 minutes getting out of the ladders I climbed past a bolt or two and a #2 before getting up to another bomber anchor beneath the A3 pitch.


Super convenient anchor ^ definitely would suck if it was bolted. Obviously, it was not in the comfortable-looking pod with no gear 5 feet higher.



Cole arrived at the anchor at 10:45.



He set off leading the A3 pitch at 11:00. Aside from the usual rack, 2 LAs and 3 beaks were needed to get through the seam. Plus some fixed pins, I think 3 - I assume have Brad or Kevin to thank for leaving those. All the fixed pins seemed welded in and had no chance of being bootied.

The one bolt on the pitch was a stardrivin which Cole said he was stoked to have. Worth noting the 3rd pitch belay was just one modern bolt backed up by a mediocre #1 15 feet higher. It took about 2.5 hours to lead and clean the pitch and at 1:30 I was leading the groove pitch.

I found this to be the best pitch by far and while I got a lot of gear in I wouldn't have wanted to test much of it. I found the varied stemming and chimneying on this pitch to be very fun. About half the pitch was pretty solid, the left side, the right wall was somewhat loose, especially at the beginning.


Looking down on Cole after the crux of the pitch.


Just over crux of P4

It was another uncomfortable belay.


An hour later Cole was leading the next pitch which would have been quite good except for how dirty it was. A classic case of “once this line gets more traffic it will clean up”.


Me following up last real climbing


At 3:30 we were at the base of the easy pitch. The belay under the massive flake was quite nice but we had a date with summit beers so we moved on quickly.


Leading last pitch


We both summited at 3:50 and the condors came to check us out.




The condors were awesome and landed nearby, it was the closest we’ve been yet.


We could perfectly see the Citadel from here and saw a pair on Power Tools. Knowing Mikayla and Gavin were there that day we cheered them on watching Mikayla climb P4. Rudely they never responded to our cheers… Mikayla later said they did not do Power Tools.



At 5 we were rapping off the Old Original P1 anchors, I think, we have yet to do Old Originals P1&2.


The hike back to the base went quick and smoothly. At the base we found the one piece of gear dropped on P3, a lost arrow in a pile of leaves.

It’s worth noting that we hauled a school backpack the whole way and it worked quite well. In the groove pitch and last bolted slab pitch, the follower was necessary to get it unsnagged. It was nice not to have to carry the water, rack, and hammer for most of the pitches.

TLDR^
I really like writing these trip reports as my partners are constantly asking about our past shared experiences that I just can't for the life of me remember. Maybe living in Santa Cruz has contributed to my shot memory or maybe I've taken too much choss to the dome. Either way I really like rereading through these past stories with friends that are really family.  Just wish I didn't have to jump through flickr hoops to post a real story here.

Thanks to Brad for beta and rebolting efforts. Thanks Cole as always for being a badass and making sure we got it done.

[JC w KC redux]

You guys are machines!
Loved the trip report - thanks for the entertainment.
 

[cobbledik]

Proud send! Now go get on Premeditated and see if you young bucks can get the final traverse clean so that we can finally know that the whole route can go clean.

[Cole Ing]

Proud send! Now go get on Premeditated and see if you young bucks can get the final traverse clean so that we can finally know that the whole route can go clean.

We did in December, nailing both pitches.  I don't wanna go anywhere near Premeditated again, much less attempt it clean.  Thing had me gripped!  Total type 2 fun for me, compared to Icarus' (mostly) type 1.  Plus nailing is pretty fun 

[NOAL]

Either way I really like rereading through these past stories

Me too!  This one was super good so I will definitely give it repeat views.

Hopefully the forum won't implode and the posts of your adventures will inspire others in the future.

So what's next?

[Gavin]

Great work Marco and Cole - that's an awesome effort getting through Icarus.