The Nose - But only the first 5 pitches

It is 29°F in Church Bowl right now while I’m writing this. We are always hearing about the "Nose in a Day" or the "Yosemite Triple," but now it’s time for you to hear about me struggling to get up the first five pitches of the Nose. 

This weekend, my friend Norman and I decided to try and get up to Dolt Tower. I have no aid climbing experience. We got to El Cap Meadow around 6:45 a.m., and it was very cold—so cold that even touching carabiners to rack up totally numbed my fingers. We racked up and walked to the base, where we decided to do the 4th-class scramble instead of Pine Line. This went well, even with the voice in the back of my head telling me that if I mess up these moves, "yur gonna die."

Pitch 1 - Norman leads this pitch and aids the 5.11 line. I ask him questions about what it means to French free while he tries to focus on leading the pitch. He cruises it and fixes the line. It’s been a while since I’ve jugged a fixed line, but cleaning the pitch goes well. I also begin to realize that with aid climbing anything goes and I can toss out my free climbing ethics of not standing on bolts etc.

Pitch 2 - My first aid lead ever! The biggest thing I remember is getting my aid ladders and adjustable daisies wrapped around my feet and rope over and over. I also frequently pinched the aider I wasn’t using between the granite and my foot by accident—very annoying when I went to pull it up to use it. I didn’t realize that if you mess up leading an aid pitch, you’re going to whip the same way you would on a free climb. This is important, since the two pieces below me consist of a marginal .5 Z4 and a black Totem with only two lobes engaged. A vivid vision of the lobes on the black totem exploding as I take a lead fall on it plays in my head as I stand up on it and get a bomber cam above my head. Doing the pendulum was cool, and I quickly got within 10 feet of the anchor bolts. The problem? I had no idea how much I could trust an approach shoe for straightforward free moves. Now I needed to pull a free move to get to the anchor. I managed to get a nut in a little higher, clipped my aider to it, stepped up, freed the next move, and grabbed the chains—success!

Pitch 3 - A repeat of P1: Norman cruises it, I follow, and reflect on how much faster free climbing is than aid climbing.

Pitch 4 - I’m on lead, and I get maybe 15-20 feet up from the belay but can’t figure out what to do. Norman suggests a hook move, but I’m spooked by the two-lobe black Totem I’m standing on, with my last and only cam being a bomber .4 Z4 2 feet below my foot. In my mind, I’m convinced that falling here would be bad, so I’m spooked. If I fail the hook move and get even higher, there’s a chance I’d deck. I desperately look for a secure free move I can do in my approach shoes, but I can’t convince my brain this is a reasonable risk. I try again to get a small cam into the pockets in front of me, but nothing is holding. After what felt like 20 minutes of messing around up there, I decide to come back down and let Norman lead the pitch.

Norman racks up and starts leading. He ends up pulling the move using a hook on a decent handhold on the left and finishes the rest of the pitch without too much hassle. I follow and do my first lower-out, which I learned how to do from a video I watched the day before.

Pitch 5 - It’s later in the day now, maybe 3 p.m.? Norman says the next pitch is sick and says I should lead it and then rappel back. I proceed to do this with a tagline behind me so I can do a 200-foot rap back to the P4 anchors. I did this pitch mostly free but got pumped out on the overhung thin hands near the anchor. I aided past this section and freed the last 7 feet to the bolts.

We rappelled back down in 3 double-rope raps.

What did I learn?

• Aid climbing is very different from free climbing and requires a brand new skill set.
• Free climbing is FAST, and I need to learn how to pull free moves in approach shoes.
• I need to practice using hooks in lower-consequence settings and get some mileage on them.
• Norman is an extremely patient partner and good teacher (I kind of already knew this, but this trip reinforced it, thanks Norman!)
• I didn’t eat enough or bring enough water.
• I seriously misunderstood what it takes to aid climb quickly and how much practice I’d need to lead and follow efficiently.
• I should have put on sun screen

Thank you for reading.

Good write up! You should make a TR from your climb of the column.

Cool! I remember those days for me. July 1974. Except we didn't have approach shoes. We had blue suede Robbins boots. No kinda daisies either. But we had pitons!

Thanks for the good read!

This was a fun read! Do you want feedback or microbeta? Those pitches are tricky AF to onsight but succumb to beta and rehearsal surprisingly well. But I won't spray unless you want it...