The Salathe Wall
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I’ve climbed the Salathe twice and have been up Freerider three times. I’ve done the Freeblast probably 20 times. The history of the route never ceases to amaze and humble me. The Salathe Wall was the second route on El Cap and the third time El Cap was climbed. Warren Harding et al. had climbed the first ascent of El Cap in 1958 using siege tactics, spending a total of 45 days on the route, 11 days in the last push and placing 125 bolts. It was the first time El Cap had been climbed and it had broken a lot of barriers but the Salathe first ascent team (3/4 the Nose second ascent team, Royal Robbins, Chuck Pratt and Tom Frost) wanted to up the ante. They wanted to use far less bolts and not siege the route. Modern day climbers will clip bolts for anchors on almost every pitch. The first ascent used only 13 bolts on the entire route and most of those were use below the Half Dollar. I’ve never been able to figure out exactly which bolts above the Half Dollar were placed by the FA team. The first, and only, original two bolt anchor is on the top of the 5th pitch. Everytime I climb Freeblast, I think, “those guys placed pins for the anchor here, or here, or here”. We clip these lovely 3/8” bolts placed for comfort and convenience. Ultimately comfort and convenience adds up. The anchors aren’t all jammed into a corner or aren’t directly above some sweet ledge to stand on. The route is certainly easier because of them. These days, when I’m climbing the 5th pitch, I make sure to have a few offset cams for the pin scars that lead up to the formerly feared 5.9 traverse. The crack becomes more and more indistinct and finally disappears. Robbins must have been hammering knifeblades and maybe RURPs into an almost blank face at the end. The really crazy thing is that he went off on a 5.9 traverse at its end. Back then 5.10 had only recently been climbed so he was climbing near the limit of human ability. It’s pretty amazing. On my first ascent of the Salathe in 1974, I didn’t consider myself a solid 5.9 free climber but I was the designated free climber of the team and the 5th pitch was my pitch. I remember nailing up that crack and clipping a rather large wired wedge hammered between two bumps. There is a bolt there now. Both that bolt and the hammered wedge are rather unfortunate. There is no way in hell I would have been able to lead that pitch if it had been protected by a RURP or a tied off knife blade. I wonder if many modern day climbers could manage the lead if it were protected by the same gear Robbins used 60 years ago. I fell on my first attempt on the traverse, BTW. When we’re up on the ledges of El Cap we forget that most were piled with rubble and loose blocks. Transporting haul bags across Mammoth Ledges (in 1961 the rap route was a few days away from existence) must have been sort of a nightmare. We tend to think that where we belay now was where the first ascent belayed. Don’t forget that ropes were only 150 feet long back then and they didn’t slam in bolts wherever it was comfortable. I’ve always wondered where the original rap anchor from Mammoth to Heart was. We now down climb a bit to that hanging belay but I don’t thing they did that originally. We rap down to Heart in one big rap but I think they may have taken as many as three short raps to get there. In 74, the rap anchor was where it is now. They got down to Heart, I’m sure they didn’t drill any bolts and I’m always looking and trying to imagine where they may have set up an anchor. Don’t forget that Heart would have been a mess of debris and blocks also. They could have trundled these to their hearts content, there weren’t any El Cap base routes back then and there would have been no one at the base. From Mammoth, they rapped to the ground, establishing the rap route that is now used hundreds of times a season. A few days later they came back with more supplies and continued up the route. It’s funny that now some argue that “you really didn’t climb El Cap” if you did that. Ha! Max Jones and I free climbed the next pitch in 1979. There is a bent ring angle that I remember clipping that is still there. I’m sure I put a #1 Friend alongside it to back it up. Currently, you make a weird move left and before doing the hard move, clip a nice 3/8” bolt. There is a photo of Pratt leading that pitch so he may have made the step and drilled a bolt, probably their last on the route. The rock right there is slopy and I can’t see any way Pratt would have been able to hook anything or if he had been standing on the ring angle, would have been able to reach anything. I don’t remember clipping an old bolt in 74 but that doesn’t mean I didn’t, there are a lot of things I don’t remember (!) Another thing to realize when you climb up to Mammoth and Lung and Hollow Flake Ledges and clip those nice honkin’ bolts that are five feet up off the ledge and make hauling so convenient is that those simply were not there! I remember on Mammoth in 74 driving some pins down at ledge level and anchoring and hauling off of those. It really sucked but no way in hell was the FA team going to drill bolts to make anything easier or convenient! So, climb up to Lung Ledge and look around for a place to hammer some pins! Climb up the next pitch, not forgetting loose rock and rubble and find an anchor in that corner/trough, unable to see the Hollow Flake. I have a photo of Max belaying five or six feet above and right where those two bolts are now but I don’t think that was the original belay. Anyway, now imagine Chuck Pratt on the FA of this pitch. He climbs over to the pendulum point, looks over and sees this wide crack, wider than any gear in existence. He swings over there and looks up and thinks “Damn!”. The only thing he has to protect himself on this pitch is his skill and ability! Anyone who has climbed that pitch using a Valley Giant or a Merlin ought to hang their head in shame. Hollow Flake Ledge was far different in 1961 than it is now. The chimney on the far side of the ledge was not a chimney, it was filled with a giant flake. If you stand about mid ledge and look right above those two bolts, you can see where a huge curve of a flake has broken off. I’ve looked for pin scars at the change in color of the rock but haven’t found any. Setting up an anchor on Hollow Flake must have been a nightmare. Apparently a rockfall from far above in the late 60s hit Hollow Flake and may have broken off the flake I’m talking about. I don’t know if that was also the cause of the flake in the chimney falling out. I have photos from 74 of blocks far up in the chimney that aren’t there anymore. |
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The next few pitches up to the Ear would have been casual for the team but they did write about how the Ear freaked them out and they really wanted to avoid it. Those three nice bolts at the anchor below the Ear weren’t there in 74. I remember Peter Cole hanging from half a dozen Hexcentrics and a few pins all jammed in that corner. I’ll bet the FA team belayed higher, directly below the Ear. Whoever led it was able to place gear in the cracks on the left but had to head out with no pro till the end of the pitch. It’s truly 5.8 but it gives me pause every time I do it. In 2016 I was up there working on Freerider and a guy was leading the Ear who sounded like he was having a baby! We were pretty much getting rained on with gear from them the whole time. They dropped an ascender down into the Hollow Flake, carabiners, cams and a few water bottles came down over the next few days. They were the team who left that #5 shoved high up in the top of the Ear. I’m going to take a battery powered Sawzall up there some day and cut that thing out of there. Again, maybe Pratt, led the pitch, and again used only his skill and ability for protection. There is another mystery on top of the Ear. There are four 3/8” bolts on top of the Ear now (the two older ones should be taken out). The anchor is nice and comfortable for standing in that little ledge but where did they set up an anchor originally? They could have stood up on top of the Ear and placed some large pins low on the start of the next pitch. These days we could easily toss some large cams in there but of course, that is gear that did not exist back then. The anchor on top of the next pitch poses the same dilema, currently there are bolts there but I don’t see the cracks down low on the ledge being good enough for an anchor. Additionally, the cracks off to the right are far too big for any gear at the time. Did they stop well below where we do now and climb through to the Alcove? Imagine being the first person to chimney up and pull onto The Spire? I’m sure they knew it was there and were expecting something good but could they have ever imagined it would be that good! Rock climbing had more of a mountaineering flavor back then and I would bet that they didn’t piss and moan too much about the Sewer Pitch. Above the Block they went more straight up and then tension traversed back left. So now they are at Sous la Toit (Under the Roof) and are looking up at the Headwall. Were they anxious? Scared? Excited? The second Enduro Pitch was the aid climbing crux. It’s very similar to the first three pitches of the Nose (which were also the aid climbing crux of that route) where there is sort of a wide crack filled with looser, rotten rock. (I need Roger Putnam to explain to me why that happens). We now slam in pretty good cams into the pins scars but it was solid A3 back then. Again, we clip into a real nice three bolt anchor but there is a photo of Peter Habler on an early ascent of the route hanging from pins a few feet higher. So feature this in your minds: you’re Tom Frost about to embark out on the roof, turn that lip and head out onto the Headwall. Totally into the unknown, a half mile off the ground with no hope of rescue. They figured they had the skills and they figured their equipment would work. Their gear was not tested and tested by legions of engineers using the most advanced techniques and algorithms, climbing was a backwater sport and the “testing” was more of a theoretical nature. It “should work”! So he gets to the lip, deals with those cracks and folds none to conducive to the gear they had, gets up higher to where the crack is more A1, slams in some pins and calls it good. That’s all fine and dandy for the guy cleaning but it was a three man party and someone had to ascend the rope! I believe Robbins used the first jumar on the second ascent of the Dihedral Wall so they weren’t available for this ascent. The third had to prusik the rope! Imagine all three of them and their haul bag (btw, no where near as big and heavy as what we commonly haul up a route now! No where near!) now hanging from those pins! The next two pitches are perfect A1 and end on Thank God Ledge. Yeah, thank god! Of course, they didn’t place any bolts on that ledge and someone really needs to go up there and take a half dozen or so of them out, there are far too many bolts there. The next three pitches were probably casual for them, Pratt probably led that chimney on the last pitch and didn’t think twice about it. We’d all like to think that we walked in the shadow of giants after our ascents of the Salathe but I think it’s more accurate to say that we are more like grains of sand that got jammed into their shoes and got carried along. |
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Awesome, Mark. I’d love to read more such historical analysis. Thanks! |
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this was a great read. Thanks Mark! |
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Awesome to hear stuff like this! We really have it a lot easier these days |
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Those old dudes were so badass! I think the ascent of the NA wall is just as impressive. I haven't done it yet but I have heard from a lot of people that it is a sandbag even today with a lot of pretty tough and committing free climbing. Those guys, Charlie Porter, and Bridwell were truly cut from a different cloth than the rest of us. |
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Excellent piece, Mark. It's often fascinating to pause whilst climbing some old route - or better, perhaps, to think back afterwards - and to wonder how on earth the pioneers managed 'back in the day' with the limited and semi-primitive level of equipment at their disposal; especially so if this is tinged with the assumption that, as a modern climber, one must be better at it than they were. We all know the truth of course; their gear options may have been limited - but they more than made up for that with raw ability. Chris Jones placed a bolt, after some degree of soul-searching, on that pitch from Heart to Lung during his and Gary Colliver's ascent of the route in June 1969; both had first tried and failed to figure out how to do it without. It appears to be unknown whether anything had actually changed at that point. I assume that's the one you mention as, so far as I'm aware, there's only the one bolt on that pitch [although the current 3/8" one will obviously be a modern replacement]. Does this suggest that all bolt placements dating from the first ascent might be below the Half Dollar? Is the exact FA bolt tally known for certain? You suggest thirteen, as does Jones in 'Climbing in North America'. Writing about his own ascent, though, Jones quotes Pratt as saying afterwards: "So you placed a bolt, why worry, we placed eleven." |
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Interesting. I’m going to have to look at that pitch more when I’m up there next. I’ve always heard 13. I would bet that if you read somewhere that Robbins said 13, then that would be the accurate number. That makes me think that all the original bolts were placed below the Half Dollar. Another interesting tidbit is the obviously not first ascent bolt halfway up the pitch to the Half Dollar. The rock right there is, or was, sort of loose. I can see that bolt being placed to avoid loose rock (rock that is not there anymore). I’ve been contemplating taking that bolt out for years. |
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And let’s not get carried away with “all those bolts make it easier”. Certainly they do, but even the second ascent was easier than the first. Dirt was cleaned out of cracks, there were subtle pin scars, loose rock had been removed and even simply knowledge of the route. The third ascent was easier still and on and on and on. |
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Mark Hudon wrote: That's a good point. Of course, in my mind that leads to the obvious question: how many more ascents have to happen before it's easy enough for me to do? |
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Routes are almost always easier to repeat than to pioneer because YOU ALREADY KNOW IT GOES. I started climbing in the '60s using pitons on free routes. We just didn't know any better so we made do. Bolts and cleaned out cracks DO make things easier. When Earl Wiggins came out with Canyon Country Climbs with my route on Monitor butte on the cover I pointed out to him that it would not have gone free without my first cleaning out all the vegetation and loose blocks. Renaming routes under those circumstances is egotistical BS. They should be happy simply to claim the FFA. It is not a different route. |
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Mark Hudon wrote: I suspect that you're correct there. I note that Roper records thirteen bolts in his green guidebook [1971] as well as - writing with Steck - in Fifty Classic Climbs; in the latter they're all specified as being in that blank slabby bit - pitches #5 and #6 - below the ledge a pitch before the Half Dollar. In the guidebook he also mentions that the abseil from Mammoth Terraces is from a tree at its west [left] end. This tree is also shown in a 1974 topo but not in the later loose-leaf green one from George Meyers - probably about 1977; both topos simply suggest a single rappel of 150', although in later publications it certainly seems to grow to more like 200'! I, too, passed that way in 1979 but I'm struggling to recall a tree - although at that remove my memory is not entirely reliable; I suspect that it disappeared, or at least retired from active duty, sometime in the mid-1970s. The Meyers topo shows two clusters of bolts on pitches #5 and #6 - then nothing else apart from the Jones/Colliver one just after Heart; the 1974 one just shows those on 5 and 6. Perhaps Pratt's "eleven bolts" referred to aid bolts - ie excluding any [two?] used at a belay stance? |
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I don’t remember rapping from a tree in 74. (The usual memory caveats apply) |
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Mark, thanks for your historical perspective on this. I will add my own weak contribution (we bailed the wall) to the discussion. I particularly like how you mentioned wall tactics (some argue that “you really didn’t climb El Cap if you did that. Ha!"). For us as wall greenhorns, that was the decision that led to our demise. We intended to do the Triple Direct, in a "pure" fashion (ground up hauling) over three days climbing. We were aware of the tactic of climbing so far, fixing lines, descending and sleeping on the ground, then hauling the more vertical section of wall and going for the summit. But we wanted to do something more pure, in our minds. We also knew we would be a slow party. As the ethic is to let faster parties pass, we didn't want to be in a situation where we were continually delaying our own progress upward by yielding to faster parties. So me made a fateful (and fatal, at least to our success) decision to try the wall in August, when we suspected there would be few people on the wall. That meant we had to take more water, which only made our pig heavier... And one really shouldn't haul the FreeBlast... So day one we only made it to the top of the Half Dollar Chimney. That pitch was struggle for me as the leader, both in its own right, under the extreme heat, and dehydration. By the time I made the ledge, I was overwhelmed with the need to defecate. Seeing no fixed anchor (is that still the case?), I called down to my partner "this is going to take a little while" and proceeded to evacuate my bowels before even anchoring in any fashion. There was no time, no other option. I found a wafer thin small flake of rock, and upon that I shat. Now feeling slightly more capable of dealing, I built an anchor, and my partner proceeded to suffer up the pitch, even more so than I had, as he was pushing the pig up ahead of him, and I put great effort into body hauling the pig. When he reached the ledge, he instantly smelled and saw my desiccated yet impressive turd on the rock on the ledge. Oddly, needing to hurl or sh*t as badly as I had, rather than impelling him to do either, it killed his need. He was horrified, I think. In those days, it wasn't cool to throw sh*t bags off the wall but people were still doing it. In our case, it was a matter of flicking a desiccated turd off of a wafer thin flake of rock, which I did. We considered the flake. Should we toss it too? In the end, we decided that this would be more dangerous than flinging a turd, and that any remnants of my turd on the flake would be rendered inert by the elements either within the next day or the following day. On our first day we ended up short approximately 300 to 400' short of where we meant to be, had eaten no food, and had drank twice the water we planned to drink. As we recovered on the ledge from both the day' s exertions and the horrors of said exertions, we came to the realization that if we ended up short the next day, we were looking at an extra night and day on the wall, which would mean running out of water on the last day. We slept on the ledge atop the Half Dollar Chimney and bailed the next morning, utilizing the fixed lines of a Korean team of three who had approached the wall in exactly the fashion that we should have. What is the point in sharing my story of sh*t and shame? That routes have a history, as do our efforts on them. I would be curious to know where there might be anchors now that we didn't have then when we tried. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a multi-bolt anchor atop the Half Dollar, just because it's so traveled now. That we all approach a wall with our own objectives in terms of style. And that those choices have consequences in terms of success or failure, and also in terms of sudden and unexpected bodily functions. This was my one and only attempt at El Cap, and I don't see another attempt on the horizon. So this is the memory I have to share, and the advice I have to give: Don't try El Cap in August. Don't haul the FreeBlast. And carry a sh*t tube or wag bags. You never know when you are going to need them :) |
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When you‘re almost to the ledge on top of the Half Dollar there is sort of a boulder blocking your path. That boulder has good cracks in it and in 74 that was our anchor. If you traverse on the outside face of that boulder you’ll see two bolts. Yeah, damn, hauling the Freeblast and August! |
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Thanks for the description, and discussion, history has always been a big part of my climbing experience. One of my favorite bolts (on any climb) was somewhere between heart ledge and hollow flake, an old knifeblade piton used as a hanger, with the tip bent down to act as an aid step... in a little slick dihedral, as I remember. Always wondered if it was original or added, but never saw any reference to it. How about this question: In Jones' Big Wall book (early 70's) there is a pic of Hollow Flake, or Hollow Flake Ledge (I forget the caption), Showing two wide vertical cracks, basically three stacked expansion plates... Did the middle part fall out (would have been a massive chunk) and open that easy low-angle chimney above hollow flake ledge? The photo just doesn't look right to me |
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That little ring piton used as a hanger? That’s at the top of the second slab pitch. I can’t imagine that it’s one of the original 13, the crack it’s next to is too good. Yes, thats the flake inside the Hollow Flake chimney that fell out. I suspect that it’s the ”Hollow Flake”. |
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Thanks about the hollow flake info. I could swear the KB hanger was much higher, on a belay ledge... but it's been 20-odd years, so I'm probably mixing a few things together |
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Thank you Mark for your appreciation of this historic route and its iconic FA team. Those first generation north American wall climbers set the bar very high. Style matters |