El Cap routes I have done by difficulty

So who wants to see it?

I believe it'll cause some rabid dog responses but it might be fun.

Yeah lets see it! 

Route Level List

Beginner Routes

Lurking Fear (pretty short, pretty much nothing difficult, C2)

Triple Direct (Longish but again, nothing difficult about it. Moderate free climbing and C2 aid)

Tangerine Trip/Virginia (Nothing at all difficult on either of these two routes, pretty much plug and go.)

Zodiac (this route more difficult that TT and Virginia simply because it gets done so, so much. The insides of the placements are smooth due to being used so many times and it can be a little bit tricky to get a cam to hold.)

Nose (I’m calling the Nose a high end beginner route due to all of the lower outs in the lower 1/3rd of the route. The route is fully 5.9/10/11 C2, pretty moderate free climbing and easy aid.)

New Dawn (simply long, lots of aid, none of it difficult though. There is one semi hairy hook placement down  on the 4th or 5th pitch that scares people)

Beginner +

Salathe (mandatory free climbing with runouts at that level of climbing, traversing.)

Mescalito (similar to Zodiac only longer, hence, more committing)

Intermediate

Magic Mushroom (I climbed the 3rd ascent of this route back in 1977 when it was a “nailing route”. There was lots of A3+ at the time. The difficulty these days is mainly due to a lot of the aid being in very tight, awkward corners.)

The Shield (I didn’t do this clean, I hammered three or four sawn off angles in the Triple Cracks, my partner placed a couple beaks in the Groove. You’re starting to get into aid that I would call difficult here. Offsets and Beaks hooked into pinscars really tame the route but overall, it’s difficulty comes from you having to start thinking about your placements. 

Zenyatta Mondatta (lots and lots of hooks, fixed heads and creative placements)

Shorted Straw (Hooks, loose rock and STEEP rivet ladders)

Lost in America (has some mandatory 5.10 climbing)

North America Wall (I consider this the Intermediate Master Class route. It goes all over the place, the rock varies, pin scars, one of the 4 routes on El Cap that I would say “require” a lower out line.)

Intermediate +

(in these routes, you’re stating to get into aid that could be called “difficult”.)

Shield (all clean) (I’d say that if you do the Shield clean, then you know what you’re doing as far as clean aid goes.)

Sunkist (Traversing, beaks and a fairly hairball crux without heads.)

The Muir (all clean) (A long route, traverses, creative anchors, not really C4, but pretty heads up)

Pacific Ocean Wall (tons of fixed heads, long, exposed, mandatory offwidth.)

Albatross (mostly not too bad but I thought the pitch off of the Canoe was difficult nailing)

Tribal Rite (creative, heads, steep)

South Seas (Steep! maybe the first route on this list where you will hammer more than 15 pieces)

Aurora (We’re starting to get into the climbs where you have to be a thinker to get up. On the beginner and beginner+ climbs you can mostly just throw a cam into a crack and it’ll stick. On Aurora, you have to start thinking. Not quite a “nailing route” but we probably hammered 20 to 30 pieces)

Advanced

Genesis (traversing, mandatory 5.10 and 5.11 free climbing, creative climbing, (I did a real live 5.11 AND A3 pitch on this route) and beaks, beaks, beaks!! The crux pitch is one of the best pitches I’ve ever led on El Cap.)

Tempest (Nailing! Heads up climbing! Beaks, baby, BEAKS!)

Atlantic Ocean Wall (There is more expanding climbing on this route than every other route I’ve done on El Cap combined)

Iron Hawk (this fucker kicked my ass! Mandatory run out free climbing, a giant horizontal traverse, long  and involved and goes all over the place.)

Native Son (actually, mostly moderate but there are a couple pitches that you really need to think about. (you need a lower out line)

Kaos (Okay, I haven’t done this one but I hear big moves and loose rock.

Advanced +

Reticent (DFU baby!)

Sea of Dreams, (always difficult but never desperate. Heads and Hooks!!!!!  Also, when you are up on this one, think back to the FA who had only a #1, 2 and 3 Friend as their cam rack and no beaks. Everything was pins. Certainly, you'll feel not worthy.)

Next Level

Anything by Erik Kohl, Every Man for Himself, Nightmare on California St., etc... those kinds of routes are at a whole other level, all way way more difficult than any I have mentioned here.

I have a hard time wrapping my head around ranking the nose as harder than TT/Virginia and Zodiac. Lower outs are much easier than C3/A2 .. even if the nose is more climbing, it generally takes 3-4 days where people can spend up to a week on the other two routes. (not to say people haven't spent a week on the nose)

I would rank them (harder to easier): Zodiac (b/c of the sustained difficulty), TTrip/virginia, the Nose.

 All opinions but just interesting to see that's how you ordered them.

Cheers

Gear Guy wrote:

I have a hard time wrapping my head around ranking the nose as harder than TT/Virginia and Zodiac. Lower outs are much easier than C3/A2 .. even if the nose is more climbing, it generally takes 3-4 days where people can spend up to a week on the other two routes. (not to say people haven't spent a week on the nose)

I would rank them (harder to easier): Zodiac (b/c of the sustained difficulty), TTrip/virginia, the Nose.

 All opinions but just interesting to see that's how you ordered them.

Cheers

On the aid routes, there is no lowering out needed whatsoever and the aid is easy. Imho, (and this doesn’t apply for more advanced climbers) the aid is easier than the lower outs.

 The lower outs require communication between the leader and the second at a fairly critical point in the climb. (The leader is starting to haul, the second is trying to get off the anchor, climbers on that level of route don’t really have the sophistication to be comfortable dealing with a heavy haul bag and kicking it off a ledge. Then the bag can get stuck on things along the way, it frequently rolls into a corner and gets stuck and then needs to be kicked out of the corner and maybe lower it out again.

I’m sure all the lower outs are a significant factor in failures on the Nose. I’m sure no one fails on the Zodiac because the aid is too difficult.
To me, its a toss up between these two route, They could easily be switched in the list.

but yes, it’s all an opinion.

Mark Hudon wrote:

I’m sure no one fails on the Zodiac because the aid is too difficult.

I think you're overestimating people's aid abilities here. People definitely bail off Zodiac because the aid is too difficult. I've even seen people bail off the Prow and the Nose because the aid was too difficult. 

It’s all just my opinion, man, but I did zodiac after climbing Sunkist and tribal, and I thought the climbing was similarly difficult, I think I gave a couple taps of the hammer on the black tower because I value my ankles, and I might’ve placed one beak at the top of the zorro pitch, Climbing mostly clean it felt just as tricky as any of the climbing on those other two routes. There’s a hooking pitch low on new dawn that seemed exciting in my memory. Most of the “hard” climbing on tribal and Sunkist was bomber beaks, fun, but far less spicy than looking dozens of feet to the last solid piece on the nipple pitch, bumping along a small backup cam behind the cam hooks. I am a big dude though and I hate cam hooks because I always seemed to take falls when I tried using them regularly.

mark, I climbed Sunkist  after you and Cheyne did it, and my partner placed two heads to get through the crux on that, I remember looking at it while cleaning and I honestly have no idea how Cheyne led that without them, shallow flaring buttcrack, completely bottoming. My partner spent several minutes trying to get a beak to stick, and he had more experience than I did. We both agreed it was a textbook spot for heads and marveled that Cheyne was able to do it without, total wizard! Would have liked to beak through it, but it just wasn’t in the cards for us, he couldn’t get a beak in that spot to hold 50 lbs! Extremely impressive.

Something that Sunkist and tribal do have and zodiac does not are long fixed head sections, which are probably my least favorite type of climbing! Zero skill required but big consequences when one inevitably blows on someone. That doesn’t up the difficulty as long as they don’t all get ripped out. I’m thinking of the corner to reach the base of the carrot and the “A5” (more like A1) arch

Besides the pitch above the roof on the trip most of that route was a snore. Straightforward aid to long bomber rivet ladders, I did take a large fall on the Virginia pitch that goes straight where the trip cuts left across the top of the roof but that was due to camhooking and back cleaning prior (operator error). I was soloing and the whip scared me off Virginia and onto the trip, which ended up being the best pitch of the route, so there’s that. 

The nose would indeed suck to haul, but doing it in a day we weren’t hauling and the lower outs were therefore not an issue. That doesn’t rank as an increase in difficulty to me, but I guess it bumps up the “work” grade. The crux is probably the other parties, although I lucked out and climbed it during the 2013 shutdown with a great partner, one of my favorite memories having the whole thing to ourselves without any traffic noise. Truly rare experience that I’m lucky to have had. 

Interesting to see your list and opinion, thanks for sharing!

Cheyne was up there and yelled down that he was going to take a minute to do a few meditation breaths!

interesting, thanks for sharing Mark. agree that t trip is easier than the nose, by a solid margin! probably easier than LF too, or at least less of an ordeal, when taken as a whole (approach, descent). the "aid" on the nose may be easy, but the "other stuff" (lower-outs, logistics, hauling) combined with the crux of jockeying with other parties, add up to make it more of an ordeal...

fwiw its worth i was as scared (or more!) on the "crux" of the NA wall as i've been on any other pitch on el cap, even the masters corner. although the rest of the route is much easier, that 30 feet felt real deal. Seems everyone i talk to about this pitch has a story of something crumbling/breaking off while they were on it. The first pitch of Lunar also is memorable for me as a particularly scary lead (sure felt you could crater any place in the first ~60 feet of the pitch).

Any thoughts on the hardest/most-scarediest pitches you've done up there?

Mark Hudon wrote:

Route Level List

***

Intermediate +

The Muir (all clean) (A long route, traverses, creative anchors, not really C4, but pretty heads up)

Mark: Can you elaborate on "creative anchors" and "pretty heads up"?! Honestly, as I write this, it occurs to me that that really is all I need to know and I'm actually just looking for reassurance! Ha ha. Pete

Ryan Rex wrote:

Any thoughts on the hardest/most-scarediest pitches you've done up there?

The pitch off of the wine tower on Reticent is certainly DFU but for some reason Max and I were pretty psyched for that route, and nothing felt too bad.

The Coral Sea on Native Son was pretty scary. You’re hooking on thin flakes and also jamming cams up as far as you can behind them. At one point I was standing on a flake and was thinking of looping a sling over it for protection, but I didn’t because I thought that if I fell, I would probably just pull the whole thing off. Later on on the pitch, I did take a fall, I went 50 feet and a big meat hook with a screamer on it stopped me.

One of the best pitches I’ve ever lead is on Genesis. There is real live 11b free climbing off the anchor horizontally with no protection for about 20 feet. You then hit these slightly overhanging flakes at 5.10+. You’re sticking gear behind the flakes, not exactly trusting them but it’s the only thing you can get. I had just spent the summer climbing in Rifle so I was real strong and confident so it didn’t bother me. At the top there is this pillar where I stuck in a couple of good cams and got completely back into aid climber mode and finished off the pitch with solid A3+ climbing. 

Pete Nelson wrote:

Mark: Can you elaborate on "creative anchors" and "pretty heads up"?! Honestly, as I write this, it occurs to me that that really is all I need to know and I'm actually just looking for reassurance! Ha ha. Pete

Unfortunately, these days most anchors are three bolts, and it takes no skill, ability or creativity to set up an anchor. This fact alone has really, really lessens the skill level needed to climb a wall. 

On the Muir, there are one or two anchors that are pretty much climber built. I remember on one of them where we had gear spread out all over the place. Everything was bomber but you just had to put it together.

By heads up I mean that there is a couple places where things could go wrong if you weren’t thinking about it and being aware. There is a flake out right and hidden from the anchor above the Silverfish corner that the bag can get stuck on. Further up, there is a block sitting precariously on a ledge that you have to climb over to get to the anchor. It’s a big block, and if it went off, it would fall right down Freeblast, and maybe Sickle. There are a couple places where a fall would swing you into a corner.

I liked Coral Sea on Native Son. The first time I climbed it, I nailed a bunch. The rock moved for every pin - spooky. The second time I did it, I used a lot of slings, hooks, screamers and duct tape. ;)  both leads were solo. 

I remember that pitch on Genisis. I couldn't believe how quickly and easily Jon Fox knocked off the 5.11. Halfway up he built an anchor, and I finished the rest of the pitch. Great team effort. 

You guys should do Atlantis. Super fun route by Dave Turner. The hook traverse left under the Great White Shark is stellar!

Mark Hudon wrote:

On the aid routes, there is no lowering out needed whatsoever and the aid is easy. Imho, (and this doesn’t apply for more advanced climbers) the aid is easier than the lower outs.

 The lower outs require communication between the leader and the second at a fairly critical point in the climb. (The leader is starting to haul, the second is trying to get off the anchor, climbers on that level of route don’t really have the sophistication to be comfortable dealing with a heavy haul bag and kicking it off a ledge. Then the bag can get stuck on things along the way, it frequently rolls into a corner and gets stuck and then needs to be kicked out of the corner and maybe lower it out again.

I’m sure all the lower outs are a significant factor in failures on the Nose. I’m sure no one fails on the Zodiac because the aid is too difficult.
To me, its a toss up between these two route, They could easily be switched in the list.

but yes, it’s all an opinion.

If I am following this correctly, lowering out the haulbag is harder than, say... camhooking the nipple? 

Have watched enough hilarity on EC to know that lowering out the bags is a choice, not a technical requirement. :)

let me tell you, watching someone yeeting the bags on nearly a 100ft lateral swing, with zero fucks given about lowering it out (while excitedly shouting something in a foreign dialect) is funny AF

I've done a bunch. It would be hard to quantify their difficulty, especially since I climbed some of them thirty years ago. 

Reticent Wall in 1998 was a real live death route. I followed a part of it more recently when we climbed New Dawn. I was AMAZED at how beat-to-shit this one section of crack is! 40 or so nailing ascents will do that to a route - I've never seen such a beat-out crack anywhere on the Big Stone. So I wonder about the rest of the route.

Yet the Sea retains its difficulty and quality these days. 

Zed EM and L in A seemed hard when I soloed them over twenty years ago.  But they have seen many ascents since.  We didn't have big beaks back then, either, which make things easier these days. 

Some days, you will cruise a pitch reputed to be quite hard, and then you think, what's the big deal? You think you're pretty bitchin'. However the converse is also true - this is not Big Wall Theory, this is Big Wall Fact!

The best hard or hardish routes I've done are Bermuda Dunes, Jolly Roger, the Real Nose, Continental Drift, and Born Under a Bad Sign. Better and not as hard is Bad Seed - highly recommended.

Peter Zabrok wrote:

I've done a bunch..

And how many would that be, Dr Piton???

Are you over 50 yet??? In age, that is.

Hahaha!  Here's the official count, collected by Hans Florine and verified by our own Japan John Shultz:

https://www.speedclimb.com/yosemite/compare.htm

I'll give you a hint - I've "climbed my age" in El Cap routes, but if I don't get up something different this spring, I'll be breaking even. The problem is, the routes left for me are all Pretty Darn Hard! So I am achieving diminishing returns to scale ... if I am even achieving anything!  Hahaha!

Are you gonna be in 'Posa this spring season? 

Lots of folks here should get on Hans' list too! Here's a few of the reprobates at the Centre of the Universe:

Three living fossils and one young buck. 

Well well, it seems you’ve earned a well deserved spot at the top of the different-El Cap-routes-done heap. It’s pretty amazing, actually.

What year was your first El Cap journey? I know you’ve stirred up some controversy with your methods but I, for one, like your style. Unless you’re trying to break a speed record or something silly like that, why hurry. Every day, hour, minute spent on El Cap (or any big wall for that matter) is a very special time. It’s experienced by an infinitesimal percentage of people and I’ve never heard anyone accurately describe the feeling of solitude and commitment that can be found way off the ground on something that really has no meaning or purpose.

Bravo to you.

Am I going to be in ‘Posa this spring? Prolly

Hey Don,

My first trip up the Big Stone was via the Nose in 1988.  I was married to a woman completely unsympathetic to my caving, climbing and fishing pursuits.  It took me five years to negotiate the time for Yosemite.  I wobbled up the Nose in five and a half days - we had planned on only three and a half.  The Star Trek V film crew had just come down, so imagine my surprise and delight when I hauled my ass up onto El Cap Tower and found leftover food and water!  Even so, we ended up on the summit without a drop of water nor a bite of food.  It did teach me the benefit of persevering!  

I did a NIAD once in 15 hours.  We got to Camp 5 around sunset, and all I wanted to do was pull out my ledge and crack open a beer.  Nope, had to summit out.  Not my idea of a fun holiday.