TR: Aurora (A4) Solo

After soloing Lurking Fear in a day, I spent three full days resting in the meadow. Whilst I felt pretty happy with what I'd done on the trip and was happy to just chill for the first day or two, by the third day the fire was burning again and my eyes were drawn to the South East face. Much to the dismay of my mates when I mentioned it at the start of the trip, I really wanted to do Aurora. None of them were massively psyched on leading sustained A3, and even less psyched to belay me on A4, so I had accepted that if I wanted to do it I'd have to solo it. On the 4th day I was carrying my rack and ropes up to the base.

Day 1 

I started on the first three pitches of T-Trip. I felt a bit grimy, probably due to all the smoke from the controlled burns. Pitch 2 was terrifying since there’s a completely detached flake that you have to put cams behind. If it comes off then you’re dead for sure. I’m pretty sure the shoo goo holding my shoes together isn’t as grippy as sticky rubber since I fell off trying to free climb on P3, falling onto my anchor. I felt like a proper aid climber after that, hooking through 5.8 that was too hard for me.

Day 2

I met a lad called Ryan in the meadow in the morning, and after Tom Evans said we'd make a good team we agreed to meet in the evening and climb something together. I then went up to Aurora to push the ropes a little higher. I linked P4 and P5 to avoid having to make a gear belay, only just making it with a 60m rope. After pulling back to the belay I realised I could let go and take an absolutely huge swing into space. I couldn’t not do it. It ended up making the Alcove Swing look like it belonged in a playground. Thankfully I brought an extra rope up since my two 60s ended about 10m above the ground when I abseiled down.

Interlude

Starting the next day, Ryan and I climbed the WEML over 5 very chilled days. I then took a rest day, before continuing up Aurora, worried that I might miss my flight in a week’s time.

Day 3

I shlepped all my gear up to the base, feeling completely worked before even starting. There was a team of 3 on the original start to the Trip, but thankfully they weren’t continuing up Aurora. Chatting to a 4th member of the team who wasn’t going up I found out that one of the three was Steve Gerberding climbing El Cap for the 42nd year in a row. As a wannabe wall climber in my mind there’s not much in it between Steve and God, and I’d heard his name come up loads over the last two months I’d spent in the valley. I remember hearing that he’s quite old school, and isn’t keen on more than one pitch being fixed for more than a day. Meanwhile I’d fixed almost a third of the route and left the ropes up for a week. They say never meet your heroes in case they’re a dick, but make doubly sure not to meet them if you’re the dick. 

The Bat Flake was mostly cruisy, though had the most egregious bat hooks I’d ever seen. Someone probably didn’t have a second friend 6, so at the wide part drilled up outside the flake. Supposedly the route was originally done with no bat hooks, and I reckon it’d be good if whoever went up next brought up something to fill those holes with. Similarly the American Zone had been made easier with bat hooks past tricky parts, so didn’t feel A4. By now it had started raining, and I was lucky that the route was so overhanging since I didn’t have a fly.

Day 4

The rock quality became slightly worse, and I made the Red Tower harder for myself than it needed to be by not bringing my big cams. I had to free quite a lot of juggy traverses and mantles quite far out from the gear, which felt a bit sketchy in the physical state I was in. I found P9 to be very sandbagged at the start (really sketch for A2), but very steady for A3+ at the end. Whilst the A3 hooks section on P10 wasn’t too bad, it was definitely pretty run out and made me slightly worried for the A3+ hooking later.

Day 5

Supposedly the All-Time Head Crack was the new crux with the American Zone being disfigured. I felt it was pretty sustained and had a couple cam placements that seemed to defy physics by staying in, but had good, spaced gear and nothing to hit so wasn’t so bad either. On the Gong Flake, I tried to climb it as I’d read you were supposed to with expanding nailing, giving the next pin one good whack with your lanyards already tight on it in case the previous comes out. What actually happened was that I massively overdrove the first beak with the first whack, and had a massive pain getting it out. I stopped doing this for the rest of the flake as the only sign I had that it was actually expand was the deep gonging it gave off when nailing.

Day 6

A quick A3 pitch in the morning brought me to the last separate belay from TT. Steve’s team were a pitch lower, so I started up the next. The A3+ hooking wasn’t as bad as expected. Some of the hooks were tenuous at the start but got a bit better as I went along. I think the sketchiest part was the fact that a big fall may well have broken one of the machine head rivets, and I had neither a bolt kit, nor a cheater stick to cheat through.

I had done the Trip about a month earlier, so the last 2.5 pitches went really quickly. I loved just tying into the ends of my ropes and freeing the last pitch with no gear on me, and my bags were light enough that the 2:1 ratchet I brought up made the summit haul a breeze. I slept on the top, drinking most of the left-over beer I had from the wall.

Day 7 

Steve and co had finished a little later the night before, and I spent some time chatting to them in the morning, which was really cool. He said I seemed pretty normal for someone who had soloed El Cap three times this season, which I’ve since put in my CV for applying to be a Climber Steward next season.

Overall, really good route, slightly marred by the bat hooks. I thought it was a bit annoying having so many meandering pitches, but in reality it follows a very natural line of features with not many rivets. I was properly battered after getting down and hadn’t really appreciated that I had climbed El Cap three times in just over two weeks, twice solo. The fact that I drank a greater volume of beer than water on the route probably didn’t help with the recovery…

Nice to meet you on top. Congrats again on the solo, thanks for writing it up!

Seriously rad accomplishment dude. Thanks for the TR. What kind of soloing device setup are you using?

Olly Tippett wrote:

The fact that I drank a greater volume of beer than water on the route probably didn’t help with the recovery…

Thanks for the write up and the great pics.  Very impressive.  Loved reading it.

Cheers all!

I used a Grigri 1 and microtraxion and also clipped into a backup knot.

Badass dude!