TR: The Prow, III C1 (solo), Cathedral Ledge NH
Steve E.
waiting for someone else to leave so I wouldn't be the first. Finally,
someone left with about seven minutes to go, and I shortly followed. I
walked out of the class room and that was it. My last final. A rather
anti-climactic ending to three years of law school. That left me with a
sizable chunk of time before the graduation ceremony, but no partners with
weekdays available. My aid experience thus far was limited to several one
pitch free climbs, but I was ready to try something bigger. Finding an aid
partner in the northeast has proven to be the crux. It's only C1...who needs
a partner...right?
I wanted to practice hauling (seriously...) and spend a night in my
heretofore unused portaledge. Every time I tried to set it up it was a
wrestling match, and that was standing in my apartment. I figured if I'm
going to the valley this fall, I damn well better work out the kinks first.
So I set about packing my heretofore unused pig. I bought two sandwiches,
one for lunch and one for dinner. I would later discover that lunch is a
luxury slow climbers can't afford. I went whole hog, so to speak, packing
the sow full of every conceivable item I might need from bivy sack to rain
gear to rain fly. I even brought an inflatable pillow. Mind you, the Prow is
only a grade III. Somewhere in my grand analysis, I decided I only needed
two liters of water. For two days. I drove up to North Conway on Friday
morning, hoping to be on the wall at noon. I ended up having to stop at IME
to pick up a few things like a docking tether for the pig and a headlamp
since my partner still had my tikka after the last free climbing weekend.
The base. The approach is an uphill grunt with some serious third to fourth
class just below the rock. I pooped out two thirds of the way there and
broke the pig down into two loads for the final slog. The first pitch of the
free version is a 5.10 slab, but the alternate start is a 5.7 corner which I
couldn't find. I can't stand free climbing on self-belay so I decided to try
and aid my way to the first anchor. Big mistake. I took a heavily wandering
line up who knows what and finally found the corner halfway to the anchor. I
had planned to link the first two pitches on the recommendation of another
rec.climber, and felt that I had done so. I assumed I passed the other
anchor and didn't notice it because I was way off route. Wrong. At any rate,
the anchor was a nice shiny pair of rap rings and they looked too good to
pass up. One of the nuts was spinning, so I hand tightened it as best as I
could, set up the haul, and rapped down to clean the nightmare I had just
wrought. Eventually I made my way up the circuitous first pitch back to the
anchor and checked the time. Damn near three hours to lead, clean, and haul
one pitch. Panic set in. There was a semi-constant spray of water from the
seepage above, but every time I felt it, I was sure it was rain. There
wasn't a cloud in the sky but it didn't matter. What if it got dark before I
got my bivy set up? What if it got dark while I was leading but I didn't
bother to get my headlamp out of the pig because it was still early when I
left the anchor? I decided to go capsule style. I would set up camp here and
then fix the next two pitches. What to do first? Do I get everything I need
out of the pig and then lower the bag out of the way? Or set up the ledge
and then try to reach down to the pig to get everything? I chose an
incoherent combination of the two. I had brought a regular daisy chain along
to hang from the anchor and provide a convenient clip-in point for my stuff
which turned out to be a good idea. After I got everything except the bivy
sack and sleeping bag out of the pig, I lowered it down several feet using
the docking tether (thanks to pitons Pete for that gem) and locked it off.
Okay....time to wrestle with the ledge. After several tries in my apartment,
I felt I had figured out the order of assembly of least resistance, but I
had never tried it from a hanging belay. As it turns out, it was a snap!
Hanging in the harness lets me use my feet in ways I couldn't do while
standing, and it went together in no time. By this time, I was down to half
a liter of water for today, and quite hungry. I was scared enough about
getting caught on the lead in the dark that I decided not to eat lunch. I
re-racked and looked up at the next pitch. There was a rusty looking piece
of metal jutting out of the rock just above the anchor. Oh...that must be
one of those rivet things. Yuck. Of course, rivet hangers were not on the
gear list I had consulted. The old nut trick worked well and I was on my
way. I cruised my first bolt ladder and stood on my first rusty
quarter-incher. Very exciting. I hit the anchor and kept going, intent on
linking these two. The third pitch starts out (for me at least) with a
really cool tension traverse around the corner of the arete. Doing it solo
was a real challenge. With the exception of the roof the next day, that was
my favorite part of the climb. The remainder of the third pitch goes up a
flake system on the opposite side of the arete from the rest of the climb,
and then turns the corner again just before the anchor. For whatever reason,
I didn't set up the haul, but rather, just fixed the static line to the
anchor. This would cause an unnecessary round trip tomorrow. I rapped down
the dark side of the arete and swung back over to my bivy site where I
decided not to clean the pitches until tomorrow. I was ravenous and it was
getting darker. As I lay there on my ledge, staring up at the stone and sky
above me, I kept envisioning a giant rock coming straight at my face. With
the exception of the drunken idiots chucking stuff off the top of the cliff,
I spent an uneventful and uncomfortable evening on the wall. It was colder,
and much windier than I had thought it would be. In the morning I broke
camp, packed the pig, and set off to clean the fixed pitches. A pair of
frenchmen had started, and were fast approaching. They asked if they could
pass, but I said I already had the next two pitches fixed and that I
shouldn't be in their way. In hindsight, I should have let them go. They
were free climbing and moving much quicker. I cleaned the two pitches in
short order, and had a blast doing my first lower-out to clean the tension
traverse. At first I forgot to tie-in short and my top ascender damn near
popped off the rope. A little scary, but I was using my solo-aid as a backup
since I forgot to bring my gri-gri. By the time I cleaned and hauled, the
frenchmen had already caught up to me, but I went ahead and started leading
what I thought was the final two pitches. I was off a pitch because I was
still operating under the assumption that I had linked the first two
pitches. If I had consulted the topo, I would have seen that the last three
pitches can't be linked even with a sixty-meter rope. Fortunately for me,
the topo was wrong. I began another mostly fixed pitch and passed an anchor
that I convinced myself was for another route...perhaps one of those
ridiculous free climbs that goes up the dark side of the arete. Just left of
the anchor, I had to make what looked like a long reach left to a fixed
piece in a flake, but when I got up high in my aiders there was an old ring
piton midway that really declawed what I thought would be a tough part. Did
I mention I was top-stepping like a pro? The fixed placements on this route
are rather close together, so you don't really need to top-step all that
much, but I was getting maximum mileage out of all my own placements. I
can't tell you how much I like the metolius adjustable daisies, they really
make everything so much easier, including top-stepping. I barely used my
fifi. Anyway, up the flake past a fixed tri-cam and some more pins. So there
I was, in the thin corner leading up to the roof. The alleged crux of the
route. The trip reports I had read all mentioned using micro nuts in this
corner, but there were fixed pins (old looking) almost the whole way up the
corner. Someone had left an oval on the second to last pin before the roof,
which had me a little baffled. I thought maybe the pin was driven to far and
the biner wouldn't come out, but I got it with no trouble at all. If someone
had to leave it behind because they couldn't clean the roof properly I
figured they would have left it on the final pin below the roof. I clipped
it and stepped up into the roof. It's a lot bigger than it looks from below.
Despite my having just run through several scenarios in my head about how
someone could have had trouble cleaning the roof, I made a classic goober
move and placed only one piece below the roof...as close to the lip as I
could. I have some pretty serious ape index and regularly abuse it. It was a
nice yellow TCU placement and it felt solid. Here goes....weeeeeee! Hanging
in mid-air at the lip of the roof was definitely the sweetest part of the
route. I forgot to get my camera out before I left the anchor, so the moment
is lost forever, but it was fantastic. Nothin but air! I'm not sure if there
is some technique for standing in aiders while dangling in free space, but I
certainly couldn't do it. I ended up just cinching up on the daisy and
placing a black alien over the lip. That was enough to get me over the roof.
I believe there is a gear belay above the lip, but I skipped it. I was going
for the summit tree. After about thirty or forty feet, the gods of wimpitude
tempt you with an easy exit at the finish of some other routes, but I wasn't
having it. The headwall loomed above, with the greasy slab below it. The
crack I was in looked like it petered out in about 15 feet and turned into a
moss patch. I couldn't see over the bulging slab, but my gut told me I had
to move into the crack on the left. It proved to be an awkward and somewhat
difficult transition, but my instincts proved correct. As I moved up the new
crack, the old one clamped up tight. The new crack veered back to the right
and eventually met up with the old one that had re-opened at this point.
There are two finishes one can choose from. The TR's that I had read both
chose the right hand 5.7 finish. The direct finish, a .10c finger crack
looked like much more pleasant aiding, and topped out right next to the tree
I was heading for so I chose that one. At this point I was a little worried
about making the tree with enough rope to spare, but it looked like it was
going to work. I was running a wee bit low on gear, so I had been back
cleaning since the roof, leaving every other piece. I made my way to the
headwall and placed my first cam hook. Bomber! I always forget I am carrying
them and never use them. I didn't really need to use it here, but it looked
like a good spot for it and I wanted to try it. It felt as solid as any nut
I ever placed. A few more placements, and there she was...Old Glory was
waiting for me, waving proudly in the wind from the branches of the summit
tree. I set the haul, got some tourists to take a few hero shots of me on
the summit, and then rapped down to finish the job. For those of you
unfamiliar with Cathedral Ledge, there is a road to the top and the tourists
come in droves for the view. There is a fenced in area where they are
supposed to stay, but there are always idiots jumping the fence to go look
down. On the upside, they often offer you a ride back to the base of the
cliff in exchange for your putting up with their questions. So back down I
went, over the roof and back to the anchor. At some point, the frenchmen had
given up on me and rapped off. Sorry guys. My goober roof move now came back
to haunt me. When I got to the last pin in the corner below the roof, my
rope ran off at a crazy angle to the only piece I placed in the roof. When I
clipped past the pin, I came to rest directly below the TCU and too far away
from the pin to clean my biner. I tried leaning in to grab it, but it was
the only thing to hold onto and I couldn't clean it while I was holding it.
I
considered leaving it. It would have been a wash anyway since I got the
booty biner from the pin below. I had one more idea. I took my nut tool out
and pulled myself into the piece with the rope. I then put the hook of my
tool through the eye of the piton. At this point all my weight was on the
tool and gravity was trying desperately to swing me back out under the TCU.
With the weight off the biner, I was able to clean it after some serious
groveling. Now the fun (not) part. With a quick flip of the wrist, I pulled
myself in and flicked the hook out of the eye of the piton and went for the
big ride! I swung out of the roof and damn near turned upside down, but
eventually came to rest below the lip. Scary! The rest of the cleaning was
uneventful, and thankfully the haul bag made it past the roof without
hanging up. I'm sure it would have gotten stuck if it were fully loaded. I
spent an hour and a half getting all of my shit back into the pig and
preparing for the walk off. I was hoping to scam a ride, but the tourists
weren't biting that day.
Scott Ghiz has a nice shot of the route on his TR which can be found here:
http://ghiz.org/nhprow.shtml
-Steve
Linkable Pitches with a 60m:
2 and 3
4, 5, and 6 (guidebook pitch lengths are wrong)
(I secretly suspect 1, 2, and 3 might go)
Gear list:
2 sets of nuts (1.5 sets if you aren't linking)
2 each aliens black to yellow
2 each camalots .5 to 2
1 #3 camalot
Pink Tri-cam
15 hero loops (lots of pins on this route!)
two sixty-meter ropes
Unnecessary but potentially helpful (especially if pins are gone):
Hooks
Cam Hooks
Micro-nuts
Christian :?
<snip>
> -Steve
>
> Linkable Pitches with a 60m:
> 2 and 3
> 4, 5, and 6 (guidebook pitch lengths are wrong)
> (I secretly suspect 1, 2, and 3 might go)
>
> Gear list:
> 2 sets of nuts (1.5 sets if you aren't linking)
> 2 each aliens black to yellow
> 2 each camalots .5 to 2
> 1 #3 camalot
> Pink Tri-cam
> 15 hero loops (lots of pins on this route!)
> two sixty-meter ropes
>
> Unnecessary but potentially helpful (especially if pins are gone):
> Hooks
> Cam Hooks
> Micro-nuts
Fun TR. I love that route and have done it a few times. Res Ipsa...
Can do w/ a normal free rack + 1 blue alien. Eats up nuts, small hexes
and tricams.
The last time I did it was after some one went up and cleaned all the
fixed gear off. Much more fun, and I did end up using some smallish
stoppers under the roof. Great place to pee too ;?)
Cheers,
Christian :?)
Phil Box
"Christian :?" <cj...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:1e4c7ea6.02051...@posting.google.com...
> The last time I did it was after some one went up and cleaned all the
> fixed gear off. Much more fun, and I did end up using some smallish
> stoppers under the roof. Great place to pee too ;?)
>
> Cheers,
> Christian :?)
Wodger take yer girlfriend up there with you.
...Phil...
Christian :?
Na, she's not into that, yours?
Cheers,
Christian :?)