Trip Report: Salathe Route
Bill Wright
Here is another goofy trip report about an adventure I
took a month or so ago. Enjoy, flame, whatever...
Yosemite's Other Salathe Route: Magoo Learns to Jug
Ah, once again heading to Yosemite. This time with Sheri and my
friends Magoo and his wife Irene. In my younger days Magoo and I
competed in freestyle skiing in Colorado, but since those days Magoo
has added some poundage. At only 5'10" he carries around 220 pounds
and it isn't all muscle...a lot of it is belly! Fortunately he is a good enough
athlete to do some incredible things. This trip would be an example of
his fortitude.
There are two routes in Yosemite named Salathe. The Salathe Wall on
El Cap is certainly the most famous, but John Salathe himself put up The
Salathe Route on the Southwest Face of Half Dome. This climb was put
up, after many early attempts, in a single 20 hour effort in October 1946
by Salathe and Anton Nelson -- the same team that put up the Lost
Arrow Chimney/Tip route a month earlier. It was John Salathe's dream to
climb the triumvirate of the Lost Arrow Chimney/Spire, the Southwest Face of
Half Dome, and the North Face of Sentinel Rock. He completed his trilogy
in 1947 when he climbed the Steck-Salathe route on Sentinel over five
days. Salathe's route on Half Dome was originally referred to as the
Southwest Face and was a grade IV climb. It has come to be known as simply
the Salathe Route.
This route is about 600 feet left of the very popular Snake Dike (5.7)
route which wasn't put up by Bridwell until 1965. Salathe chose his
route because it follows a crack system and the original ascent went
without a single bolt. Now the route sports at least three bolts (one
hangerless and the other two ancient 1/4" star drives.)
We met Magoo and Irene at the secret spot late on Friday night. Magoo
had come over the recently re-opened Tioga Pass from Reno. As we
chatted two Germans walked over from a caravan of RVs and struck up
a conversation in broken English. Walter and Roland were touring the
American West in RVs with their families and had neglected to make
reservations for Yosemite...hence, they were at the secret spot. After
they insisted that we drink a bottle of champagne with them and gave us
their address, we finally hit the sleeping bags.
Our plan for this trip was to backpack into the Lost Lake area (on the
trail to Snake Dike from Little Yosemite Valley) and clandestinely camp
there. This proved to be a great spot as no one comes back here
except for the occasional climber. We were going to climb Mt.
Broderick on Saturday and then Magoo and I were going to attempt
the Salathe Route while Sheri and Irene hiked the cable route.
I should state that Magoo has only done a handful of climbing routes
before (all with me) and he generally follows 5.7. So why was I
considering the Salathe Route (10b)? Well, Berries was supposed to
come along on this trip and I had already set my heart on this route.
The Salathe Route is a recommended route in the Green Meyers book
and I had already done Snake Dike. In general, I would much rather
do a new route than repeat a route even if it is as great as Snake Dike. I
thought we would just go look at the Salathe and if it looked intimidating
we would just do Snake Dike.
Since Magoo was out of shape, I ended up carrying all the climbing
gear. With all the community gear that I normally carry for Sheri and I,
my backpack topped 65 pounds and did a fine job of settling me into a
plodding pace. We hiked up the very beautiful Mist Trail Saturday
morning and took nice breaks above Vernal and Nevada Falls.
Last year this same group had done a day trip to the summit of Liberty
Cap (also highly recommended). Magoo loved to honestly tell people
that he had climbed "L Cap" and hoped they thought he was talking
about El Cap. On that trip I had noticed a nice camping area at the base
of Liberty Cap and was planning on staying there on this trip. We, of
course, didn't have a permit but I didn't think we would have any
troubles as no one goes to this area. Not even rangers. The one
problem with my location was lack of water. To help alleviate this
problem I had packed in five quarts of water. This would give us a start
and provide us with numerous containers when we needed to fill them.
We had a little bit of trouble finding a route up to my proposed site but
arrived before noon. It was a warm day and we lounged around doing
our best impersonations of lizards for a couple of hours. Finally I got
motivated and setup a fixed line on a ten foot boulder. Here I would
teach Magoo how to jumar. I figured this to be a necessary skill if he
was to follow me up the Salathe Route the next day. The boulder
overhangs slightly at the bottom so right away he was having problems,
but a few laps up and down he was feeling pretty comfortable. I hoped
the route would be less than vertical (almost assured on that side of Half
Dome) and the jugging would be easy. At this point I had forgotten
about the roof mentioned in the route description.
Around 3 p.m. we decided to go off on our Mt. Broderick ascent. Not
far from camp we discovered that there was a huge gap between
where we had camped and the base of Mt. Broderick. We would have
to descend quite a ways before starting our climb. This made us start
second guessing our camp location. It really was going to be a pain to
hike back up here not only after climbing Broderick, but also after
climbing Half Dome the next day. We decided to move camp down to
the Lost Lake area.
This move turned out to be a good idea. The views weren't as great at
our new camp, but we had easy access to both of our climbs and easy
access to the stream flowing from Lost Lake.
Immediately after relocating camp we set off on our Broderick ascent.
In the Roper guide to Yosemite the route is listed as Class 3, but our
ascent route was probably closer to easy 5th class friction. I was able to
walk up pretty comfortably in my Five Tennies, but the others,
equipped only in tennis shoes, didn't feel secure. Luckily I brought
along the rope and would scamper up the slope and brace myself so
that the three of them could batman up the rope. A few pitches of this
put us on the summit.
We explored and relaxed on the summit for a couple of hours and
enjoyed the late afternoon sun and the great views. There appears to
be lots of potential routes on the south and west flanks of this baby --
very steep, very technical routes. We found a summit register under
a cairn and it proved fascinating reading. There were documented
ascents dating back to 1960 and included the first and second (by Walt
Shipley) nude ascents. There was also comments about watching Dave
Schultz trying to free Autobahn on the south face of Half Dome. I
usually don't bother with making an entry in these things, but the
interesting reading prompted me to include the following:
Climbed Northeast Slabs with
My Big Ragoo
My One Red Shoe
My How Do You Do
My Winnie The Pooh
My Little Jew
My Hoo Chee Coo
My Friend Magoo,
Little Big Shakers and Heidi Svenska.
Word to your Mother,
Bill Wright
We left the summit around 7 p.m. and found an easier way down (more
directly north), but it still involved some dicey slab traversing.
Broderick has a beautiful summit and great views, but the big plus is that
NO ONE is there and it is a much shorter hike than Half Dome.
The next morning Magoo and I were up at 5:00 a.m. and after a quick
cup of hot cocoa we were off. We had no trouble following the trail
marked by cairns up to the route, but it took us about an hour and a half
to cover the distance and considerable vertical gain. The start of the
route is a bit indistinct, but the crux roof above is clearly seen so at least
we knew what direction to head.
Previously I was very concerned about taking Magoo up this route and
was very prepared to bail out and do Snake Dike instead if the route
looked intimidating. Magoo didn't seem intimidated at all and never
mentioned taking an easier route. He was excited about this new
adventure of jugging. From the ground the Salathe Route didn't look
too bad so we decided to go for it. Retreat would be difficult since we
were only carrying a single 8.8mm rope. I probably went a bit
overboard in my efforts to reduce weight...
The first 5.5 pitch appears easy but gave me some problems and it
wasn't protected well. I thought there were some 5.7 moves on it. This
pitch ends near a very distinct tree that marks the top of the first pitch. I
must prudently mention at this juncture that the topo for this route did
not meet with our expectations and was somewhat disappointing. In
other words: It is crap! As I mentioned before, you can see where you
are headed, but exactly how to get there takes some route finding and
the location of the belays are incorrectly marked on the topo.
Magoo followed the pitch and reached a difficult section just below the
belay. Not being concerned with or even knowledgeable about the
rules of the free climbing game, he asked if I could tighten up the rope
and then with one tug on the taut rope he was around it and at the
belay. Magoo was interested in the adventure of climbing and didn't
feel the need to make this game of climbing any harder than necessary.
As long as there was a rope there he just grabbed it. It was a very
refreshing perspective, but also one I use frequently on big wall
climbs, aid climbs, or any where you just need to move fast.
The next pitch goes straight up for a bit on difficult face moves to a
stance. Here I moved around the corner to the right and entered a
large dihedral with a wide crack. The angle wasn't that steep but I had
nothing that would fit the crack (maybe it would have taken a #4
Camalot if I had had one.) I contemplated the fifty foot runout for quite
awhile before convincing myself that it couldn't be very difficult. It
turned about to be about 5.7, but the footing was smearing on a smooth
face as I liebacked up the crack - not a very secure method. I climbed
carefully, fearful of making a mistake and eventually got in a piece.
There is supposed to be a 5.9 traverse somewhere along here, but I
didn't see anything that looked that great. Almost out of rope I had
reached some rotten slings and place a TCU just above them. Now I
did a super desperate, but short face sequence (10a, probably) right
into a seam (no real crack) system. It was a safe move with pro above
me, although I would have crashed back into the dihedral if I came off.
I set up a shaky belay from fair pro, but there wasn't much choice and it
appeared solid. Magoo followed most of this pitch by batmanning and
then did a tension traverse across the face section. I then climbed up
the steep smooth seam about 40 foot to a belay. The only piece of
protection on this section was a wired nut looped over a hangerless
bolt. The climbing was probably 5.7. The belay was hanging from an
old pin and some slings looped through a hole in the rock. There was
no other choice. This is suppose to be the top of the second pitch, but
bring a 200 foot rope if you plan on reaching it in two.
The next pitch was supposed to be the crux of the climb. From here I
was supposed to climb up a thin 5.9 crack and then it goes to 10a before
turning a 10b roof, continuing further up and finally making a 5.9
friction traverse left. In a word: Bullshit! Unless of course you are using
your two hundred foot rope. Once again we broke it up into two
pitches.
The start of our 4th pitch was near vertical climbing up a thin,
discontinuous, flared finger groove. From the start of the pitch the
protection possibilities appeared to be thin to very thin. I started up the
groove, which is near vertical off of the belay, on small fingerlocks and
foot smears. I wanted a piece in soon as a fall at this point would land me
right on Magoo's head. The pro consisted of mostly small stoppers
with some small camming units thrown in occasionally. Further up I was
straight in jamming the shallow flared groove, but the angle had eased a
bit. Friction was a major factor in staying on this pitch as the holds just
weren't that good.
Ninety feet up I came to a great, foot wide, flat ledge with one ancient
quarter inch star drive bolt. Believing this to be the best belay stance
within a rope length I elected to belay here and backed up the single
bolt with a #2 Lowe Ball.
Magoo had a great time cleaning this pitch on jumars. Since it was
straight up and less than vertical it proved to be pretty straightforward
cleaning. He certainly wasn't very fast, but this was his first time
jumaring a pitch in his life. He was really psyched when he got to the
ledge expounding, "Now I can follow you up any climb, Bill!" He was
very excited by the new possibilities this opened up to him. It was kind
of like showing someone skiing skins for the first time. They never
realized climbing could be so easy. Unfortunately, Magoo was in for a
very rude awakening on the next pitch.
The protection on this next pitch was even more invisible than on the
last pitch! It was supposed to be 5.9 for a ways and then 5.10a just below
the roof which was 5.10b. I started on tiny finger holds and foot smears.
The angle wasn't that steep here, but steep enough. My protection up
to the roof went #3 RP, #1 TCU, #1 Lowe Ball, #1 RP, half cammed #0
technical friend, #4 Stopper! Some of the pro was total bullshit, but
others seemed okay. Still if I had fallen just below the roof I wouldn't
have been completely surprised to zipper the entire sixty foot section
back to the belay. At the roof there was an old pin and another pin just
over the lip. It took me bit of experimenting before I decided that the
shitty, awkward, flared jams over the roof was the best way to do it, but
once decided I moved through the short section quickly via some
desperate struggling.
Once over the roof I followed a cylindrical groove (no crack in the
back) that was six inches wide. There wasn't any pro here, but I get
enough friction in the groove to feel secure. I ran the rope to its end
and set up a hanging belay from an ancient pin and a flared Camalot --
there wasn't any other option.
I fixed the line and Magoo started jugging. Things went smoothly until
the roof. Here he ran into major problems. The rope was in the back of
a groove over the roof and he couldn't pull the rope away from the
rock enough to slide up the jumar. This would be a difficult section
(only six feet long) for an experienced person to jumar, but for Magoo
it was a nightmare that pushed him over the limits of his patience. He
was cussing and bitching and despairing down below as I tried to calm
him and give instruction from almost 100 feet above him. It was
frustrating for me also since I couldn't help him. If we had two ropes
this wouldn't have been a problem, but I was too lazy to carry it. Now I
could see us being rescued. Neither of us could move until Magoo got
over the roof.
I tried to get him to pull on the piton and then stand in a sling attached to
the piton to unweight the rope, but he was beyond reason. Finally, after
a scare where I thought he was losing his hand and about 45 minutes of
extremely unpleasant struggling, he was over the roof. When he
reached the belay and saw what it was he started ranting some more
"I don't like this belay. I never should have come."
"Relax, Magoo! Calm down and put me on belay."
I climbed up a dicey, dirty, unprotected layback and was very aware
that a fall here could have tragic consequences. Forty feet up I found a
one foot ledge and belayed there. Once Magoo reached this ledge his
attitude got a lot better. Magoo's attitude changed immediately back to
having a great time. I was so relieved.
The topo actually shows the route going horizontally right on 5.9
friction above the roof, but I couldn't see where you would do this.
More importantly, I couldn't see why you would want to do this. The
route naturally goes straight up, it is protectable (somewhat), and more
aesthetic. Once again, the topo is only a guide and shouldn't be
followed too closely. I usually trust my judgement over any guidebooks
if things really look dubious.
The next and seventh pitch for us proceeded straight up on dicey 5.7
friction to a bolt and then it is runout for 100+ feet to a belay. The
climbing is 5.7 friction above the bolt but gradually the rock lays back
until the climbing is trivial. I was a bit concerned launching into this
unprotected section but knew we didn't have any other options. I just
set my mind to the task and hoped it would get easier soon.
Above here the slabs are at such a low angle that we just unroped and
walked. The disappointing part was that we still had almost a thousand
vertical feet to gain before the summit! This had both of our calves
burning with exertion by the time we topped out on the rounded
summit to meet Sheri and Irene reclining in the chairs they had carried
up! What a great finish! To meet our womenfolk on top and refresh
ourselves with the goodies they brought while relating our adventure.
My 8th ascent of Half Dome by my 4th unique route (cables, Snake Dike,
Northwest Face, Salathe Route). I am really getting to know this rock.
After the obligatory careful glances over the sheer northwest face and
a couple of summit photos we descended the cables (not Sheri's
favorite thing to do) and hiked back to our camp. We hefted our packs
and were back at the cars by 6:30. Another great trip and a very
interesting route! It sure helps to have great friends along. Especially
friends willing to try about anything!
--
Bill Wright / bill_...@mentorg.com
"When in doubt, run it out!"