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Show Russell Jacobs 31 March 2010 forever to be known as the Stove Leg Cracks. Um, so, we all sort of decided that it wasn't to be. Um, we weren't going to push this route any further. And when you have three climbers on a wall anyway, it's ... uh, there's more logistics involved. Um, you only get to climb 1/3 of the route typically. Um, so we just kind of decided we'd come down. And it's, you know, from that point, it's ... you're out in space. I mean, you're ... there's no weaknesses at all below you, so you go down 150 feet to two bolts, and you attach to the bolts in a hanging belay. Uh, and then you bring your other two partners down and the haul bags. So, there's three of us hanging on two bolts and all of our equipment and these two haul bags out in the middle of space. It's just daunting as to where you're at. And it's a little unnerving, too. I mean, there's ... the bolts are good bolts, and they're fairly new. I believe in years previous to our attempt, someone rappelled the whole route and put in brand new bolts, big half-inch bolts, for every single rappel point for. .. and that's the only route on El Cap that you can bail from. The other ones, you know, once you get to a ... past a certain point, it's what you call point of no return. But The Nose, you can bail at any point. Anywhere along the route, as I'll be discussing, uh, in a just a few moments. So, I was very discouraged. Um, you know, I really wanted to accomplish this route. I think that Ted and George, um, you know, they there and they wanted to accomplish it too, but I think, um, my heart was in it more than probably theirs were. And they probably just kind of took a back seat to all of this. I was kind of the catalyst anyway to doing this route. I sort of enticed them to want to do this. You know, and Ted hadn't been on a big route, and George and I had just done the Salathe, so it was something Ted, you know, had looked forward to. But we all bailed, and because of my discouragement, I just, uh ... we just decided to ... we hung around, I think, in the valley 6 |
