| Summary | |
| Owner | MITOC Gallery Administrator |
| Creation Date | 2007-06-13 01:07:16 UTC-0400 |
| Description | Polly Anikeeva Woody Hoburg El Capitan, Yosemite Valley, CA The Nose, 1st Pitch, 5.10d or 5.7 C1 We decided to try some aid for a day, so we headed up the 1st pitch of the nose. Just being near El Cap gets me excited, and climbing the 1st pitch of the nose helps to put the scale of the 31 pitch climb in perspective. After one slow pitch of aid, I ask Polly if she thinks we should go on, not really wanting to admit that I don't feel like climbing any more. Her response: "Enough. You have a blood blister the size of the coffee bean" Oh yeah, that's my big toe sticking out of my shoe. At least I have a great excuse to stop climbing for the day. We rap off and watch a film crew coming down from some free climbing on the great roof. Polly's comments: My motivation for this was that, first, I wanted to try some aid, and second, I didn't want to hike for a single mile that day. Aid is way slow, so it should motivate all of us to become better climbers not to need this awkward technical advantage. After the first pitch, I realized that we suck at aid big time, and we probably could continue moving upward but with a lot of pain. Woody's blood blister was huge and was looking out into the world from the huge hole in his shoe. Woody, stop making fun of my english! |