[Doylo]

Can't believe that some of the tossers on uKc were giving him stick for his Yosemite efforts. Did people really expect him to onsight The Nose and just piss up Dawn Wall? DW took the best granite climber in the world 7 years, The Nose has got two horrendous pitches that would be a miracle to do first go even for the best climber in the world. Throw in to the mix big wall logistical  puntery. He's thrown himself at them all head first and just gone for it all out with a great attitude. Respect to the man.

[James Malloch]

Can't believe that some of the tossers on uKc were giving him stick for his Yosemite efforts. Did people really expect him to onsight The Nose and just piss up Dawn Wall? DW took the best granite climber in the world 7 years, The Nose has got two horrendous pitches that would be a miracle to do first go even for the best climber in the world. Throw in to the mix big wall logistical puntery. He's thrown himself at them all head first and just gone for it all out with a great attitude. Respect to the man.

Agreed. My favourite comment was:

I can sympathise as I don't particularly like the idea of him waltzing up what others have put their life's work into

Bloody world class climbers wanting to climb something quickly, in good style and faster than others can manage...

[duncan]

In terms of Ondra's super impressive list of achievements I think this is largely noteworthy and laudable based on his "just go and give it a go" approach. Reports of him nearly onsighting the Nose are ridiculous. The only really hard pitches on the Nose are the Great Roof and Changing Corners (neither of which he came close to onsighting). To put it in perspective, assuming he did the Jardine Traverse then he actually onsighted 3 pitches of 5.12 and about 5 pitches of 5.11. The rest is 5.10 and easier. Not knocking him, but it's not even remotely close to an onsight of the Nose.

I'm not sure if The Nose onsight was ever realistic. Did he say this was an aim? I think his plan was to do it free, in a day, with his Dad. He did the Changing Corners free quite quickly which has shut down prolonged efforts from Yuji Hirayama and the Hubers so close but no cigar.

The Salathe onsight is a stated objective and he cited Yuji Hirayama's amazing 4 falls ascent nearly 20 years ago as inspiration. It's apparently a hard onsight for the grade. He's not mentioned it but El Nino might represent his best chance of a no-falls ascent of El Cap.

[chillax]

As others have said, massive respect to the guy for his approach, attitude, and ability to adapt to a somewhat idiosyncratic style of climbing.

Out of curiosity, has Freerider been onsighted yet?I know its not quite as proud the Salathe, but surely thats a best candidate for the first onsight, no falls ascent of the Captain?

[Duncan campbell]

Its been flashed by Pete Whittaker and Cedric Lachat, although Cedric had a 10 day rest after climbing the first 10 pitches.

http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item/69244/freerider_flashed_by_pete_whittaker

[chillax]

Its been flashed by Pete Whittaker and Cedric Lachat, although Cedric had a 10 day rest after climbing the first 10 pitches.

Ah cool, had forgotten about that 

Cheers

[Doylo]

I don't think he freed the CC.

[Nibile]

Can't believe that some of the tossers on uKc were giving him stick for his Yosemite efforts. Did people really expect him to onsight The Nose and just piss up Dawn Wall? DW took the best granite climber in the world 7 years, The Nose has got two horrendous pitches that would be a miracle to do first go even for the best climber in the world. Throw in to the mix big wall logistical  puntery. He's thrown himself at them all head first and just gone for it all out with a great attitude. Respect to the man.

Some people are so engulfed by the cult of mediocrity and laziness, that to see someone constantly operating at the maximum level, constantly seeking personal improvement, is a true pain. That's why they are so happy and quick to point out what they think are failures or underachievements.

[Duncan campbell]

Yeah was going to mention that but thought it was covered in Natalie's article (I didnt reread it to check)

Going on very tight ethics its still to play for but I'd give it to P-whiddy?

[36chambers]

Going on very tight ethics its still to play for but I'd give it to P-whiddy?

nah, surely that's the big wall equivalent of someone failing to flash a boulder problem, but then climbing it next go using a different hold. 


edit: or as I like to call it, a "beta flash": first go with the right beta...

[Nemo]

As Duncan said - the Nose onsight was never realistic for anyone.  Indeed Ondra never mentioned it as an aim - it's just clueless media reporting.
Sounds like he got reasonably close to flashing The Great Roof which is pretty outrageous.  But Changing Corners was never gonna go first try.
Remember Jorg Verhoeven on it a few years back (hardly a punter):

After 4 days of work on this 8b+ pitch, I can barely do the 7 hard meters with one hang in the middle, and only a few moves when it's too hot.

http://www.rockandice.com/climbing-news/jorg-verhoeven-free-climbs-the-nose-5-14-on-el-cap

Even after working the hard pitches for quite a few days, the final ascent still took 3 days.
Basically those two pitches were always going to be way too technical and tricky to sort a sequence out to get anywhere near on onsight.

As others have said, the rest of the route is way easier so the fact he onsighted it isn't really surprising.
In short - it wasn't news - just a fun day out doing the nose in a day with his dad and a few aid points. 
If he wanted to free it, he'd have needed to spend a day or so up there sorting out those two pitches.


His main onsight aim seems to be Salathe.  That probably is realistic, but very tough.  He'd probably have a lot more chance of the first no quibbles onsight of El Cap if he went for any of Freerider, Golden Gate or El Nino.
Probably Golden Gate would be the easiest option given his skillset.  Sounds like he's pretty set on trying Salathe though due to Yuji's near onsight back in the 90s.

As for the Dawn Wall, sounds like progress is pretty rapid - would be amazing if he pulls off a complete ascent within a 6 week trip, especially as it's still pretty warm (Caldwell and Jorgeson ended up only really making lots of progress on the crux pitches when they started trying it in late Nov / Dec...)   Wonder if skin may end up being the limiting factor to getting an ascent of this in anything resembling a hurry though...

[Doylo]

The two crux traverse pitches sound a nightmare on the skin. TC and KJ had to have rest days and climb with tape on. Ondras's described some of the holds as razorblades. And like Nemo said they did it in proper winter.

[dave]

Someone should get up their carkeys out on them razors.

[moose]

this thread drives home two points to me:
(1) Ondra a proper enthusiast as well as supremely talented.  I find his ad hoc approach really endearing.  I suspect a more precious type would have had far more rigourous preparation to maximise the chances of impressively rapid ticks and media headlines - weeks of training on lesser Yosemite walls, maybe bringing in a "hired gun" big wall expert to take care of the logistics.  Instead Ondra just "had a go" with his Dad, made a few mistakes but seemed to take it well.  He is one of the few elite achievers in any discipline I can readily picture puntering along in his old age just for the sheer love of it (maybe with far more screaming than most though).
(2) I had not seen that Jorg Verhoeven account of Changing Corners on the Nose.  Lynn Hill = Gnar.

off now to dig out my Alex Huber / Heinz Zak book on Yosemite (signed by the Hubers and Leo Holding!), look at the lovely photos, sigh, and wish I was there......

[Muenchener]

this thread drives home two points to me:
(1) Ondra a proper enthusiast as well as supremely talented.  I find his ad hoc approach really endearing.  ...  He is one of the few elite achievers in any discipline I can readily picture puntering along in his old age just for the sheer love of it (maybe with far more screaming than most though).

Totally agree, although see also:

Yuji

[jwi]

Some people are so engulfed by the cult of mediocrity and laziness, that to see someone constantly operating at the maximum level, constantly seeking personal improvement, is a true pain. That's why they are so happy and quick to point out what they think are failures or underachievements.

^This * 2.

[Offwidth]

Can't believe that some of the tossers on uKc were giving him stick for his Yosemite efforts. Did people really expect him to onsight The Nose and just piss up Dawn Wall? DW took the best granite climber in the world 7 years, The Nose has got two horrendous pitches that would be a miracle to do first go even for the best climber in the world. Throw in to the mix big wall logistical  puntery. He's thrown himself at them all head first and just gone for it all out with a great attitude. Respect to the man.

Its a real pisser when you play your best top trump card and it doesn't win the hand. In that, the bigger victims of UKC idiocy (from some childish individuals there, not the site) continues to be Tommy and Kevin.

[Offwidth]

engulfed by the cult of mediocrity and laziness

Is that original ?... If so can I use it on a T shirt.... pretty please.

[duncan]

I don't think he freed the CC.

I agree it is a bit unclear and I've been too definite about this.

Dawn Wall belayer and photographer Pavel Blazek reported on instagram: "I'm curious if he's gonna give it another try as he didn't free climb the Great Roof."  Which doesn't rule it in or out.

An acquaintance and usually reliable source reported on supertopo that Ondra had done the Changing Corners free "second go" but this has not been confirmed either way. I've emailed him but no reply as yet. Probably off climbing!

[UnkArl]

Update: News from the Dawn Wall

A lot of rain and humidity in the Valley, with some sunny and hot conditions mixed in. We jugged up the ropes in the evening right when the rain stopped, hoping that we would get in a good session of night climbing, but instead we just got soaking wet. Even though we could see the stars, it was still raining on the wall and the water turned into a waterfall. We spent a very cold and wet night in the portaledge, and waited till the sun came out and dried our clothes and the wall. As the sun came, it got really hot too. I still worked the traverse pitches, which only just destroyed my skin. We rested on the portaledge and in the late afternoon, I went on pitch 16. I wanted to check the loop instead of the dyno. I found out that the loop is equally as heinous as the dyno itself and super tricky. It was still really warm and my soft skin did not help either. I spent around 3 hours on this pitch, refining my beta all over again. I wanted to send pitch 16 that day, but by the time I had the beta, I was so exhausted that it was not possible any more.

Complexity and difficulty of the whole climb is just shocking to me. I might have been too optimistic, but I definitely expected it to be easier. Every single pitch is so tricky and hard and yesterday on pitch 16 was the most frustrating day so far on the wall. It revealed the real difficulty of the whole climb and crucial importance of good conditions and skin. Hats off to Tommy and Kevin, who believed that the whole climb was possible before they free climbed. Without having the beta, some of the sections look just impossible. I have the advantage that I know that the climb is possible and that helps me to keep the faith that I might be able to do it as well. I am humbled and impressed by what Tommy and Kevin did!

To make everything more clear about what is going on on the wall, I will make a little recap. We spent a few days going ground up, using free and aid climbing techniques to fix the lines and be able to work on the pitches and get up and down easier, which was bold and scary most of the time. So far, we made it to the top of pitch 16. Above that, the climbing is by no means easy, but there are no more crux pitches. In the next week, we will continue to fix our ropes even higher and take a look at the whole route. But before that, I wanted to work on the crux pitches and see if they are possible.

These days, we are using fixed ropes to jug up to the pitches I need to work. Then we go down to the Valley in the evening after one day of climbing or we stay on the wall for two days and sleep on the portaledge. At a certain point, I will decide to give it a try to climb the whole route in one single push. But before doing that, I need to see the whole route (not only first 16 pitches but all 32) and have every single pitch super wired. This will still take at least two weeks. Little intermediate goals before the final would be redpointing the individual pitches, most importantly the crux pitches (14-16).

—BD Ambassador Adam Ondra, Oct. 30, 2016

#liveclimbrepeat Photo: Pavel Blažek


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[kelvin]

"Complexity and difficulty of the whole climb is just shocking to me. I might have been too optimistic, but I definitely expected it to be easier."

I guess this comes from having onsighted 9a. Nice to hear he's taking it all seriously, even the pitches near the top.

[Doylo]

Dawn Wall is nails. Didn't see that coming 

[Will Hunt]

I think it's great to see just how nails it is though. I remember a lot of chat at the time about how Tommy and co were a bit second rate because of their tactics, with the assertion that "Ondra would piss it ground up so this ascent is compromised". Now that Ondra is struggling on it, it completely puts that argument to bed and vindicates the original style of ascent I think. It would be great to see Ondra improve on the style in the end.

[Doylo]

There is a lot of chat on the internet. A lot of it is from armchair idiots though.

[slackline]

Here's the link where updates are being bottom posted (i.e. scroll to the bottom for the latest post), and there are pictures to go with the captions 

Black Diamond : Adam Ondra Yosemite Updates