[Jaspersharpe]

http://climbingnarc.com/2015/01/watch-dawn-wall-finish-live/

[Doylo]

The exposure has gone through the roof now. BBC Breakfast, BBc News at 6, several Bbc radio stations. Channel 4 news, Gaz Parry currently on sky news. Never seen anything like it, it's certainly captured the imagination. Need a Newsnight debate now with Dave Thomas and TB slagging off the style 

[kelvin]

My old man just phoned to tell me "because you won't have heard about these two lads who are climbing some big cliff they are living on". I don't have a TV. Seems to have caught the media's attention like Bonington and Co on Everest in the 70s - I was only young but remember it well, despite my parents not being climbers or mountain people.

[JMB]

Watching the feed, I find it hard to believe that any future "wad", no matter how strong, is going to stroll up this thing in a day or whatever predictions of that sort people want to make. There is so much tedious traversing, downclimbing, and meandering I don't think there are enough hours in the day for anyone to fly up the route, no matter how strong they are. And that's without even getting into all the frigging around at belays, rope work, and hauling.

[Sloper]

1975 S.W. Face expedition at a guess, but we didn't have a telly which makes me into the intellectually superior god that I am today.  

[Sloper]

The exposure has gone through the roof now. BBC Breakfast, BBc News at 6, several Bbc radio stations. Channel 4 news, Gaz Parry currently on sky news. Never seen anything like it, it's certainly captured the imagination. Need a Newsnight debate now with Dave Thomas and TB slagging off the style 

Utter fucking bollox, we need an 'after dark' style debate, with Dawes, Dunne, Thomas and Airlee Anderson.

[DAVETHOMAS90]

To Doylo.

That's a poor call isn't it? I think that misrepresents most of what I've posted.

It's great that people question stuff; that's not the same as throwing the baby out with the bath water, slagging things off.

[Nemo]

Really impressive dedication from the two of them sticking with it for this many years...  And it is a bit surprising how the non climbing media have got so psyched about it.

“Caldwell is in a league of his won on this stuff and his exploits in Patagonia show how far ahead of the pack he is.” - JB

“I don't agree Megos and Ondra would be able to improve much on this ascent” - Doylo

Hmmm…  I agree that Megos would struggle with this.  He’s clearly got a ridiculous amount of stamina – so is awesome at onsighting long steep routes in Spain.  And he’s also very good on pockets in the Frankenjura.  But technical, crimpy, vertical walls aren’t his thing at all.  Maybe he could climb it – but I suspect it would take ages.

Ondra is a completely different story.  Betting against him doing this very quickly at some point is a bad idea - this kind of technical fingery wall climbing has his name all over it.  It’s not disrespectful to Tommy and Kevin – it’s just reality.  It’s worth remembering that other pure sport climbers - eg Jonathan Siegrist have been on this and had a reasonably successful time - it's runout pseudo sport climbing really, rather than trad climbing as UK climbers would think of it - bolts on the harder sections, and a lot of the other (sometimes very quirky) gear being left in situ. 

It’s not the fact that Ondra has climbed 9b+ or onsighted 9a or any of that stuff – I wouldn’t give Sharma or Megos much chance of doing this in a hurry at all.  It’s the sport climbing ability on crimpy technical vertical walls that matters for this route – and he’s just in a totally and completely different league to anyone at that style (Tommy included – and what Tommy has done in Patagonia has precisely knack all to do with it!).  Remember the last "hardest big wall in the world" - that route in Madagascar – vertical technical crimpy granite multipitch climbing (exactly the same style as the Dawn Wall minus the quirky gear and the length).  The style he climbed that in was utterly ridiculous and I strongly suspect won’t be bettered for decades.  The likes of Caff, Francois Legrand, Sylvain Millet (who’s climbed Realization amongst lots of other things), Arnaud Petit etc etc – had all been there on reasonably long trips to try that route – and despite weeks and weeks of effort hadn’t even managed to free every pitch.  Ondra rocked up and climbed the whole thing ground up in a day – onsighting all but one pitch (which he did next go…).  And that was five years ago.  He’s a lot better than that now. 

The one thing I thought he would struggle with on The Dawn Wall was the dyno, but now that’s been bypassed it’s no longer an issue.  Ultimately, what has taken all the time for Kevin and Tommy are the two 9a traverse pitches (notably the hardest free climbing on El Cap is the bit that isn’t on any aid routes – one of the few sections of rock that clowns with peg hammers haven’t battered the hell out of…).  They could have easily done the rest of the route years ago if it wasn’t for those.  They have obviously been very hard to work out the sequences on – but Ondra would probably watch the vids – or I wouldn’t be surprised if Tommy were to go up with him and give him the beta.  I wouldn’t give anyone else in the world much chance at climbing just those two pitches in a week.  But Ondra – think how many crimpy technical horrorshow 9a’s he’s done in no time.  Remember that Tommy and Kevin have only climbed a handful of 9a’s between them over many years of effort.

As for how fast he could do it – it depends on how the route was set up.  If he got someone else to do all the hauling, aid the pitches before he climbed them and pre place all the gear etc – essentially set the route up in the way it was for Kevin and Tommy’s ascent – so that he could just climb in sport climbing mode (he’d be fine with long runouts and crap gear on easy sections – as long as he doesn’t have to figure out how to place it).  Then I think he could probably do the whole thing ground up in a week.  He’d probably onsight the majority of it – and maybe need a day for each of the 9a pitches.  (On the route in Madagascar he climbed with Pietro dal Pra – who dealt with all the big walling stuff so Ondra could just focus on the climbing.)

If on the other hand he just set off with a mate and was having to figure out all the weird gear placements etc – that’s a different ball game altogether – he’d struggle and it would probably take him quite a few weeks just to suss out the gear / big walling technique etc…

The other thing Ondra would definitely have taken note of is when this ascent got done – arguably one of the biggest hurdles Tommy and Kevin have had is that they were trying the route when it was too warm.  Noone has tried to free really hard big walls in Yosemite in January before – and for the hard pitches on this route it has clearly made all the difference.

Anyway, I fully expect Ondra will be psyched on doing this at some point.  But probably not for quite a while - he can do this in his 30s when the psyche for ridiculous training schedules and uber sport climbing is fading - you don't need 9c fitness for this kind of thing – for the foreseeable future I get the impression his main focus is going to be sport climbing.

“I do wonder though if TC will go back later and try to improve on his own style on the Dawn Wall.” - Rocksteady

Indeed.  I have to confess to being in the camp that's slightly disappointed with the style choices they’ve ended up making.   Of course the rules of the game for freeing big walls are pretty arbitary at the best of times.  I just think that given the amount of effort they've put in to get here, they could have easily have done considerably better than this.  In particular I'm really surprised  that they’ve decided not to redpoint every pitch – which as I understood it was their original intention.  It would have added very little time to the ascent – I suppose they weren’t sure about the weather window but even so…

As to the other aspects of style – where the camp is and the other people hauling etc – I’m less interested, although some of it does feel a bit absurd.   I had assumed that when it came to the actual ascent that everything would have been stripped and the two of them would just start at the bottom with all their gear and set up ledges as and when appropriate.  Climbing 5 pitches, then jugging half way UP El Cap to sleep in the pre placed camp.  Then abbing down back to pitch 6 and starting from there the next day etc etc...  It does feel more than a bit strange.

But the “rules” for that stuff in Yosemite (or on any big wall) are pretty random.  And when they needed to have the whole route rigged for cameramen and can jug from the ground to the crux pitches in well under an hour – it doesn’t really make a fat lot of difference where the portaledge was set up.   They could have set it up a foot off the ground so that people could bring them pizzas every night – but I guess that wouldn’t look as impressive on film… 

But wouldn’t be too surprised if Tommy went back without the media circus and tried to redpoint every pitch in a week or something – maybe without the entire route being rigged first.  Or maybe not – it would be easy to have had enough of it after seven years!





Utlimately, I don’t agree with the people asserting that this is the most impressive climbing achievement of all time - I think most people still haven't really clocked how hard top end sport climbing is relative to all other aspects of climbing (e,g: bouldering and trad which are much more constrained by geology).

BUT – what is really impressive about this ascent is the dedication, the patience and the “vision”.  That is a massively overused word in the climbing world – it doesn’t require “vision” to bolt a new 9b in Ceuse or brush a new Font 8C in Switzerland.  It just requires a bit of time to play with in an area with decent rock, a pair of eyes and some degree of ability to work sequences out.  But imagining a free line up the blankest bit of El Cap – it was far from obvious that this would go – Tommy and Kevin’s efforts on this route really do for once deserve that word.

[abarro81]

Agree that this is nuts - my Dad just asked me about it, having heard about it a few times on Radio 4.

Like Nemo, I suspect that AO would do well on this style. However, like JB and Will, I'm of the opinion that how well someone would be likely to do on something is meaningless;  potential means nothing unless it's converted.

[DAVETHOMAS90]

Great post by Nemo, and most definitely the last sentiment.

[webbo]

The big question is do I sit through 20 mins of why David Cameron will not go on a TV debate with out the Greens in order to see what ITVs slant is of this.

[Sasquatch]

Really impressive dedication from the two of them sticking with it for this many years...  And it is a bit surprising how the non climbing media have got so psyched about it.

“Caldwell is in a league of his won on this stuff and his exploits in Patagonia show how far ahead of the pack he is.” - JB

“I don't agree Megos and Ondra would be able to improve much on this ascent” - Doylo

Hmmm…  I agree that Megos would struggle with this.  He’s clearly got a ridiculous amount of stamina – so is awesome at onsighting long steep routes in Spain.  And he’s also very good on pockets in the Frankenjura.  But technical, crimpy, vertical walls aren’t his thing at all.  Maybe he could climb it – but I suspect it would take ages....

.....Anyway, I fully expect Ondra will be psyched on doing this at some point.  But probably not for quite a while - he can do this in his 30s when the psyche for ridiculous training schedules and uber sport climbing is fading - you don't need 9c fitness for this kind of thing – for the foreseeable future I get the impression his main focus is going to be sport climbing.

A couple of thoughts on this.  I think the truth is somewhere in between.  There's very little reason to doubt Adam could climb this.  He's done any and everything else he's set his mind to.  That said, your argument was that A)with someone to haul for him, and B) someone to place all the gear for him, he could do the route.  How does that "improve" on the style of the ascent?  because it's ground up?  That's a wash to me as doing a FA is better style than a repeat, and in this case to me equals out the "style factor" of ground up. 

Also, I think Tommy tends to get underestimated in his climbing.  He put up the first 9a+ in North America in 2001, which has still not been repeated. Then he quit aiming for cutting edge sport and moved into Big wall stuff.  I see very little reason to think he couldn't have done 9b sport if he'd gone down that road.  The Nose free in a day???  Everything else he's done on El Cap?   

In the late 90's Sharma was the poster child for climbing in part because of his carefree attitude and surfer look/style. Caldwell was the workhorse, but he really matched Chris almost step for step. 

Style Paragraphs

Generally agree.  I think after 6 years, the first step was proving to themselves that it could be done. I full expect that they both have the same general thoughts as all of the rest of us, as far as what the "best" style is.  but in the end it tends to be the case that FA's are normally not done in the optimal style, and often for good reason. And it leaves that option open for those who come after to improve on the style.

Utlimately, I don’t agree with the people asserting that this is the most impressive climbing achievement of all time - I think most people still haven't really clocked how hard top end sport climbing is relative to all other aspects of climbing (e,g: bouldering and trad which are much more constrained by geology).

Agree with the first.  Disagree with the second.  It rerads to me like you're implying that "hard top end sport climbing" is harder than top end bouldering or trad.....  I disagree with this.  I'd say that we're at a stage in climbing where (at the very top end) no single aspect of climbing is really any "harder" at the top end relative to any other aspect.  I'd have a hard time believeing they're not all fairly comparable at the top end.

BUT – what is really impressive about this ascent is the dedication, the patience and the “vision”.  That is a massively overused word in the climbing world – it doesn’t require “vision” to bolt a new 9b in Ceuse or brush a new Font 8C in Switzerland.  It just requires a bit of time to play with in an area with decent rock, a pair of eyes and some degree of ability to work sequences out.  But imagining a free line up the blankest bit of El Cap – it was far from obvious that this would go – Tommy and Kevin’s efforts on this route really do for once deserve that word.

100% Agree

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

They have done it...
http://climbingnarc.com/2015/01/watch-dawn-wall-finish-live/

[Luke Owens]

Did they just finish? The live stream was pretty un-eventful...

[Ti_pin_man]

Huzzah.  Well I'm impressed and think all the naysayers should just either repeat or better the feat or just shut the feck up. 

[Luke Owens]

An incredible effort by both of them! Very impressive!

[andy popp]

I have loved every moment of this story, probably the most impressive and inspiring things I've seen during the nearly four decades I've been in climbing. I don't give a fuck about all the questions about style etc. - this is just flat out brilliant news. Congratulations to Tommy and Kevin.

[lagerstarfish]

Just heard John Humphrys say that they'd done it

Ace 

with all the interest about style and ethics, I wonder whether they'll make it into Charlie Hebdo

[kelvin]

Top effort - really is.

[groovedog]

Any links to a topo or a nice pitch by pitch description like super topo? I'm clueless as to where the route is on el cap and where the difficulties lie.

[Jaspersharpe]

I have loved every moment of this story, probably the most impressive and inspiring things I've seen during the nearly four decades I've been in climbing. I don't give a fuck about all the questions about style etc. - this is just flat out brilliant news. Congratulations to Tommy and Kevin.

100% this. Watched them finish it last night. Crappy live feed with no sound of two ants crawling up a rock with loads of fannying about at belays and pulling ropes. It was brilliant. Well done lads.

[Jaspersharpe]

Any links to a topo or a nice pitch by pitch description like super topo? I'm clueless as to where the route is on el cap and where the difficulties lie.

http://www.yosemitebigwall.com/free-dawn-wall

[csurfleet]

Woo! 

[gme]

I am with Andy and Jasper on this and dont get why there is any controversy over it. If you ignore some of the hyperbole from the mainstream media its all been brilliant.

I have found media interest in in fascinating to watch, quite odd but fascinating as well. I did think it had finally got out of hand last night when i read something along the lines of -

"And tonight on Sky news we have XXX talking about Charlie Hebdo , xxx discussing Ebola and Gaz Parry on the dawn wall."

[Jaspersharpe]

Gresh must have been unavailable.