West Face, Leaning Tower, SOLO

6:20am my alarm went off. Still hung over from the other walls that I had just climbed, I dragged myself out of my sleeping bag. I had planned and packed the night before, but I didn't want to climb, especially not solo. I decided ok, I'll make some breakfast and see how I feel. I didn't feel like doing it. Ok, I'll drive to the parking lot and see how I feel, I still didn't feel like doing it. Ok, I'll just hike to the base and see how I feel. I finally decided... well I'm already here, I might as well climb this thing.

This was my first grade V solo in a push, and second solo ever. It's a bit harder than washington column, and it's rated at C2. It took me 14 hours car to car, about 10-11 hours to climb it. Most people do this with a partner, take two full days, and sleep half way up. Nervous.. I didn't know how to get to the base of the route, and I didn't know how to get off. I was also only going to bring one rope.. which meant I couldn't bail. Bringing two ropes would mean that I would have to bring the only other rope I had, a really fat, heavy static line. So I figured that I would have the best chance of making it to the top in a day if I went light. I also didn't bring my camera for that reason. I was worried about wasting any time, and did NOT want to get stuck on the wall over night. It's not like normal climbing where you kind of wait around when you're belaying. When solo climbing, if you're not leading or cleaning, you're wasting time. So sorry everyone.. no pictures or videos. 

This climb is 11 pitches, you can link every one of them and end up with 5 looong pitches. As I got to the base of the tower, I started up the 3rd and 4th class section to get to the base of the route. This was probably the scariest most insecure part of the whole climb. I felt like I was soloing 5.5 moves with a 400 foot drop right below me.... which is exactly what I had to do. It made it even more difficult because I had my full rack, rope, and pack full of water. 

The first and second pitch are all bolts, so it was a good warm up. I cruised up them no problem, and into the rhythm of soloing. It's kind of annoying because of how close the bolts are. There so close I only had to be in the second step of my aider, yet couldn't skip any because that was too far. This thing is steep!!! They really don't call it the leaning tower for nothing. The third pitch was that hardest pitch for me, I had to do two hook moves in a row a few times, and that was definitely scary for me. For aid climbing, sometimes when you can't put any gear into a crack, you can either use a cam hook, or a hook. It's not like placing a cam or nut, where you can see exactly how it fits into the crack. I still probably don't have the experience with this whole aid climbing thing to feel good about placing these. 

Cam hook: you place this in a crack, usually sideways, and when you put your weight on it the torque keeps it from popping out.. hopefully. You use this usually when you can't get a nut or cam to fit in the crack. As you stand on it you can see the thing bend and flex. 

Talon hook: there are 3 different sizes on this thing. It's pretty sweet. You normally place it straight down on a small edge, or drilled hole. 

Cliff hanger hook: same idea as the talon, it is a little bigger so it can hook around bigger sections of rock. 

So I placed the talon for the second time (it was brand new), when absolutely nothing else would fit, and then I dropped it when I was unclipping my daisy chain. I watched it free fall past the steep rock, and was scared because it was an essential piece of gear. Mad at myself, I continued on, knowing that I'd be able to figure it out. 

I got to the ahwanee ledge without much problem, and then started up the traverse. It was difficult, but after the short section of C2, most of the gear was fixed. I kept moving quickly, and was done with pitch 6 by the time the sun hit me. It's west facing, so it doesn't get into the sun until the afternoon. When the sun started beating on me, I definitely slowed down but kept moving. Before I knew it, I only had one more long pitch to go. The end of it was supposed to be C2, but I enjoyed all the fixed gear left behind and it was super easy, besides the fact that it was very steep. There I sat, one move from the top, and I couldn't figure out how to get on top of the bivy ledge. I sat there a few minutes and then had to make a difficult free move without any good holds for my hands or feet. You can see where there is a small shallow drilled hole to aid through the move. If I still had my talon hook it probably would have worked but I didn't have it anyway. 

On the last pitch when I was rapping down to clean, I stopped four different times to clove hitch the rope off so that my rope wouldn't get sawed through when I jugged up. You sort of bounce when you're jugging, and you're rope really can get sawed in half by sharp edges..scary. Tying the clove hitches at certain points doesn't allow the rope to bounce up and down.... sorry if that doesn't make sense.. I'm having trouble explaining it. If you are interested I could show you. I jugged up the last few feet of the technical part, and free soloed to the summit. 

I was nervous about the descent, you need two ropes to rap most of it. I climbed as fast as I could so that I would reach the summit with some sunlight left. I got to the top with about an hour left of light. Thankfully, it was really low angle so I could just carefully down climb most of it. I rapped the really steep stuff. If you are carrying a haul bag, you NEED two ropes. There is no way you could down climb  with a pig on your back.. maybe if you're superman. Usually you think getting to the top you yell that you conquered something. You actually have to summit twice when you solo, and when I got to the top the climb wasn't over. I still had to get down. When I got to the ground is when I had sent the route.

I rocked my ipod most of the time while I was climbing. I have never climbed with it before, but it was really awesome. It made me concentrate really well, and I stayed in super lead mode the whole time. I downloaded the new modest mouse cd a few months ago and didn't like it initially. The night before I blasted off, I found out that it was a sick cd! I listed to it 3 times while I climbed.. that's how good it is. I also listened to mew and deadmau5. Techno is good for jugging haha. Occasionally I would take one of my headphones out to listen to how the cams (usually offset) sounded. If it was a placement that was a really far reach sometimes I couldn't see it that well and would make sure that it didn't make any popping sounds when I weighted it. Also when I would bounce test anything.. the popping sounds usually wasn't a good sign that it was a solid placement. Sometimes it was good though, the cam was just setting. 

This was the steepest thing I had ever climbed. Cleaning the route when I rapped down (taking out all the gear that I placed in the rock) was very difficult on every pitch. I would have to pull myself into the wall at every piece to take it out, then take a big swing, repeat until i got to the anchor. Does anyone know how to make this easier?????? Then jugging back up the rope was hard the entire time. Every pitch was somewhat overhung, so I would be jugging in free space. It is much more strenuous compared to when the wall is vertical or slightly low angle. 

I tried to get into the rhythm so that I wouldn't waste any time at the transition between leading and cleaning. 

When I would get to an anchor, this is what I would do:

Put my daisies into the anchor, take the rack off

Set up anchor with double length sling, putting end of rope at power point

Rappel (using gri gri) and clean the pitch I just led

Clean bottom anchor, put backpack on

Swing way out because it's so overhung, and jug back up the rope (get scared)

Get to anchor, take backpack off

Flake rope into sling (CAREFULLY) or on ledge

Put myself back on belay

Put on rack, re-rack all the gear I had cleaned

Lead the next pitch (get scared)

Repeat...

I'm still getting used to this whole soloing thing, and this is the system I use because I don't know any other way. If anyone has any tips let me know. It was really awesome soloing this route because I felt like I knew what I was doing the whole time, and was never confused about what to do next. My rope never got caught on anything, and everything went smoothly. This was the first time I felt very confident soloing, and wasn't worried about my system. I learn more tricks every time I solo. I also finally figured out how to avoid my daisy chains from getting twisted while leading. I went an entire pitch without having to unravel them! 

The rack: 

2 sets camalots .4-3 (only one #3) 

black to red alien

blue to red offset alien

1-3 TCU's 

1 set BD stoppers

4 DMM offset brass nuts (smaller ones)

16 quickdraws (6 alpine, 10 normal)

6 locking biners

4 non locking biners

2 double length slings

gri gri

petzl ascenders

atc guide

talon hook, cliff hanger, medium cam hook

yates shield harness

metolius gear sling (the one with loops)

1 60 meter rope 

notes:

did not use TCU's

perfect rack of camalots

placed 5 nuts maybe... only one offset

need more quickdraws

clipped TONS of fixed gear

The fuel:

2.5 liters of water

2 king size snickers

1 clif builder's bar

The gear beta said to bring a rack to #5 camalot.. well I only have a #3 so that's what I brought. You definitely didn't need a 4 or 5. I back cleaned a ton, and clipped the fixed gear for protection. I'm always scared of running out of gear.

Sorry this post was so long. I've got all this stuff running through my head and didn't want to forget it. The whole soloing thing has been a really big learning curve. 

I did as much work if not more, than climbing a 20 pitch route with a partner. It was really rewarding, and it was awesome to solo something so big in a day.