Fri, Jun 19, 2015
|
With: | Tom Becht |
There is no maintained trail up the drainage we followed to the west of Lost
Brother, but there appears to be vestiges of informal ones
that we periodically
made use of until inevitably losing the paths in the thick forest understory.
In about 40min we reached
the base of Lost Brother,
by which time we'd climbed about 1,000ft
and were high enough to start getting views across the Valley to
El Cap and
other features on the sunnier side. It was expected to be 95F+ on the Valley
floor today so we were quite happy to remain in the shade. It is unlikely we
would have taken on this effort had it been on the north side, exposed to the
sun. The climb moved from forest to to avalanche/creek boulder scrambling. The
rock in the main chute was well-settled and made for good scrambling. I made a
navigation error in not turning up the
first gully to the left that forms an
amphitheater on Lost Brother's south side. It seemed steeper than I remembered
and we continued up towards Taft Point. We turned left several hundred feet
higher into the main drainage below Taft Point and Profile Cliff. I recognized
my mistake but we decided to head up the higher drainage anyway, hoping we'd
find a way back to Lost Brother higher up.
We found class 4 terrain almost immediately in a curved granite bowl,
slick from water runoff and seepage. I climbed up on a series of sloping ledges
to a safer stance
at a tree. Tom preferred a rope belay so I flaked out
the one I carried in my pack and tossed it down to him. After joining me at the
tree we put the rope away and continued up on
easier but still
challenging ground. More
vegetation meant stuff to grab onto as well as more bushwhacking. Tom's
uncovered legs seemed to take the brunt of it. With this combination of
scrambling and
bushwhacking,
we reached the top of the arete we were climbing,
finally able to look over
to Lost Brother.
I was hoping we might find a traverse
route over to the notch below the summit but alas, a near-vertical wall of
granite would make this impossible. Below us a steep chute lead down to the
amphitheater we should have been climbing. Without knowing if we could
downclimb this (having a rope made it likely that we could rappel in the event
we got stuck), we dropped into the chute and made
our way down. At one
chockstone we were able to
tunnel under it through a small cave, and
after about 10min we were able to
start back up again.
We soon paused
to put on our rock shoes as the bowl's angle increased. In other
places this would be considered class 5 terrain but in Old School Yosemite it
had been deemed
class 4. Difficult stuff, this. It was a fun bit of
scrambling that took all of our attention as we followed a series of
cracks and ledges
higher up the amphitheater.
After about an hour of this effort we finally reached easier
ground at a height parallel with the notch. To our surprise, a
yellow fixed rope was found stretching across the slope. It ended a
short distance from the notch, but originated hundreds of feet up
Taft Arete. It appears someone had
fixed this line to get from the top of Taft Arete and the Valley rim down to
the notch on Lost Brother. It seemed a terribly inefficient and difficult way
to reach Lost Brother. Later upon reflection, I wondered if it wasn't part of
the recovery effort for Potter and Hunt a month earlier.
Another ten minutes had us traversing across to, and then down some slabs to
reach the notch. Just above and behind us at the end of Taft Arete was a string
of prayer flags
that could probably be seen from the Valley floor if someone
had binoculars. But what were they doing there? Another part of the Potter/Hunt
episode? For a second time we got out the rope. I talked up Tom's
abilities and sacrifices in volunteering to take the lead even though he had
done no such volunteering. This was my way of getting Tom to do the hard and
dirty work of leading while I took the easy job. Tom in turn downplayed
his abilities, offered no guarantee he could climb it, but agreed to try, even
if reluctantly. It wasn't the first time we'd played out this same scenario
and it probably wouldn't be the last (we'd do it again the very next day).
The climb to the summit from the notch was as imposing as I had remembered,
perhaps more so. The first part,
a 15-foot climb to a large tree on a broad
ledge on the south side was fairly easy - I had soloed that far on the first
effort. Tom was
at the tree
in only a few minutes, but then slowed considerably.
The rock goes vertical here, an off-width crack with a funny angle immediately
opposite the tree, the only reasonable line of attack from first glance. Tom
tried various ways to get his body partly in the crack and make upward progress
to little avail. Failing this, he turned to a block about five feet high he
could climb atop to reach the sloping face of the block above. It seemed almost
possible, but the lack of holds and sloping nature were too much. Tom dispaired,
"I don't know how to climb this," and "I don't think I can do it," were two of
his staples while I encouraged him to try different techniques and keep at, all
the while comfortably ensconced in the shade of my belay position. After about
20min's effort I had to agree with Tom that he wasn't going to do it. I
suggested we should switch places and at least give me a try.
I didn't really expect to have any better luck and was starting to prepare
myself for a second (and last) failure on Lost Brother.
Class 4, my ass. After trading places
I examined the crack, about 8" wide and curving to vertical at the top.
I tried back-first, face-first and quickly gave those up without getting a foot
off the ground. I explored the 5-foot block and the sloping face above,
concluding the same as Tom - not that way. I went back to the crack and decided
to try using the tree to best advantage and herein found the key. With my left
foot on the tree trunk and my right foot and leg in the crack, I could slowly
stem my way up the crack until I was able to grab a good hold over the top of
the large block. It was a good first success, but we weren't out of the woods
yet. Above this was another more fearsome vertical off-width that we had
observed but disregarded while working the first problem. My hope was that I
would find a way around it, which we did.
This was accomplished by traversing a short distance
on the south side of Lost Brother to easier class 3 scrambling that reached
above the second crack. I was now only about 15-20ft from the top. The rope
drag was becoming a problem and I was having trouble communicating with Tom who
was now out of sight around the corner. A medium-sized tree offered a good
belay position so I decide to stop here and bring Tom up. After
joining me, he continued up with the
second pitch,
a short chimney followed by some awkward
tunneling which led to the easy, open summit area.
We were elated. An hour and a half was spent getting us from the notch to the
summit by noon. The views are quite stunning. Above us to the south, we could
see folks periodically peering over the railing at Taft Point.
Below could be
heard the constant drone of cars and trucks on the roadway. Across the Valley
rose El Cap and the Three Brothers. To
the west
were the impressive Cathedral
Rocks, though smoke from a fire was marring the view in that direction. Among
a small summit cairn, Tom found an old metal 35mm
film canister
that held a single folded piece of
notebook paper. There were 11
parties that had signed in
before our arrival, ours making an even dozen. The oldest entry was from the
first ascent party of David Brower and pal in 1941.
Two additional ascents were recorded in the late 1950s.
Jeff Dozier (has a dome named after him in Tuolumne) made several ascents in
the early 1960s as did Roper in separate, seemingly competing parties. In
one entry,
Dozier and party boast of a first ascent in 2 1/2 days with 150 pitons
on the NW Face, declaring it a "damn fine climb". A month later Roper and
Sacherer made the second ascent in 7 1/2hrs with the note, "shitty climb." In
his guidebook published a year later, Roper was much kinder in giving the first
party due credit without adding his personal touch. And then, much was
forgotten. There were visits in 1971 and 1976 and lastly in 1988. Ours made the
first
entry in 27yrs though I know it had been climbed as recently as 2014 from a
SuperTopo trip report. Perhaps they didn't notice the small
canister? Though not the oldest register I've seen, it's certainly got the
oldest average entry date. A priceless little gem we put back for the
next lucky party to find.
After taking our various summit photos
and letting the elation wear off some, we
reversed our route
back to the top of the first pitch. Here I was in favor
of continuing down the way we'd come, while Tom suggested we rap down the east
side to the notch. Whether the rope would reach the bushes below was the only
real concern but I was happy to let Tom
go first
and find out. He was actually able to rap to
a ledge
only ten feet down to peer over the edge and see
the ends of the rope where we'd hoped they'd be. I followed him a few minutes
later. From here I recommended we rap down the
huge dihedral
where Lost Brother's South Wall meets the steep amphitheater. I recall some
questionable raps and cool tunneling around chockstones. We spent almost 2hrs
in this effort which I
enjoyed more than that first time solo. For one, we had a longer rope and
secondly, I was carrying more webbing with which to make rappel slings. That
first effort I had to be miserly with leaving slings and downclimbed a lot of
terrain that wasn't exactly safe. Tom and I made a series of six
rappels with some downclimbing in between. The highlight was the
tunneling through chockstones that
went on
for more than 10min. Finding three of the purple
slings I had left two years earlier, we used these and other
more secure places to
rappel from. It was 3p before we were
on
easier ground and removed
the climbing shoes
we'd been wearing for many hours now. Another hour would be
needed to scramble the remaining distance down the
rock gully/
dry streambed to
our cars.
All in all, one of the finest days I've spent in the Valley...
Continued...
This page last updated: Sat Jun 4 07:03:43 2016
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