Just moving more food and water from the car up to the route today. Multiple trips. Being solo means I do it all, so it just takes longer to do everything. Tomorrow, assuming the weather is good, I’ll lead again. Right now it’s high winds and heavy clouds. The last two days have been really high winds, so I’m about tired of it.
Yesterday I was thinking a lot about the route, and I had some thoughts about what I’ve f0und so far.
So, I’ve done the “technical crux” of this route at this point. And I’ve documented it carefully. Whatever else happens on this route, the “big deal” is now behind me, and all that remains is sorting out the vast disconnect between what the FA team claimed and what I found.
It’s easy at this point to get fixated on this or that particular, and I find myself varyingly outraged about different particulars at different points in time. But I need to back up a bit and think about the big picture.
The issue here isn’t that the FA team set up a gimmicky hook anchor (strictly going for a rating) and then surrounded it with deeply drilled holes (I won’t speculate what they put in them… they took baby angles for me). The issue here isn’t that the FA team used a heavy-handed approach to some of the most fragile rock on the planet. The issue isn’t even that the FA team “didn’t tell the whole story” about their tactics.
To me, the issue that most outrages me is that the FA team went up to MAKE a “route” FOR the hyping. They wanted a “route” that they could CALL A6+, so they “played the game” as they felt they needed to in order to claim a rating. And it’s almost like they counted on mud flow to hide some of their most egregious indiscretions.
For example, until I cleaned the pitch and really took the excavation time, I never could find the hook anchor. During the lead, I reached a point where the “bashie holes” got really deep, and I was able to plant baby angles at least partway (and twice to the eye) in these. That surprised me somewhat, because the FA team was already putting these holes about 18 inches apart (which is already a “chicken tactic”), and this was supposed to be the hardest (most dangerous) climbing in the world! Now I see that the deep holes were all around the hook anchor. I was finding myself getting disgusted by these deep holes in such close proximity to each other, but it’s only now that I’m able to “step back” and see what the FA team was really doing.
But the big point is that I couldn’t even find the hook anchor at first, because the mud had flowed down over the “ledge” until there was no “ledge” to be found. ONLY during cleaning was I able to think, “Well, it’s GOT to be here or here. There are really only two possibilities, given the (lame) topo. So, I excavated the mud in both possibilities (about 10 vertical feet apart), and the second one (the higher one) was the “ledge.”
I put “ledge” in scare quotes because it’s a sloper. The only reason it “works” is because they drilled deep pits for the hook tips to nestle into. But even those enhancements were not immediately detectable. I had to root all around with the pick of my hammer to find the “soft spots.” And that is when it hit me that the deep “bashie holes” were all around that “ledge” as well.
During the lead,I had wondered, “Why drill these so deep here? You’re already planting bomber bashies every 18 inches as it is! HOW much more security do you NEED on supposedly A5 climbing???” But now it all makes sense.
And that’s the point: It ALL makes sense ONLY in the context of realizing HOW methodical and calculating the FA team was being about manufacturing a “route” FOR the rating, WHILE making it far, far, FAR easier on themselves than the rating would claim.
It’s THAT level of disingenuousness that really outrages me. It’s the “personal” aspect of this… about the PEOPLE rather than the rock. I mean, if they wanted to spend the effort to drill a bashie ladder right up the face of the Titan, ignoring most natural placements that could be had, well fine and dandy. To each his own. I know that lots of people would scream about the “bad style” of such flagrant rock damage. Yes, that bugs me too, but not for quite the same reason. The mud will fill in most of those holes in a few more years. It’s already happening.
What bugs me about the flagrant rock damage is that it signifies an utter unwillingness to actually “climb,” while at the same time CLAIMING that they had actually set the HIGH BAR for what climbing is. These guys were trenching BIG aluma-heads into a SEAM that took good peckers. I mean, I planted good peckers right into some of their trenches, just to show that they were TRENCHING good natural placements.
If you want to drill a bashie ladder up the side of the Titan, and you CALL it that, well, I’m mildly amused, somewhat disgusted, and mostly in awe of what effort that would take. But when you drill a bashie ladder up the side of the Titan and HYPE this as the HIGH BAR of what masterful climbing is supposed to be, well, then I’m just disgusted.
The FA team might as well have laid a big wooden ladder against the wall (it’s just under vertical, so the thing would stay in place and be duly precarious). Then, at about the 120-foot level, they could saw a rung partway through and hang there for awhile in lust with themselves for the “big risk” they were taking at the “belay.”
But even that doesn’t quite do justice to it! They would have had to hang on the sawed rung WHILE slung off to solid rungs above and below, WHILE shouting to the world,” LOOK OUT! DANGER! THIS is some hard, hard stuff we’re doing here! Be impressed!”
It’s the manufacture-for-a-rating that galls me, especially when even the rating is a giant hoax.
So, I don’t know. Did they put angles in those deeper holes? The pictures show bashies. Were the pictures staged? I have no idea, and I won’t claim anything about HOW they used those holes. But HOLES they are, and they took angles for me. And those holes are all around the “hook anchor.” Bottom line is that even planting BIG bashies every 18 inches (ignoring natural placements that were available) is pathetic enough… especially when you’re claiming the HARDEST, most dangerous climbing ever done!
Well, I’m past the “hardest climbing ever done” at this point, and I call THAT section A2, with some of the seam-sections above and below (about 60 feet of total climbing out of 170) about A3. So much for the “hook anchor” (which any normal team would just bypass, as I did. So much for A6+. So much for “Look Out! Danger!” No “danger” to be had so far, and “nothing to see here” except for a bashie ladder.
I’ll do another pitch and see if there’s anything redeeming here worth continuing for. I (and others) have so much invested in this that it’s hard to contemplate bailing. But I have no interest in another 1000 feet of this same stupidity. So, I’ll see how it goes for awhile.