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Brian Gallant - Pro Blog 3
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My trip to Yosemite to attempt climbing The Nose of El Cap (2,900 ft) (September 2008)
Well it has been a dream of mine for some time to climb what most people consider the best climb in the world, The Nose of El Cap in Yosemite, CA. We arrived in Yosemite on the 6th of September and it was an amazing site as usual! We started training the next day on several single pitch routes on El Cap that are recommended before attempting The Nose. These climbs are supposed to help you get ready for the aid climbing you will encounter on The Nose.
After several days of training and a couple days of resting, we decided that we would like to try the first four pitches of The Nose, which takes you to Sickle Ledge (where most people fix three 60-meter ropes to the ground so they can jug up and start climbing on the next day). I was attempting this with a friend of mine from Colorado Springs, Brian Shelton.
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Brian and I ran into a friend of his in the valley, Ryan, who had been to Sickle Ledge twice, so we asked him if he would go with us and just give us some beta and just be the third person jugging up our lines, he agreed. The first four pitches of The Nose (31 pitches) is supposed to be some of the hardest aid climbing. We started around 5AM and mad it to Sickle Ledge later that day. It went well, so we were psyched to rest a day or two, depending on the traffic on the wall and then go for it!
We ended up having to wait about 3 days and during that time we managed to talk Brian’s friend (Ryan) into attempting to send it with us! So we got up at 3AM so we could be one of the first teams up to Sickle Ledge, we were going to try to make it to El Cap Tower that night, but only made it to Dolt Tower (3 pitched below El Cap Tower). It was a good day, we got our systems worked out for hauling and such and the aid climbing was going good, slow, but good!
