3 ms·
Have they had to rely on the ropes at all so far in this climb?
by dfgray 12y ago
Have they had to rely on the ropes at all so far in this climb?
- dangerlibrary 12y agoThey use ropes at all times for safety, just not to ascend. What is special about this attempt is that it appears they will successfully climb every pitch, in order, without using the ropes to ascend.
- prawn 12y agoProbably worth clarifying: each pitch is being climbed in order, and for each pitch alone they not using ropes to ascend. But between these harder pitches (at least, and maybe all), they return to a base camp (on the cliff-face) before using ropes to ascend up to where they want to start the next pitch.
- tunap 12y agoFrom alt link posted prior in comments: http://www.adventure-journal.com/2015/01/why-is-climbing-the-dawn-wall-such-a-big-deal/ http://www.adventure-journal.com/2015/01/why-is-climbing-the... These guys are falling a lot on their way up. Don’t they want to climb the whole thing without falling? Well, that would be nice, but in this case, it’s okay for them to fall. They’re trying to “redpoint” the route, which means each climber has to climb each pitch without falling. So, if Caldwell is climbing pitch #11, and he falls 40 feet from the start of the pitch, he lowers down to the start of the pitch and starts over until he finishes the pitch cleanly. Then that pitch is considered free climbed, and he moves onto the next pitch. Since each pitch can take a half hour to an hour to climb, you can imagine how ridiculous it would be to climb all the way up to, say, Pitch #17, and if you fell, lowering 1,700 feet to the ground and starting over.