Gulf Stream
by SCMA Member Brandon Thau

Grant had been talking about Jolly Roger all spring quarter and when I heard he and Nate were successful on it I knew Gulf Stream was next. I left early from Courtright on the 5th of July to get in before the crowds, but there were no crowds. I found Grant sleeping in his van in the employee area, I knocked on his van and he didn't answer. I addressed myself and he let me in, he thought I was a ranger trying to bust him. I asked him when we were going to start Gulf Stream, neither of us had a topo but we were going to hike loads up anyway. We found Scott Stowe at the mountaineering school and asked him for a topo. He acted reluctant to accommodate us but said to come by his site at dinner time. Grant and I spent the rest of the day racking gear and guessing what we would need on the climb. As far as we had heard Gulf Stream was the second hardest route on El Capitan next to Reticent Wall (and possibly the unrepeated Kohl routes). We found this statement more true when we hiked some gear to the base of the route. Gulf Stream starts out of the big gray rock scar to the right of the Footstool, where the rock looks like its not done falling. We headed to the SAR site to find Stowe, we tripped over Olde English cans on the way to his door. He was friendly and gave us our own topo. Plus he said the route was fun and we would have a good time. Later Grant and I found out that Stowe, on the first ascent, fell on the fourth pitch and broke his ankle, its called the Stoweaway pitch. The next day we hiked more gear up to the base and passed Chongo fixing on South Seas. Once he sees us he yells, "You want to burn one?" Grant and I decline his offer but he comes over and talks to us for a few hours. At the base I put on a nice polyester shirt and my new Yates big wall harness. Since I had never used the harness before I was asking Grant how to tie in with the rope, attach my daisies, and where to belay. Chongo, in his permastoned condition, thought we were going to die, and asked Grant if I had ever climbed before. I led the first pitch which sounded leisurely at 5.8, but once I started climbing it turned out to be one of the scariest 5.8s I've done. The steep pitch consisted of mantling on loose blocks and laybacking flakes that were going to peel off. The protection sucked because most cam placement would blow the rock out, so when ever I placed a piece I used two. With the first pitch done Grant jugged up and I led the second which was A3, real A3. I mantled off the belay onto a loose block and then mantled another one. The first placement was a birdbeak that was hard to test, I got on it after 20 minutes and after Grant tied off the zip line in case the lead line cut. Some hooking and one more beak led to a rivet. One hour later I was looking at a chopped rivet and a detached hollow flake that I needed to hook. I couldn't believe someone had hooked the flake, I tapped it with my hand and it sounded like a gong. I apologized in advance to Grant for killing him since the flake was directly over the belay. If the flake blew we would both receive the death penalty and as a bonus I would receive a castration and touch up circumcision courtesy of the sharp edge I was spread eagle on. Chongo moved out from the base of the route so he wouldn't go with us. I gently weighted the flake and continued to do 6 long hook moves up the side of the flake. During this time rocks randomly fell from inside the roof of the rock scar, it didn't build confidence, but the solid A1 placements after the hooking did. The pitch turned into expando and I went through a set of Loweballs and clipped into pitons as I nailed them. The anchor was great, a 3/8 bolt and an expanding cam placement. I bounce tested the belay cam and sand came out of the crack, I knew the bolt would hold so we rappelled with two pitches fixed.

The next day Grant decided to visit his girlfriend in Fresno and I was talked into a push on Zodiac, so Gulf Stream was postponed for 2 days. The morning we started on Gulf Steam again I had my friend, Matt, fax me a topo of Gulf Stream off the internet. All the ratings were different than the topo Stowe had given us, but Grant still got the crux pitch so I was happy. Grant led the third pitch and noticed that the climbing was real and this climb was going to give us a challenge. When he was nailing off the belay the flake that the belay cam was in spat sand and small rocks into my face. I'm still not sure why that cam placement didn't blow, but with a little luck it will on the next party. I had to tie off the zip line a few times because Grant though he would cut the lead line if he fell. We hauled everything up to the third belay so we were ready to blast off the next day. Grant led the 4th pitch while I read my book on the portaledge. In the afternoon I led the Stoweaway pitch and though about how we would retreat when I blew out both of my ankles. The first two days consisted of two pitches a day, Grant got the morning shift and I got the afternoon shift. They were real A3 and A4- with pitches 200ft and taking 4 to 6 hours to complete. Our second day's entertainment included Grant leading Little Jay's Big Pitch, the crux, me free climbing A3 hook moves like Huber, and watching the massive rescue of the Japanese soloist on Cosmos. The tanker plane for the helicopter made lots of noise so Grant and I couldn't communicate. We thought a war was occurring since the helicopter had a machine gun turret on it. We forgot about the rescue as soon as we had burritos for dinner and cider on the Boston Tea Party ledge. We were happy with our progress, especially since our ascent was the fifth and youngest. The party before us consisted of Conrad Anker and Thomas Huber, and the parties before them were world famous/sponsored climbers. So we figured Grant and Brandon from the SCMA belonged on the ascent list too, even if we weren't sponsored.

The third day of the climb we hauled ass and did four pitches. The climb converged with easier territory, first Atlantic Ocean Wall then New Jersey Turnpike. There was lots of rivets, pin scars, and freeclimbing mixed with exposure. The next day while I was leading the twelfth pitch I tested a lost arrow placement. For some reason I was staring at the piece while bounce testing it, it popped and hit me in the nose and mouth. I thought I had broken my nose, but I only had a bloody mouth. I finished the pitch and Grant led heading and hooking pitches to Baffin Island for the night. The fifth and final day consisted of me leading the 200+ foot pitch to Ellsmere which required me to backclean a lot of the pitch and untie from the rope to set up the belay. Grant combined the 16th and 17th pitch by fully backcleaning the 16th. The 17th had a very steep roof on it with knifeblade and circlehead placements. After the roof there was 40ft of hooking up to a belay tree. Around 3:00 we were done with the climb and drinking a Holland beer that the previous party had left for us. Around 5:00 we were almost packed and ready to go when we heard Jody, Grant's girlfriend, yelling. She brought cookies and cake for us, but no Gentleman Jack's whisky so I let them be and did the East Ledges descent by myself to the comfort of my car.

Thank you Mike Baca for the gear at Courtright; they were used on at least 2 walls this summer.

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