South Seas to Space
by SCMA Member Brandon Thau

Grant and I go to the same school now, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, so now it is easier to organize hardcore trips. We were planning on going to Zion over Spring break to do two grade V's in a day and a grade VI to finish the week. For Winter training I did Moro Oro with a friend and Full Metal Jacket with Grant both on Moro Rock and with reasonably fast times. But then at the last moment our plans changed from the soft sandstone at Zion to the chossy diorite of Wyoming Sheep Ranch on El Capitan. We preoccupied ourselves with packing for the trip during finals week and made studying for our tests second priority. Two days before leaving we call for Peregrine closures and find out the route is closed so we change once again and decide to do Space, a cleaner, easier and longer route. We left for Yosemite after our last final and packed early the next morning in El Cap meadow. More gear was brought on this route than any other route we had done together; 15 LAs, 15-20 Bugaboos and KBs, 5 RURPS and beaks, 70 Copperheads, 3-4 sets of Cams, plus a gang-load of food including burritos, rice, soup, chili plus a CD player, books, hanging stove and booze. All our supplies were loaded into 3 haulbags and a food bucket and shipped to the base of El Capitan. Grant fixed the first pitch of Space solo while I loped my mule and organized the haul bags. There was major rockfall at the base of the route but it didn't occur to us that it might be our route. Later that day we studied the route and determined that the 7th and 8th pitch of Space was on the ground. Once again we changed our plans and decided to do South Seas until we connect with the 11th pitch of Space. Grant pulled the line off Space and I donned my Hawaiian leisure shirt and soloed the first pitch of South Seas with a full moon. With one pitch of 28 fixed we didn't save that much time. We slept on the portaledge instead of the ground that night to avoid the hundreds of 6 inch millipedes crawling into our open mouths or worse. Here are some of the more significant events during the climb:

1st day: 3rd pitch was almost done all free at 5.10 with offsets and copperheads for pro, would go all free at 5.11a if there was fixed pro. After 3 pitch bailing is almost impossible (one of the steepest parts of El Cap). The route came right out of the steepest part of the alcove on a clean flake/dihedral. The first couple pitches are steeper than anything on the east face except for Native Son. It looked like it might rain so we put on the fly at night.

2nd day: Grant made the 5th old A5 pitch look like A1. Great White Shark is an awesome, clean, TCU leapfrogging, A1 pitch. While Grant latched into the dihedral after doing the Rubber Band Man Pendulum on the 8th pitch the flake he was holding on to broke off and it fell about 700ft and crashed less than a 100ft from some people running at the base. We yelled rock and everything, it would have sucked if the rock connected with somebody. Clouds obscured the top of El Cap so we put the fly on and watched fog fill the valley. Later that night the fog cleared and we got awesome view of the lunar eclipse.

3rd day: We are on the 12th pitch of Space, Grant enjoyed the straight in nailing on this pitch. Grant says the Pillar Of the Community pitch was in the realm of A3(all heads and insecure nailing). I got the 14th pitch and it doesn't go up and left like the topo says, it just goes left for 3/4 a pitch. There is a fat pendulum at the end of this pitch to connect with Mescalito. After 9 attempts, completely out of breath (sprinting for 40ft sideways at the end of a rope 1500ft above the ground), and jamming fingers I snagged the belay. When I got there the were only 2 old 1/4" buttonheads and an expanding cam placement around the corner. Grant lowered out the bags but he didn't have enough rope to keep them from penduluming. After a quick prayer I told Grant to release the bags, I stared at the bolts waiting for them to break as they were exposed to the stress of swinging haulbags. The bolts worked but we lost a #3 camalot and smashed some cans of food. Grant followed my pendulum by rappelling off a single rivet. If it had failed he would have taken a 100+ft fall probably would have stressed the belay in a non-productive manner. The 15th and 16th pitch were connected in 200ft, lots of hooking and topstepping.

4th day: We got to the Bismark bivy around 11am so we lounged, ate and drank on the large, level and exposed ledge. The Bismark is one of the best pitches on the climb, its A1 with a #5 camalot and wooden block move at the top. The pitch could probably go free at super continuous 5.11. We fixed to pitch 21 where it connects with New Dawn with a natural belay. The rest of the day was spent eating, drinking and dumping water to get light for the rest of the trip.

5th day: We jugged the fixed lines and started up on Space again. Pitch 23 was special because it was beaks and heads for 40ft off the belay and its called old A3. Grant got the 24th pitch which was very clean and long. After many heads the pitch went into a thin RURP/Beak dihedral which ended on a nice ledge. I started up the 25th and got lost so I had Grant fix my mistake and we ended up biviying on the 26th, at 9pm under a waterfall that dripped on us all night.

6th day: I took my time on the 27th while Grant relaxed on the portaledge. The 28th was long and dirty, some pins got bootied off this pitch. We were at the top but we felt like going for another week, we had finally reached "wall mode".

The only things that were dropped were Grant's helmet by me, head chisel by Grant and #3 camalot by gravity, so it was a cheap trip. This trip was a lot more relaxing than any other we had done, I think it was because we had a stove to cook something nice every night and the weather was perfect. Also a haulbag with our heavy non-breakable gear neatly packed was accidentally dropped so our descent wasn't very difficult. We cleaned up a bag of trash at the base (which was pretty clean already), stopped by the SAR cache site to talk to Mary Braun, then left for home for Easter. Grant and I think we have learned how to do walls now.

As a side note, I talked to the first ascentionist, Charles Cole, at the Phoenix Bouldering Contest. He put up the route solo in 12 days with only 4 pitches fixed. With a rope from the fourth pitch the pendulum swing from the alcove exceeded a 165' rope (that means it is very steep). He says Space is his second favorite route he has put up solo next to Queen of Spades on Half Dome.

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