The Mescalito Wall on El Capitan
Written by Peder Ourom
El Capitan Yosemite California
Mescalito Grade 6 5.9 A4
First ascent: 1973 Charlie Porter, Steve Sutton, Hugh Burton, Chris Nelson
20th ascent
July 1980 Walt Shipley, Peder Ourom
I hit the angle piton for the final time, and just as I was easing onto it, El Capitan shook violently. Horrified, I watched a new crack shoot out sideways from the piton to the left, travelling sideways 15 feet. A huge thousand-pound flake of rock was falling off, and I was attached to it.
I pushed my way sideways off the breaking rock, falling to the right. If I had not pushed, it was guaranteed that I would be crushed to death. This all happened in an instant. Fortunately, the sparse protection I had placed now pulled, probably loosened by the rock moving. I was in a free fall to the right of the corner. If I had even one more piece of gear clipped to the rope, I would not have been able to dive out of the path of the falling rock.
On this pitch 26 of Mescalito, on Yosemite’s El Capitan, back cleaning had saved my life. The huge multi-ton chunk of rock slid directly down the corner, impacting the ledge that Walt Shipley was standing on, he had jumped off the ledge to the left, in order to have a chance of surviving.
The block impacted the ledge between us, and an instant later I impacted the exact same spot. Bouncing off the ledge, I continued my fall, ending up 50 feet below the belay, bleeding and unconscious. The smell of crushed granite and blood filled the air.Make it stand out
Our kharma was messed up from the start.
After successfully climbing the Zodiac Wall and having the ice storm epic on the Shield in 1979, I was still eager to attempt more huge wall climbs. The next major route on my list was a third Charlie Porter route named Mescalito. It was a huge long route that would require a week of extreme effort.
A couple of years earlier I had attempted the Tangerine Trip with Perry Beckham, and the climb did not go well. We were too young and inexperienced, and had an epic retreat. After climbing Mescalito in the summer of 1980, my plan was to return to the Tangerine Trip toward the end of the season and try again. Another season of El Capitan adventures awaited.
When the Canadian winter eventually crawled to a finish, I flew down to San Francisco. It was quite the contrast from crawling your way south with your thumb and massive haulbags. I was picked up by Chuck Clance who then passed me the ubiquitous Frisbee, “hidden” under the front seat. It was quickly put to good use. I stayed with Clance, his wife and their new baby boy, in their spacious second -floor apartment, and stayed for a couple of weeks. We climbed at all the little local areas, and I hung out at the beach when he was at work.
He was a national park ranger, with duties that included cliff and water rescue. One memorable day, Chuck got a radio call to investigate a report of a cliff fall to water’s edge at the Lands End labyrinth. It was a day off work for him, but being a dedicated ranger he still had a radio with him. We were at China beach, and immediately headed out to the bottom of the cliffs. We then quickly descended down the rugged surfer’s trail to the waters edge. We were around 300 feet directly below the fenced tourist lookout. What we found was pretty nasty. A young man, showing off for his girlfriend, had jumped over the fence for a picture and fallen. He was very dead, with brains splashed all over the rocks, and pretty much every bone had been broken.
At precisely this moment a large Navy helicopter appeared and a rescue diver jumped into the crashing waves. He had been dispatched to come to our assistance, and was well-trained and equipped. Unfortunately, his rescue attempt did not go to plan. Moments after splashing into the waves, he was pummeled against the rocks. Now semi-conscious, he was immediately sucked under by the undertow. It was looking like we would have another fatality in short order.
This was an unacceptable turn of events for Clance. Timing the crashing waves, wearing only shorts, he dove in and towed the rescue diver to safety. The fallen boy’s remains were winched up to the helicopter, and we climbed back up the trail shaking our heads, discussing how boys should not do such risky things showing off for their girlfriends. A few days later, we noticed a short article in the San Francisco Times, about the accident and recovery. One particular detail stood out. The article headline was: “Girl Falls to her Death at Point Reyes.”
Chuck was a party animal, and his drinking caused no end of problems in the years to come. No doubt remains in my mind, that the dreams and demons from his occupation caused an extreme case of PTSD. Chuck and I had climbed the West Face of El Capitan earlier the previous summer, using wall and aid techniques. At that time, the afternoon temperatures were over 100 degrees Fahrenheit and we suffered horribly. Ten pitches from the top, we ran out of water. We had enlisted another climber to help carry our huge loads, and he drank half our water that night before heading down in the morning. What happened next, was pretty predictable. Torturous hauling up the slabs, and slow aiding of sections that I freed without too much difficulty a few years later. Finally, 600 feet from the top of El Capitan I could not stand the slow pace any longer, and took over the lead. Firing pitch after pitch, placing very little protection as it would only slow us down, I raced to the top of El Capitan.
By this point I was so dehydrated I could not speak. Finding water in dead mosquito larva pools at the top of The North American wall, we drank litres of stagnant water. Looking at me proudly, and only partially tongue in cheek, Clance stated: “you climbed like a Nazi. “
The plan for this 1980 season was for me to hang in the Bay Area, with weekend trips to The Needles, Yosemite, and a few other less-than-desirable climbing areas. I was a little surprised, on a weekend trip to the pinnacles, to find Chuck pulling out a loaded gun from under his pillow. Part creepy, part comforting, as we were in a pretty sketchy bivouac.
On the weekends Chuck and I fixed a couple of pitches on Mescalito, one of El Capitan’s longest routes. Back in the Bay area, Clance was having problems. With both a new baby and a stressful job, he went over the edge. Drinking hard one night, he got into a brawl, punched a police officer, and lost his job. His downward spiral had begun. I would need to find a new partner.
I urgently needed a different partner for the route.
I had not yet climbed with Walt Shipley, not even once. We had bouldered together a little, but this was what you did when you were too lazy to actually go climbing. He was famous for waking up dropping acid, falling asleep, and then REALLY waking up. Wintering in Joshua Tree, he was often seen soloing high above the ground, on routes he had been unable to climb the day before using a rope.
Walt figured that you hang on harder when the consequences of any error were severe injuries or death. It was a crazy time in Yosemite, and being a crazy guy it was a good place for him to live.
Walt was also a skilled engineer and early programmer, and he worked in Palo Alto for Lockheed developing some corner or other of Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars program. At one point I visited Walt at his apartment, and he took me out to the local computer nerd bar. He was a celebrity here and it wasn’t for climbing. To my surprise, Walt was the Space Invaders champion of Silicone Valley.
Morally and ethically, this job was not for Walt. Within a year he had jumped ship and moved to Yosemite to climb fulltime, starting his journey to become a legend in the sport.
Walt had a week off work, and with the first three pitches fixed by Chuck and I, we went for it.
I should point out that at this time Walt had very little big wall aid climbing experience. He had not had Darryl Hatten for a tutor. Walt loved being in the outrageous places that these climbs travelled, but hated the agonizingly slow pace.
At the slightest opportunity his solution was to just try and free climb it.
Wearing stiff Robbins boots and with our huge aid racks left at the belay, the result was very predictable. Throwing in a marginal cam or stopper a couple of meters above his aiders, Walt free climbed a body length or two, and then lowered back down to retrieve his abandoned wall racks. Walt at the time did not have the patience required to be a smooth wall climber. I just sort of methodically plodded along, moving steadily from gear placement to gear placement.
There exists on Mescalito some superb hooking edges. Gently standing in your Aider’s lower steps you even more gently climbed up to the higher steps, in order to place a “hook” on the next tiny half-inch hold. In a few places you repeated this technique multiple times in a row.
Decades later Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgenson would free climb a route very close to Mescalito named the Dawn Wall, and It would be the hardest long free climb in the world.
About six pitches up, after the Seagull pitch, we were committed to the route. For days we continued up the route, and the pitches blended together. Some nights the sweet notes of John Bachers Jazz saxophone moved in and out, as we prepared for another night’s bivouac. One memorable afternoon, there was a gun battle take-down in the meadows below us. The rangers had cut off the Yosemite exit road at both ends of the meadows, and laid in wait. The bad guys fell for their trap, and they were in a pretty much inescapable position. Looking down from on top, we could see every detail.
Down in the meadows sirens wailed, choppers circled, and lights flashed. A standoff commenced. Eventually a voice on a megaphone clearly stated “drop your weapons or we will fire.” As both groups had already fired their weapons, this was an interesting command. Later we found out that the whole “take-down” was a training exercise. Oh America. Now if you have a better story about being entertained at a belay on El Capitan that beats this, I would like to hear it.
Mescalito climbs the Dawn Wall area of El Capitan, and is one of the longest and best routes on the cliff. First ascended by Hugh Burton, Steve Sutton, Charlie Porter, and Chris Nelson in 1973, it is the first area on El Capitan to get the early morning sun. This is both dreaded and looked forward to, depending on the weather conditions on your ascent. In the early morning, when the weather is good and the air is still, like lizards or snakes we would slowly absorb the warming heat. And then the rock would heat up, with both the air and swifts starting to move. By midday you were cowering from the sun, and as water was a precious resource you attempted to sip as little as possible at the belay. The heat became brutal, but the breeze was your friend. Eventually, many hours later, the sun moved around the edge of the Nose. The rock still radiated huge amounts of heat, but the night cooling has started.
Hauling, cleaning, gear sorting, snacking, picking a cassette for the tape deck, and surviving, the chores are many and varied on a big wall. You do a lot of mental math. How many pitches are you climbing per day and how much water do you have left? Will both the weather and your food supply last until the top of the climb? Leading a pitch was better then belaying as the time passed faster with your mind fully occupied. After hours spent leading it was a relief to finally haul up the massive bags and suck down some water.
The nights are a different story. As the features of the climb above you blend into darkness, you start pondering the precariousness of your self-imposed situation.
All these different thoughts weave through your head as you try to get some rest. In the morning, when the rock lightens up you can see the route ahead and better rationalize your thoughts. If tonight we can get to there, then the next night we should make it to another there. And your mind is at ease once again.
On the seventh, and hopefully final, morning, a storm was brewing. Taking the opportunity of finally being able to stand on a rock ledge, we put on our rain gear. We were 3 pitches from the top, and neither of us had taken a fall on the route. We were around 2500 feet up the 3000 foot cliff now. It was my turn for the next lead, an awkward, flared, and steep right leaning corner. This “birdship” pitch, is famous for the guano streaks that weep down from the top of the crack. After completing my lead, two easier pitches remained. I back cleaned some of the placements, in order to reuse them higher on the pitch. When you did not want to run out of gear, this was a common wall climbing tactic. After dropping and fixing a number of pitons during the climb, our piton size selection was somewhat depleted.
Now in years to come, on future walls, Walt’s often repeated mantra was never back clean, never back clean, never back clean. And I will now tell you why. Forty feet above the belay, in an awkward situation, I was hammering an angle piton into a pretty well-used placement spot. I had two other pieces of gear between me and the ledge Walt was on, a fixed bong and a Hexentric. Both seemed pretty good. From here on I would be able to complete the pitch, as I now had all the gear required to make the next placements.
At this exact moment El Capitan shook and the huge flake broke off.
The next part of this story is not from my memory, but Walt’s. After the shaking stopped, both El Cap’s and Walt’s, he rappelled down to me to attempt a rescue. When he reached me, he noticed one remarkable detail. Fully unconscious, I had managed to place one Jumar on the rope in order to start climbing back up the remains of the rope to the belay ledge. This was not possible.
Somehow, using newly learned rescue skills that were still developing, Walt hauled me back up to the ledge, by knotting together undamaged sections of rope. As our predicament had not gone unnoticed by the spectators in the meadows, a rescue now soon commenced. We were only 300 feet below the top in a very exposed place just below the last summit overhangs.
A few hours later the rescue team paramedic was hanging in space 30 feet out from us, after being lowered from the top with a litter. A large number of rescuers had been transported up by a Navy helicopter to perform the very physical hauling that would be required to lift the 400 pound load.
Walt pulled our rescuer onto the ledge, and then I was hauled to the top. I had head injuries, and a broken collarbone and pelvis. My head was covered in blood. I suspect Walt’s hauling me up to the ledge was not recommended from a first aid perspective, as I was hanging in my sit harness. It was a good time for me to be unconscious.
With his partner hanging from a few strands of fraying rope 3000 feet off the ground, Walt had no other choice.
My recovery was brutal as I had crushed my sciatic nerve completely. It took about a year to repair itself. On a positive note, the opiate haze of the next few months did have an upside, I got a new nickname! I was now called “the bear.”
Being rescued off Mescalito created a huge existential crisis for Walt. You just don’t get rescued. It’s what happens to gumbies, not stone masters like him. For me, Walt’s rescue really showed what he was capable of. Raising an unresponsive person with a broken pelvis up 50 feet of overhanging rock on little sections of fragmented rope would have been incredibly hard. I had picked a good partner after all.
Over the years, Walt’s remorse over being rescued subsided somewhat. He became an excellent guide and rescue trainer, and expected precision classes be instructed by the guides he worked with. If a step was missed in a rescue class scenario, the wrath of Walt would descend upon you. He survived many crazy ass adventures over the following tears, including a hitchhiking ride over the Khyber Pass in the back of a pick-up truck with armed rebels. It was a good time for him to use the Walt Shipley stare. If you knew Walt, you know what I mean. Extreme hitchhiking indeed. He also soloed the North American wall on El Capitan in winter, dodging falling ice blocks repeatedly. A FISH shirt at the time had the following statement printed on it: “My best holiday is your worst nightmare.” They must have been thinking about Walt.
The mountain gods however would not come for Walt on a climb. He drowned in 1995 in Dinkey Creek on the North fork of the Kings River east of Fresno in California. The water was running high this day and he was trapped in a hole. Valiant rescue and resuscitation attempts were made by his partners, but he could not be saved.
Today Walt lives on in my memories and this story is for him. Just like master climbers John Bachar, Scott Cosgrove, and the gambler John Rosholt, all we have left are the images and stories.
I never did climb the Tangerine Trip, the 4th Charlie Porter El Capitan route I aspired to. My focus had moved toward climbing quickly on less crowded alpine walls. I hope my El Capitan stories and pictures of the Zodiac, Shield, and Mescalito routes from 45 years ago will inspire you to find your own adventures.