RRC Archives

Just free solo it, it is a blast! (and safe as long as your careful)

A loong time ago, I used to free solo Caver's as a warm up. It's easy to do, just the 2nd pitch in the chimney can be tricky, stay to the outside a little. Then hop on up to the top..

other than the '20 foot runout' is it bad?

by the way my rack
3-.5 camalot
red alien
4-13 stoppers 2x on #6,9
couple of spare slings

The first time I went up Caver's Route I took a full rack and I only placed one piece. The next time I brought a quickdraw. The third time I just brought a rope to get down. Much fun.

Great Caver's story...

Alexis Scott wanted to do Caver's. So I went up there with her and The Mayor. We were at the base and she was asking what gear to take. I handed her a #1, #2 (for the first belay) and #4 cam. She decided that wasn't enough and hitched up the kitchen sink. I told her there was no reason (oh, by the way, while we were negotiating the rack, The Mayor had already soloed to the summit and was yodelling out across the valley) ther ewas no reason to take every piece of trad gear she owned and that she wouldn't be able to place much and that it would just get in the way. But alas, she insisted. So I chuckled as I put her on belay and off she went.

Meanwhile, the Mayor was downsoloing the Grunges or Mighty Eidson. We summitted after much cursing and rack thrashing through squeeze chimneys and looked around for him, only to see him far below pilfering through our packs (just kidding boss). So Alexis and I started to rap down, only to have his exellency pass us once again going back up Caver's. I think we had to wait for him only a little while.

Alexis agreed once we were back down that taking the whole rack was a mistake. JB summitted Tower a good half a dozen times that day and I got a good chuckle out of it all.

yeah, i remember that day... funny how even with all that, i still think leading arachnid is freaking scary as crap!!

I think i only summitted 3 times...