Well, I spent yesterday with Llion fixing to Sickle ledge on The Nose of El Cap. EVerything went swimming well to a point. The climbing was awesome and the weather good. Then we heard a blood curdling scream from the Dolt Hole, a climber had fallen and I believe broken their femur. So from the photos you can see that it was an interesting rescue for YOSAR. I had hope to get away from such things in my down time from the LLMRT, but no such luck.
Half way through the rescue whilst Llion was leading a pitch we heard another scream, this time those imortal words “BELOW!!!!!!”. I looked up to see a large dark rocks plummeting from below the great roof on what looked like a collision course. I could just look up in horror attach to the belay, as the rock gathered momentum. In that split second all I could think of was at least it would be quick! Follow by relief as the rock smashed into teh wall above us, and then obliterated into more survival chunks. I got my head down as we were straifed by some small debris.
We got to Sickle and Today Llion and I decided that it was an objective danger too far. We don’t alpine climb because of rockfall, I don’t go winter climbing in scotland for avalanches. So Big Walling had seemed ‘Safe’ from such unpredictably. With so many people on the route, thier were 10 teams fixing to sickle when we were their. So we are heading to Touloumne Meadows for some more relaxed cragging. To hell with the Nose!
