The Walrus and the Carpenter

Ben Campbell-Kelly and Brian Wyvill

Wyvill: The term 'Curry Girl' is not in fact an item taken from the menu of some horrific back-street Bradford restaurant, but a term of endearment describing those poor lasses who have been enticed into the service of the 'Curry Company' of Yosemite Valley. I stared with hungry eyes as the other Camp 4 climbers used their well-tried seductive techniques to cajole from the girls the most valuable of all currencies for man and bear, food. A week had passed since the Nose and the post-route hunger was still not abated.

My reflections were interrupted by the Boss (Ben Campbell-Kelly): "Come on Patrick, time for the Big Grip." Another piece of theatre was about to begin.

Saturday: It wouldn't have been so bad if we had managed to scrounge a lift the mile or so to the base of El Capitan, but unfortunately the only available transport was a ripped-off tandem. "You pedal, I'll steer," proclaimed the Boss as we. made off past the thronging hitch-hikers on our brakeless­rear-wheel-drive-only-tandem. The tourists stared aghast as we cycled along like some comedy duo. Of course, not only had I all the pedalling to do, but also the haul was strapped to· my back, and the pointed Campbell-Kelly dome gave me the just-about-to-take-off look. "It's currently fashionable amongst we Yosemite climbers," I cried. Fortunately our journey was terminated by the front wheel dropping off, which left us sprawling in the dirt fighting off climbing gear and the ferocious Meccano of the bike.

Sweating beneath the nasty side of El Cap, I became sticky with orange as the Boss chased an uncooperative rattlesnake with one of his expensive cameras. Still exuberant from having made the first El Cap start on a tandem we harnessed the 'Bat Sledge' and jumared to our high point of the previous day, two pitches above the naked scree on the 'North America Wall'.

The Boss had won the dubious honour of leading the notorious third pitch and I hung watching in fascination as his neck grew long on poor pegs, until he disappeared from sight and only the cursings filtered through. The adverts had fooled me into thinking Yosemite climbing was always in blazing sunshine, but now I shivered and muttered dark thoughts, sucking on a sweet from my secret store. The rope went tight and I felt the cold inside, but some healthy language from the Boss reassured me of his abilities and after admonishing the pulled peg, he continued on nut and copperhead. Two hours of chewing and the Boss shouted from the safety of bolt and belay seat. I joined him in space to find a tangle of knitting and cameras.

On the fourth pitch I, too, praised the ubiquitous copperhead and journeyed up the dead rurp-cracks using. a few of the ingenious pieces of ironmongery from our secret factory in North Wales.

Skyhook scraped granite, fingers scraped flakes, and the first bivouac was reached. Royal Robbins must have a good imagination or had a lot of bad bivouacs: the ledge which 'sleeps four' was full of hideous rubble which we avoided by using our hammocks.

Above Right: Ben at the top of the notorious 3rd pitch. Left: Brian follows eyeing the tied off pegs and copperheads with trepidation. Below: Saturday night on Mazatlan Ledge.

Wyvill-Monday:

No audience to greet us this cold morning, but I posed as melodramatically as my cramped bat-tent would allow while Ben 'Cecil-Beaton'-Kelly went to work with his portable studio. I wasn't at all like a Navajo when it came to piccies. It was too early for sun and I stood cold and stiff trying to put my boots on while they tried to roll down the dirty dolerite slab which was our temporary home. At the Boss's insistence I photographed the bald patches on his boots.

We continued our journey across the map of North America etched in black and white on dolerite and granite, and good mixed climbing brought us on the crest of a wave into the Gulf of California. The Boss cursed his way up a 'peculiar flake chimney, and I followed losing my cool in that most awkward mother. I pipelined up the chimney and after a bitter struggle emerged to find the Boss wiped out on the Big Sur, a smashing flat ledge. If only we had reached here last night was my only thought.

We rested in the sun and I dreamed of hot Sunday afternoons at Avon Gorge with tea and 'ot pasties. My reverie was broken by the Boss offering me some salami which he had caught trying to lead the next pitch. I declined, remembering last night's gastronomic ordeal.

There were signs of our predecessors: two gallons of water and a piece of old rope which now dangled uselessly, a scar on the almost clinical wall ahead of us. We were both disinclined to get on with the route. Our topo indicated two pendulums and the legend. "Retreat may be impossible after the second pendulum".  A small skull and crossbones had been elegantly pencilled in to emphasise the point. To add to our misery, we also gleaned from the topo that the next bivouac was a hanging one in the Black Cave, and that was too many pitches away for an afternoon's climbing.

I moved up grotty flakes and followed a bolt traverse which ended dramatically in the middle of nowhere. Not very far down, but a long way left was a flake. The Boss lowered and I ran fast, very fast. Iron jangled and I, like a hypnotist's bauble, waved about in front of the Boss's photo orientated mind. By some dint of luck on my first real effort, the karabiner I held had clipped itself into an in-situ peg in the flake, and the Boss howled at me to let go so he could get his picture.

"Let go?" I thought, "Leave my hard earned sanctuary, go through the exhilarating desperate dash from nowhere to somewhere?"

No! I was far too gripped and nailing up the flake was A4. The Boss grumbled and I fought my way up to the belay ledge, pausing on the way to tie two skyhooks together in order to reach between two of Robbins' bolts which I swear were 6ft. apart.

It was a roomy stance and the ropes were in a mess as the Boss insisted on leaving them doubled through the bolt I had originally pendulumed from, "just in case". I greeted this cowardly action with enthusiasm knowing we could get back if we failed on the next pendulum. On our stance we had only one bolt to belay on and one to pendulum from, thus with trepidation I lowered the Boss for 50ft. using a descendeur and watched him struggle vainly to gain a small ledge at the foot of the Black Dihedral, which was now filling the skyline and casting its evil shadow over our insolent assault. Amused by the boss's antics, l consoled him by taking a few photos.

The wind was snatching at our lifelines, lifting 150ft. of rope as if it were cotton and tying it in knots about any available projection. Fortunately for the Boss the ledge he was trying to gain provided a suitable target for the wind's machinations, and when the haul rope became at one with the ledge the Boss pulled himself across. As I wrestled with the greedy descendeur, the Boss mantelshelved with difficulty and cursed my slowness. Finally, I pulled in our escape rope and hopped down to join him. Watching in silence as the final coil was disengaged from the previous stance, we contem­plated our total commitment.

Above: Ben fighting the rope-seizing wind.

Campbell-Kelly - Tuesday:

Today the haulbag won. Our trusty bat-tents again saved us from the slow torture of an inadequate ledge, and Brian-l'll-try-anything-once-Wyvill returned to his normal sardine diet while I laid siege to the half-savaged salami. At first light we resumed our vertical safari, and followed the only trial through a desert of bland rope up towards the sheltered oasis of the Black Dihedral.

The pitch leading into the dihedral is typical of the easier sections on the North America Wall. Overhanging and awkward, strenuous and occasionally dirty, but not techni­cally hard. The early morning heat was sapping and moving into the shadow of the dihedral was as good as a cold drink. By some fluke there is a shallow niche where one can just stand in balance, and hauling was easy since the bag hung free in space. As it arrived we fought for the belay site. I thought I was safe when my attention was distracted and the third man suddenly swung into the niche. The next hour and a half were spent alternately trying to lever it out, sitting on it and belaying the Blob.

Jumaring through the overhangs, I too was hit by panic­stricken bats as our repeated hammerings frightened them out of the crevices in the rock. Two pitches and several hours later I traversed out of sight and tiptoed over trembling flakes into the Black Cave. At the very top of the dihedral, this is a stunning bivouac, completely sheltered, the floor a spectacular I 800ft. drop to the ground. It was mid-afternoon, so we decided to aim for the Cyclops Eye before dusk.

Blob traversed out of the Cave grimacing and posturing as I shot frame after frame. He disappeared from view and I tried to fathom out how to follow the roof as comfortably as possible. Gazing out across the valley my view was suddenly ruined by a pair of motley boots thrutching at thin air as Blob traversed the very lip of the roof. It wasn't quite so hilarious when I had to follow on Jumars. Hitens blades in just a fraction of an inch and flexing like razor blades, and then a 30ft. long row of stacked pegs stuck into a diagonal band of quartz. (That band of quartz stretches for hundreds of yards in each direction - who knows, maybe a Californian Dream of White Horses if you can get to the end of it?)

One more meandering-lead and suddenly darkness again. Inevitably, we were one pitch short of the Eye. However, we had a sloping ledge of sorts and a bolt belay. Blob got the hammock and we tied the haulbag onto the ledge and I was battened down inside. Hardly a two-star bivvy, but at least we slept.

Saturday Night First Bivouac

Above: our slopey bivvy on Calaverous Ledges. Of course, if we had moved a bit faster we would have been on Big Sur and likely not missed all the other good bivvies!

Above Left: Ben battles the second pendulum.

Left; Ben stuck in a chimney. Centre; On Big Sur. Right; Looking down at our missed Biouac.

Right: Ben makes it to the ledge across the pendulum. Alas, also our bivvy. Ben made hot tea on that tiny ledge!

Ben leads up into the Black Dihedral in the early morning sun.

Campbell-Kelly -Sunday:

From the safety of my suspended sleeper I cast a beady eye over the off-size gash above. our heads. "Nasty," I muttered, then turned over and put it off for another half-hour. Wide cracks have never been my forte, so I wasn't too keen to get the only one on the route. Halfway up it I realised that this wasn't going to be one of my smoothest leads, in fact I probably wasted more energy squawking than thrutching. 'Blob' Wyvill sat with the patience of Job, and listened to my bitching without com­ment. In a last desperate effort I tied my etriers together, lassoed the big chockstone at the top of the crack and clawed my way gratefully into the roof. In my gripped condition the next few A 1 pegs seemed like A3, but I was soon sitting on a small ledge basking in the early sun.

Blob took the bolt ladder in style and pendulumed Dervish­like onto Easy Street, a fine bivouac which would have been perfect for the previous night. These pendulums can be quite reasonable and good fun. J find them mildly disturbing, but the Blob takes a positive delight in vertical running ... if he lived in Africa he could well put Tarzan out of business. My next pitch also had a small pendulum, but the state of my worn-out boots sent me slithering back to my starting point as the protruding screws on my toes failed to grip the glaciated granite. Blob threatened to increase my daily dose of monkey gland extract and I finally struggled across.

Two pitches later we were on Calaverous Ledge, a huge area of easy-angled rock with a good flat bivvy spot. In comfort we fixed the next pitch and settled down for a leisurely dinner. Both of us were hungry and looking forward to our salami, I carved and shared it out. A few minutes later. Blob vomited his portion back up; hastily I gulped mine down before he could get his hands on it.

The thought of having to retreat and then do that wide crack again made us absolutely determined to plough on unless Blob was completely incapacitated. Fortunately he was as fit as a fiddle next day and just hungry.

"Yonder Blob has a lean and hungry look. He should be just about tuned up for the 'sling shot'," I thought.

Another awkward pitch in the dihedral. Right looking back at Ben in a cosy belay spot.

Above; an example of Tom Evans’ great work with his telephoto. In the circle Ben belaying next to the haul bag and Brian leading the next pitch diagonally up to the right to Calaverous ledges. Right: Brian in that circle!

Tuesday: we found the salami trying to lead the next pitch!

Above: Ben climbs onto Calaverous.

Ben belays as Brian battles his way over the roof and the tenuous traverse across the lip.

Brian follows exhilarated to have completed the route.

Brian leads the last of the aid leaving the sting in the tail- a hard free slab pitch for Ben with his balding Robbins Boots to top out.

Yet another uncomfortable bivvy -