The Yellow Spur – August 15^th, 2004

A couple of weeks ago John Fields and I decided, somewhat audaciously, to take a crack at The Yellow Spur on El Dorado Canyon’s Redgarden Wall.  The Yellow Spur is officially graded 5.9, but can be made 5.10b via a direct-start variation on the first pitch.  Another variation on P6 increases the grade to 5.10a, but to grade the entire route 5.10a on the basis of the P6 variation alone is dubious because its crux is protected by two fixed bolts.  Combined with its lower section, a 5.9 piton ladder, P6 is something of a high-altitude sport route.

 

Since neither John nor I had previously led anything harder than 5.8+ (trad) we chose the standard, more conservative start for P1, which weighs in at 5.9.  We also decided that since the only alternative to the 5.10a variation on P6 is a run-out traverse of 5.7s, we’d go for the 5.10a line and risk the safer fall.  My rock to John’s scissors earned me the sharp end of the rope for P1.

 

John and I had been riding a wave of confidence we felt prepared us mentally for The Yellow Spur.  The two of us had ably sent another Redgarden classic called Ruper (5.8s) two weeks before.  This was no small feat for either of us—or for any 5.8 leader I dare say.  The route is long, sustained, and intimidating.  There was a counterweight my Ruper-borne confidence, however.  Just one week before Ruper I had completed my third ascent of The Bastille Crack (5.7), by then having led all its pitches and variations.  Ruper’s comparative difficulty at 5.8 surprised me and imparted a healthy respect for the magnitude of difficulty spanning a single decimal grade.

 

“So this is 5.9”, I muttered to myself as I negotiated the transition from the starting dihedral to the traverse leading to the crux of P1, an intimidating roof protected by a single fixed pin.  It was about what I had expected—hard, but manageable.  Upon reaching the underside of the roof I tried for several minutes to put together a sequence sufficient to gain its upper lip.  All this fumbling cost me valuable reserves of strength—reserves I would need to haul myself over the roof.  A shallow, V-shaped finger pocket into which I could fit only three fingers provided just enough leverage for me to gain the positive upper lip with my right hand.  Hanging by that hand I unracked a draw, clipped it to the fixed pin, and drew a length of rope into the carabiner.  By the time I clipped rope I was too pumped to take on the burly crux and called for John to take.  A minute or two of hang time on the rusty old pin rested me sufficiently to manage the roof.  Then an easy rightward traverse led me to a dead, horizontal tree to which to anchor the first belay.

 

Now it was John’s turn to lead.  P2 is a stout pitch featuring a big, steep, and somewhat hard-to-protect dihedral topping out at a bulge—the crux—on top of which lies a flat ledge with a tree from which to anchor the second belay.  P2 goes at 5.8 and is every bit as difficult as the grade by Eldo standards.  John led the pitch cleanly and efficiently, and made quick work of getting me on belay for the follow.

John getting acquainted with the “scary bulge” on P3

 

I was on the sharp end again for P3, a pitch broken into two roughly equal-length sections by a horizontal band of rotten rock.  The section below the rotten band rates 5.7 and section above, featuring a “scary bulge”, as Rossiter puts it, 5.8.  The Yellow Spur, I was beginning to learn, sports fixed gear at nearly every crux.  Some have complained that the presence of fixed gear taints the purity of an otherwise beautiful trad route, but I was quite content to use every advantage The Yellow Spur offered me, natural or otherwise.  I topped out at a wide ledge and constructed a multi-point anchor to secure the belay.  On John’s arrival we sneaked a quick glance down to check on advancing parties.  We fully expected there to be a line forming below us, owing to The Yellow Spur’s popularity.  But, to our surprise, no party had yet arrived at the P3 belay ledge.  We took the opportunity to enjoy lunch amid the beautiful panorama spread out before us.  The sun was just beginning to appear from behind the east wall and, as it did, it warmed our chilly bones.  It was shaping up to be a beautiful, rain-free summer day.

 

After a leisurely lunch still no party had arrived at the P3 belay below us.  John racked up for P4, another rather sustained dose of 5.8.  As I climbed I recall being quite content to be following this spectacular pitch.  P4 of The Yellow Spur is far and away the best pitch of rock I have yet climbed (in an admittedly short climbing career).  One starts by ascending about 30-40 feet up an enormous, chimney-like dihedral that tops out at a gigantic roof.  As I stemmed wide across the giant dihedral’s opposing faces I peered between my legs into 300 feet of void terminating at the steep base of Redgarden wall—stunning!  I reached the roof and traversed right about 15 feet on a spectacularly exposed hand crack between the roof and the smooth, nearly vertical wall supporting it.  Exiting the hand crack introduced me to the crux, a short chimney above which John stood on a small pedestal for the belay.  On arrival I congratulated John on leading cleanly such an imposing and exposed pitch.  Then I looked up and noticed a line of rusty pins going straight up a shallow corner.  I concluded that we must be at the base of P6, meaning that John had in fact led P4 and P5 in one fell swoop.  As John had gobbled up the last two leads all by himself, I politely requested that he return the favor by letting me lead The Yellow Spur’s two remaining pitches.  He graciously agreed.

 

Dave preparing for a delicate traverse into the shallow, left-facing corner marking the first crux of the P6 pin ladder.  Note rusty pins in the crack above Dave’s right foot.

 

Dave clearing wax from his ear at the top of P6.  The bolt below and to Dave’s left marks the crux of P6 and is the one he aided on.

 

All racked up, I mounted a pedestal about five feet left of the shallow corner and clipped a fixed pin.  This is the crux of the lower, 5.9 section of P6—a rightward traverse from the pedestal into the corner in which the rusty pins are hammered.  Digging hard on fingertip crimpers I made the traverse to gain the corner.  Up I went to a large, detached flake, clipping rusty pins along the way.  I hopped up onto the top of this flake and studied the bolts above me.  This was the 5.10a crux and boy did it look thin.  My chief concern was clipping the second, crux bolt before taking a fall because a fall on the first bolt would send me right into the flake on which I now stood.  From where I stood I was able to reach and clip the first bolt.  Then I tried for several minutes to eke out a stance from which to clip the second but, hard as I tried, I could not muster a secure enough three-point stance to clip the bolt.  Finally I resorted to a technique every beginning climber is taught NEVER TO EMPLOY UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!  I slotted my index finger through the bolt hanger and used it to hoist myself up to eye level with it.  This strategy has two disadvantages, one of which we are all aware of, and the other not so obvious.  The first, obvious, disadvantage is that body weight will win in a fall protected by a single finger.  The second, and not so obvious, disadvantage is that the bolt hanger is too narrow to simultaneously accommodate a carabiner and a finger!  Necessity being the mother of creativity, to turn a phrase, I somehow managed to engineer enough space between my finger and the inner edge of the bolt hanger to clip the carabiner and draw rope.  A single remaining ultra thin step and I gained the arête marking the end of P6 and the start of P7.

 

Having used up at least half my draws on the high-altitude sport route that is P6, I wondered whether I would have enough left for the rather long and steep ridge walk to the summit.  My concern turned out to be moot as there is virtually nowhere to place gear on the final pitch—hence its 5.6s designation.  By the time I reached the summit of Tower One I was literally some 50 feet above my last placement, a dubious one at that!  But none of this mattered now.  I had finished the daunting Yellow Spur and felt as high as I now stood.  Under crystal clear blue skies and a soothing sun I belayed John from the very pinnacle of Tower One, gulping down the satisfaction of what we had accomplished amid the beauty of a 360-degree panorama of mountains and plains—what an ineffable high!

 

John arrived at the summit about 10 minutes later and, following a short and somewhat precarious downclimb—during which I nearly killed myself trying to free a fixed cam I mistakenly believed to be John’s!—we reached a set of rap anchors.  From there, three simul-raps had us back to our packs at the base of The Yellow Spur and on our way to a well deserved toast to our triumph, accompanied by a bowl of the Southern Sun’s incomparable vegetarian chili.