Z tym szybkim rozpoznaniem to bym nie przesadzał. Na razie Ondre nawet nie probuje prowadzic poszczególnych wyciagów. Nie poskładał ruchów na kluczowych trawersach, dyno pitch tez go nie puszcza, a obejsciowy wariant Caldwella okazał się póki co tez niewkaszalny. Rok temu Ondra w wywiadzie wspominał nawet 24h przejsciu. Teraz jest dużo ostrożniejszy w deklaracjach.
Update: News from the Dawn Wall
"A lot of rain and humidity in the Valley, with some sunny and hot conditions mixed in. We jugged up the ropes in the evening right when the rain stopped, hoping that we would get in a good session of night climbing, but instead we just got soaking wet. Even though we could see the stars, it was still raining on the wall and the water turned into a waterfall. We spent a very cold and wet night in the portaledge, and waited 'til the sun came out and dried our clothes and the wall. As the sun came, it got really hot too. I still worked the traverse pitches, which only just destroyed my skin. We rested on the portaledge and in the late afternoon, I went on pitch 16. I wanted to check the loop instead of the dyno. I found out that the loop is equally as heinous as the dyno itself and super tricky. It was still really warm and my soft skin did not help either. I spent around 3 hours on this pitch, refining my beta all over again. I wanted to send pitch 16 that day, but by the time I had the beta, I was so exhausted that it was not possible any more.
Complexity and difficulty of the whole climb is just shocking to me. I might have been too optimistic, but I definitely expected it to be easier. Every single pitch is so tricky and hard and yesterday on pitch 16 was the most frustrating day so far on the wall. It revealed the real difficulty of the whole climb and crucial importance of good conditions and skin. Hats off to Tommy and Kevin, who believed that the whole climb was possible before they free climbed. Without having the beta, some of the sections look just impossible. I have the advantage that I know that the climb is possible and that helps me to keep the faith that I might be able to do it as well. I am humbled and impressed by what Tommy and Kevin did!
To make everything more clear about what is going on on the wall, I will make a little recap. We spent a few days going ground up, using free and aid climbing techniques to fix the lines and be able to work on the pitches and get up and down easier, which was bold and scary most of the time. So far, we made it to the top of pitch 16. Above that, the climbing is by no means easy, but there are no more crux pitches. In the next week, we will continue to fix our ropes even higher and take a look at the whole route. But before that, I wanted to work on the crux pitches and see if they are possible.
These days, we are using fixed ropes to jug up to the pitches I need to work. Then we go down to the Valley in the evening after one day of climbing or we stay on the wall for two days and sleep on the portaledge. At a certain point, I will decide to give it a try to climb the whole route in one single push. But before doing that, I need to see the whole route (not only first 16 pitches but all 32) and have every single pitch super wired. This will still take at least two weeks. Little intermediate goals before the final would be redpointing the individual pitches, most importantly the crux pitches.
