Big Wall Bible - Planning For El Capitan

Ready to haul? Okay, start hauling. Are those raindrops I feel? I don't feel anything, man. The weather will be fine. Hey, we're out of beer. I think we need to go down. I'll buy you a beer when we get to the top. Dude, I'm kind of like lost dope for the project. Well, I got enough for you when you get up here. We're gonna run out of water in three days. I think we need to go down. I got plenty in my face right now. I don't know if you noticed, but I've never pooped outside before. I'll hold your hand until you gotta do it later. Dude, this work is so hard. Come and feel how hard this is. Yeah, man, I'm kind of done leading. If you want to keep going, like you can do the other 29 pitches. How do these Jumars work? What are you doing? I'm just trying to be supportive. Ryan, it's not how you get ready for a big wall. If you wanted to see how to do a big wall, go check out this online class called How Not to Big Wall, because this ain't it. Well, that sucked almost as much as doing a wall unprepared. Practicing every day keeps your sorrow away. We have put together 12 videos that you need to know before you go up your first big wall. And these 12 videos are only a small part of a bigger project we're doing called the Big Wall Bible, where we're going to be able to take your feedback and add to it. We're able to update it and edit things, which I can't do in these videos, but this is a great foundation and starting point for us to start the conversation of how not to big wall. In case you're new here, my name is Ryan Jinks, and I have been making these videos here on this channel for six years now. We have over 500 that I've made. You can find all of these things on the How Not to blog and search for just what you want. No one should be going through all these videos and watching them all. And this way you can find something that interests you, and so you understand your gear better. Now, another aspect of the channel is making this A to Z content to where we show you how to do things. Now, we've actually already made about a half a dozen other videos about what pitons come out at and what hooks bend at and just some general preparation for big walling. But this is A to Z everything you need to know in order to go up your first wall. In 2005, I started climbing, and I was on my first wall in 2006, and it was successful. I want this first piece bomber. And I was super stoked about big walling from the beginning, and I did that until I really fell in love with highlining. Because I didn't understand gear, I felt like highlining was safer, ironically. But having this platform and figuring out videos and content and edutainment, which is a science in itself, we're able to now share this thing that I was super jacked on and still love doing today with you guys. And this really cool hack I figured out on YouTube was to put everything out for free, 100% free, and then I was able to freely get either experiences or information or help from people. And this feedback loop has been growing and growing and growing for years. We're finally at a beautiful point to where I feel confident enough to even dabble in big walling. Because I'm not an expert, but I do know enough to help people who are just starting out. And I also know a lot of people who have more experience than me who can help contribute. And by giving this out for free, it reaches a much broader audience. And what's cool about the hack of YouTube is I only need 1% of the people who watch and consume the content to even contribute something to make this thing happen. And it makes it worth it to me to reach this many people and the economics work out with only 1%. So if you believe in what we're doing, 1% of our audience or 1,000 people donating $1 per episode makes this channel fully viable. And if you buy gear from ExtremeGear.org, 10% supports this channel. And if you want to grab my nuts at HowNotToSwag.com, that also helps support us. And Rocky Talky, which is an essential piece of gear that you need for your big walls, really helped us out by paying somebody to make the website pretty that we just launched so I can focus my time on making these videos. They were also kind enough to give you guys 10% off by using my link in the description below. But I'm tired of my nuts being soaking wet, so I'm going to go change. Finally, he's done talking. I'll introduce myself. My name is Jeremiah Letourneau, and I've been climbing since 2013. Since 2013, I had a long time of trying to get ready and get confident enough to come out and do my first big wall. I started doing my first big wall last year. And since then, I've been able to accomplish eight walls. Thankfully, I've been able to get up every wall successfully and I've never had to bail. I attribute a lot of that due to the five years of training and accessing over systems of rock climbing. So I'm a math teacher out in the Midwest, and within my classroom, I love to emphasize how strong equipment is in my classroom so that my students know that I'm coming back safe and that my gear is strong enough. Within that though, there's so many cool systems and problem solving that you do on a big wall, which is awesome in a math classroom as well. Since 2013, I've had a lot of opportunities to climb and I've climbed in all different methods. I've climbed in the alpine conditions, ice climbing, rock climbing, all domains. And I've also been able to climb over 300 days a year. With all of this experience, I finally wanted to share my love for this sport with the rest of the climbing community and why I love to do big walls. You're gonna see that our systems are different in how we approach our big walls. And that's a great thing because in big walling, you're gonna be constantly problem solving. We look forward to your feedback and how you do your systems, but we just ask that you do it respectfully. This is Neil Shelton. You just got home from Kauffman Island. Yep. How long was your approach? 10 days. And how long were you on the wall? 20 something. Must count. I don't really know. We were there forever. Yeah, so he made over the last year, over a hundred small videos. Your approach was you filmed solo. I did, yeah. You voiceovered. Yep. And you animated things that are just really freaking hard to articulate in a video. Yes. So you filmed a lot of what you did here on The Chief. Yep. And you were smashing pitons on this nothing rock over here. In the nothing rock. Yeah. In the middle of nowhere. Yeah, which is... No rocks were harmed in the filming of the video. I mean, you just put the thing out in what, May? Yeah. So like... It's new. Yeah, the videos for big walling haven't been around that long. No. And then September 7th is the first video that we're putting out. So like, this is like, you watch his stuff and our stuff. You're going to feel like you're more confident than you should be. You'd be ready to climb a wall. You should still go practice. Where did they find the course? I'll probably put it right here. Put it there. It's here. Okay. Yeah. What are we doing? We are going to talk about the unsexy, but the most important part, which is the five logistical things you need to know before you even go big walling. Yeah. All of my problems were... No. One was heat. No, I knew it'd be hot. Yeah. All of my problems were because of logistical issues. So let's try to prevent that for you. First one we're going to talk about is the season and the weather. Second one, picking your partner. Third one is where to find your topos and how to pick the right route. And then finding your permit, getting your permit. And the last one is where are we going to stay while in the valley, as well as park your car. So the first topic of season and weather is there are optimal times to go in non-optimal times. But you have to remember people have frozen to death in June and Tommy Caldwell did the Dawn Wall in January. So there are exceptions. But when, as a teacher, is it optimal for you to go to Yosemite? Well, I get to be in Yosemite in June, which is awesome because nobody's there. But the reason why no one's there is it's so hot. So I've had chances where I'm on the wall, it's 104 degrees and I have ran out of water because it was 104 degrees in June. I've had to come down and I had plenty of water because it was 104 degrees because you can't drink enough, right? So you don't want to be in too hot and you don't want it to be rainy. Now springtime in Yosemite specifically, that's where my experience is, is very unpredictable. Rarely where are you going to get five to seven days of beautiful and sunny. So if you're going to be flying somewhere, like you drive a long ways to get to Yosemite, then you're not going to want to randomly buy a plane ticket six weeks in advance in the springtime unless you're willing to chance it. Your best weather window and season to be in the valley, as well as Zion, is going to be the fall. Yep. Early September to early, even early December. The first two weeks of December, I've had a lot, a lot of great luck on projects. We did our Dano Leaning Tower rope jump in the very last week in November. And we had, I mean, it's cold, but the weather is stable and days are shorter, but it's pretty good weather. The one thing to keep in mind is when you go to Zion, they have from January to August, 80% of the most of the climbing routes are all shut down. And it's not due to weather as much as it is for the Peregrine Falcons. So something to keep in mind is that from January to August, you lose out on 80% of your walls, but routes like Moonlight Buttress, those ones are going to be open, which is a... Everyone's trying to like, they're funneled into those climbs. Yeah. Yosemite also has closures and you can look that up on their website. We'll have that all in the Big Wall Bible where you can look that stuff up. You can't guarantee while you're on the wall and you see a cloud rolling in, whether or not that's going to be a storm, right? So when do we, when should you be looking at the forecast and how do you access that information, Ryan? Honestly, if I'm doing something super critical, I'll watch the weather a month in advance and watch it every day to see kind of what happened. Because like, you can look at current now and it'll tell you and you'd be like, hey, they said it was going to rain and now it's sunny. You can see how good they are at predicting. And by the way, keep in mind in Yosemite, when they say 10% chance of rain, that was the size of the droplets. That means it's 100% chance of rain and they're just going to be tiny droplets or only for an hour of the day. 90% chance of rain. For sure. That's for sure. Is big droplets and like all day. Yeah. So take rain real serious when you see it on the weather reports. NOAA, N-O-A-A, is where I got most of my information, even though I do check multiple sources. That, the phone number for Zion and Yosemite is going to be listed in the Bolting Bible. So you should be able to get that information. The Yosemite number is 209-372-0200. Yep. And then I think you push one and then two or two and then one. And road conditions are important to check. Highway 120 is not always open or has chain restrictions where you can get in through 140 often. In case you're planning on climbing El Cavitan when 120 is so jacked up, you can't drive on it. Who knows? Welcome to Yosemite National Park's phone menu. If you press one for current road conditions, press two for current weather update. This is a weather forecast for Yosemite National Park for the period beginning Tuesday, August 16th. For today, a 20% chance of showers after 4 p.m. Sunny and hot, high near 100. For tonight, partly cloudy, low of 65. Wednesday, a slight chance of showers between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. Then a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms after 11 a.m. Mostly sunny, with a high near 98. For Zion, their number is 801-772-3256. Basically, what I found is they're reading the NOAA weather report. Correct. Which is nice. Sometimes I have cell service, but not enough internet on the wall. And it's nice to get the updates while you're on the wall, but that's not when you check. You really need to know your weather beforehand. I literally tell people when we're planning wall, it's like, hey, we're going to invest a lot of time beforehand to get prepared. You're going to take time off work, but I'm going to call it off if it's not good weather. I am tired of having failures because I was talked into going when there was bad weather and it just becomes dangerous. And this is coming from a guy who only lived about two or three hours away. So I was just like, I'd rather go next weekend. I'd rather just work all my jobs around it and go the next weekend. One thing that really surprised me was when I did Half Dome and I did El Cap, you know El Cap is really tall, right? It's 3,000 feet tall. And Half Dome, 2,000 feet tall, right? The face. But El Cap sits quite a bit lower than Half Dome, right? And even though it's eight miles between the two, their weather forecast can be very different. So one thing that I really used was mountain forecast because you can pick different peaks and actually see what is the temperature at different elevations. You can select at 9,000 feet, 7,000 feet, 4,000 feet in the base. So that was really, really helpful for at least knowing the different weather. And day three of a climb, you add higher elevation, it's going to be a little bit colder. So yeah, if you know a heat wave's coming and you can get almost to the top of something by then, it's going to be at least 10 degrees cooler. But you can also plan on when you want to be in the sun or not, depending on if it's cold or hot. For you, you did the Zodiac when it was hot, but being in June, you were only in the sun, I think, what, four hours a day? Yeah, so the route that you're on really dictates that, right? Which face you're on. So on Zodiac, the sun goes over top of the nose by four o'clock. So we only had to be in the sun from 12 to four o'clock, which was four hours. That is a hack for if it is hot to find things that might be in the shade more. Correct, yeah. But man, if you're just blasted all afternoon, if you're on that west face... During June, it's awful. Yeah, you'd be in the sun for like nine solid hours during the hottest part of the day. I got baked off a wall in October once on that side, and I just couldn't drink enough water. When we did the nose, we got two inches of snow while we were on Dole Tower in the middle of October. And so we needed an entire day to let all of our stuff dry off because we were worried that if we pushed on, we are going to freeze, right? So it was also a blessing to know that the nose is going to get sun for most of the day in October. So that was a blessing to be in the sun at different times of the season. So even though there is a peak season to Yosemite, that doesn't always mean that that's the only time you can climb there. You just need to know which side is your route on. And you, you'll spend enough time in Yosemite in order to just sit out a couple days of bad weather. Correct. Because you're off for the summer, whereas I only had like Saturday, Sundays, and if I was lucky, take a Monday off. So context, whatever works for you. Just be mindful of seasons and weather. Another technique that I use while I'm on the wall because I'm already wearing them to communicate with my partner is walkie-talkies oftentimes have a weather mode that you can hear the National Weather Station at least recite. And even though if you don't have service, you can at least maybe get a little bit more foresight on the wall about what might be coming your way. So I was on Lurking Fear and we were watching the clouds come in from the west and they were predicting snow. And boy, did we get it. And we were like one or two pitches from the top. And so we were trying to get those weather reports to, we knew to hurry. We were trying to hurry. We got to the top right as it started snowing. I've also had a very isolated weather system. So I was on the Zodiac and the sun hit the wall and all that hot air went up and pushed the clouds away. And as soon as the sun went away, the clouds closed and it was raining all throughout the valley. And we had that whole day where it didn't rain on us until the sun went away, the clouds came in, and we just got to the top and dumped on us. So we've had close calls and sometimes you have to like just work within some weather, but it's going to suck if you look like I did at the beginning of this video. Yeah. I love having my Rocky Takis. I had so many ethics before I had these things because I had horrible communication devices and then I hit them up so I could get these things. They didn't hit me up to promote them. There's a big difference. We use these on the big giant zip line that we did for Discovery. I've used these on the two kilometer. I've used these on the Dano project. I've used these everywhere. And when I forget to bring them is when I have ethics. I forget to turn the battery off and I still get these to last over three days and the screen is super durable. I do like the carabiner clips to me in the back of my heart is super easy and it's pretty lightweight. I never hesitate to bring it and you can get 10% off if you click the link in the description below or in the big wall Bible. And that also helps the channel out when you do so. That was not planned. Yeah, still works. So the next thing is picking a partner which is super important for the success of anything you do in life. And then from our experience, here are some of the tips for either going with monogamous relationships or polyamorous relationships. So the monogamous relationship that I prefer is a long-term partner that I've gotten to climb with who I also know how do they react on the wall? What's their systems? How do we communicate? And how do we deal with stress? So that's the system that I really prefer is picking my long-term partner that I look forward to the next 10 to 20 years climbing walls with. I like to go with a variety of people. I'm very extroverted and like to meet people. I don't mind experiencing a wall or that stressful or deadly situation depending on how you look at it. With people I don't know super well, the thing is I have to be convinced they can handle their ---- when they're up there basically. And I wanna know that they can problem solve which most people can, but can they do it when they're tired, hungry, and bunking? And that determines whether or not we're gonna stay safe on the wall. And the second thing that I would look for is, is it gonna be fun to be with them? Can they do it? Is it gonna be fun? And sometimes I can determine that by just talking to somebody for a while. Now you don't just let people say how good they are. Just everyone climbs 512s in the valley. But tell me about your favorite wall. Tell me about your favorite pitch. Tell me about a problem you had and how you solved it. And find out that they didn't just like jug the whole pitch. Find out that they actually led or like did something impressive. And if they can do certain things and I know what I'm looking for, then I know they can handle this. And you dig a little bit to find out if they're just BSing you. You talk for an hour, it's gonna be pretty hard to convince me you're good at walls if you're not. But I've also hired and fired hundreds of people in my 20 years of owning a business. But regardless of how convinced I am I like somebody or feel like they're going to be reliable, is I always ---- test them. And we will go do literally anything. I'll go climb at a gym with somebody. Just to see how they touch a Grigri. How they tie an eight. Whether or not they check mine. How good they climb. I can just watch them walk down the street and know if they're coordinated. But it's nice to just do something simple for even part of a day. Ideally you go climb a multi-pitch and really like get into it. Or even a one-day wall or a couple pitches and come down if you really want to iron out systems. But if I meet somebody at the bridge at El Cap, it'd be nice to do something the next day with them and then spend the afternoon packing. But you, you like to get married to everybody you big wall with. Not necessarily, but essentially. I had two really good opportunities this last year to really see two different styles. So I typically do stick with my partner and his name is Eric Odegaard. He's my main big wall partner. Beyond that I brought in some friends because they wanted to do their first wall and I said, I can do most of the work. All I need you to do is jug and release my haul bag. Essentially do all of it but I can do the wall solo then, right? Solo with company. Solo with company, exactly. That's the way. And what I found in that was they did a good enough job but I still had to work for it. And friendships gets tested because emotions are high. Friendships can be torn, tears are shed. Walls are hard. And so to know what they are capable of and what's too much. Because once you're on a wall, once you're over a thousand feet, it's really hard to come down off of a big wall and bail. So I want to pick my partners right so I can always have a higher chance of success. Just stacking the cards with the right deck. If you just don't have the right partner, it's going to be a problem. Stacking the deck with the right cards. Do you have any suggestions on where you could find a partner if you do want to while you're in the valley or you're in Zion? Places where you can meet a partner. I found that I'm quite surprised. It seems unreliable that if you just hang out at the bridge at El Cap, you can find people. You hang out at the base of El Cap, you can find people. But if you're looking for that forum thing, the physical one would be at Camp 4 even though it's not even an ideal place to stay anymore that exists. Mountain Project's not ideal. Mountain Project's like Tinder. You're just like, yeah, people get married off of there. People find long-term relationships, but it's far and few between. Needless to say, it's your own Mountain Project for a reason. Yeah. Maybe I'll edit that out. Maybe I won't. I'm not a big Mountain Project fan. Okay. Yep. I'm old school and I do everything on paper still. Okay. Another place that I've seen other people post is like Facebook forum groups. So there are more than just obviously Yosemite's forum groups, but people posting, I'm here from this season, this season. I've done this before. Nobody just wants to go to the valley and say, take me up a big wall. Yeah. Especially if you have no experience, you're gonna have a hard, you're gonna have a hard time. I'm not gonna take a new person. Absolutely not. So don't ask me. I've paid my dues. Actually, I'm taking Andrea, my girlfriend, to do a big wall, ideally this season, but I'm making her climb a local route around here, City Park at Index, and she has to be able to lead it and she has to use cam hooks a couple of times and she has to do it in like 45 minutes. It's 120 feet to C1 or 13B and she has to be able to do that before I'll take her. Now I might lead every pitch when we go, but I need her to be able to haul. I need her to be able to handle enough of the stuff that if I got hurt, we can get down safely or she can enjoy also leading one pitch a day and then I can do the rest. She doesn't have to be super bomber, but I love her so I want to take her up a wall. So there's those exceptions that I would make, but I also require her to meet a certain standard before we go and we can compensate for maybe a lack of experience with really solid preparation or allowing extra days. You never want to bring too much water. We're bringing extra water knowing we're going to go slower. So you're saying that you have some deal breakers before you have an STD? Yeah. And what did that stand for again? A severe timely descent. Yeah, we tried so hard to come up with a good one because if you don't have the right partner, you're going to have an STD on the wall. Yeah. So what you're saying pretty much to check with what you're saying is you're evaluating your partner for how kind of safe they are, competent they are. They're still maintaining that, especially when it's getting hard, right? And then how do they handle it? You brought it up earlier. How do you handle a rope when you're tired, when it's in the dark? Can you handle these things in the most unideal conditions? I met Ryan Sheridan in the valley and I could tell he was good at this stuff. He had a good resume. We went climbing and he could do A4s in the dark and yell the F word for three hours, which we might have a video about that. Give me one of these big bad boys. No, you're not as good, dog. I'm sorry. You're not as good. ------- go home. You don't want to make the wrong choice because these choices have ******* consequences. And I knew like he could get up the wall and so I knew he'd make a great partner for that Leaning Tower thing we did. And that's why we ended up having several videos with him because I ended up climbing several things with him because I, but I didn't have experience with him before. But with Andrea, I know I can invest the time to make her what I need to go up a wall so I feel safe because your partner, whether or not you love him, is going to make or break this trip. So I wanted to pick a good partner that could also help me in a rescue scenario too. Because like random stuff could happen. Random stuff. Other people's haul bags screw up, sling into you. You never know. So I wanted to pick a partner that couldn't just know the knowledge of climbing and how to big wall, but also has experience doing self-rescue stuff too. Yeah. So before I go with Andrea, we're going to cover how to haul me and lower me. You're experiencing big wall aid right now. I'm having the time of my life though. I got to do this more often. Which is easy because we have Marymoor Park around here. We've got index to practice. Even in the Midwest, you have places of practice. If all you have is trees, you could set up something in trees. If you can get up a wall, you can get up a tree. Finding a safe and effective partner can be difficult, but guess what? Good segue. Not that I can't do this. Finding a good partner hopefully isn't difficult for you. Just like, hopefully it's not difficult for me to get 1000 patrons to finally make this channel viable to where I'm not going backwards every time I hit publish. I definitely appreciate those who have supported us up to this point. I definitely need 1000 patrons donating $1 per episode in order to make this happen. Now, if you don't like subscriptions, I totally get that. I don't myself. And if you could spot us 20 bucks or something on PayPal, that also really, really helps. If this course or channel has really, really helped you. Next thing. What'd you learn as a kid? So growing up, my parents constantly told me that I should stop trying to pick my nose. So yeah, stop trying to pick the nose for your first big wall. Yeah, something we really want to iterate on this is don't pick the nose as your first wall. It's not a practice route. It's a very popular route and you definitely need to respect that. And only get on there after you've met a certain resume. That's the source. So that's what we're going to talk about is if you're going to be choosing to climb your first wall here, what do you look at? And how do you choose those walls appropriately? And how do you kind of train? So like I spent five years getting ready to climb in Yosemite right away. And actually the nose was actually my fourth route I did. My first route was the prowl. The second route was West Face Leaning Tower. And Lurking Fear was my third one. The reason why I chose those three was it had a little bit of everything that I needed for the nose for us to move effectively, safely, and fast. So I'm not trying to figure stuff out in real scenarios, right? We had 20 feet to work with when we were learning. Yeah, yeah. It's good to know that it scales. Yeah. And then trying to get all really good test pieces time-wise as well as just smoothness and success before getting on something that even though the grade looks easy, it's very committing. Let's talk about big wall grades and ratings real quick. A grade four is an all-day project. And some could say even Half Dome qualifies for that because you don't want to do that in multiple days because hauling on that sucks. But it's actually more like grade five where you're probably going to spend one night on the wall. Just like Washington's Column or Leaning Tower, the two shorter walls in Yosemite. You can crank those out in two days, one night if you're efficient at all. But if you're a good climber, you can knock them out in a day. Something like El Capitan is multiple days on the wall and that is grade six. However, some people free solo that before breakfast. Now grade seven is when you get into 10-day approaches and more than a week on the wall, sometimes a month and there is no rescue. But unless you're climbing Tringo in Pakistan, don't worry about it. Now there are two ratings for big walls, A and C. A is aid climbing originally requiring a hammer and C is now clean climbing. And they kind of overlap really odd. So a bolt requires a hammer to put it in. And so if it's super bomber and easy like that, that's an A0. If you just have a string of bolts going up, A0. There is no C0. But then there's no A1 and A2 because anything that's that easy of aid no longer requires a hammer. So then it's C1 or C2 or it's C1F plus. And that means there's a lot of sketchy fixed gear that you may not have to place. And it's plus because it's like, it's super good enough. Because so many of these climbs are done often, the marginal placements that are smashed in are usually left there. And therefore, if you don't have to place them, it's not that hard unless they come out. C3 is where it can get spicy if you don't use a hammer. The cover of the big wall Bible is me cleaning the nipple pitch on the Zodiac with inverted cam hooks instead of hammering in pitons. And that was one of my more proud moments because I was able to do that pitch without a hammer. My gear was literally falling out as fast as I was putting it in. I fell forward all the way across the nipple. But then I led an A3 route on roulette on Leaning Tower to get up for our Dan Osman rope jump project. And using a hammer even on thin gear made me at least feel a whole lot better. And so A3 and C3, it depends on where you are. Now, as soon as you started getting into the A4, C4 there's very little of. A4 has kind of two definitions I keep hearing. One is will you get injured if you fall or you're just going to take big whippers? So you have just a ton of marginal placements in a row and that would be A4. But technically, you need to have a ledge under you that you can break a leg if you screw up for it to be A4. A5 is where you die if you take a whipper because the anchor is so marginal and all your gear is marginal, nothing will hold you. Whereas C1, everything will hold you. And C2, you'll be fine. You might fall an extra 10 feet. But it's the 3, 4, 5s that get spicy. What you do on a short wall like Washington Column or Leaning Tower, which is about 1,000 feet tall each as opposed to Lurking Fear, which is 2,000 feet. And Zodiac is 1,600 feet. So those are medium. And then the nose gets bigger in the middle because the ground comes down and the wall goes up. So you just make sure you understand, El Capitan has different heights for things. It's 3,200 feet at the nose and even 3,500 for Salathe because Salathe is like moving so much around. So once you can prove that you can do a shorter wall and not suffer because you went up a short wall and you were successful. I went up a short wall six months after I started climbing. Don't do that. And I just barely made it, right? So I'm not qualified to do the next step, which I would say is a taller wall. That's harder. I would say the next thing is to do another short wall. You did the Prowl as your first one? Prowl was our first wall. Because that's a harder type of aid. It's not like Southern, the south face of Washington Column, which is like, what, C1 plus or something. Prowl is what, C3? C3. Yeah. So it's a harder aid. But you can go from south face of Washington Column to the Prowl or Skull Queen and just kind of jump around on that short wall until you're like not sucking and you successfully come down and you're not bonking trying to do 10 pitches because 20 is three times harder and 30 pitches is 10 times harder. And you don't want to bail when you're at the top third of El Capitan. You bail up. It's more dangerous to go down at a certain point. You don't want to find yourself up there and realizing you can't do it. Like if you don't hit Dolt Tower by a certain like threshold in a plan, you like come down while it's still safe. And I think it's also really important to keep in mind is like there are some routes on El Cap and other places besides Rio 72 where the angle of the route make it a lot more difficult to repel, right? If you're on Zodiac, for instance, that towards the top is overhung about 50 feet trying to repel back to the wall to get to the anchors to repel down becomes a nightmare. And Leaning Tower is 110 degrees overhanging. So one place I went to to get that information took as a good checklist is in Eric Sloan's Ultimate Big Wall Guidebook. He doesn't just provide topos. What he provides is actually a checklist of beginner short routes, beginner longer routes. And then intermediate beginner routes. Sorry, intermediate short routes, intermediate longer routes. And it became a really good checkpoint for me to be able to see and say, okay, I've done this route. I've done this route. And it's in order from like easier to harder, right? So I can say, okay, if I want to step up but instill this type of style, where do I need to look? Otherwise, it can be so overwhelming when you didn't grow up in California hearing about all the names of these routes. You only know names like The Nose or Freerider or Don Wall. You don't know a lot of these beginner name routes to test these yourself. And I totally respect the fact that you might really be inspired to climb The Nose. I've been totally hosed 12 hours before just because a party between Sickle and Stove Legs did not know how to haul sideways because their bag was too heavy to take off the bolts and they didn't have a releasable system. And your hauler isn't hauling up to take the weight off. And they had on this side when it goes this way. And so they didn't know how to like just lift and release and let it go. It was a ---- show. And so many people hose each other around Sickle which is the fourth pitch, the Sickle looking ledge. If they just, if everyone was as good as you are now where you can do The Nose in what, two days? We did do it in three days. Like if you're doing in like two nights, three days you're not in anybody's way. And then the in a day people can always climb through you. My God, it just sucks. This sucks. When people suffer their way up, it doesn't just affect them. And actually if you practice every day, it keeps the ulcer away. So I really want to emphasize that Eric Sloan's Big Wall book, the newest, latest, ultimate guidebook is what you definitely need to get. It has definitely, like he said, more than just the topos. And these topos are actually better than they used to be. They have not only, I mean, not that you're going to do The Nose in a day if you're watching a video like this, but. But if you decide to, you know, pick The Nose eventually. It has, oh my gosh, we're really working that joke. It has The Nose, the way we would do it. Free The Nose, details on just how to free it. And then Nose in a day. So they have a lot of detail on history and how to get into the park and phone numbers and weather stations and sizes. I refer to sizes all the time in the book. They also have these really cool beta tips on, you know, slacklining. It's pretty exciting to actually watch Eric make this because he let me put in six pages of slackline content in here, which is the first time that's ever been published in a climbing book where slackline content was in there. Ryan Sheridan took this photo and this is Priscilla and Eric Sloan's in the Portaledge. And in the back is the LED candle lantern lights that they repelled and strung up. And then they took the photo, checked back up and took them all down. So there's lots of really cool cultural and historical things in this book that are super fun. If you're just going to go up like South Face and you don't need to get this, you're only going to do the one thing and you take a photo of your friend's book, no problem, whatever, everyone gets it. But if you're going to try to big wall, really support like the people doing really cool things. I even bought my book because I really want to support what Eric did. It's full color, 40 something bucks, 45 bucks for a book this thick. Definitely just support people that are like doing contributions in your community. Second thing within the Toe Voice 2 is you're obviously not going to bring this up the wall, right? A lot like Ryan said, take a photo of it. But we all have phones that eventually die and- Oh yeah, yeah, physical copies. Get a photocopy of that route and bring it with you. And if you fold over the long section that you're going to be doing for that day, it's a lot easier to pull out and there's less chance to drop it. And you can see what you're doing that day. So I fold it long ways and then I fold it tall ways and then I'd stick in a Ziploc bag. Pockets get so sweaty. I can pull it out and look. And you also want to just memorize as much of it as you can on which pitches needed what. But the little details you'll never remember. So you pull this out. You don't have to take it out of the Ziploc bag. You have that days of climb on that side of the thing. You can flip over and it's visible. I have a spare one in the hallway because I want this information. I'm not trying to reestablish a wall. I have a copy. My partner has a copy. The bank has a copy. And then we also have it on our phones. Just dumb-proof yourself. Yeah. We don't want to overemphasize Yosemite. There we go. It's better. It's great. It's the only place that I've gotten to climb. Where you can get the topo for Zion is also on Super Topo. You can buy the book, but there's a lot on the Super Topo website as well. So the three walls that you can do in Zion, so we mentioned them, Those are good three starting routes in Zion. One thing to really preface is that it is not easy climbing still out there. Always go into every wall. Nothing's easy. It's just easier than the shortest draw. National Park Service mentions like there are no training or beginner routes there. So just always know what you're committing to when you're getting on a big wall. Which we're going to cover in the next video is don't make your first wall your first wall. Do two pitches of a grade harder than you can free. That's not going to be in anybody's way. Aid, haul, aid, haul. And then if you can't do that, don't get on a wall and just keep practicing. And it's okay if it takes you a while. Totally. Just don't get on a wall. You're not going to have fun. Believe me. But what is fun is having enough swag in order to change when you get wet for a stupid intro. So head over to hownottoswag.com. We have a lot of great swag on there. So you don't have to just grab my nuts. What's the difference between our shirts? So what's cool is with Printful, who we work with, they can print and then sew. And so this shirt, you can actually do this wraparound thing. And then his is a cotton t-shirt. It's polyester. And this is printed in the middle. And so this naturally ends up being a little cheaper because it's printed on a shirt that's already made. Andrea's doing all these designs. So it's actually pretty cool to get her art that she's really good at on our site. Yeah. And it does actually help the channel. Permits. They've made big walling a lot harder within the last two years. And I'm really excited to see what the park service does moving forward after this two-year beta test on how we get to climb as climbers on big walls. Nothing's easy that's new, right? And so I give them a lot of grace on just being like, we went from no permits to permits. And they used to require putting this permit in your car. Now you just keep it with you. And they're changing all the time. So what you see in this video could be different next year. Yep. And that's all going to be in the Big Wall Bible and also look on their website. So this is just the current information. Tell us about how you got yours. So I've been climbing in the valley for the last year. So I only really know the permit system. And the first step that you need to do before getting to the valley, whether you're a climber or not, and you're just wanting to check out the area is you need to sign up for the time slot reservation. This is a time slot that if you enter the park from 6am to 4pm, you have to pay $2. And then also pay for the day fee or if you have your interagency pass that gets you free from that point forward. You need to sign up for a time slot of showing up for that day. And that's good for three days of entering and exiting, entering and exiting. But once you're in the park, you are good in the park for whatever the park's rule is, whether it's 14 days or whatever their rule is. That's to get through the gate through peak hours. And that's for everybody, climbers and non-climbers. Because what's happening is the gates are getting overwhelmed with the amount of people trying to enter in the same amount of time. And you end up waiting two, three, four hours to get through the gate and it's become a problem. That's kind of how they're solving that. I have in the last years, because it was such a problem, my solution was always going the evening before and then I would come through the gate around 7, 8, 9pm. So I've actually never had to do the time slot thing. Yeah, as long as you're in before 6am or you came in after 4pm, you don't have to worry about it. But you do need to if you just come between 6 and 4. And during COVID, when they were trying to keep numbers down, and sometimes during peak season, they even experiment now with just permits to be there. So just be aware that if the park is fully open for anybody to show up, assuming you have your time slot, that you can even get into the park. Parks are getting crowded. They have to do something. I hate the fact that all this exists. And I really hate big walls have to have permits now. But I also totally understand certain routes get totally clustered. And it's a great educational opportunity when you get your permit for them to tell you how not to ---- on the nose. Because they're doing nose wipes every year where they go up and they clean so much garbage off the wall. How to manage your food when you get on top if you're going to end up sleeping up there. Not to sleep at the base, except Half Dome, I think is the only exception. It's really hard to communicate, right? It's hard to make this edutainment in these videos. Interesting enough that you watch all the way through because this information, I want you to know more than you do. And they also want you to know stuff more than you do. Every single time that I've gone and applied for my permit and then checked in with the rangers, they have guaranteed, have you done a wall before? And ask me all the same questions because their focus is education, right? Whether it's boring or not, just like this first episode might be. Yeah. It's very valuable to know. So where you go to is you go to the Yosemite website. You fill out some information about what wall you're on, who's climbing with you, what are the dates, what your plan for waste management is and pre-fill things in. And it's totally free. It's just letting them know what is your strategy. Where do you plan to sleep for the first night? Which ledge? So the permit's free. Permit is free. Regardless of season. Yep. Okay. Then you go to Yosemite Village and you actually check in with the rangers to get the permit, pick up the permit. And now that permit, you must keep with you while you're climbing. You do not leave it in your car because if a ranger comes up and checks on you on the wall, they are going to ask, do you have your big wall permit? Yep. And so then those are the steps that they're just going to check and then you're good to go. That does make, well, for you, if you're going to be in the valley longer, it's like for you to go the day before is whatever. Yep. That's really hard for me when I was living just around the corner for me to show up the day before when I only had just enough time. Like I would do a wall. We'd show up with the haul bags packed. We would not be on the ground. Being on the ground, which we'll get to, sucks because camping sucks and it's crowded. And so we would go up a wall as soon as we got there. Can't do that. Now my strategy has become go the night before and we'll talk about where to stay. And then the next morning you get your permit and I would even like, I guess sleep. I guess my new strategy would just be sleep on the first pitch. I like to start walls really early, but I would have to adapt that where I go get the permit, hike it up, depending if it's hot. You got to adapt your strategy now. Too many people big wall and I don't think this course is going to help that problem at all. Here's a really positive life to bring towards the permits. One strategy I've really enjoyed is they actually have a number now that you can ask them and say how many other climbers plan to be on this wall? And that has really affected the strategy on how I approach, when to start and when I need to come off of walls. Something I've been super stressed out in the past is, is the ledge on Leaning Tower going to be available when I get there? And sometimes there's nobody on the wall and sometimes you're like, ----, there's three parties coming up. So now we have numbers on that. So that's good. And data is what they need as well. They need to know how to manage it. So they have to start somewhere. So keep it up. Do what you need to do. Park. Yeah, yeah. If the National Park is all about making things better, can we have a bathroom at El Cap Meadow where you invite people to look at us on El Capitan and there's lots of poop behind the bear boxes? Just think if I throw that out there enough, maybe we'll get a bathroom. Yeah. You can, when you're on the wall, park your car near the wall. So in El Cap Meadow, you can leave your car there when you go up the wall. You don't have to, but I like to stay where I'm at instead of just leaving an abandoned car somewhere for five days or something. Leaning Tower, they're working on that parking lot right now. So we park kind of further away, but we don't leave food in our car and we leave a note that we're on Leaning Tower and we... Including a date. I sometimes like to leave a date on there too, at least a ballpark for them to know, like I started around here and I'm ending around here too. Yeah. Because I kind of do that even for more than just big walls, but like alpine stuff too. Doing the Washington Column, the stuff on the Half Dome side of the valley to park at Curry Village. So be mindful of bear boxes and food and figuring out a park where you can bear box stuff. Another thing when I would weaken Warrior, I literally wouldn't take any food other than what I was hauling in the haul bag. Yeah. And that solved a lot of problems. Sometimes the bear boxes can get really full in Elk Hat Meadow. Don't be a dick. Date your food. Date whatever you stick in a bear box because if you did forget or if you're... It's just like those bear boxes are turning into like a ---- show and you never want to just toss people's food. No. One man's treasure is another man's junk can be another man's treasure. So pretty hard to just empty those things so you don't know what's valuable to people. So try to be mindful of the fact that we're all trying to share the bear boxes. Anyways. With the parking, you don't need an overnight one with the permits anymore. There's nothing you display in your car windshield. The note that we leave is just for our own sake but there's nothing for the park side of things to leave in your windshield. Yeah, it's not an official thing. That's what we do. But yeah, if you're on a wall, a lot of the logistics just get a lot easier of being there. So number five is where to sleep the night before you come into the valley or even after you're off the wall. Once you're on the wall, the wall experience is all you need to worry about but access in the night before and after sucks. So what do we do? I was picking my nose. That's not my first route. I don't have a lot of beta. I have made friends over the last 15 years and I just stay with them and they're like right outside the park. So for me, while I'm in the valley working on certain routes, there are times where I'm on a wall and I don't want to break the rules. The park has made it really, really hard to try to do everything legally which I can see why issues have arose, right? But what I found for the correct way you're supposed to do things is Camp 4 is an option. That's incredibly difficult. Right now, it is currently a lottery system. Pay $10 to apply for the possibility of getting this permit and then get notified through email with no service. Really thought that one through and you'll be notified whether or not you get a camp spot. So Camp 4 used to be the place to stay. That's incredibly difficult now. The other options, I think the backpacker campsite. So this is an interesting idea which I think in practice on paper looks really, really well. Here's my experience that I've had at the backpacker site. My first wall was doing the prow and so backpacker site is near the Washington Column which is where the prow is. Behind the Iwani backed by Royal Arches on the half dome side of the valley. So you'll park your car and drop off all your gear near backpacker site but then you need to drive your car back about a half a mile, three quarters of a mile back to Curry Village and then you need to hike back to your tent to sleep. You can sleep there, pay for it but then you need to pack it up and hike it all the way back to your car to then hike all the way back to Washington Column. So now you've added three hours to your climb. Not the most conducive efforts, I get it but there needs to be a better system. So the alternative option is to pay for the nights your tent you leave up there and when you get down you have your tent already set up but you got to pay for the nights your tent was there. It is a fierce comfort surf so that is a positive compared to Camp 4. It's how Camp 4 used to be. Yep, so that's option two. Option three is to pay one million dollars a night for a hotel. Option four since that's not practical and drive a long ways. One extra one that I thought was really unique is Hans Lorenz does have an Airbnb that would be maybe an interesting option for some people that are going to the valley for the first time to rent out this place. Yosemite West is a town that's ironically named Yosemite but it's pretty far up Highway 41 and there's Airbnbs there. So you can stay in a house of some sort or hotel but that's not usually conducive for a lot of people. So what shouldn't we do? Stealth camp. Don't sleep underneath the boulders. I try and I advocate for following all the rules. You kind of hit these roadblocks and if you want to accomplish something that makes it very hard to follow those rules. I'm asking you guys to not just sleep in your vans and if that's a lot of problems if people are getting caught doing things they're not supposed to do it's going to create a much much bigger problem for us. They're trying to accommodate climbers and their needs but they're also trying to accommodate three million other people. So we're not the only ones who want the park. I get it. Just make a really big effort to follow the rules in the best way you can and keep access available as long as we can. How was that? That was good. Because I've got feelings. We can go there but try not to. This course is more about making your experience on the wall positive and this is why when I go I go to Yosemite very packed prepared and everything and I go and I execute my project and I bounce because just hanging around the valley is a pain in the ass. It really is. One time when I was on the wall we did break the rules and it was the worst night of my sleep because I was terrified the rangers were going to come find us and they rightfully should have, right? Yeah. Once I was on the wall I was able to say to my friends we can relax now. Do things right. So hypothetically if you're a better climber than you realize and you made it up to the top of Leaning Tower in nine hours and you have all your stuff with you Just stay up there. It's easier. Good advice. What'd you do? We ended up wrapping because we wanted to go fast still. I was like that's a guaranteed campsite. Anyways just research where and how to stay in different places learn the rules and just be aware that you can't camp at the base of Big Walls legally. You can camp on the first pitch. So if you're going to have the Portaledge if you plan on bringing it anyways just kind of plan on sleeping on the first pitch. I think Portaledge life is super fun. We did that on Leaning Tower when we did it. Slept on the first pitch. It's freaking amazing. That's why I go up. I try to go up as slow as possible so I can get as many camp nights as possible because it's the only like free guaranteed campsites you get in the valley. I am really looking forward to your guys' feedback as you guys can contribute thoughts ideas and things that may be updated especially as time goes on. In the Big Wall Bible and I am a one-man show once the camera turns off and so I need that delivered to me in a format that's easy for me to just take and add to this blog format that's going to be easier for me to manage and I ask that you do it respectfully because we're kind of throwing ourselves out there knowing that we could easily get trolled for what we're saying. Totally. We're sharing this out of our own experiences and I just want you to know like when you troll or say something without like you're just sitting on the toilet and you're just kind of like brain farting the first thing you think the problem is it really stifles progression because like I can I'm six years into this I don't give a ---- what you think. The thing is it's hard for me to get people to join me if they see the trolling happening and it's hard to get certain people to share because they don't want to be trolled and I think it stifles progression. So it also stifles progression when we don't share your thoughts and so it's kind of a neat balance we're trying to deal with here. We want to hear those thoughts. Totally do. And I'm not an expert and I was okay not being an expert sharing my thoughts on this because I know I can add your guys' thoughts. And so head over to the Big Wild Bible check out how to make a contribution. Leave comments in the video below because if we see some good stuff we can also peel that out and put that up there. And make sure you hit subscribe because bigger channels get to do better videos and you won't miss the next video that we're gonna put out. Hit the thing that looks like this. Cheers. So when you're trying to find a partner do you prefer Tinder or Christian Mingle? I prefer to honestly meet people in person but I don't know how much we want to dive into the differences. See? From our experience here's just our tips on... Our tips. So visual. All right. Sounds good. If we did all 12 videos like that it's not going to feel so...