Packing and Prehauling

A gallon a day each for water plus breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, respectively. Sleeping bags, sleeping pads,, and the big cams for the wide cracks. A lighter, a knife, kitchen supplies, and so much more. The plan is to be up on the wall for 6 days. Obviously trying the Freerider. 

With the bags packed on Monday, this morning started at 4am hiking to the base of El Capitan, with bags so heavy my legs wobbled beneath them. I had the 70L haul bag on my back, and then the poop tube across the top, with the 40L haul bag hooked to that. The approach is only 30-40mins luckily, so we made it in good time without exhausting ourselves completely. The rest of the morning was spent hauling the bags up the fixed ropes to heart ledges, about a third of the way up the route. The plan for Thursday is to climb the freeblast slabs up to the bags, as well as “the move” pitch and the hollow flake. This would be a huge first day but give us lots of breathing room for the rest of the route. We were glad to be up so early, as other parties spent all day hauling in the blazing sun. 

Tomorrow it will rain, so we’ll be on the freeblast as soon as we think it will be dry, and hopefully ahead of the other parties we saw. Here’s some photos from packing and hauling, and I’ll update post-freeblast!! (Hopefully Thursday night)