From the crags of Gower to El Capitan - Part 1

The limestone cliffs of Gower are not the most obvious of training grounds to attempt the most well-known route in the rock climbing world “The Nose” on El Capitan, is 31 pitches of granite cracks, corners, and faces, totaling a height of 880m.

Whilst only being 18 meters at its tallest, Watch House Slab offers good styles of climbing and most key angles and rock features. Its gentle-angled, well-bolted left-hand side with the likes of ‘Sport Wars’ Fr6a and the excellent steeper sections taking in a bulging roof through ‘Jaded Locals’ F6b+ and ‘Anonymous Bosch’ F6b is a firm favourite with great scenery away from the coastal path. Most recent additions to the crag opens the grade range from F3 to F7a across 12 routes.

Amy Griffiths on 'Sport Wars F6a, Watch House slab, Southgate Gower

Nevertheless, after agreeing to join Nik Goile and Steven Warrington on their escapade to go from Big Wall Zeros to attempting to tick the most famous rock climb in the world, the small cove of Watch House Slab on Gower peninsula was to become our classroom to unlock the knowledge we would need to stand any kind of chance in the world of Yosemite Big Wall Climbing.

Nik Goile (left) getting to practice the aiding process on the safety of a fixed line, whilst Steve Warrington plans his aid ascent at the same venue on a wet February day.

Photo 3 - Jummar practice (left), Hauling practice with dummy weight in haul bag (right)

Aiding

Given the technical difficulty of the Nose, it was not very realistic to think we were suddenly going to become badass 5.14a / E9 climbers so we had to learn the old school methods – aid climbing, a style that the forefathers of Gower development on such mega crags as Yellow Wall employed. In aid climbing the leader uses a wide range of gear placements (nuts, cams, brass offsets, skyhooks), putting their weight onto the gear placements to get as high up as possible before placing another higher piece of gear and then transferring onto it. The lower gear piece gets clipped to the leader's rope as protection should their higher piece of gear pop. It’s time-consuming, awkward, requires a lot of kit BUT does unlock faces and experiences mere mortals wouldn’t otherwise get to access.

Nik on one of our final May training sessions before flying out to the Valley

Jumaring

Jumaring is an essential way of progressing up the wall. After the leader in the team completes a pitch they fix the second’s rope to the belay station. This allows the lower team members to ascend this fixed-line collecting the gear as they jumar up the line with two ascenders. Watch House gave us different terrains to crack this skill, and eventually do it fast and fluidly, timing ourselves to see who could jumar the fastest on the overhanging section of the brilliant sport climb ‘Anonymous Bosch’ F6b.

Sky Hooks

These strange-looking bits of equipment, are not frequently used but can be essential on some routes, where there is no other protection. The idea is these hooks, are carefully placed on small edges or features and clip your aid ladder onto them and transfer your weight onto them, some people get creative as shown below, where duct tape is about to be used to ‘secure’ the skyhook to give it more purchase. Luckily no one needed to deploy this skillset from their arsenal when on the Nose, it was mildly terrifying doing it on Gower’s limestone hoping the rock edge beneath doesn’t blow out on you.

Skyhook about to be 'secured' into position - Credit: Supertopo.com

Traversing and Pendulums

Another key tactic is the team’s (and their food, water, and other necessities) ability to move sideways. At times on The Nose, you may need to go down and sideways to access the next crack system or weakness in these grand faces. One of the most well known; lowering off the ‘Boot Flake’ (a giant section of rock in the shape of a boot), and executing the ‘King Swing’. A massive running pendulum the leader takes to unlock the next part of the route.

Little did we know at the time, but practicing on a slab with our haul bag, (or “the pig” as the bags are sometimes affectionately known) gave us insight into how often the pig would get stuck. Usually pinned on the tiniest grain of granite, preventing us from hauling the load up to our new high point. Inevitably it involved one of us, descending alongside the pig to free it and then jumar back up.

Photo 1: Sideways training session at Watch House

Photo 2: Self lowering out, moving sideways on Watch House

Photo3: More Sideways training

Photo 2: Nik wrestling the pig sideways on 'Sickle Ledge' - El Capitan

Portaledge Living

On the Nose there are some key ledges and pinnacles that teams can sleep and set up, but a few of them are a little cosy (and that’s for a two-person team). With us going as a three, we called in a favour (thanks Stefan!) to borrow a portaledge and it proved key for hiding from the various rain showers we had in the valley.

Our preparations had us set this up numerous times and Nik spent an evening solo on a bolt belay on Watch House, with food and cheeky beer. On another occasion I managed to convince The Dynamic Rock climbing centre to let us set up and spend the night on the portaledge on the vert wall in Clydach as another training session, after jumaring drills all night.

Photo 1 - Nik's improptu Gower hotel

Photo 2 - Testing the experience at Dynamic Rock

Photo 3 - Camp 4 life - The Nose, El Capitan

The portaledge received a lot of compliments from climbers in the Yosemite valley. It’s sleek lightweight style caught people’s attention while hanging around in Camp 4. On one of the later days of our Nose ascent, in the middle of a rain shower, we couldn’t help notice some of the ‘wavey’, almost hand stitching on the material sections around the metal frame section. We joked at the time, “Maybe Stefan had made it himself!”. On returning back to Swansea and mentioning it to him, it turns out he had! So Stefan, if you ever want a side project, your mark II ‘por-Doerr-ledge’ could be a great hit in the US market!

Endurance Training

One aspect Nik was keen to emphasize was endurance, but not necessarily specific climbing, more merely being active for long periods of time. In the run-up to flying out, we'd each be hitting the gym to do cardio and leg weights training before work, and then after work hitting Watch House slab to practice all of these new skills above. Me and Steve would also get the benefit of a trad climbing trip in Morroco's Anti-Atlas mountain to get further training long day on the mountain and doing our best to be slick with gear and ropes. Then before we knew it our planned date had arrived to go state side and go from BIg Wall Zeros to hopefully Big Wall Heros!

Come back for Part 2 released soon, here's a sneak peak;

“They would have been in deep shit had it poured rain on them at Camp4.”

“I always say that tenacity and determination are the key to climbing ElCap and these guys seem to have both in spades!” – Captain Tom Evans, ElCapreport.com

If you’ve seen ‘the Dawn Wall’, you’ll have seen Tom Evans. He became the go to guy for international media during the frenzy and excitement of Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson ascent of the hardest free route on El Capitan. In his retirement Tom began writing and photographing climbers adventures on El Capitan and blogging on Elcapreport.com. We didn’t realise at the time, but our attempt got covered by this valley vet, and allowed friends and family to keep track on how we were doing. In part 2, you’ll get to read more commentary and see some of Tom’s incredible photography from the valley floor.

Part 2 The Nose Ascent - Coming Soon.

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