10 feet down, 2990 to go!

After ascending the first rope (our haul line), I clipped myself into the anchor and set up the hauling pulley, a Petzl ProTraxion. I pulled all the slack through, and when I could pull no more, I attached my jumars to the free end of the haul line, tied into the end of the second rope, and leaned back, putting all my weight on the haul line. As expected, nothing happened. With over sixty pounds of water, a twenty pound portaledge, and sleeping bags, food, clothing, and other supplies, the pigs weighed close to my own body weight, possibly even a little more. This is why we call them pigs, after all. Though I had never actually hauled pigs this heavy, I was expecting this, and knew just how to handle it... at least in theory. I turned myself partly upside down, stuck my feet against the wall, and pushed myself downward with all my might. As I started moving down (thus moving the pigs up), I began to walk, then run, backwards down the wall. After about twenty feet, I reached the end of the other rope I had tied into, and came to a halt. I jumared back up the haul line to the anchor, thus completing one full stroke of body hauling. I repeated this process several times, until the pigs had reached the anchor. At this point, I tied the pigs to the anchor, using our dedicated docking cord, and a special knot which we would be able to untie while still weighted.

This photo shows the monstrous pigs, slowly making their way up the wall. I am just barely visible up above. The giant white pig at the top is our main haul bag (Moby Dick, the great white whale), which carried all of our water and personal gear. The orange mini-pig underneath it, Little Miss Piggy, contained mostly food. The long black cylinder next to Miss Piggy is the portaledge, our shelter on the wall, with the rain fly strung up just above it. I love this photo, because it shows the first few feet of progress, and in the background, you can see the thousands of feet yet to go.

NOTE: For anyone who happens to own a Metolius portaledge and hasn't figured this out yet, this is NOT the correct way to haul it. The fly should go inside the ledge's haul bag. You can even leave them clipped together for quick deploying, but the ballistic nylon stuff sack that the fly is packed in is not burly enough to be used as a haul bag by itself. And think about it... the fly is the last thing you want to get holes in, right? Unfortunately, mine did just that. Over just three days of hauling, the stuff sack got more than one hole in it, and one of the holes wore right through the fly itself. When I got home, I realized that if you cinch down the compression straps real tight (that's why they're there!) you can get the fly more than small enough to fit in the haul bag with the portaledge.