The East Ledges descent

We hiked east along the summit, trying to follow the directions we had read in numerous topos and trip reports. We also kept in touch with Aaron's dad on the radio. Aaron had given him a detailed guide to the descent route, from which he could read us directions from afar. We tried to stay relatively close to the rim, as most directions indicated, but we got a little lost once or twice and had to bushwhack a little.

We passed a party of three who had summitted Tangerine Trip the previous night. They were friendly, and gave us a few directions. But they weren't doing the East Ledges descent. These guys had figured out the way to get down in style. They had hired a team of horses from Tuolumne to come pick them up, with all their gear!

Shortly after passing them, we reached the top of Zodiac, one of the easternmost routes on El Cap. This was where the East Ledges descent route really began, the point at which we would depart the summit rim and start really heading down. But first, we rested a bit. Zodiac is a very steep route, which, like a cliffhanger in the truest sense, ends remarkably suddenly. It doesn't gradually slope off at the top, but rather goes from vertical to horizontal in a single, sudden, 90-degree angle. There was a three-bolt anchor on the edge of the cliff there, so we went up to the edge and clipped in, and took a moment to relax and enjoy the surroundings. From there we had an splendid view of the east side of The Nose, and features such as El Cap Towers and Boot Flake. Aaron pointed out how, from that perspective, El Cap Towers appears to be less than half way up El Cap (as it actually is), even though from the meadows it looks like it's well over half way to the top. From the meadows, the upper parts of El Cap are so far away that perspective actually makes them appear significantly smaller.

After a few minutes, we heaved our massive burdens onto our backs again, and set off once more down the trail. From here the terrain got much steeper and trickier, but we eventually made it to the first rappel station. We were pleased to find that there were fixed lines in place for each rappel, so we didn't have to get ours out. Of course, this also meant that I could have packed our ropes at the bottom of the haul bag and made the load carry a lot better, but we were better safe than sorry. The fixed rappel lines were a little ratty looking, but in pretty decent shape. None of them had any serious sheath damage or anything.

Aaron went first on each of the rappels, with Little Miss Piggy on his back. I followed, riding the pig. Neither Aaron nor I had ever actually ridden a pig before, but we knew how to do it in theory, and I was actually anxious to see how well it worked. It turned out to be pretty easy, really.

After three or four rappels, we reached a drainage, and the first actual trail of the descent. We followed this trail for a half hour or so, and finally we could tell that we were getting close to the end. The trail started to flatten, and we started hearing the sounds of cars on the road.

(Note: This photo was actually taken a year before we did this climb, on my first trip to Yosemite. I took it from somewhere near Glacier Point, across the valley. It shows the profile of El Cap from the east, including the area where the East Ledges descent goes.)