Looking up The Nose
After spending some time staring up at El Cap from the meadows, we decided to climb up to the base of our route, to check out the approach and decide about the best option for hauling the first few pitches. The Nose actually starts at the top of a pedestal (visible in this photo) that is itself a few hundred feet high, but getting to the top of this requires only third and fourth class scrambling, with one or two short bits of easy fifth class. We hiked in and started scrambling up this pedestal, and debated various options for getting ourselves and the pigs up this the following morning. We were wearing only sandals on our feet, so clearly none of the climbing was too difficult, but we could tell that parts of it would be insanity with a massive pig strapped to our backs. Hauling would be necessary. But in several places, there was no good way to haul, because there were boulders, trees, and bushes in the way.
It seemed like the easiest option, though maybe not the fastest, would be to climb the first four pitches to Sickle Ledge without the pigs, rappel down leaving fixed lines (as we would be doing anyway), then reascend those lines the same day, hauling as we went. This is the option we ended up choosing, but at that point we decided to table the debate and think more about it later. Aaron's mom and dad would be arriving in the valley soon, so we started to head down to meet them. At one point, Aaron stepped over a tiny bush, and a branch of it sprung back and hit his left pinky toe, giving him a pretty nasty little cut. That didn't bode well. Climbing on injured feet can be very difficult. We proceeded carefully to the ground, and back out to the car.
(Note: This photo is actually from my trip to Yosemite in 2004, a year before we climbed El Cap. The photo was a sort of reconnaissance shot, because, as I have said, we were already planning this climb back then.)