In august I'm going to be in yosemite for a week and I'm going to do the south face route on washington column. my question is would zodiac be a good 2nd wall, is it very much harder, how long should i plan on taking, and what would be a good rack to take? I have 1 1/2 sets of cams to #4 friend my partner has a set of cams plus we have lots of nuts and small cams and camhooks. we want to do as little nailing as posible what pins should we stick in the bag?

Thanks for your help

Ben

-- Ben (Benbuilds@aol.com), July 31, 1999

Answers

Check one of the recent issues of Rock and Ice(I think). It has a yosemite "super topo" section with a very detailed topo and gear list for Zodiac. Yes, it's a bit more difficult than the south face for a number of reasons. The south face is really cruiser obvious A1 climbing and lots of free. The zodiac is long, mostly aid and you'll be sleeping in a porta-ledge and hanging bivies. Not a whole lot of ledges anywhere on the route though peanut ledge is perhaps one of the better ledges on El Cap. Check out the issue, assess your abilities and decide from there. Other easy routes are the trip- though very exposed, and lurking fear.

I think there's a super topo of both of these as well- maybe not the trip though.

Cheers Eric

-- Eric Coomer (coomer@ix.netcom.com), August 12, 1999.