Neptune was my first “off the beaten track” route on El Cap, which really sparked a passion for repeating obscurities. As more and more time has passed since the ascent, the memory of how scared I was has faded and I’ve been able to appreciate how phenomenal of a route it really is. Since I wrote this, Neptune has been repeated another couple of times, so its quickly becoming a trade route! Anyway, here is my report from 2024.

I'd been putting it off for far too long. For two weeks I'd been spraying in the Meadow about how I'd solo Brandon Adams and Kristoffer Wickstrom's unrepeated El Cap A4 - Neptune. Now, I was the last person to believe it would happen. My faith was wavering too. I actually had to climb it now.

Harder than Ephemeron, mandating modified microbeaks, and with plenty of potential for big falls: the route certainly had a reputation. Brandon's reputation was also a cause for concern. The world class big wall climbers I spoke to who had climbed with him all said the same thing – you just sit back at the belay and marvel at the master at work. It felt foolhardy to attempt to follow where he and Kristoffer had gone, but I had to try.

Day 1

I stood at the base in equilibrium, the beauty of the wall attracting me, the fear of the falls repelling. The feeling wasn't new. If successful, this would be my tenth El Cap Solo in the last two years. Each time still felt preposterous.

All my kit was up and I could delay no more. I flaked my ropes on the floor and started free climbing up the Alcove slab.

The first pitch took about twenty minutes. It was mostly bolts and easy free climbing up the start of the Wall of Early Morning Light. I cleaned at a similar pace, and was then presented with my first taste of Neptune. It was marked on the topo as 5.10 A0, so I brought my free shoes and chalk.

After some easy aid I ran into the 10ft of mandatory free climbing. It was genuinely slightly tricky to go from standing on the bolt to clipping the next, especially whilst self-belaying, but I managed to do it without falling. At the end of the subsequent bolts some tricky hooks led right into C1 and a tension traverse to the base of Space. The whole pitch went free on the first ascent, but I'm weak.

As a man of ethics, I have renounced fixing pitches on El Cap, declaring it cheating. As such, I didn't fix my ropes to the ground after those two pitches, but rather elected to unrope and sleep on the biggest ledge on El Cap - the ground.

Whilst the first couple pitches are good and worthwhile, you can walk off from the top of them. When I ran into Marek Reganowicz in the cafe that evening and told him that I hadn't fixed, he gave me a fist bump. After I explained I had done two pitches and walked off, I think he wanted to turn it into a standard punch.

Day 2

I spent too long hanging out in the morning in the cafe and at Climber's Coffee in Camp 4, finding it far easier to chill with friends than commit to the solo. By the time I had walked all my food up and hauled the two slab pitches to my high point it was getting dark. I bivvied in the Alcove and mentally prepared myself for the wall.

Day 3

I woke early after a bad sleep. A raccoon had come in the night and tried to steal my breakfast doughnuts. I managed to fight it off with my doughnuts intact, but it had rattled me slightly.

The day began with pitch 3 - an 80ft overhanging copperhead ladder. Brandon and Kristoffer's grades were calibrated by calling this pitch (shared with Space) A3 on the Neptune topo. The current guidebook for Space has it as one of the A4+ cruxes.

It went quickly and scarily as I clipped up a multitude of mank, mainly on old #1 heads. Despite the heads, it was undeniably a beautiful pitch aesthetically. There were even a few rivets and good heads to stop me from fearing for my femurs too fervently.

Pitch 4 was neither short nor quick. It passed two intermediate belays and went for 190 feet through the steep left edge of the Alcove. It was absolutely phenomenal, with thin, shallow cracks linking up the outrageously overhanging wall.

Pitch 5 saw me leave Space and land on Neptune. I was a little worried to do my first proper Neptune nailing, though it was only graded A2. It was steep but also mostly straightforward, which gave me confidence that not all the Neptune pitches would be as desperate as I feared. I set my ledge up for my first proper evening on the wall and began some heavy chilling.

Before going to sleep I had a look at the topo and checked the pitches for the next day. Back-to-back A4. Bugger.

Day 4

Pitch 6 was apparently part of Dave Turner's 'Dawn Direct' [Ed. It wasn’t actually on Dawn Direct, which is pretty far to the left from there], and would be my first taste of what Brandon and Kristoffer considered to be worthy of A4. It was a techy pitch on mostly marginal beaks and old heads, though did have the occasional bombproof cam slot to keep it sporty. Whilst it was one of the harder A4 pitches I'd led compared to those on the trade routes I'd done, it went without too much worry. I was struck with overconfidence that the rest of the route would be as doable.

Pitch 7 was also A4, but the topo showed a load of bolts on it. I briefly forgot who put up the route as I passed it off as a clip up. After some bat hooks and bolts off the belay, that illusion dissolved as I was faced with the limits of what the #1 Tomahawk can do.

Off a good bolt was an aid boulder problem - a sideways step onto the most abysmal beak that's ever taken my weight. The fall was clearly safe, so I switched my brain off and got on it. A reach around a shallow corner to bang another beak blindly into its seam was followed by a scary bounce test. I knew that the beak I was on likely wouldn't hold the shock if the next failed the test. Both held, and after a couple more beaks and hooks a bolt appeared. Again, my confidence was buoyed, though the corner above looked complicated.

A head and two beak tips later I was a big reach away from a rivet. Instead of top stepping the delicate placement I opted to try to put in another piece. A shallow #1 beak hung stubbornly out of a tiny depression. It held a timid bounce, and the rivet called me to clip it. I waited for a sharp upwards breeze to take some weight off, before attempting to levitate up.

As I was stretching for the rivet, the beak ripped and sent me sailing down, hanger in hand. A screamer on the last beak ripped, as did the beak it was on, as did the beak below that, and I stripped the seam. I probably fell about 30 feet. My mates on Mescalito whooped as I tried to act nonchalant. Really I was rattled. This was bloody hard.

I jugged back to the bolt and carefully replaced the ripped beaks. At my high point I tried to place beaks in a few different spots, but nothing would work. In the end I got in my top steps on the dodgy lower beak and fumbled around getting a hanger over the wide washer on the rivet. It slid on and I progressed on more rivets and hooks around an arête to a jagged flake. I think the flake joined the Space rock scar on its other side and felt thin and brittle. I timidly bumped cams up it, clipping a bolt to the side of where the flake was scariest, before reaching the belay.

This pitch had done me in, and the next one was over 200 feet, so I finished early.

Day 5

The 8th pitch would see me rejoining Space, which I was psyched for after some ridiculously technical terrain. Thin beaks linked short ladders of bat hooks and bolts. This was followed by a precarious traverse across a narrow flat ledge on big hooks. They would latch on tiny bumps in the bald rock, which kept them from skating off. As I weighted the hooks they flexed and the arms grated against the granite making a terrifying scraping sound. Relief flowed through me as I clipped the good bolt at the end of the traverse. It soon drained as I looked up at the blank section above.

Though I was now back on Space, I was perplexed as to where to go. The groove above seemed devoid of any imperfection into which gear could be convinced. The rock scar to the right was clearly blank.

Each move allowed a glimpse of the next, though it constantly seemed I was running into a dead end. Baby beaks and a tiny talisman totem provided access to an intricate and beautiful hooking sequence. The gear below would unzip to the bolt if I fell as I hooked between the flat natural micro edges.

I'm accustomed to attempting to hook the sinker spot on an otherwise acceptable placement, but here I was hooking the only acceptable spot on an otherwise unacceptable placement. Surgeon-like precision was required to rise without ripping the hooks. The final hook move was a long blind reach to what turned out to be a good but slightly hollow flake. I placed a beak off this and, on a whim, left a rated skyhook for protection to make sure I wouldn't have to repeat that section. I didn't tape or tension it down since I didn't think I really needed it.

Another beak later I was at a fixed head. As I clipped it and began transferring my weight to test it, the head immediately ripped. I had placed the beak I was on in a dirty crack, trusting my Scottish winter roots of nailing Bulldogs into frozen turf. Unfortunately the turf hadn't quite frozen in the California sun, and so the beak ripped in a puff of mud.

I had placed a scream-aid on the beak below, thinking a small fall would activate but not break it (they snap at 5kN). I was wrong, the beak stayed in but the screamer broke. A second screamer deployed as I came to a halt, held by the hook. Had this failed the fall would surely have been double the size. I ended up only going a calm 30ft. Again, the Mescalito-ites made me mask my fear. I reasserted to them that it was properly hard. A bomber #3 beak went where the head had ripped. Classic.

The rest of the pitch stuttered up the flowing groove as I feared another fall, until good cams behind bad flakes finally led me to the anchor. This A3 had taken me over three hours to lead, longer than any of the A4+ pitches on Reticent Wall and Sea of Dreams in spring.

Pitch 9 was another looker. Fantastic climbing forged up and right into an intermediate belay.

From there some unfamiliar C1 cam back cleaning up a wide flare brought me to the familiar Tempest terrain. I climbed the section after South Seas' Rubberband Man penji for the fourth time in the last twelve months, and then broke left to the belay. Yet another 200-foot haul had me haggard, and I was done for the day. The ledge was soon deployed and the beers were soon going down.

Day 6

The morning began with another pitch repetition. It felt good to move efficiently up the A2 beaking on mainly obvious sinker #3s, and before long I was at the next belay.

Pitch 11 was one of the main reasons for wanting to climb the route. I had seen the thin seam from Tempest and Atlantis the previous spring, and it had been on my mind since. I started up the 'Pillar of the Community' on relatively sinker beaks, then cruised up its long but good head ladder. From the end of the crux of this "A4" pitch, I reached right into the A3 crack and the difficulties began.

A barely existent beak seam blasts from the pillar towards the Pacific Ocean Wall. Tipped out tiny beak would follow tipped out tiny beak. Apprehension rose as I went further from solid protection, until eventually I could spot a slot for a bomber #3 above. A few moves later I was nailing a beak deep into the widening and could briefly relax.

The same process repeated above, sketching up on dodgy gear between the good but spaced placements. Towards the top a totem was my salvation. It marked the end of the fear, and soon after I finished the phenomenal pitch. It was all-time nailing, some of the most beautiful beaking I've done on El Cap.

Whilst I'd planned on trying to do the pitch after, I was satisfied with my day and so settled down in my ledge and enjoyed the sun setting on the Cathedrals.

Day 7

My plan was to climb a couple pitches – as I'd always been able to do each day no matter the route. Pitch 12 was only 135ft of A3, so I was confident I'd get to the A4 'Lateralus' pitch in good time. Things didn't work out that way.

Terminally thin beak tips above a steep ramp led out from the belay. It was the first pitch where the fall didn't seem entirely clean. I moved slowly, often staying below the bad beak I was on whilst placing the next to minimise the outward force on it. I'd then equalise consecutive beaks and clip a screamer. My proximity to the belay made me worry about the force a fall would generate.

Eventually good gear was gained, before more crap led to a bolt. I attempted to reset my restless mind.

From the bolt a really terrible beak was followed by a standardly bad beak. I spent about forty-five minutes on this trying to get something to stick above. I tried everything, including my filed down beaks and modified RURPs, but nothing would go. I even tried top stepping the dodgy beak (which started moving) to look for a placement higher. I couldn't get anything in. In my desperation I left a ladder on the beak and reversed to the bolt. From there I lowered back to the belay to get my heading kit.

I try my best to avoid placing heads. I've placed a couple in my life, and in my opinion it's best if they are only used as a last resort. One of the reasons Neptune is so spectacular is because there's very few fixed pieces on its pitches. Some of the techy beak seams on the route might feel easier if you laced them with heads, especially if you commit the (unfortunately not unheard of) crime of enhancing the placements first.

I don't think this is sustainable. It would turn a beautiful, technical pitch into a boring scary clip up for subsequent ascensionists. I was really happy to see that Brandon and Kristoffer put the route up in such good style by only using heads where absolutely necessary. In this case, though, I felt I had no other option.

Soon I'd made it back up to my high point and was unhappily heading from the bad beak. I didn't clip the head with my daisy as I neared its completion, so when the beak I was on ripped, the head stayed in place, whilst I fell onto the bolt below. Next go when I got back to it, I just gave the head a few more taps and carried on.

The rest of the seam went on more bad beaks before a bolt and big hook traverse to a ledge crawl. From there I joined the PO and finished the pitch (after having to make an intermediate belay on beaks just below the anchor to go and free my stuck rope). As I jumared the pitch to clean it, the first half of the tricky seam (including the head I placed) ripped out, so I ended up leaving the route how I found it. That made me feel less bad about placing it, but didn't totally absolve me.

That lead had taken about four hours with all the faff of falling and having to go back to the belay twice. I was so mentally stressed that I decided to finish at 2pm and chill on my ledge there. I felt bad about it, but if I'd struggled that much on an A3 pitch, then I didn't want to face the A4 after.

Day 8

I was really worried about the 'Lateralus'. It was one of only two named pitches on the route, and the A4 grade frightened me given how hard I'd found the A3 the day before. The perfect combatant for the fear was how psyched I was to try to climb the pitch. I had looked across at it from South Seas last year before I knew Neptune even existed and wondered if anything went that way. You can see its seam through the roof from the Meadow as it splits pale and golden granite.

The seam seemed shut from below, but as I gained height I could see its placements. The beaks weren't great, but there were enough openings that you could stay low and avoid levering them out. The occasional sinker also made it feel fairly safe.

Happy with how I climbed, I found myself a little below the bolts that led to the arête. I got excited and reached high to clip, but as I did I pulled too far out on the beak and it ripped. The beak below caught me after a bit of extra distance falling from rope stretch, the bags moving up, and a scream aid ripping.

I pulled back up, replaced the beak, made another beak move, then clipped the bolt with delight. I thought the pitch would be trivial from there, but after a couple of moves found nothing. I realised there was a little ledge a bit lower to get a big hook on, then made some physics defying placement to sketch up to a bat hook and the belay. It's a proper good pitch, Kristoffer was drilling truly as a last resort.

After that I walked up a couple PO wall pitches and went to bed.

Day 9

Another PO Walk went to my favourite El Cap ledge - The Island in the Sky. I sat there chilling for a while before looking at the next pitch. The 'Fear Inoculum' was a 220ft mega pitch of A4. The name scared me a bit, as did the dark, mossy rock it went through.

Having done the 5.8 R section on the PO last year I wasn't worried, and didn't bring my free shoes. I also didn't bother to leave behind the aid rack for the free climbing. This nearly went awry as I climbed away from the PO, though I managed to avoid doing a somewhat sketchy mantle by using my big hooks. A couple more hooks from a hollow pillar brought me to a bolt.

Above this was the most technical hooking and beaking I'd done by some margin. The pitch had three bolts, so was safe, but for long periods of time I thought I would have to bail since I couldn't work out what to do. It's slightly put me off doing first ascents for a while. I don't think I have the strength of character that Brandon and Kristoffer clearly have to work it out when it gets hard instead of reaching for the drill when it's acceptable to do so.

Halfway up I reached a little ledge and the pitch calmed down, though the rock got worse. After a long time on lead I finally stretched my ropes to the belay, fixed them, and went back down to the Island for well-earned beers and a solo dance party. Whilst I was happy to only have one more A4 pitch left, I was definitely wary of the Every Man for Himself A3.

Day 10

A long jug and haul in the morning gave me a slow start to the climbing. On pitch 18 the climbing itself went even slower. Steep crunchy rock arched out from the belay. The groove formed the left edge of the Cyclops Eye, then the route went left onto the face. Again, it was 220 feet long.

Easy placements were made slow by suspect rock. It wasn't 'ahh the whole pitch is going to fall off' style terrifying, more like good chossy fun. Bomber slots I'd be aiming for would often turn out to be unusable crap behind detached flakes, and I regularly had to go up the cam sizes as placements crumbled and became larger. It was also too steep to cheat by trying to take weight off the gear. By the time I was at the top of the Weetabix-like groove I was drained, and I wasn't even halfway through the pitch.

I went round the arête and hooked and beaked my way across microledges. I then beaked up a thin corner before beaking up a thin ramp. At one point I ran out of beaks and had to lower and back clean. It was another four-hour plus lead.

Since I was on holiday, I decided to finish for the day rather than climb when the wall was in the shade and get a bit chilly. I'm not a fucking alpinist.

Day 11

I had four more pitches before the top, and only one more was independent to Neptune. Pitch 19 went quickly in the morning, with the only difficulty being a tricky section of natural hooking above a bolt. At one point a little ledge lurked not far below, but the climbing that's in its range was sinker. From there I raged up three familiar Tempest pitches and made it over the rim with my bags before it was dark.

I slept on the summit and once again a raccoon came in the night, scrounging for my left-over food. I imagined it was the same one as down in the Alcove all those days ago, though it probably had a simpler journey up than me.

I thought that I’d write down all I know, so that hopefully I get asked about it less and can spend my time thinking about less mediocre El Cap routes. A lot of this information is also applicable to speed soloing in general.

Disclaimer: There’s a lot of sketchy tactics in here that should only be used by experienced big wall climbers that understand the risks involved. Please don’t read this, get overstoked, and get yourself killed. If you want proper training for something like this, please refer to a qualified guide (the Yosemite Mountain School has the current solo NIAD speed record holder on staff).

My Experience

I climbed the Nose in 2022 in a team of three as my first El Cap route. We did it over six days and were in a constant queue for the whole route. I hated it.

Two years later, in 2024, I tried to solo it in a day. I had previously soloed Lurking Fear in a day in 2023 and thought it would be fun to just go for the Nose with minimal preparation. I went way too hard out of the blocks, and ended up feeling wrecked before even getting to Dolt. I got to the top of pitch 8 in about four hours, but couldn’t imagine doing another 20 pitches, so I bailed.

A month later, I did my first NIAD with my mate George. He free climbed most of the first half, before I aided the entire top block. We finished with a time of 10hrs55, which we were pretty happy with.

In the Spring of 2025, I had plans to try to push some hard aid routes with some amazing climbers. I didn’t want to be the weak link in the team, so almost immediately after arriving in Yosemite I soloed the Nose in a day for fitness after sitting on my arse at the front desk of a London gym all winter.

My tactics for soloing it were fairly uncommon. I wanted to get quick at aid climbing, so didn’t bring free shoes and didn’t even free the 5.9 sections. I also knew I wasn’t fit enough to do it if I pitched the whole thing out, so used some sketchier tactics to make it feel easier physically. I finished it in 21hrs01, completely exhausted, and trudged down the east ledges over the next five hours.

Required Level

Obviously if you are considering a solo NIAD, the prospect of a team NIAD shouldn’t worry you at all. I’d say if you have a reasonable grip on your rope solo system, someone who can hold their own on a ~8 hour NIAD should be able to solo it in a day. Even if, like me, you are slower than that, I’d say it’s still possible if you are efficient at aid climbing (you won’t get as tired) and rope solo systems.

The closer you are to the 24-hour mark, the more you’ll need the ability to dig deep. There’s no one else to rely on if you start to flag, and if you aren’t doing anything, you aren’t making progress. I’ve soloed El Cap in a day on three occasions, and have never finished without feeling more exhausted than any other time in my life.

That being said, the Nose is a fairly easy bail, and I have seen people summit after three days whilst trying to solo a route in a day, so it is still possible to go for it even if you aren’t 100% sure that you’re ready.

Preparation

The obvious preparation for this would be to do a load of NIADs in a team, trying to lead each block on different ascents and really getting to know the route. Finding someone happy to follow the whole route and leading the entire thing would also be really good prep.

Getting some one day solo experience would also be beneficial. Start by rope soloing an easy multipitch with a similar level of free climbing to what you’ll expect to do on the Nose (so Nutcracker for me). Then maybe go for a shorter wall solo in a day. The West Face of Leaning Tower or the South Face of Washington Column are good shouts and would probably feel similar to the climbing on sections of the Nose. Climbing the Double (Nose+Half Dome) with a partner would probably be great fitness training too, and perhaps a similar overall level of challenge to a solo NIAD (though I haven’t done a double so can’t really say)

A lot of the most complex climbing on the Nose (in terms of rope soloing) is below Dolt. Doing a solo Dolt run would be really good to get to know where your rope will get stuck, how to get back across traversing pitches, and it will make the start of the real thing feel a lot less daunting.

Methods

Although they both fall under the banner of Rope Soloing; daisy soloing and pitching out a route feel like entirely different methods of ascent.

Pitching it out is the simple and safe way of doing it, but also considerably slower. It involves leading a pitch, abseiling the lead line back to your bag, and jumaring the pitch to clean. Going up each pitch twice will definitely tire you out, but being allowed to fall and not being constantly mentally on edge is nice too.

It’s definitely possible to solo the Nose in a day whilst pitching the whole thing out, Brent Barghahn did so in 18hrs24. It’s worth getting fitter and doing this to get under 24-hours, rather than resorting to sketchy tactics like I did. For those who acknowledge the significant risks, there are faster ways to climb alone.

Daisy soloing is basically like aid free soloing - climbing with no rope and either free soloing or aid climbing, protected by just the pieces that are clipped to your lanyards. You don’t have to go back to clean the belay afterwards, so it saves a lot of time and a huge amount of energy, though obviously falling is not recommended. Daisy soloing the majority of the Nose is an experience reserved for people with either an intimate knowledge of the route, or top tier climbers for whom it’s all very easy. I don’t fall into either category and haven’t really done it on a big scale as it seems too dangerous for my relatively low risk tolerance.

Death looping is somewhere between pitching it out and daisy soloing. You basically loop your rope through a piece that you’ll end up leaving (so best with fixed gear) and climb with that as your belay. Once you reach the end of your rope, you untie and pull it through, leaving all the carabiners and gear you’ve placed. It can be effective for short tricky sections whilst daisy soloing, or for entire pitches if the wall is steep and the pitch has lots of fixed pieces.

I used death looping for entire pitches a lot when I soloed the Nose. At the start of each pitch, if I fell it would just be a short factor two onto the belay, which would be painful but not the end of the world. Higher up on the pitch, I would effectively be daisy soloing, but whilst still connected to the mountain. If I got scared at any point, I could immediately start placing gear and only have to retrieve those pieces.

It also let me climb without having the bag on my back whilst still not having to go back down for it:

Death Looping Method whilst also Hauling a Bag

1. Tie your bag into middle of rope and either hang it off the anchor with a fifi hook or leave it on a ledge. Be aware that if it falls off the fifi/ledge, it’s the equivalent of introducing a load of slack into the belay system. It’ll also fall onto you, so best to avoid this.

2. Run your rope from bag, through a narrow chain/carabiner that the bag/knot can’t pass through. This is your standard rope solo lead line.

3. Tag the other half of the rope going straight to bag up as your haul line

4. You can stack the ropes into a rope bag on your main bag, or just let them dangle (depending on the terrain).

5. Climb the pitch. You can clip the lead line, and even leave pieces, but if you do and you want them back you’ll have to abseil to get them after.

6. Finish the pitch, unclip your solo device from the lead line end of rope.

7. Pull up the haul line to release bag’s fifi off lower belay and haul the bag.

If you plan on using this system, you should definitely practice it and work out its intricacies beforehand.

Rope Length

Some may disagree, but my advice to people has always been to either go really long or really short. I think for the less confident, a 100m rope works really well. If you don’t have one you can also tie two ropes together. With 100m, you can often link three pitches at a time, which saves a lot of time on changeovers and you only need to run it out to a similar degree as a normal speedy NIAD. You also have the option to do 50m death loop pitches, and can easily bail from any point on the route. Also, on traversing pitches you can tie both ends into the anchor and abseil back along the free side after leading without having to pass all the gear.

The drawback is that you have a lot of rope to manage at belays and when letting it free-snake. The rope can also be heavy if you do want to daisy solo at all.

A 70m rope would work, but you wouldn’t be able to link as many pitches, and would have to leave gear to bail from high on the route. A tactic some people have used with 60-70m ropes, is to climb the full length of it and make a gear belay wherever they end up. I’ve never tried it but I don’t imagine it would be quicker than using the bolted belays.

For people that are looking to daisy solo the majority of the route, you need a rope twice the length of the route’s longest pendulum or longest death loop section, but if you’re going to daisy solo the Nose then you probably know more than me and don’t need to be reading this.

Solo Belay Device

You should hopefully have enough rope solo experience to have a system that you’ve dialled and are confident with. It is worth considering streamlining your system as much as possible for such a big day though. I used a Grigri1 with a micro traxion to manage a cache loop, but for the Nose I changed my system and didn’t use backup knots. My reasoning was that my first safety system was not falling off, and the backup was the Grigri.

In hindsight, I should have tried to get my hands on a Silent Partner or Roc Solo and had a couple days to get used to it beforehand as free climbing on those devices would have been a lot easier. For the majority of people who want to solo the Nose in a day that probably don’t have complex LRS setups, they’re very easy devices to get the hang of.

Backpack vs Haulbag

A backpack is much comfier to jumar with on your back than a haul bag. That being said, having anything on your back is a pain, especially on the steep upper pitches. Even if you pitch the whole thing out, I would consider bringing a stubby haul bag and leaving it on a fifi on the anchor tied to the end of your rope as you clean. You can then haul it as you stack the rope to lead the next pitch.

24 hours is actually quite a long time to climb the Nose, even solo. You may sometimes have to choose to do something a slightly slower way if it means that you can preserve energy and avoid bonking.

Knot at the End of Rope?

This is a tricky decision to make. A knot at the end of the dead side of your rope could easily get stuck behind a flake, or in one of the route’s many cracks, which would lose you a bit of time and energy to clean. This happened to me twice on my first solo NIAD attempt. That being said, if you have no backup knots, it’s possible to climb off the end of your rope. Whilst not necessarily fatal, it would be terrifying to suddenly and unexpectedly be soloing. It’s easy to say you’ll watch the end of your rope as you climb, but 20 hours in, this probably won’t be the case.

I went without a knot at the end of my rope for the first half of the route and was very cautious to watch for the end. After the Great Roof, the route gets steeper and there are fewer places for it to get stuck, so I started tying a knot.

Specific Beta

I’ve written down all of my specific solo beta below. Its definitely not worth copying, as its not very good advice for anyone that isn’t predominantly a hard aid climber. It is probably useful for coming up with ideas for your own beta, so here it is.

• I linked first 3 pitches from the ground. I find these have thin awkward section and so definitely wanted a belay.

• Did a short P4 to NIAD anchors on Sickle and rapped straight back down dead rope to belay.

• Free/daisy soloed across Sickle

• Linked P5 and P6 as I didn’t want to daisy solo them especially with the penjis. It was a bit of a pain to get back down past penjis but not too bad

• P7 - aided and did on a death loop

• Linked and pitched out P8+9 as I remembered it having some free climbing that I wouldn’t be happy soloing with a backpack.

• Daisy soloed the splitter #4s to Dolt.

• Climbed P10-15 all on a loop

• There were no chains at Eagle Ledge, so I pitched P16 out and did the penji instead of the Lynn Hill Traverse. Rapped spare rope back to Eagle Ledge instead of jugging back up the penji rope.

• Linked P17+18

• Did Great Roof on a loop, but left gear and had to go back to clean it at the end after I got scared.

• Tried to link P20-22 but ran out of rope and had to build a gear belay 20ft below Glowering spot.

• Daisy soloed to Glowering spot

• Did P23-24 on a loop

• I definitely planned on doing P25-26 on a loop but I think I linked and pitched them out instead as I was getting tired and didn’t want to biff it. I also knew at that stage that I’d do it in a day

• Linked and pitched out P27-28

Good luck!

Just from looking at it’s topo in the guidebook, I’d always been pretty intrigued by Dark Star. It was put up in 1999 by Jim Bridwell and Giovanni Groaz and given a grade of 5.10 A5, then repeated in a day by Steve Gerberding, Scott Cosgrove and Al Swanson in 2002. As far as I know, those had been its only two ascents.

It’s only ten pitches long, located between the Waterfall Route rock scar and the East Buttress, with just five hard aid pitches. Having no partners, the only way I could climb it and not break my ‘no bivvy’ rule was to go for the solo push. I think that soloing an A4 (or harder) El Cap route in a day is one of those things that’s probably possible, but certainly a stout challenge. I was feeling good, so I decided it would probably be a fun adventure to try.

I had spent over an hour looking for the first pitch on a previous occasion and ended up giving up. Thankfully I redpointed the approach second go, stumbling upon it the day before I planned to climb whilst carrying the rack up. It definitely looked pretty thin off the ground with some hooking to a rusty, several decade old copperhead in an overlap. There was a pointy boulder on the ground right where you’d land from 15-20 feet up if the head blew or you fell from the hook moves above it.

It seemed to me like you’d probably break your ankles if you fell, but if you had some bouldering pads and a spotter it would be totally chill. I debated asking around the SAR site if anyone would want to come up and spot me (and carry me down if things went wrong), but decided this would invalidate the solo. Plus, if I did crater, I could just crawl down the Zodiac talus field, which already feels like breaking your ankles at the best of times.

Day 1 - Unconfirmed A5

I turned up the next morning and pounded in five upside down beaks for my belay anchor before setting off on theoretically my first A5 pitch. I had brought my rated skyhooks, which I left on two hook placements before the scary section. The weight of my ladder snapping the cable of the head didn’t really frighten me as I was expecting to have to replace it. I got to work cleaning out the deadhead with my butterknife.

As I pried out the lump of copper, the entire section of rock broke off too, completely destroying the placement. I was convinced then that I would have to bail, mentally abandoning the idea of the one day solo after 15 minutes of climbing.

Out of curiosity, I tried to see if the pitch would still go without needing to drill a rivet. I began to climb slowly and cautiously, no longer looking at the clock. Instead of the one obvious head placement, there were now three tiny micro depressions in the hollow sounding flake. I tried to place a #1 beak in the best one, but it was too shallow and ripped during testing. Out of desperation I tried to place my smallest head into one of the depressions. The top half of it sunk slightly into the placement, though it was too long for the bottom half to go in. I didn’t want to hammer it too much and risk breaking off more rock.

I repeated this with the other two tiny placements, before equalising all three. I’d be surprised if any one of them would have held my body weight, but together they held a fairly meaty bounce test. I decided to just get on them and keep moving up. A couple hooks later I was at the rivet. The pitch seemed to lose its sting after that, though remained unobvious and technical.

I think the way I climbed it, I’d call the pitch modern A3+, but replacing the heads had cost me a load of time. I got up to the belay just over two hours after I’d started and whilst technically this was on pace to do it in a day, I felt like I’d be exhausted by the top. The more times I’ve solo pushed El Cap, the harder it’s become to forget how fucking miserable it is.

I went back down to the ground and went through my options whilst cleaning the pitch. I decided to bail on the one day attempt, and instead to fix that pitch, come back, and wall it out. I rapped back down to the ground and went to get some supplies for one night of bigwall camping.

Day 2 - Replacing a Smashed Bolt

I came back the next day intending to fix two more pitches. Luckily I’d managed to get a hold of Bridwell’s original topo, as it showed the second pitch as being 5.8 climbing into a section of A4, whilst Sloan’s topo had the entire pitch as 5.8 with an optional A4 variation to the right. I free climbed easily off the belay, then happily expected the thin aid section. The pitch had a lot of transitioning between free and aid climbing with a few ledges and not great gear, but I kept calm and made my way through it.

I got up to a ledge to find a smashed bolt with a flattened hanger and an ancient knifeblade was to be my belay. I wasn’t inspired by this, deciding I’d need to drill another bolt. The ledge was at the edge of the danger zone below the Waterfall Route rock scar, so I decided to climb into the next pitch and add the bolt next to the C1 crack. This would make a sheltered cam and bolt belay rather than a rockfall exposed bolt and knifeblade one. It was my first time drilling on someone else’s route mid pitch, but it felt justified given the rockfall potential. At that point I was very happy to not be trying to climb the route in a day.

After cleaning and hauling the second pitch, I got to work leading the third. The topo had been quite confusing whilst looking from the ground, but being at the base of the pitch, it began to make sense. Other than some slightly suspect rock getting into a steep groove, the pitch was entirely easy fun. I came down from the top of that pitch, fixing the ropes to the ground with the plan to blast the next day.

Day 3 - Committing to the Wall

I had been hauling a bag with all my water and camping gear whilst fixing, so in the morning I just jugged to my highpoint with a backpack of food and pulled my ropes up. That really sped up the start of my day.

I was slightly worried about pitches 4 and 5 since they had 5.9 and 5.10 grades listed on the topo. Although I can climb 5.10, rope soloing runout mandatory 5.10 friction slab isn’t my favourite thing in the world. I guessed that they weren’t actually mandatory, so left my free shoes at the belay to manifest that.

I turned out to be right, with both pitches being mostly C1 with some sections of chill fifth class terrain that was easy to do in my approach shoes. I decided to sleep at the top of the 5th pitch at a really good ledge and to fix the 6th to get a head start on the final day.

The 6th pitch was quite a long one - 175’ of supposed A4. It started easily up a C1 crack to a smaller ledge with another bolt. I was slightly worried that this could be the actual belay at the top of pitch 5 (as it turned out to be) but I also had an 80m rope so was mostly confident that I would have enough. Off this ledge it was slightly thin, with some loose rock, but good cams weren’t far away.

From the cams, some bomber beaks led to a rivet ladder that turned into a head ladder. I got quite scared on the heads, even though there was nothing to hit below. They were decades old and exposed to the rain and runoff, so had rusted a fair bit. I was surprised that none ripped, and I placed one of my own between two on the ladder in case I fell. Above, the heads it turned back to beaks, bad and shallow at first, but soon sinker to the belay.

I was relieved to finish the pitch. It hadn’t been at all dangerous, but I had let myself get scared by the idea of taking a big clean fall. It was my first time that season experiencing the relief of finishing a heads up, engaging pitch. That, combined with all the beer I had brought and the great ledge below, meant my evening turned into a bit of a solo ledge rave.

Day 4 - The Perfect Beak Splitter

For some reason I woke up the next morning really thirsty, with a headache and an aversion to the sun. Strange. I felt slightly better after cleaning and hauling the pitch from the previous day, with my 70m haul line just about reaching the bivvy ledge from the top of the pitch.

The seemingly thin climbing off the belay of pitch 7 turned out to be a lot easier than expected, and I was very quickly on the ledge at the base of the second “A5” pitch. It seemed like a fall from the start of the 8th pitch wasn’t guaranteed to be clean, so I was slightly apprehensive as I started to lead it. A hook over a loose flake and a tipped out beak off the belay failed to inspire confidence, but then two unexpectedly sinker offset cams ended the difficulties. There was a potentially interesting small crumbly hook placement higher up on the pitch, but I left one of my rated hooks tensioned down on a sinker placement just to the side, which made it feel sport climbing safe.

From that crumbly hook, I hammered the first of a multitude of beaks into the amazing straight-in splitter. Almost every beak was A1, though the pitch was slowed down a bit by having to clean out the dirt and mixed shrubbery. When the crack petered out, a few rivets crossed the blank rock to a section that was tricky with my dwindling rack. Eventually, I mantled off a hook onto the ledge above, happy to be done with all the hard aid.

The 9th and 10th pitches were only given 5.7, but seemed very windy with lots of ledges, loose rock, and suspect protection. The gear belay I had made at the top of the 8th pitch was pretty good, but I wasn’t really psyched by the prospect of making one in the middle of the choss above. I decided I’d try to link the pitches. If worst came to worst, I’d just make a belay with half my rack holding together all the crap.

The climbing wasn’t too hard, but was definitely thought provoking as nothing felt entirely solid and it seemed to be held together by mud. I weaved around the broken ground, thankful to be soloing with my rope snaking back and forth between the sparse protection. I reached the overgrown summit tree, clawing my way through it to get to it’s trunk, just before I ran out of my 80m of lead line. The summit haul would have been awful had my bag been heavy, but I had dumped my spare water and had very little stuff in general for my one night on the wall.

I quickly packed my rack into the backpack I’d brought and stashed it, before running down with my haul bag to try to make it to the lodge in time for a hot dinner (I was going to write proper food but reconsidered)

Afterthoughts

It was actually a pretty worthy route. Pitches 6 and 8 in particular were phenomenal. I would call it more like modern 5.7 A3+, but I do think it deserves its Grade VI (I don’t think anyone can climb this quicker than they climb the Nose). I think if I would have carried on with my solo push mission, I’d have finished in about 24-30 hours. I reckon it would totally go solo in a day after my ascent though, with the route now having cleaner cracks, some better heads, and good belays. That being said, I don’t think I’m motivated to go back for it.

The surrounding area has a fair bit of potential for free climbing. Lost in Translation (5.12) is the only other route between the East Buttress and the rock scar, but you could probably get another couple in. Pretty much all of Dark Star would probably go free with some variations.

Recommended Rack

Despite being tempted to pass on the sandbag of the “Everything” rack that I’d been blessed with, below is what I would bring if I were to do it again.

• Cams: 3ea to #1, 2ea #2-#4, 1ea #5

• Offset Cams: 1ea

• Nuts: 1ea

• 10-15 Heads

• Beaks: 6ea #1, 10ea #2, 15ea #3

• Rivet hangers: 5 inc. thin and plates

• Hooks: 2ea + 1ea 3” hook.

• Bolt kit (if unhappy on single bolt/gear belays)

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