In 1973, those of us climbing in the Valley had three seasons of the 70’s freeclimbing boom behind us. Lots of climbers were putting up lots of great new routes. The graph I prepared a few years ago shows what happened to climbing in 1970.
George Meyers, Kevin Worrall, and I were in the thick of the new wave of climbing and had just started to focus on first ascents. We had done many of the established routes in the Cathedrals with Middle holding a special appeal. Earlier in the year I had climbed the first ascent of the Central Pillar of Frenzy with Jim Bridwell and Dale Bard; George and Kevin had (mostly) free climbed the Bircheff-Williams. We decided to look for something new to do.

We drove down to Middle and started walking from near the CPoF towards the West. We walked all the way over to the beginning of the Gunsight. I had done “The Flakes," and I think that George had climbed the first pitch, or part of the first pitch, of what would become “Mother Earth” (he didn’t have a concept of the route going beyond that point at the time.)

After we had walked along the whole face, we decided to try a new route on the as yet unclimbed North Face Apron. The upper North Face of Middle is the gloomiest face in the Valley, while the Apron is colorful and pretty in the sunlight. However, there are not many features to hang a route on. But this is also true of the Northeast Face, so we just figured we would give it a try.

As we all know, the first thing you do before you start a climb is study the Topo.
In this case, it wasn’t much help.

I gauged the distances from left and right and declared the starting point of our attempt: La Direttissima per Ora Dove .
George asked me why I didn’t start up the obvious little corner about 100 feet to the left. My response: “That is too obvious a place to start a route.” That corner became the start of the second route on the Apron, “Quicksilver,” which Kevin and George and Vern Clevenger (as Kevin points out in the comments below) put up later in the year.

The first pitch is long and not so hard (5.7 in the guide). There is no place for natural gear, and I didn’t put in any bolts. (One has been added, fortunately.) When George asked me about putting something in, I told him it was easy climbing and kept going. He responded by silently letting the belay rope drop from both hands and fall to the ground. (The drama of this gesture is only apparent with hip belays.)

Since the first pitch was an approach pitch, I also took the second.


Here I am assessing how to get up into those small corners. I am standing in a hole, both literally and figuratively, about here.



I climbed back to the belay, and started from the left, placing a bolt a bit above the ledge to protect the belay.
We were on our way, on our way to nowhere, by the direct route, on a north face, no less.

In this series of pictures, I have kept it PG-13. While bolts for protection and belays are shown, there are no pictures of anyone drilling or pictures with drilling paraphernalia hanging from a sling. There are however a few shots of packs, but since they are not being carried by the lead climber, there is no reason to think that they are full of courage.

George took the next pitch up through a steep but not-so-hard (5.8) band of crystals with some natual protection.


He is about here:

In the picture above George is moving up and away from the belay. As almost always happends on first ascents of slab routes, you get a bit higher and realize that there is a better line somewhere where you are not. In the following pictures, George has apparently backed down to the belay and moved right before climbing up into the crystal band.


Above the crystals, there is a cool traverse back to the Direttissima. But you, dear reader, will have to wait for another day of pictures to see it.


For the fourth pitch, Kevin climbed up and left to a long corner, but it was steep, hold-less, and offered no protection. I razzed him too much and had to apologize. Kevin downclimbed, and we rapped off. (In the comments below, Kevin indicates that he finished the pitch. Then we rapped off.)

We returned a day or two later,
George climbed the first pitch (I am sure that I kept him on belay the whole time),

Kevin followed, then I climbed far to the left, off route, with a wiggle to the direttissima: il percorso dimenare sinistra.
George led the second pitch.

Kevin followed. Here he is just before the belay.
At the top of the second pitch, I told a really funny story. I think Kevin is embarrassed.


Here is the top of the third pitch, with its cool, bolt protected traverse. It is rated 5.10b. This sequence has been pictured in George's Yosemite Climber after color pictures were invented. It is about here:


The picture below was used in "Yosemite Climber." It is the only picture of George in his book: he writes the book to announce the best of modern Yosemite climbing and he only includes a black and white picture of him following a North Apron slab!!!! So much for ego driven Valley Boys. I think it is on page 25. (When he asked, I offered him some very cool and exciting pictures of me climbing to put into his book. He then got to practice the delicate task of turning me down.)



My memory is not good on what happened next. I know I exchanged film and, apparently, we climbed the next pitch.

I do not remember leading it, and the pictures show George followed, so it must have been Kevin’s lead. This makes sense since Kevin had been shut down trying to go up to the corners above and left of the belay on the previous attempt. This is George climbing up to the next belay, which I think must be the top of the 4th pitch. (This has been edited since I realized that I had inadvertently wrote 5th instead of 4th.)
You can see a bolt that he had unclipped in the first picture, left of (below in the picture) his left hand near the edge of the frame. If this is the 4th pitch (edited), then this section is rated 5.10b. This is my favorite picture series of all time. Partly it is the texture of the rock and George's body positions filling more of each frame, but mostly it is the finish, with George standing on the small, scalloped ledge, relaxed and smiling.

George takes the lead but stops to snap a picture of Kevin and me, sitting in butt bags, freezing.
George starts left, points right, then continues up above his protection bolt.

As I leave the belay, I snap a couple of pictures of the most forlorn climber in all of Valley Hardman lore. Here is Kevin, again, anxiously awaiting for the ‘on belay.’ Soon he joined us.
It was very cold. (But don't they look all Eruo and hard on our Direttissima North Face?) We took in the view and then rapped off.

There was a third day, in which the three of us started back up to the base of the Apron. I, however, was distracted. I cannot remember her name, or what the circumstances were, but this picture probably says it well enough.

About 200 yards into the forest on our direct approach to the base, I bailed, insisting that George and Kevin go ahead and find ‘nowhere’ higher on the Apron.

I had to be somewhere.


As you can see, I left the world of our cold, dark direttissima and joined the warmth of color, bare shoulders, and silken legs.


It was a cool climb and as the first climb on the Apron of Middle Cathedral Rock, it helped to establish our young generation. Some of these pictures ended up in my Middle Cathedral Rock climbing history article published in Mountain in 1976. Middle Cathedral Commentary

Special thanks to Ed Hartouni for scanning the negatives.