Inverted Staircase Trip Report 9/7/07
In which Spyork and I discover we’re not ready to come out to play with the big boys and girls.

I’ve wanted to do this route for a long time. I’ve done the Regular route on Fairview a couple of times and Inverted Staircase seemed like it might be a second line to try that could be within my ability. It has a reputation as being a route that doesn’t get done that often with grass in the cracks. An old school adventure. I managed to talk Spyork into going with me even though our original plan was to do the EB of El Cap which is easier.

Here is a picture of the route. The topo is fine.

Here’s a picture of Spyork on the first pitch.
The first pitch is not hard technically but is a bit of a head game for the leader because of the moss and the pro being a little far apart and sometimes tricky to place. The second pitch turns a small roof maybe 5.8, which turns into about 20 feet of sustained thinish 5.9. You can see this going up and left in the picture above. The belay takes small gear, 5/8”, which I had already used so I moved up to the next ledge on the topo.

Here’s Spyork on the third pitch.
We had a moment of doubt on the direction of the fourth pitch but you just stay in the left corner of the big feature that is the first four pitches until it’s natural to move to the center.
The ledge at the end of this pitch is huge with beautiful views. The crack for the belay was calling out for a .75 Camelot but I had none. I ended up using a red TCU, a number 2 lowball, a 00 TCU and a “11 BD stopper. We bootied quite a few rappel anchors getting to this point. Probably that should have told us something.

Here’s a picture of Spyork moving out the dike toward the one bolt on the traverse.
He’s about 25 feet out from the belay, looking at a penji fall into a corner if he came off and I said “Are you in a good place? I should take your picture”. He’s like “Hell no, keep belaying”. I say “This could be the best climbing shot ever taken of you.”
“OK, Take it fast.”

He moved around the corner clipped the bolt and could not figure out the next moves. In the end I lowered him down to some small ledges he could cross and he made it over to the crack. He climbed the crack and then back cleaned so I wouldn’t take a bad fall while following. He then took a look at the technical crux of the route, some thin 10b face, and decided he wanted no part of it. He aided up it using the old pin, a small, now fixed, RP and the two bolts.
I followed across the dike to the bolt. The beta is that you step down a little and climb across. It was just really thin. I stepped down and then back up about three times. I just couldn’t see a sequence that looked probable. I’d look at the moves and then I’d look at the fall and swing I was going to take. The rope was coming down at about a 35 degree angle. I just haven’t taken very many falls, maybe that’s why I couldn’t imagine it was going to go well.
Eventually I used the 7mil haul line to lower myself across. I managed to climb the 10b and join Spyork at the belay. By now I was physically tired and mentally spent. I was impressed with Spyorks lead of this pitch. He just never gave up.

I started pulling on gear and was soon around the inverted staircase. I will say that every hold I grabbed seemed good and if you have gas in the tank when you get there this is probably some great climbing. I was getting close to the little roof at mid pitch when I started running out of gear and set up a belay. I thought this isn’t climbing anymore this is just BS. Maybe I hadn't eaten enough?
When Spyork came up I talked him into bailing onto the Regular Route. It actually took quite a bit of time to get over there because I’d set up a hanging belay in a vertical crack and setting up the rappel was a lot of messing around. We were at the bottom of the second pitch above Crescent Ledge. This is one of the best pitches on the climb. Corner to flakes to small roof with jug. Spyork had never done it so he led off. I couldn’t remember what happens after the roof but I knew it was easy. I couldn’t describe it that well. Spyork ended up going off route, straight up on cool 5.7/8 with some sketchy pro. Finally, we were done with the hard climbing. We did one more pitch and then simuled to the top. We even made it to the car with out breaking out the headlamps! Another great day. Thanks Steve.

Zander