The Importance of the Asterisk

In summer 2018, I crimped the side of a thin crack at Area A at Colorado’s Mount Evans, then gastoned a ghost hold with my right hand, smeared my right foot, and stood up, launching myself up the iconic Seurat, one of Colorado best alpine boulder problems. However, I wasn’t sure if I’d truly sent. As with so many things in climbing, there were nuances to the problem—such as the starting position used on the first ascent—that resituated my effort in a larger context. Namely, “Who makes the rules of climbing?”

Alex Biale climbing on Seurat (V8)

In 1995, the Fort Collins climber Ben Scott hiked in to the Chicago Lakes on the flanks of Mount Evans and began establishing problems on the area’s clean white granite blocks. Some he gave names like Dali and Bierstadt after the famous painters. He started Seurat, named for the late-1800s painter and inventor of pointilism Georges Seurat, with his right hand in the crack and his left hand palming down. The way I climbed the crack, with my hands in a different sequence, made for a more difficult starting move; however, it also allowed me to skip a hand move once I got going. 

Later that night, I took a poll on my Instagram account, which was seen by 944 people, asking if what I’d done counted. Some 75 percent agreed that my ascent was “2 legit to quit,” while 25 percent felt it was “invalid salad.” A few days later, I returned to the problem and tried Scott’s start, but failed higher at the crux. I spoke with Scott about the problem afterwards. “If you can’t fully stand up for your whole experience or accomplishment for doing it the original way, then you’re just looking for a little boost to your ego,” he said.

While Scott’s statement drew a hard line, he had a solid point. Many climbers who talk about their ascents do so because they’re seeking validation. But oftentimes their need for validation can eclipse their need to tell the entire truth—to be accurate and honest when recounting the particulars of their ascent. Climbers have defined what terms like “send” mean: The Climbing Dictionary’s first definition is “to free-climb without falling, either as a redpoint, flash or onsight.” Representing otherwise or failing to correct a misconception is to lie by omission, spreading mistruths that often catch up to you in the court of public opinion. The way past this is to represent the facts with an asterisk, to clarify your ascent. I’ve spent the majority of my climbing career in Yosemite, where the asterisks are many and the lines get murkier than where you started with your hands on a boulder problem.

Joe Mills climbs the Salathe Headwall

In 1988, Todd Skinner and Paul Piana made the first free ascent of El Capitan via the Salathé Wall. However, their ascent had a few asterisks. In spots, they did it in a style in which one person freed a pitch and then the second jumared, so they didn’t each free every pitch. However, they also climbed the original aid line, completing the difficult nineteenth pitch, a 5.13c flaring, pin-scarred crack. The second free ascent of El Capitan came in 1993 when Lynn Hill freed the Nose. Then Hill set a new standard for style in 1994, freeing the Nose again, this time leading every pitch free in a single day—a highmark that in the quarter century since has only been achieved on the Nose by one other climber: Tommy Caldwell. So, should all other climbers who want to free El Cap now be held to this standard: leading every pitch in a day? Simple logic would dictate that the answer is no—few will be skilled enough.

 The consensus on how big-wall free climbing should be done is murky at best. At times, people climb pitches out of order. Or the second hangs a toprope for the person freeing the route. Or the climbers leave the wall to resupply, and then rappel back in to free the crux. Other times, people skip crux pitches—for example, how the Salathé gets climbed now, avoiding the 5.13c nineteenth pitch in favor of a 5.11 offwidth. Add in fixed lines that let you move freely about the wall and the continuous-ascent debate, and suddenly it’s more of a difference than the number of pads you’re standing on to reach the starting holds at the boulders. However, what hasn’t changed is a need for clarity.

There will always be a need for clarity.

Brette Harrington climbs on the heavily manufactured The Phoenix (5.13a)

In 2015, I sent the Freerider on El Capitan in a day after 40 days of effort over 4 years, leading every pitch and freeing the route with my friend Austian Siadak jumaring behind with a backpack of supplies. However, I have a few asterisks. After falling three times on the sixth pitch, a delicate 5.11 slab on Freeblast I climbed by headlamp at 4 a.m., I yo-yo’ed, leaving the rope clipped to the first three bolts. I did the same on the first Enduro Corner pitch, pitch 26. I fell at the crux and then lowered, toproping back to my highpoint with the gear in situ. On the last 5.12 pitch, a short traverse on pitch 24, I grabbed the rope momentarily when I thought I was falling. My belayer couldn’t hear me from around the corner, and I didn’t want to whip any farther than I had to. Lowering back to the belay, pulling the rope, and re-leading the pitch seemed excessive. There’s lots of excuses, and I had them all: At that point, I’d been on the go for 12 hours, with only 575 feet of climbing left to do. It was time to move on. I returned to a no-hands stance and then finished the pitch. While my ascent was less than perfect, it was what I could do at the time. These asterisks provided opportunities to learn, though. As notes of truth, they showed me just how I could make mastery of climbing more important than the send.

Jess Talley boulders on Yeah (V0) in Yosemite.

IN 2011, my girlfriend, Nina Williams, grabbed a series of crimps on Joe’s Valley’s black-and-grey Resident Evil Boulder. She moved through a difficult sequence, got a heel-toe cam in a crack, and topped out. She thought she’d sent the namesake problem. However, unknowingly she—as have many others—had started higher than the first ascentionist, Stephen Jeffrey, who climbed the line in 1999.

 “I started Resident Evil so low that no poser could come along years later and say they added a sit start, try to rename it, and claim the FA,” says Jeffrey. When he climbed the problem, he also ended in a different spot. In the mid-2000s, a tree growing out of a jug at the top was removed and the problem was extended for a longer, albeit easier exit. Jeffery estimates that the way people do it now is V8/9, easier than the original V10. The logical start, on slightly higher holds, to the logical finish, using the old dead tree hold, makes for the best problem, and one that frequently appears in 8a.nu scorecard videos.  

 Earlier this year, Nina and I headed to Joe’s. Nina wanted to return to Resident Evil, since she’d learned she’d done it from the improper start. This time she began on the lower holds; after warming up to the tiny crimps, she climbed as Jeffrey had, though she finished on the logical end. Repeating the problem from the original start displayed her growth in climbing over the past seven years—she had improved on her style of ascent.

 This past summer, we’ve been bouldering a lot in Chaos Canyon in Rocky Mountain National Park. While I ticked off moderates, Nina projected the Automator, a 20-move V13.  After working the problem for six days, she finally pieced it together, climbing the initial hard crimp moves to the difficult redpoint crux. She stuck the move and topped out, but as she came around the boulder she had a perplexed look, like something wasn’t quite right. Earlier on the climb, she told me, her back had grazed the pads, and she felt like she’d dabbed. Instead of leaving the asterisk, she rested for 30 minutes and then repeated Automator, one of her hardest problems ever, without touching the pads.

 As my strength over the summer has increased, so too has my desire to return to Seurat and send it from the proper start. Watching Nina scrub away her asterisks has inspired me: It’s shown me that progression is sometimes displayed in style, in a push to make your best effort even better. Although I’m satisfied with my effort on Freerider, I haven’t ruled out returning. I’ve also taken what I learned on its punishing slabs and cracks to apply to future climbs. Perhaps the next time I free-climb El Cap, I’ll work it from the ground, or swing leads with a partner in a day. Or maybe I won’t spend 40 days sussing the beta, or I’ll climb my route with no falls. Though the asterisks are difficult to admit, and I wish they weren’t there—that I was climbing in the best possible style at all times—without those little dots, what would I have to improve on? In a sport where nobody, really, makes the rules and where we rely on each other to be honest about our ascents, I’ve come to see this as a fundamental question.

First published in Climbing 364