Chingando 5.10

In the 1994 "Yosesmite Climbs" guide by Don Reid on page 74 the climb Chingando 5.10a has the notation "Part of the Hardman Offwidth Training Circuit." I have looked and this is the first edition in which that notation appears for the "topo" guides. Searching the rest of the book also reveals that the rest of the "training circuit" is unidentified. This is not good, as one's imagination can cook up a brutal circuit to train on... which is where we are right now.

"We" in this case consists mostly of Gary and me... with our friends thrown in on the occasional trip to the Valley. Last weekend, 11/25/06, we day tripped up to the Valley to do Chingando, with Steve and George. George has at least been to some offwidth sessions on Gary's excellent crack machine. Steve was coming off the couch, and as usual, was game for anything.

Roper's green guide has this to say:

Chingando
I, 5.10. This difficult one-pitch climb was first led by Chuck Pratt in June 1965. Chingando is the 150-foot jamcrack on the outer face of the Iota. Hardware: 6 pitons, 1 1/2" to 3".

In his "Camp 4" he writes (on page 197) "Another developing trend in 1965 concerned difficult crack climbing. Pratt stood head and shoulders above anyone else in this department, establishing routes such as Entrance Exam, Chingando, Twilight Zone and the left side of the Slack. All these routes involved difficult, off-width jamcracks -- and all were either 5.9 or 5.10. It was Pratt's biggest year, with ten first ascents recorded."

Modern alterations to this route consist solely of the belay station about 115-feet above the commodious belay ledge under the crack, south facing, it gets sun all day if the skies are clear.

Gary and I had gone up there before, and not done as badly as we could have... we were pretty psyched to get to the top this time as we got to a high point and ran out of big gear at a place it wasn't going to be nice to try to run it to the top. On that occasion we scrambled around to the back of the formation, got to to the very top and rapped down to retrieve the gear.

This time I lead up through the alcove and set the first piece in the cruxy squeeze just above. I was up and down a couple of times then lowered out. Gary was heard to mumble "shit!" as it was his lead in the rotation.

Here is Gary in the initial hand jam section just off the deck with George belaying through my pieces above...

Here is Gary working through the crux section, now leading with much of the route shown

Up high the difficulty eases off, but so do the pro possibilities. When I'm doing a Pratt climb I often ask myself "what would Pratt do?" the answer is usually "heel toe, dummy!" Here is Gary running out the wide section heel-toeing like a demon going for the bolts.

George was next, he made it with some hangs on top rope, but learned a lot out in the "real world"

Of course, comfy belay ledges are always nice!
Gary luxuriates while Steve belays George.

Steve was next, here he gets a no-hands rest just above the initial hand/fist crack start. He's sitting on the top of a flake pretty comfortably

I top roped the route as did Gary, much fun! or at least just like fun only different...

It was a good day by the time everyone got their fill of this climb. Steve split and we three went down to Generator Crack and couldn't get the mojo going. We did meet katiebird and Jesse, they were very nice and let us use their rope. We didn't make a good show. Throughly thrashed, we headed home.