Sometimes, we go to Mountain Project for the beta. But sometimes, we go for the chat. And sometimes, the chat is funny. We’ve seen brawls break out over bolts and grades. Stoke-spangled reviews—and ho-hum appraisals of testpieces. Crusty cameos. Sketchy ethics. And non-sequiturs that add to the lore of the classics.
Here are 19 of the funniest Mountain Project comments on classic routes in Yosemite.
Note: All comments are only very lightly edited for grammar to retain the casual forum feel and the voice of each commenting climber.
The Nose
“How many days does this take most people. I can preaty [sic] much do a 5.10 blind-folded.”
—Scott Morrison
“Great route. Few people know that the name comes from the Gogol short story. A man loses his nose, only to find out it had been baked into a loaf bread and subsequently masquerading around town as a local official.”
—Sendasaurus Rex
“This is it folks. The grand-daddy of all shit shows. Score Instagram content as you stand in ladders on perfect hand cracks. Witness behavior that can only be comparable to that seen at the airport on Thanksgiving day. Lastly, make sure to stroke the ego of NIAD’ers as they go by.”
—Sun Dawg
“Dreams Transcending!! The Force is strong with this one!”
—Mike Holley
Wings of Steel
“This seems like an absurd route. I watched the movie and it looked awful and not fun at all.”
—Giancarlo Rhodes
Freeblast
“I thought this climb sucked. I hope the rest of Freerider is better. We did Beggars Buttress and the Rostrum on the same trip. Both were way better. Maybe my expectations were too high for Freeblast, but considering the location and history you can understand why. Most of the climbing was forgettable awkward or just plain blah.”
—Heppnerd
Regular Northwest Face, Half Dome
“Route is much easier if you hire a mule to carry your stuff up to the rock. Some may call it cheating. I call it smart.”
—Sean Cobourn
“After years of having wet dreams about this route, I was finally offered a chance to make a push for the summit on my 26th birthday. May 2nd, 2015. The spring is running strong and is the best and coldest water you will ever taste. I promise.”
—MisterCattell Cattell
Snake Dike
“I climbed this 27 years ago. I brought my bagpipe up with me and I think I played Bonnie Charlie from the top. They say it was heard in the valley. Note I am not Celtic. Anyway the climb was fun if a lot of extra hiking up and down. I think with all the traffic, someone soloing might get knock off by the crowd.”
—dgelman
“Wow, there are a lot of redundant comments. Here’s a new one: **Don’t piss in the hole you heathens! Traversing over a few feet and peeing on blank rock that no one touches would be better than filling the hole at the belay.”
—Kristoffer Schmarr
West Face, Sentinel Rock
“I got a severe off-the-couch ass-whipping on this one in the early `80s despite being pretty solid on Yosemite 5.9 of the time on hexes and stoppers and yarded and rested on any and everything I could. Was jello by the end of the second day (originally was rated Grade VI, 5.9 A4/5 (?) one of the first in Yosemite). Still a testpiece no matter how you get up it by all recent reports.”
—King Tut
Black Fly
“I took Stefan Glowacz here early `90s and he couldn’t touch it. He rapped off by threading the rope through a bolt hanger (!). I belayed Coz [Scott Cosgrove] on the FA and he was doing shit with his feet I didn’t understand.”
—Joe Hedge
Southeast Buttress, Cathedral Peak
“Rap rings on the summit? C’mon, John Muir soloed up and down it with clogs made of granite. Okay it was leather boots, but still, if an old Scot can do it without sticky rubber, I think you can do it with sticky rubber.”
—Jiggs Casey
West Face, El Cap
“Ohhh my Buddha! Just did this route, late March 2016, and it was truly an epic and educational experience to say the least. Long approach, which is made much more grueling with haul bags. Essentially, every single pitch was seeping with water (some even mistakable for waterfalls) and the slippery wet exposed third-class top-out was most terrifying (with haul bags on back)! The 11c pitches were pretty stout, had to pull through gear on most cruxes … To make life much simpler I would totally recommend doing this route in a day if possible. Climbing is climbing though and overall it was still fun as biscuits!”
—Mike Holley
Waverly Wafer
“This spike of adrenaline due to wasp nest makes the climb significantly easier and may consider as use of doping. I propose to change rating of Waverly back to original 10c, while wasp is active.”
—Alexey Zelditch
South Face, Washington Column
“You are so right about the ants. :< I almost got eaten alive … my partner had to basically use me as a punching bag for over 10 minutes just to get all the ants off me … I think the ants got out some rage on me … It’s funny that some actually made it up to Dinner Ledge with me in my draws and they seem to know when you’re making a hard move.”
—Dwook Nicholson
“Partied on Dinner Ledge for my birthday a couple weekends back (weekend of 4/15). 12 fucking people up there! We drank tequila and beers, smoked some herb, watched Ryan lead the Kor Roof at night. It was fucking awesome!”
—Max McKee
Mr. Natural
“Wow … just super major woooooooow … if I could rename this route I would call it “what even is this life?” I was just that impressed with this climb. It really is so crazy how accurate it is that everyone I talk to about this route says it’s probably their favorite route ever. Every Yosemite climber needs to climb this route.”
—Andrew Upchurch
“Pitches like this almost make me believe in a higher power.”
—Skeletor 69
The post The 19 Funniest Mountain Project Comments on Yosemite Routes appeared first on Outside Online.
