Famed Yosemite Climber’s Rating System Included “Don’t Fall Here”

In 1998, Boulos Ayad, Tyson Hausdoerffer, and Jim Bridwell established an 11-pitch new route on the southeast face of El Capitan. They named it Heavy Metal and Tinker Toys (VI 5.10 PDH), a title that reflected both the clang of iron and the delicacy required to survive it. The line eventually joins Atlantic Ocean and New Jersey Turnpike for 19 total pitches, which the team climbed over ten days. In the process they placed 18 belay bolts, 36 machine bolt rivets, and filled 54 holes.

Bridwell, never fond of the inflated mythology surrounding aid ratings, introduced the Abbreviated Aid Rating System (AARS) on the climb. “The old A1 to A5 scale,” he remarked, “has been so redefined and abused it’s become campfire fiction.” The AARS stripped things down to three honest categories: NBD (No Big Deal), NTB (Not Too Bad), and PDH (Pretty Dam Hard). When prudence demanded, they added a seriousness modifier: WHU (Way Heads Up) and, more ominously, DFH (Don’t Fall Here). “Simple,” Bridwell said. “If it’s PDH and DFH, you’d better be awake.”

The new route begins about ten meters right of Wyoming Sheep Ranch and Continental Drift. Nineteen-year-old Boulos Ayad took the sharp end on the first pitch, a serious lead with ground-fall potential that crossed the long traverse of Continental Drift some 50 feet above the deck. Bridwell later called it “a proper way to start, no illusions, no warm-up.” A fixed rope was installed, and the following day Tyson Hausdoerffer led the second pitch, delicately crossing a 35-foot blank section on 5/16-inch machine bolt rivets placed in shallow 1/4-inch holes. “Caution is not optional,” Bridwell noted dryly, suggesting future parties treat the rivets with respect.

The next three pitches were straightforward to follow, though rarely straightforward to climb. All rated PDH, they generally wandered right toward the New Jersey Turnpike. Hausdoerffer led pitch six, intersecting the Turnpike via pendulum. Pitch seven, while not especially difficult, proved serious and initially cryptic. From the third of three hook moves, a small pendulum right led to easier free climbing. After thirty feet of thin, sometimes expanding flakes, the climber encountered a three-foot roof formed by a massive flake. A single bolt marked the belay – “unnecessary,” Bridwell admitted, “but merciful to the eyes.” Near the end of the next lead, a move right gained a ledge and a two-bolt anchor.

The following day, after what Bridwell described as a “super-human hauling effort,” Hausdoerffer led a long PDH, WHU pitch to a small triangular ledge. Ayad then climbed an NTB pitch to the top of a small pillar fifteen feet left of the Gulfstream route.

Still hunting for untouched stone, Bridwell moved down and left, free climbing loose flakes before resorting to copperheads that led through even looser terrain. The line drifted back toward the Gulfstream, emerging twenty feet below Boston Tea Party ledge. There, reality intruded.

“In the finite quest for new territory,” Bridwell reflected, “you eventually run into someone else’s dream.” Above them, copperhead wires sprouted from a crack they had hoped was virgin. The hope of a completely independent line dissolved. They joined Atlantic Ocean for two pitches, then finished via New Jersey Turnpike.

“Walls aren’t conquered,” Bridwell said afterwards. “They’re negotiated. Sometimes you win a little ground. Sometimes you just learn where you stand.” Heavy Metal and Tinker Toys is now graded A4+ or A5 depending on the guidebook.

Sources: SuperTopo, American Alpine Journal, El Cap Report.

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