Pete Zabrok’s El Cap Expando Epic
Ontario climber Pete Zabrok made his
61st El Cap route the Winds of Change. He made the second ascent of the VI 5.10 A5 with Neil Chelton and Erik Mckinley Eriksson. When the team reached The Pinnacle of Hammerdom, they found the
60-metre tall feature moved and crushed some of their gear. Zabrok tells the story as, “Three days ago during our morning coffee, we were showered with about a minute of fine sand falling from above. We realized the pinnacle is loose and expanding. We had to get out of there. After the load was hauled, the crack closed up and ate two of our Camalots. Chelton led the next pitch up the left sideplacing a #3 and #4 for pro. A few hours later when the rock had cooled, the crack closed up so tight that we could barely extract the cams. That’s like an inch of expando in only a couple hours. We soon reached the solid wall above.”