The Birth of Skot’s Bigwall Climbing

By Mark Hudon

Skot had just posted a photo of a wire dog bone he had made and was getting the usual rude and condescending SuperTopo comments, “that’s been done before”, “those swages don’t look any good” (although Skot is a Nationally Certified Heavy Lift Specialist and Rigger), “that’s gonna break and you’re gonna die”.

I felt bad for him so I messaged him privately and told him that although the idea wasn’t new, I was glad to see someone was at least using their brain to try to do something. We started talking about big walls and eventually met when he drove to Yosemite to help me hump loads to the base of an El Cap route. Being a longshoreman and ironworker, Skot is all about systems. He immediately started asking about big walls and how did this or that work. He was a quick learner and he seemed to intrinsically understand wall climbing and it was fun to talk with him.

In the fall of 2013 we agreed to climb the West Face of Leaning Tower together. I don’t think Skot had ever done a route longer than two pitches and certainly very little aiding. He did well on the first pitch and when I got to his anchor, he asked me to critique it. It was mostly fine but I gave him a few tips. Skot was a quick study and every anchor since has been perfect.

The next year we climbed Albatross in the spring and then Son of Heart in the fall. I remember teaching Skot how to place pitons as he led above me. It wasn’t very long before Skot was swaging rivet hangers and copperheads for our ascents. I had come up with the idea of tying a loop of webbing to the top of Beaks to make them easier to rack and Skot took the idea further and began sewing color code webbing to them.

I popularized the 2:1 hauling system developed by Chongo but it was Skot who spent the time scouring the internet to find the pieces that made it as slick, light and efficient as it is today. It wasn’t long before Skot was my best big wall partner and a much sought after partner on his own. Along the way Skot has never stopped looking at a system or piece of gear and wondered how he couldn’t make it better.