El Capitan, Cleanup of the Nose. The Conservation Committee of the AAC provided a generous grant to a group of climbers from Prescott College in Arizona to clean the Nose Route of El Capitan and to educate climbers about conservation ethics on the big walls. The team was coordinated by AAC member Eve Tallman and included six Prescott students (Eric Adolphi, AAC member Matt Menard, Amos Whiting, Mike Ho, Steve Crillo, and Josh Cross), Yosemite climbers Christopher Trudeau and Constantine Severls, and climbing photographer Bill Hatcher, who provided photos and a press release to several international climbing magazines. Some of the team members collected trash from the base of the route, and then ascended to Dolt Tower before being hindered by foul weather. Meanwhile, other team members fixed lines up the East Ledges and collected trash from the summit. The "summit team" then fixed lines down to Camp VI and hauled several haulbags full of biohazard waste and garbage to the summit. In all, two dozen bags of trash were excavated from the cracks on the Camp VI ledge and the summit; the bags were shuttled by the climbers to the "true summit" of El Cap and were removed later in the season by the National Park Service. Equipment for the cleanup was generously donated by A5 Adventures, Mountain Gear, Patagonia, PMI-Petzl, Sterling Ropes, and Rock Exotica.

Tallman, Adolphi and Menard presented a draft of a new Yosemite Climbing brochure at the AAC annual meeting in Oakland, and completed the text for a modified Big Wall Climbers Brochure in the spring. The brochure details conservation and safety considerations, includes bivouac information and promotes a "leave no trace" ethic. Printing costs for the brochure were underwritten by the AAC grant.

Eve Tallman