Flirting with Dreams in the Valley of Stone

Flirting with Dreams in the Valley of Stone

Yosemite Valley, CA
October 2012

                 

    "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."
                                                                                                                                                  -Goerte

I grew up in the traditions of western science and puritan pragmatism.  Success is earned through work, luck is the sum of preparation, a penny saved is a penny earned, etc.  Claims that the universe provides if we ask, attributing benevolence to the cosmos, the nebulous idea of “oneness”…this all neatly fell under the “new-age” label.  Experiences in my journey as a climber are forcing me to challenge that paradigm. 

Waking up in Camp 4 the morning after climbing and descending Half Dome, I pulled on slippers and a puffy jacket, staggered to my bear box, and huddled in a lawn chair nursing a mug of coffee and a bowl of oats.  Still exhausted from the Half Dome mission, I was aware of basic sensations: my chilly hands welcomed the warm mug, my back was a sore slab of meat, my thighs throbbed from my knees to my groin, tenderized by the 5000 feet of vertical ascent and descent the previous day.  I stared blankly at a squirrel sniffing at the lid of my food box which I’d failed to properly shut.  The sonic soup of Camp 4 bubbled all around: the hiss of propane burners, the clink of aluminum, garbled voices in English, Spanish, Czech, Swedish, German…, the drone of motorcycles, dumpsters slamming, garbage trucks backing up…I soaked in middle of it and took stock.  I had accomplished a few goals, I was tired, and I didn’t have any partners or any real plans.  The prospect of another week in Camp 4 spent hovering like a raven around campsites and the message board scavenging for partners didn’t seem very enticing.  Maybe it was time to move on; after all, I had food, wheels, and some cash still.  I could pack up today and leave for the solace of the road.

But in my gut I knew I wasn’t quite done.  There were things I came here to do, goals built upon four years of dreaming.

In the midst of these thoughts my compadre Jim wandered over with a cup of coffee, wondering how Half Dome went.  Before I could respond we were joined by a European-looking man who I vaguely recognized.  He greeted us in familiarity but I could not recall his name or where we’d even met him.  As conversation unfolded I started connecting the dots: a brief exchange in the parking lot, talking beta on Half Dome, the Nose.  Standard fare.  A question shattered my thought bubble, thickly accented, vaguely German:

“and you, what are your goals?” 

“Nose in a Day, or Astroman,” I heard myself say.

Anton (ah! That was his name) introduced himself; his partner had just returned to Sweden, he had another week or so in the Valley, he was entertaining those goals as well.  Soon we had topos out, discussing beta and tactics.  Have you short-fixed before? No, me either.  A Dolt Tower run would be a good idea, to see how we work together.  Unfortunately the sky promised rain the next day and regardless I was too sore to walk further than the bathroom.  We agreed to rest and maybe do a little free climbing together tomorrow, weather permitting.  A clever idea flashed in my mind.  Have you climbed The Moratorium?  It’s a fun 3-pitch crack climb, not committing.  I had a score to settle with that route and had been trying in vain to rustle up a partner for 2 weeks.

The Moratorium

Despite tender legs and a sporadic drizzle Anton and I climbed The Moratorium the next day.  I felt solid, psyched to finally send the crux, until I got to the glassy corner and found the key fingerlocks seeping wet.  I understand some people can crank through it in this state but I’m not that strong, although getting on the rock with Anton was promising.  He is a strong crack climber, a rare commodity in Europe, and we grooved well together.  A taste of hard free climbing excited something within both of us too.  Hiking down in the drizzle we agreed that after much time monkeying around on big walls what we really wanted was some good pure free climbing, so we tucked The Nose onto the back shelf and began to focus on preparing for Astroman. 

 

I still harbored doubt that I could climb Astroman, but I committed to taking the preliminary steps.  My friend Chris Barlow, who regularly sends 5.13, warned me, “before you even think of climbing Astroman, you need to CRUSH the Rostrum, I mean top out and want more.”  Returning to the Rostrum would be a logical step; besides, it was unfinished business.  Anton had also climbed it once and fallen several times, so we quickly agreed to rest a day and return for a redpoint attempt. 

The Rostrum

It was one of those days that remind me what a whimsical gift it is to be a living breathing human being in this wild world of cliffs and trees and sky.  Once off the ground we hit a rhythm and flowed through all the route’s demanding features: the delicate 2^nd pitch step-over, the sustained corners, the powerful fingercrack crux.  Soon I was racking up beneath the offwidth which had shut me down so hard several weeks before, and neither of us had fallen yet.  I knew if I could send this pitch we’d have it in the bag; in the midst of the wide gash I was firing hard to stay in but I simply refused to fall.  Perhaps it helped that Rob Pizem, a prolific desert crackman and author of many inspiring routes, just happened to be in the party ahead of us and cheered me on from above as I cranked heel-toes and arm-bars up the offwidth. 

             

Reaching the anchor, only two steep pitches remained.  Anton, following, also sent the offwidth pitch (earning him massive bragging rights over his Swedish cohort at Camp 4).  I blasted up into last headwall pitch riding a cresting wave of confidence.  I wish everyone on earth could share that experience: cranking up overhanging fingerlocks and hand jams with 800 feet of air whistling beneath my legs, the cliffs saturated in the crimson glow of the setting sun.  There was no question of falling, I was a creature that moved upward. 

        

As dusk fell Anton led the final offwidth and I followed him to the summit, where we high-fived after a quality ascent and were surprised to find that we weren’t spent at all, in fact we were jonesing for more.  Basking in the elation of our team send, I remembered Chris’ words and a shiver trickled up my spine; we were ready for Astroman.  I gazed at the darkening horizon, mountains fading into obscurity beyond, unknown. 

Astroman

I tend toward the analytical approach in my climbing, but while analysis is productive during rest and preparation, it becomes an obstacle during the flow of movement.  Preparing for Astroman, I accepted two things: that I had the physical ability to climb it flawlessly, and that if I let my mind drift into its usual pitfalls—hesitation, focusing on fear, seeking comfort—I would fall.  I knew that regardless of the confidence of preparation and the doubt of intimidation, once on the rock I had to let go of both fear and expectations and let my body flow.  We decided to break the climb into blocks favoring our respective strengths.  As the Western crack climber, I would lead the Enduro Corner, the Harding Slot, and the fist crack high on the route; Anton, representing European face climbing prowess, would lead the Changing Corners and the final infamous runnout pitch.  Thus prepared, there was nothing to do but begin. 

         

Looking back across innumerable days past, the day Anton and I climbed Astroman stands out like a single shaft of sunlight in a forest.  From the moment we left the ground we moved upwards with purpose and belief.  The climb unfolded before us, offering exquisite cracks around every turn.  My experience leading the Harding Slot was so intense that it took me several days to begin understanding what happened.  I am still learning.  Somewhere in those 1100 feet of steep cracks I encountered each dimension of my raw self: stamina, fear, joy, love, rage, despair, hope.  At the end of the day, Anton styled the final pitch, boldly pushing through the runnouts, and we stood on the summit of Washington Column watching the sun set over El Capitan.  We’d free climbed Astroman; I’d fallen twice and Anton once. Content, we watched the light fade over the valley, savoring the last sips of our water before beginning the descent. 

                        

   

NIAD

The next morning I rolled out of my tent, stretched, and felt the leaden soreness of my back and limbs.  I surveyed the daily Camp 4 hustle and let loose a thick, contented yawn; I was done.  I had now accomplished everything I came here to do.  I ambled over to the Swedish camp with a mug of coffee and joined Anton in cooking up a royal breakfast, entertaining the Swedes with harrowing tales of Astroman and basking in the revelry of our ascent.  I began to think of moving on; I had only 4 days left before visiting my family on the coast, I was sore and depleted from a week of hard climbing, and felt generally content about my Valley season.  I half-heartedly organized my food box, tinkered with sorting gear, but something was nagging at my brain, preventing me from packing up.

I have never been successful at fooling myself.  Passing a Big Walls guidebook lying on the picnic table I knew what was still missing: that elusive gem, The Nose in a day.  When John Long, Billy Westbay, and Jim Bridwell first accomplished this goal in 1975, it rivaled the greatest climbing achievements of all time.  Since then a NIAD ascent has become such a benchmark of big-wall competence and stamina that it has become a well-recognized acronym (as if climbers needed to become more cultish and nerdy).  The first dozen or so NIADs were climbed by only the world’s elite crack climbers, but as gear, tactics, and general skill base has improved over the past 35 years, hundreds of “recreational” rock climbers have managed the feat. 

Still, I did not seriously consider myself ranked amongst the NIAD class of climbers.  It’s just so damn big!  Staring up at El Cap from the meadow and thinking about ascending that vertical ocean of granite in just one day seemed ludicrous.  After all, it had taken Jim and me three days to climb it before.  Granted, we were hauling, we were both free climbing, yada yada… despite all the things that made our ascent slow, I still couldn’t visualize climbing all that terrain in one day.  The goal of NIAD hung just over the horizon of possibility, like a peak beyond the next ridge: something to admire, to daydream about, to make small preparations for a serious effort next year.

Once the seed of a wild objective takes root in the malleable tissues of my brain, nestled amongst Spanish verbs, constellations, trig equations, the location of my car keys, the minor pentatonic scale, mineral classifications, daily reminders to floss…it nudges for attention like the rest of its neighbors.  NIAD is big, but not in a realm completely beyond my experience.  In the Black Canyon of the Gunnison I’d pulled off a handful of Grade V free climbs in the realm of 2000 feet, all within 12 hours or so.  These were big days, tiring for sure, but not unmanageable.  For NIAD we would use speed tactics too, methods I had yet to learn, but I could put in some time learning to short fix, maybe make a few training runs up sections of the route, and build towards a one-day ascent next season.

I resumed packing, contemplating a long-term training plan to gain the skills and stamina for a future NIAD, when my phone rang with Jim on the other line.

“Brother, you wanna go for Nose in a day?”

I froze.  Seriously, what was going on around here?  I gave him some noncommittal reply about resting a few days and strategizing.

“Naw we gotta do it tomorrow.  I’ve gotta get to the Bay Area by Friday.  Just rest real hard today, you’ll be fine.  You down?”

I stared at the phone.  I was sore and exhausted from most arduous rock climb of my life the day before, not to mention 4 other strenuous climbs in the past week.  My body needed rest, a couple days of lying in meadows and eating and full nights of sleep.  I’d never short-fixed, just examined diagrams.  I’d rope-soloed only once for a few bumbling hours.  I didn’t even know if I could physically do that much climbing.  This was ludicrous.

I have always held great respect for rock climbing’s pioneers.  Today rock climbing is a mainstream sport; it can be completely safe.  With Supertopo guidebooks, beta sprayed all over the internet, cams of all shapes and dimensions, cell phones, satellite communication, bolted anchors, etc, a party of intermediate climbers can control all the variables in a rock climb except for their own performance, effectively reducing the level of adventure to background noise.  With prior knowledge, plentiful modern gizmos, communication, and escape plans, we can box an entire 2000 foot cliff conveniently into the comfort zone, scaling it in security before sunset and returning to the order of daily life.  We’ve learned how to turn adventure into a workout, and while it fits well into a calendar, there’s something essential missing.

The climbing pioneers are set apart because they were willing to launch upward into chaos.  They were engaging in adventure, really coming face-to-face with fear of the unknown.  The first generation of Valley free climbers were teenagers and college dropouts who were willing to risk injury and sometimes death to test the radical new idea that a human body could free climb these granite cracks.  Steve Hong climbed sandstone cracks in Utah, pounding hexes into splitters with a hammer for pro.  Leighton Kor, Ed Webster, Earl Wiggins, Jimmy Dunn and crew spearheaded the era of “a rope, a rack, and a shirt on your back” in the Black Canyon, re-writing the rules that said you needed fixed ropes, ascenders, and several days to climb those formidable walls.  These climbers all had their epics and close scrapes, but they had the courage to push forward into the unknown, again and again, just to see what’s up there. 

The phone was still sitting in my hand.  “Drew, you there?”  Would the pioneers have waited until their preparation, training, and strategy guaranteed success so completely that they had nothing to be afraid of?  There had to be something to be said for just stepping out in faith.  After all, we didn’t make it out of Africa because we followed the example of other apes at a safe distance.

“Aw hell, let’s go for it.”

“Nice, I knew you’d be good for it.  Let’s meet this afternoon and talk strategy.  Eat your bananas.”

I brewed another mug of coffee and sat heavily in my chair.

Our strategy was simple: we’d lead the same blocks we did before so we’d be familiar with the terrain.  We pared down the rack to essentials and gathered a handful of bars and gel packets while debating the virtues of 4 vs 5 liters of water; neither would be enough but we couldn’t carry more.  We scrutinized Hans Flourine’s Speed Climbing! book, discussing where we could use each other as counterweights through the pendulums, a strategy that looked good on paper but we’d never practiced.  After a brief discussion we decided to take just one rope; a second rope would allow us to bail from any point on the route, but we both knew we climbed better when committed.  Would Jimmy Dunn bring a second rope? Hell no.  That night our gear sat ready next to the tent, alarms were set for 3AM, and I tried in vain to sleep.  I haven’t been kept up at night before a rock climb since my days of cutting my teeth on multi-pitches in Colorado.  The hulking mass of El Cap loomed over me in the stuffy tent, oppressing my thoughts.  What the hell was I trying to do?  Who was I to attempt such a massive goal?  The image of us dangling from our single rope on the upper ramparts of The Nose at night, dehydrated, depleted, and helpless, plagued my mind until the alarm went off at 3 AM and it was time to shut up and pull on the man-pants. 

  

There is nothing quite like the exhilaration of scrambling up to the base of a rock climb in the close silence of night, not knowing what the day will bring but beginning it with a full head of steam anyway.  The rhythm of short-fixing and rope soloing is very enjoyable; we remained in constant motion for hours at a time.  Somewhere about midday, as I climbed familiar terrain towards the base of the Great Roof, it dawned on me: we can do this.  A Russian team let us pass them on the Great Roof pitch and I hauled up his gear on my ladders, tied off the rope at his belay, then launched into free-climbing up the Pancake Flake, intent on keeping momentum despite the full heat of the day.  My second lead block continued through the Changing Corners; we had 4 strenuous pitches to go but my energy was wilting under the intensity of the sun.  At a gear exchange I pulled up our backpack to snag a goo packet and a few gulps of much-needed water and continued up.   

                                         

                          

After scrapping up a handcrack on what felt like my last reserve energy, I mantled onto the Camp 6 ledge dry, panting, and totally worked.  I fixed the rope for Jim and was relieved to be forced to wait a few minutes for Sam and Will, the other party doing NIAD that day, to climb the Changing Corners.  4 PM, huddled in a scrap of shade on Camp 6, is the most exhausted I have ever been on a rock climb.  I had only one more lead in my block.  You can always do one more.  Jim jugged up onto the ledge, handed me a goo packet and started racking me up.  Despite an overwhelming desire to lie down, once my fingers and toes were on the rock, my reptilian brain took command and I was leading again, flowing up the rock like this is all I knew how to do; I was a skeleton and a nervous system that ascended, I had no other identity, no past or future.  After a sun-dazed blur of motion I clipped the anchors, fixed the rope for Jim, and collapsed in my harness, as well as one can at a hanging belay. 

                                             

Jim jugged up to the anchor and unleashed the energy he’d been saving for the last 11 pitches, firing up the strenuous 5.10+ lieback despite his fatigue and sending it clean.  I relaxed into belaying and jugging mode as Jim took us up the remaining pitches through a glorious sunset and into the night.  Jugging the final free-hanging pitch felt like the hardest thing in the world, but I pulled onto horizontal ground and stumbled up to the tree atop El Cap in a tangle of rope at 9:30 PM, high-fived Jim, Will, and Sam, and indulged in the amazing luxury of sitting down. 

                                               

Despite little familiarity with speed techniques, fatigue from a week’s climbing, and several major rope-cluster incidents, we climbed The Nose in 16:45, roughly what Long, Westbay, and Bridwell accomplished 27 years ago.  We had done what I thought was impossible merely days before.  After sharing the last Cliff Bar, we shouldered the ropes and gear and began a 3 hour descent down slabs, thickets, and fixed ropes towards the cache of water, pretzels, yogurt, and malt liquor we’d deposited on the valley floor, on the other side of a long, long day.

                                          Swedish climber Eva styling a crux on The Rostrum

                                            Anton firing hard on the final steep pitch of The Rostrum

                    Anton always maintained high spirits, even in the depths of the Harding Slot on Astroman

                                  Anton leading into the crux "changing corners" pitch on Astroman

high on Astroman

                            Success atop Washington Column and the hardest rock climb I've ever done

                                                                  Sunset over the Valley

 

Rush hour on the Great Roof.  The other party doing NIAD: Will Kahlert (green shirt) belays Sam Hennessey up the Pancake Flake (above).  Pavel of the Russian team ascends immediately beneath the roof, I am aiding up his gear behind him, and Jim (blue backpack) ascends our rope to the anchor.  (Long-range photos were shot by Tom Evans, www.elcapreport.com)

Myself hauling up Pavel's gear toward the roof.

               

More shenanigans.  Pavel belays his partner below while I begin rope-solo free climbing up the Pancake Flake above him.  Jim ascends below in the shadow of the roof.

                                               

Jim leading off Eagle Ledge

Brushing the Veil

Astroman, Yosemite Valley, with Anton Olausson

Brushing the Veil

                                                

“There are cracks to other worlds, places in our daily existence where you can pry the walls open and arrive on the other side—if you can get your fingers around the edges.”
                                             -Derek Franz, The Door and the Guillotine, Alpinist 36

“The Harding Slot is a dark place,” an old-timer in the Valley warned me.  I’d heard talk of how narrow it is, so I figured it would be dark inside.  Eager for the glory of success, I was enamored by the idea of getting up there and grunting it out.  I wouldn’t understand his meaning until I actually did.

In the middle of the Slot I reached a point where I was stuck, exhausting myself trying to make progress but unable to make any. I strained my neck to look down and in my peripheral vision could just make out the rope dangling freely from my harness toward my last gear, dozens of feet below.  I knew enough to recognize that I couldn’t retreat, there was no other option; I had to free climb out of this thing.

I hit a point of hopelessness.  It was so damn hard; I was straining every muscle and couldn’t gain an inch, or I’d gain one and slide back down, gasping.  I felt at the brink of despair.  I moaned in desperation, I bellowed in rage, the Slot didn’t care.  Its iron indifference to my anguish was terrifying.  The cold granite, slick with my condensing breath, felt like a tomb.  My pulse throbbed in futility against the walls and my raw shoulders stung and after so much useless flailing I finally accepted that I could not do this on my own.

Stuck in the Slot, I rested and surrendered my ego, my will to conquer.  I surrendered to the crack.  You win. I am weak.  Compared to my flailing life the stone is eternal.  I am a small blink in its memory, but I burn with the heat of blood and breath. 

                                    

On his solitary ramblings, John Muir recognized that as grand as they are, the mighty stones here yield to an even more constant force, the river Merced, the river of mercy.  Sweating and breathing in the dark cage of the Slot, I asked for mercy from the spirit of the place.  I humbled myself before this spirit.  I am weak.  May I pass? Through my narrow view of the sunlit world I watched two ravens drift past on some invisible thermal, imperturbable. 

I surrendered to the spirit of the Valley and started moving upward in half-inch bursts.  Where before I could not move with all my effort, I could now make progress. Somehow I recognized that it was not my strength I was using.  Obviously it took energy, the conversion of glycogen to ATP in coordinated contractions of muscle fibers in my legs and back and arms and chest, but was not my strength.  The movement flowed through me, from the valley to the sky, like a wave that I was suddenly shown how to ride.  I repeated my request as a mantra: valley of mercy, have mercy on me; when I stopped moving to rest I spoke this and kept moving.  In half-inch increments, whispering this prayer, I gained 2 inches, then 6 inches, a foot, two feet, until the Slot widened and I could get a chickenwing, move my limbs, and surge upward into sunshine.  It felt like being born.

It seems there’s a thin veil between our world of clocks and measured quantities and the world of essence and spirits.  Mired in the tentacle web of schedules and demands of 21^st century industrialized existence, we’re too busy to notice it most of the time, but sometimes, when life really gets down to the essence, we can touch it.  In the dark heart of the Harding Slot I brushed against that veil.  I relaxed my iron grip on ego and let something bigger move through me.  I became a vessel.  I was allowed passage.

Today, resting in El Cap meadow, staring up at the towering wall and preparing for another mission of even greater scale, I can vaguely remember the trials and fears of Astroman like a whimsical dream.  This day passes like others, the sun unerring on its endless march toward the west, but I feel something… different.  The touch from across the veil lingers on me, like smoke on my clothing.

Drew Squared ascent of Half Dome

During several weeks in the Valley everything I did here—EVERYTHING—happened beneath the lurking hulk of Half Dome.  Every time I drove the loop road, every time I tried to sneak a shower at Curry Village…I would often find myself in a meadow or a parking lot just gazing up at Half Dome.  It soars above the valley, its bold asymmetry a testament to the ravaging glaciers that carved this valley out of bedrock over several ice ages.  I knew that if I left the Valley without climbing Half Dome it would eat at me all year.

Luckily, in true Camp 4 impromptu form, I was cooking up some grub one night last week when the other Drew materialized out of the darkness with a brief greeting and the question, “hey man, do you want to climb Half Dome next Tuesday?” 

“In a day?”

“Ya, bivy, then crush it light and fast.”

“A Drew²  ascent!”

Done.  I’d planned to drive over to the East Side with Jim Toman for the weekend for some R&R in the hotsprings, so the timing was perfect.  I’d climbed Moratorium, a fierce 5.11 crack climb, with Drew Marshall during my first week in the Valley, so I knew he was good for it.  The only possible hitch was the weather forecast: 20% to 40% showers depending on who you ask, but he was about to leave for Indian Creek so we decided to hedge our bets.  I couldn’t let this opportunity slide.  It’s not every day that I meet another goofball named Drew who wants to blast up a 2,200 ft vertical face onsight in a day.

I could blame road construction or own up to bad time management but either way you slice it I squealed into the Camp 4 parking lot at 3:30 on Monday.  “Sorry dude.”  What else can you say.  We hurriedly racked up and prepped a dinner and wall snacks, loaded up packs, and hit the trail from the orchard at 5 PM for the so-called “death slabs” approach, which neither of us had been on.  I was pretty worried about the prospect of trying to ascend the convoluted maze of scree trails, exposed slabs, and fixed ropes in the dark, but we had “summit stoke” and jammed up most of the approach in daylight, turning on headlamps after the final 4^th class scrambling, relieved.  We ate a nice supper of ravioli, sardines, carrots and avocado and bedded down beneath the looming black mass of the northwest face of Half Dome.

                                    

At 4 AM it was pretty damn cold.  I was not psyched to get out of my sleeping bag, or for that matter climb 2,200 ft of unknown cracks and chimneys.  That’s one thing I’m learning about alpinism: the mornings often suck, but the rewards come later.  You just have to power through the mornings; don’t think about the enormity of what you’re attempting, but break it down into simple tasks: eat, piss, put on a harness, flake a rope.  In the dark we shivered and ate hard-boiled eggs, tried not to talk about how cold it was, and without further ado I started up the first pitch in the small circle of my headlamp.  Within minutes I forgot about the cold as I got lost in the movement upwards.  With a 70m rope we were able to link many of the first pitches and as dawn filled the Valley with light we found ourselves well above the ground, getting into the classic Robbins Traverse. 

morning light on the Valley and El Cap

        

 Dawn.  2 hours into the climb.  On second thought it would have been worth the weight to bring the Jetboil and brew coffee.           

I had expected to stash my puffy jacket in the backpack by mid-morning, but the higher up the wall we climbed, the colder it got.  Gusts of wind were downright frigid, and we kept the puffys on until we gained the base of the chimneys.  I dangled the puffy beneath me on a sling and headed up into the first 5.9 chimney.  Climbing squeeze chimneys always takes a strong dose of faith and confidence: you are the pro.  But you’re not gonna fall.  I made it up the first chimney via an unforeseen hole exit/finger crack/ pendulum/ offwidth variation (I hope I’m not the first person stupid enough to try that?), then Drew led up the next chimney and fist crack in 2 rope-stretchers.  

                                                 

High on the route, still in puffys

     Drew2 emerging from the hole on the first chimney              

We made it to Big Sandy ledge by 3 PM and were greeted by the sun!  Finally able to shed the puffys, I headed up into the Zig Zags, finding a ton of fixed gear in the aid corners and amazing free climbing.  Liebacking and jamming up those steep corners in the afternoon light, 2000 ft off the deck, made all the labor and cold worth it.  Next Drew led the “Thank God Ledge” in impeccable style, walking face- out the whole time!  He’d been psyched on that all day, and he made it happen.  I tried to follow his style with the backpack but ended up groveling sideways with one leg swung up—hardly a proud moment.  Drew aided up the bolt ladder and sent the final slab and we emerged on the summit at sunset, spellbound by a dazzling panorama of the high Sierras bathed in purple clouds.  A gust of cold wind whipped us out of our reverie; we had 2000 ft to descend to our bivy gear, and a hellish descent to follow.  We scooted down the cables as darkness fell.

                               

sunset over the Captain

 

    Drew2 in the Zig Zags                                     Drew2 styling the "Thank God" ledge

I try not to remember the descent.  That’s another lesson of alpinism: sometimes the descents suck, but you need to keep focused, especially when there are no-fall zones on fixed ropes and steep scree-littered slabs.  Left foot, right foot.  With minimum bumbles we worked our way down the “death slabs” and hit a glorious footpath after the last fixed rope, where I triumphantly let my brain turn off and we hiked the last 2 miles to Drew’s van in a silent stupor.  We pulled into Camp 4 at midnight; I ate a lump of pecan sticky bun and half a tub of yogurt and passed out.  The Drew² ascent of Half Dome was complete, and I was 100% beat.

 

 Drew Marshall, from Toronto, a solid partner on the rock

Three Days on the Captain

3 days on The Captain with Jim Toman

After 2 weeks in the Valley cragging on smaller features I was enthralled with the climbing, yet troubled by a simmering restlessness.  I spent many afternoons lounging in El Cap meadow staring up at the big stone, awestruck by the size of it, wondering if I would have what it takes to climb it this trip.  Then thursday night during one of the Facelift night events, stoked on inspiring slideshows and the constantly flowing kegs, my buddy Jim struck me with the proposition of climbing The Nose.  It took me about 2 seconds to agree wholeheartedly, and we started scheming immediately.  Neither of us had been on the route, and I had never touched a big wall (or a haul bag for that matter), but we were psyched.

                                       gettin stoked racking up

Deciding our style was simple.  Many parties fix ropes and pre-haul bags to ease the logisitics of the lower half of the route, but we were both committed to doing it in simple style, starting at the base and moving in one flow, no fixing, treating the wall as a free climb with a bit of aid rather than a wall climb with some free climbing included.

We racked up friday, got our gear set and haulbag packed, then went out to the Facelift for more inspiring talks and slideshows and "carbo-loading" sponsored by New Belgium brewery.  We woke before dawn on Saturday, chugged as much water as possible, and staggered up to the base of the Captain with our loaded bags.  I'd agreed to lead the first block, which involved awkward, insecure climbing that shook my confidence in my ability to do the route.  The 1st and 2nd pitches have nasty slabby sections with thin holds and tenuous flared pinscars for pro.  I decided that I didn't want to risk whipping on the crap gear and taking a massive fall so I resorted to french-freeing through the crux, but as I was pulling on an Alien in a flared pinscar it popped and I somehow mashed myself into a stem and didn't fall.  Sometimes a good healthy dose of pucker factor is all it takes to change the headgame.  After popping the cam I told myself to "stop dicking around" and I finished the pitch free, gripped but motivated.  It was also my first time hauling, so I had to work through some shenanigans with that.  And any way you slice it, hauling an 80 lb bag up low-angle slabs is a pain in the ass.

    Jim tending the bags on the nasty slab hauls low on the route

Luckily the climbing after Sickle ledge gets way more straightforward.  After I lead a double-pendulum pitch into the Stovelegs, Jim took the lead and brought us up the Stovelegs in style, crushing the strenuous off-fist sections spurting expletives into the dusk.  We  got the bag up to Dolt tower at nightfall and made camp.

          

Jim cruising the Stovelegs                              Waking up on Dolt Tower

Day two we woke up psyched for upward progress.  Jim lead the first block up to El Cap Tower, up a fun chimney and onward up a steep bolt ladder to the top of Boot Flake, where I lowered him down for the famous "King Swing."  By this time it was well into the afternoon and we were pretty drained from the baking heat and complicated hauling situations, but it was my turn to take the rack.  The next pitch had two options, the standard route went up a crack to a pendulum to the anchors, but the free variation traversed a face of blobby diorite at 5.12 or 5.10 A0.  After all the morning's shenanigans I was psyched on climbing (mostly) free, so I went for the traverse.  It turned out much harder than the topo suggested, and I found myself swinging on the end of a fixed sling groping for a small rail, which I eventually caught after several attempts.  After some desperate 5.10 (?) moves I found myself in a tenuous position a good 20 feet away from my last bolt with a difficult move between me and the next ledge.  One of the beautiful things about climbing is that we find ourselves in hard situations where the decision of how to move on is very simple.  It took only a little analysis to realize that I could not downclimb the last moves, I couldn't swing to everything, and I really didn't want to take a 40-ft swinger, so I had to do the moves. Now.  I worked a small offset nut and a blue alien into little flares in the diorite, equalized the pieces, and committed to the moves.

I mantled up onto the ledge of Camp 4 beneath the great roof as the sun's fading rays filtered though the California haze to the west and lit the Captain afire with an orange glow.  Some of my earliest memories are of Sierra peaks warm with alpenglow on evenings in the wilderness with my dad, and I have always been inspired by the sight. Despite my fatigue after 2 days of work I once again I caught the spell of the sunset and started racking up again.  "I'll take us through the Great Roof," I told Jim, "that way we can wake up to free climbing tomorrow and start with momentum."  "Whatever, man, if you've got the energy go for it," he said.  A fun pitch got us to the base of the Great Roof, and as night set in I started aiding up into the darkness.

There is a unique simplicity to climbing at night; the known world shrinks to a 20-ft circle of light, and I moved upward, high-stepping from placement to placement with Led Zeppelin blasting up across the moonlit wall, an experience I will never forget.  At the belay I gumbied for a while trying to set up the portaledge on a blank face, but after much tomfoolery and rope confusion we got the ledge pitched, fired up a tasty dinner of couscous and sardines (in mustard!), and I tried to wrap my mind around the fact that I was going to spend the night on a platform on nylon hanging 2000 ft in the air.  I slept great.

 

The next morning we woke early and spent a few minutes sipping coffee and taking in our ludicrous position on the wall as morning light filled Yosemite Valley beneath us.  Life on a ledge requires slow, deliberate movements so it doesn't tip too much, but we managed to eat breakfast and stow our sleeping bags, and inventory our water supply.  I had the first block that day, which included lots of hard free climbing.  This is what I'd dreamed of for 6 months, for years even, free climbing up in the sky.  The exposure of our position pressed constantly at my mind, so it took a lot of willpower to focus on my dream, stare up at the cracks above us, and rack up on the portaledge.  We had about 1000 ft of hard climbing above us and 2 gallons of water; we had to fire this thing today.  The climbing was brilliant.  Climbing off the ledge and liebacking up the Pancake Flake first thing in the morning was unreal, and pitch after pitch of aesthetic, strenuous cracks followed.

  looking down from the Pancake Flake           Jim all smiles atop the 5.11 thin-hands corner pitch

We had just enough water to keep ourselves functioning, but we were always very thirsty.  After aiding the thin crack in the "glowering spot" pitch I saw that the corner widened to a beautiful finger crack--this thing was just too sweet to be aided!  I stepped out of my aiders and freed it (barely) and collapsed on the next ledge, fully gassed.  However, the thing about wall climbing is that once you finish a lead you can't rest, but instead have to haul for 15 minutes, just more labor.  

  

After a couple minutes rest I ate a GU packet and when Jim reached the belay I racked up for the next pitch, a beautiful 5.11b tight-hands crack in a steep corner, with the promise of cruiser hand jams above.  I was exhausted but I wanted to get this pitch so bad, it was my style of climbing.  Jim put some Rage against the Machine on the tune box and I fired through the ringlocks and thin-hands until I pumped out and fell just before the climbing eased up.  I guess we can't always ask for strong performances on day 3 on a wall.  

gassed after the Glowering Spot pitch, very 

un-psyched on setting up the next haul

After resting I finished the pitch on stellar handcracks, then racked up for my last lead, the Changing Corners pitch, which climbs a mind-blowing DOUBLE handcrack and proceeds to a bolt ladder (unless you climb 5.14).  Aiding around the corners was tricky but easier than I feared, and after hauling I was psyched to pass the lead to Jim for the last 4 pitches.  4 pitches! after 2 and half days on the wall, the top felt so close.  As Jim crushed a strenuous 5.10+ layback out a roof, I stared at the water jug and willed myself to not chug the thing.  Jim blasted the last 3 free pitches with minimal aid, which I followed in utter exhaustion, then aided up the final bolt-ladder to the summit.  Once again, the fading sun set the Captain aglow as he made the last haul and I jugged the final pitch to the summit.  Some generous soul left us a can of salmon and a package of cream cheese (we think it may have been the French party ahead of us), and we tucked into that with our remaining crackers, sipped a little water, and passed out on the summit.

          

     Jim crushing the 5.10+ layback                                   the final haul

We climbed The Nose in 3 days in one push, freeing the majority of all but 5 pitches, to 5.11.  It was by far the hardest thing I've ever done; there were times when I was so gassed I just wanted to give up, or while incessantly hauling I'd let my mind wander to daydreams of pools of cool water and a beautiful girl in a grassy field, but pitch by pitch we found the resolve to continue upwards at a steady pace.  It is an amazing rock climb.  Now, spending glorious days of rest on the valley floor, eating, drinking, swimming and lounging in El Cap meadow, I enjoy the luxury of rest but I can't help craving life on the wall, the hightened state of being we dwelled in, where we bent all aspects of our wills and resources to one simple goal: upward progress.

                          

nothing like waking to a cup a joe hangin out at the Great Roof

 it's a long walk down with a haulbag

cheers to Ryan and Angela for meeting us in the parking lot with cold hoppy refreshements

a super refreshing dip in the Merced

The bridge scene, emcee'd by Tom Evans.  Tom generously provided us with the following photos he snapped from the meadow, check out his coverage of El Cap climbs at www.elcapreport.com.  Tom takes amazing photos and hosts a hangout at the bridge, where he was glad to offer ice-cold King Cobras to some sweaty haggard climbers fresh off the wall.

 Jim leading off Dolt Tower, day 2

 Jim aiding up to Boot Flake

myself jugging up Boot Flake 

Hauling at the end of the Changing Corners, ready to pass the lead to Jim.  4 pitches to go.