Dangerous Eructations! Science finally addresses an alpine menace that many fall victim to, but few are talking about.

We've all been there, behind your buddy on the skin track and he rips one right in your face. Confined by the track, you can't dodge left or right, and the rancid odors of his metamorphosed egg-and-sausage breakfast sandwich filter straight through long underwear and gore-tex straight to your nostrils. Trail bombed.

Hikers, skiers and climbers alike have been "passing wind" on windy passes since time immemorial, and invariably, when they're caught, blame their alpine eructations on beans, TVP, or the closest guy. I always suspected there there was a more systematic problem going on, and I'm so glad I stumbled upon this letter in a leading medical journal (don't ask me how--long story), in which research physicians get to the heart of the matter of why we fart more in the mountains. 

If you grew up on climbing literature like me, or ever watched Vertical Limit or any other trashy B-rated "adventure films", you're familiar with the terms HAPE and HACE, serious life-threatening conditions which result from prolonged exposure to low atmospheric pressure. But have you heard of HAFE? It's time we quit fooling ourselves and start having an honest conversation about high altitude flatus expulsion.

By the way, have you ever used the word eructation? Neat, huh.


...from THE WESTERN JOURNAL OF MEDICINE

High Altitude Flatus Expulsion (HAFE)

TO THE EDITOR: We would like to report our observations upon a new gastrointestinal syndrome, which we shall refer to by the acronym HAFE (high altitude flatus expulsion). This phenomenon was most recently witnessed by us during an expedition in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado, with similar experiences during excursions past. The syndrome is strictly associated with ascent, and is characterized by an increase in both the volume and the frequency of the passage of flatus, which spontaneously occurs while climbing to altitudes of 11,000 feet or greater. The eructations (known to veteran back-packers as "Rocky Mountain barking spiders") do not appear to vary with exercise, but may well be closely linked to diet.' The fact that the syndrome invariably abated on descent leads us to postulate a mechanism whereby the victim is afflicted by the expansion of colonic gas at the decreased atmospheric pressure of high altitude. This is somewhat analogous to the rapid intravascular expansion of nitrogen which afflicts deep-sea divers and triggers decompression illness. While not as catastrophic as barotrauma nor as debilitating as HAPE (high altitude pulmonary edema), HAFE nonetheless represents a significant inconvenience to those who prefer to hike in company. Some experience from recent Everest expeditions suggests that the use of digestive enzymes and simethicone may minimize the hazard.

At present, we can advise victims that the offense is more sociologic than physiologic. HAFE should be added to the growing list of medical disorders that are associated with exposure
to high altitude. We are planning a prospective study for the summer of 1981.

PAUL AUERBACH, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Attending Physician, Emergency Services
Temple University Hospital
Philadelphia

YORK E. MILLER, MD
Research Fellow
Pulmonary Division
Department of Medicine
University of Colorado Health Sciences Center
Denver

REFERENCE
1. Levitt MD, Lasser RB, Schwartz JS, et al: Studies of a
flatulent patient. N Engl J Med 295:260-262, Jul 29, 1976

THE WESTERN JOURNAL OF MEDICINE 173

So before you panic, remember that farting in the mountains is not "barotrauma" not as deadly as HAPE, a condition where you end up drowning from the water in your lungs. At worst, you will just annoy your friends for about 5 seconds and at best get a great laugh as they moan and try to jump out of the way. Besides, "the offense is more sociologic than psychologic". Thanks for clarifying guys. Happy trails, and on ascents in the mountains, leave a little extra space between you and the guy in front.

Homemade granola

Tasty granola smothered in a healthy dollop of rich yogurt is one of my favorite snacks or quick breakfasts, and nothing makes the house smell as good as warm granola fresh out of the oven. Here’s a simple recipe that is pretty easy to adjust according to whatever flavors you want to include or ingredients you have on hand. When I rolled into Yosemite Valley to stay a month, I had 3 gallons of granola that I made from excess ingredients snatched from the throw-away pile at work. If you can source cheap ingredients this is a truly cheap, mad-tasty food.

Ingredients:

4 cups rolled oats

1-2 cups chopped nuts (almonds, cashews, walnuts…)

1 cup seeds (pumpkin or sunflower)

½ cup oil (Coconut oil is tasty, safflower is cheap and simple)

½ cup sweetener (maple syrup or honey)

1 tsp each spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cayenne…)

1 tsp vanilla optional

1-2 cups dried fruit, whatever you fancy

Mix it all up in a big bowl. If using coconut oil, melt it first.

Bake for 45 minutes at 375°, stirring every 15 minutes. Err on the side of pulling it out early, you don’t want to burn it (unless you like the crispy taste) and you can always heat it a little more.

Eat some immediately because you can’t help it, then mix in dried fruit if you wish once it’s cooled down.

This basic blueprint for granola can be tailored to many themes. I’ve recently enjoyed making it with cashews, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, coconut oil, maple syrup, cinnamon and ground cardamom. Super good. Walnuts and cinnamon with dried apples is a classic combo. I usually add ground flax seed for a healthy oil addition.

Simple, cheap, mad-tasty foods even a guy can make!

So it’s about time I expand the blog to themes beyond climbing exploits. Eating tasty, healthy food and reducing the money I spend on it have always been major pastimes of mine; since I’ve recently become an unemployed student again, these activities have risen in my priority list. The dilemma: how do I forge a diet of wholesome, nutritious food so I can perform as an athlete and generally live healthy, without breaking the bank? There are people who have lots of money and not much time; they have Whole Foods to shop at. Then there are people who have a whole lot of time but not much money, and we have the bulk section of Whole Foods to shop at (or hopefully a cheaper store). If we have raw ingredients and a kitchen to play in, we can make pretty tasty, real food at a bargain price.

I’m going to share some basic recipes that are so simple even a climbing-obsessed male in his mid 20’s (read: gorilla) can make them. Many of these can be made with basic tools, although a food processor comes in quite handy. I’d say if I only owned three kitchen implements they would be a quality cast-iron pan, a food processor, and a respectable knife; you can improvise anything else about anywhere you go.

A brief note on REAL food and realities of budgets: I am an omnivorous mammal, I forage the earth for plant and animal foods. I know what eggs and salt and kale and meat are, I could find them in a field if I had to. I don’t know what casein solids or whey protein isolate or sodium carboxy-methyl cellulose really are, and while they can make my taste buds happy in the right ratios they probably won’t help me pedal a bike or hold onto a crimp or keep walking on hour umpteen, because they aren’t real food. Much can be said about this, of course, so I’ll avoid the rant and let others do it who can do it better.

Of course, we all have a budget to consider. I titled this blog “carrots and peanut butter” in tribute to our classic college road trip meal: cheap, filling calories that could be purchased just about anywhere. I’ve since learned things about mass-produced (Jiff, etc) peanut butter that make me cringe, and carrots from big factory farms are little more than cellulose and water with a hint of beta-kerotine, so my snacks have changed. In college I ate cheap by buying cheap foods, many of which were already made. What I’ve learned since is that by making my own, I can purchase more wholesome (less fake) ingredients and make tasty food while still maintaining a low cost bottom-line. Much of the dollar value of food comes from the value added (i.e. processing) to basic ingredients. As a dirtbag, you have more time than money. If you buy the ingredients in bulk and do the processing yourself, you still have gas money when it’s time to hit the road. Simple.

Yogurt:

I’ll start with yogurt. I love yogurt. My girlfriend has accused me of being “mostly made of yogurt” from how much I eat, which probably wouldn’t be a bad thing to be made of because yogurt is alive. Making your own yogurt can be done quickly and is an easy way to save money. Once you have the yogurt all you need to buy is milk. I make a gallon of super tasty yogurt every couple weeks for $5.50; the process takes about 40 minutes and most of that time I can be doing something else while waiting for the milk to warm or cool. A gallon of yogurt of equivalent quality, at $4-6 a quart, would cost between $16 and $24. Simple math.

Oh, this necessitates a quick note on fat and the whole “low-fat” craze; I’ll keep it brief because this opens up its own deep can of worms… Fat is the densest form of food. Fat is 9 calories per gram, compared to 4 cal/g for carbs and protein. This makes fat an awesome energy source! If you had to do produce a sustained physical output for a long day with only a few ounces of food (like a climb in the Black Canyon…) you will feel more long-haul energy throughout the day if your food has a high percentage of fat in it. I’ve noticed that if I eat some fat in the morning I can stave off mid-day hunger by a few hours.

OK, so the yogurt recipe:

*Yogurt starter: you need a yogurt that’s proper alive, full of living bacteria. Getting a few TBSP of someone else’s homemade yogurt is best; if you can’t go for a full-fat, high-quality yogurt. I’ve had success with FAGE, Greek Gods, or whatever local yogurt is available. Don’t try to use low-fat Yoplait with preservatives that’s been sitting in a warehouse for months.

Ingredients

4-6 TBSP live yogurt*

½ gal whole milk, best quality you can find

large pot, ½ gal mason jar

thermometer that goes between 115° and 180° (the small ones, for about $5)

twist-tie or bendable wire to hold the thermometer on the pot

Optional for fast cooling: larger-diameter pot and ice. In the freezer, stirring every few minutes, also works.

Directions

Put 4-6 TBSP live yogurt in the jar

Heat milk to 180° (stir when the temperature is getting close to get an accurate reading)

Cool milk to 115° (I place the pot of hot milk in a larger pot holding icewater and stir, takes 5-7 min)

--optional: pre-warm oven by turning it on for a couple minutes--

Pour warm milk in the jar and cap it

Keep the jar warm, in oven or otherwise (around 100° ideally) for six-nine hours

That’s it! The heating activates critical proteins that let bacteria multiply through the milk, when you open the jar it will be full of creamy yogurt…like magic! For keeping the jar warm, I usually turn the oven on for a couple minutes so it heats up, then put the jar inside wrapped in a towel. In El Chaltén, the lovely ladies at Verdelimón let their yogurt incubate in a foam tube placed in a sunny window. I don’t think the mechanism, or the ideal heat of 100°, really matters. Be creative. If you haven’t made yogurt before be patient and expect some inconsistencies at first, it’s an uncertain art. Once you have a quality yogurt, remember to save a little to make the next batch. I’ve messed that one up before…

All you need. A twist-tie keeps the thermometer on the pot. The funnel is nice but not necessary.

Cooling the milk in icewater in the larger pot. Watch the thermometer while you stir and you'll notice how much faster it cools when the fluid is moving. The power of convection!

I wrap the mason jars in a towel in a pre-warmed oven. 6 hours later, they emerge as yogurt.

Sauerkraut

One of my favorite condiments, super versatile…under a fried egg, as a garnish on the side, not to mention the classic applications alongside sausage or atop a burger. Sauerkraut taps my old German heritage; my grandmother remembers her grandmother always keeping a huge ceramic crock stocked with cabbage for the next batch.

Sauerkraut is probably the simplest fermented food to make. It’s basically brined cabbage, and the brining breaks down the fibrous structure of the cabbage (that makes you fart) and lets lactobacillus bacteria thrive, turning the cabbage mash into a live, fermented food full of probiotics. Since the only necessary ingredients are cabbage and salt, this is super cheap, less than $2 for a half gallon!

Ingredients

1 medium-size cabbage

1 TBSP salt

1 TBSP caraway seeds (optional, for flavor and flair)

Big mixing bowl

½ gal masor jar (or a bucket and a plate and a weight)

Directions

Chop the cabbage. A food processor with the shredding blade does this super fast.

Mix shredded cabbage, salt, and caraway seeds in the bowl. Use your hands and squeeze hard, it’s fun.

Two options for fermentation: the process is anaerobic, so the cabbage needs to be submerged (if left exposed to air, the aerobic process, rot, will occur). The salt breaks down cell walls and releases a surprising amount of water, so much that you don’t have to add any water. Cool huh.

a)      Traditional method: For style points use your family’s heirloom ceramic crock, or a 5-gal bucket from Home Depot if you can’t find it (shoot, where is that thing?). Insert shredded cabbage, place a plate over it that just fits, and weight the plate down. The pressure will keep the goods submerged.

b)      Simple method: stuff all the cabbage in a ½ gal mason jar and cap it. The water will collect at the bottom, so flip it over every other day. This has worked just fine for me. Fermentation releases CO₂, so you need to unscrew the lid to release pressure every day or so.

Fermentation takes about a week (give or take for temperature differences).

Since brined sauerkraut (not made with vinegar) is alive, it has its own “immune defense” so-to-speak, meaning it is very shelf-stable. I leave mine un-refrigerated in a room-temp kitchen for weeks, and it holds up great camping.

Variation: I used a 1:1 blend of green cabbage and red cabbage; the result was tasty and a gorgeous magenta color.

purple sauerkraut in action

An Ego Spanking in the Gunks

(Please excuse any excessive geological ramblings, sometimes can't help myself. I learned geology while learning to climb, so the two are inseparable in my mind. But then again, they're inseparable anyway...)

We all need to be taken down a notch, as my mother would say, every once in a while. While I don’t necessarily enjoy it at the time, I definitely need a good ego-spanking now and then, and I received just what I needed this weekend. Spring finally has come to New England and my girlfriend Lilly and I journeyed with our friends Heather and Craig to the Gunks. Presiding above a rolling pastoral landscape just outside the college town of New Paltz NY, a striking cliff-line of gently dipping quartz conglomerate, formally Shawangunk ridge, is one of the premier traditional rock climbing destinations in the northeast. The Gunks is TRADITIONAL in the proper sense; routes rely almost exclusively on natural protection, ball-nuts and tri-cams are still on gear lists, and creativity with placements and good-old boldness are prerequisites for leading anything above (and sometimes including) 5.6. Most notable for a climber from Colorado is the SANDBAG factor: I haven’t gone to a crag with a hit list of 5.6’s and 5.7’s, with a .10b as my “stretch” goal, since my rack consisted of manky DMM cams, bootied nuts, and tied nylon slings and I still paid upperclassmen for beer.

The sandbag factor is fun and good for the soul, and provides some fantastic climbs that are both easy and thrilling, a combination not often found. (*Cough* excellent place to take your aspiring-climber significant other to get them psyched). This is made possible by the unique geology of the cliff: it’s a 70 meter high package of what a geologist would call “thin to medium-bedded” quart conglomerate. It’s basically very well cemented sandstone with pebbles mixed in with the ancient sand (thus a conglomerate), and between “beds” (flat layers) of pebbly sandstone are thin layers of shale, the rock that forms from mud. The result: shale erodes faster than sandstone, so the cliff appears as horizontal bands of bullet-hard conglomerate separated by horizontal cracks that vary from a half-inch to 3 inches, the perfect size for a cam. Also, the whole layer-cake of conglomerate and shale dips away from the cliff, so edges on the cliff tend to not only be flat, but positive. From a climber’s perspective, geology has created bitchin’ good climbing, basically a wall of jugs protected by horizontal placements.

I would describe the Gunks as the antithesis of Indian Creek: rather than plug-and-chug routes that demand pure stamina and physical prowess, successful sending at the Gunks relies more on the dark arts of subtle face climbing, gear trickery, and old-school boldness. It feels quite similar to Eldo, in fact. You can’t bump your cams along a vertical crack, and often you can’t even see placements until you’re staring into them with the wind whistling beneath your shorts. A lot of low-grade routes at the Gunks are just a ton of fun; I don’t know where else I’ve been run-out on overhanging terrain 15 feet above a horizontally-placed green C3 and felt totally at ease while throwing a heel-hook on yet another massive jug. Can’t do that in the South Platte.

Craig Muderlak finds 5.8 plenty exciting on "Annie Oh"

I could nerd out on the influences of geology on climbing all day, so on to the spanking…

The Gunks is famous for insanely fun and exposed moderate climbs (notably High Exposure, which Craig described as “the funnest 5.6 on the planet”… and I have to agree), but things get pretty serious pretty fast as the grade increases. Lilly and I enjoyed “Snooky’s return,” which starts with exciting moves off the ground protected by RPs (got my fully attention!) and finishes with a rope-stretching run-out up an overhanging jug-fest for a 50+ meter pitch: rated 5.8. The sun at this point was roasting but we were psyched and I hopped on the adjacent climb “Friends and Lovers,” rated 5.9 PG. Tenuous moves off the deck lead to thankfully bomber gear before a quite difficult an devious crux. I had just pulled the move and plugged a 00 C3 into a tiny horizontal pocket while balanced on a warm, greasy smear; I was contemplating the next move and trying to keep my balance, feeling pretty gripped, when ropes came down from above and surprised me quite a bit. Someone was rappelling down, very close.

“Uh, head’s up, I’m down here,” I said, re-chalking my sweaty fingers and giving the C3 a solid wiggle, feeling a little indignant that someone securely on rappel would drop ropes so close to a climber bravely forging ahead in the valiant act of LEADING…

“What are you climbing?” asked a kind older voice. “Oh, that’s a good one, I put that route up years ago.”

My rising balloon of indignation popped and fell, wilted, to the ground. This guy put up the F.A. of this thing in the 70’s! I looked at the C3 again, securely lodged in a ridiculously small pocket. He certainly didn’t have C3s in 1978, and he was probably fiddling tricams and hexes into the larger horizontals, wearing EBs on his feet…suddenly I felt ridiculous in my padded harness bristling with light modern cams and dyneema runners, standing in pinpoint-perfection LaSportiva rock shoes.

Feeling the need to say something else as Ron Sacks hung 10 feet from me with his grey beard and a twinkle in his eye, I said, “uh, pretty exciting route.”

“Yeah, that was a good one. Not much gear on it.” Yeah no shit.

Well now that the route’s venerable author was mere meters away watching some shirtless whippersnapper climb his route 36 years later in sleek asymmetric shoes, I surely wasn’t going to fall, or flail. I grabbed my “man-satchel,” so to speak, and kept climbing. The horizontal cracks on this part of the wall are pretty far apart, so you have to climb a couple body-lengths between pieces. Soon I was at the route’s crux, contemplating a difficult smeary high-step move off small crimps with a green Camalot placed securely in a horizontal crack beneath by feet. I looked down at the cam, the slab below that I really didn’t want to hit, Lilly belaying with a smile on her face and Ron watching steadily. What did he place in there in ’78? A hex? Was it bomber? Can’t mess this one up.

I searched for various options to make the move feel more secure and of course there were no other options, so eventually I stopped farting around and pulled the move, discovered there was no gear to be had, and kept going up into a definite no-fall zone. ‘Jeez, this thing is BOLD’ was my main thought as I finally got more gear in—a green C3 under a wet down-ward facing flake, ugh—and continued up easy but exciting terrain to the anchor. I looked down and Ron was smiling.

Chatting with Ron later, we learned he was there taking his teenage daughter climbing for the first time; they'd just enjoyed a classic 5.5 that scales the whole cliff with plenty of exciting exposure. He quit climbing for 20 years after his amped-up youthful days and was recently getting back into the sport. Meeting him in such ridiculous circumstances—an amped-up youth myself “hopping on” his route for a quick jaunt with modern gear, a route that was surely a serious risk for him to lead in ’78—gave me pause and made me think about the courage of the climbing pioneers who took big risks to climb these walls and discover what’s possible. All winter I’ve been training in the gym, cranking out sets of 5.12 sport climbs and taking huge whingers with abandon in the plastic, padded room. It’s good to remember that all that strength is no substitute for good old-fashioned courage, and leading a “5.9” at the Gunks is plenty exciting.

Lilly pulls out of overhanging jug-world on the funnest 5.6 on the planet

http://www.mountainproject.com/v/105801068- photo by Michael Amato

The amazing airy traverse on probably the most exciting 5.8 with the best name that I've ever climbed, the Cascading Crystal Kaleidoscope. Our chance at this shot was soiled by another party's stuck ropes so I ripped one off mountainproject because this shot just has to go along with any discussion of climbing at the Gunks. Lilly and I both found the traverse quite exciting.

One of the steeper walls, the site of Directississima, 5.10b, which Craig sent in good style

On this hot April day, jeans were a bad decision...and were promptly vetoed

Save me, I'm on a cliff!

Enjoying a frosty beverage on the comfy ledge up High Exposure

Salvaging success: alpine glissading and impromptu non-rest days

I rarely complete the main objective of a climbing expedition, but it’s often the peripheral events that really tie the room together, as the Dude would say. Last summer in the Bugaboos, Rowan and I experienced several “mission failures”: we had to bail off our attempt at the second ascent of East Columbia Indirect, 5.12A on Snowpatch Spire when I aggravated an old ankle sprain in a fall; we bailed off our attempt at the “easy” side of Snowpatch when we finally admitted, 4 pitches up, that it really was actually raining a lot; and we bailed off the west face of North Howser Tower, which earned us a very long scenic tour or the massif (see the post All Around the Watchtower). Each time, however, any disappointment we felt at failing to reach our particular summit goal was quickly dispelled by the joy of impromptu shenanigans: above all, we realized that while there is certainly a large amount of quality stone in the Bugaboos, the area is a world-class alpine glissading destination!

at the drop-in

Rowan spent his high school years in Switzerland, which makes him basically native Swiss, endowed with the natural talents fostered in the isolated, politically neutral fiefdom: punctuality, rationality, a discerning cheese palate, and sick skills on skis. We discovered that about the time we were getting off the rock most afternoons, the steep snowfields had softened to a perfect consistency for shredding: an inch of softness on top.

 

Rowan demonstrates equal prowess shredding with back-hand and fore-hand axe technique

Gazing up at the spires, we started scoping lines for descent as well as climbing lines. The pursuit of glissading added a fun dimension to each day; on the morning’s approach we’d be pointing out clean ski lines, already psyched for carving turns on the descent. Double stoke! We experimented with techniques such as the running start, the launch-and-slide, and debated the merits of mid-foot vs. heel strike glissading. We will need to confirm the records of the Canadian Alpine Club but I believe Rowan made the first standing-glissade descent of a gulley to skier’s right of the Bugaboo-Snowpatch couloir. 

Extreme glissading. Double-Black terrain.

The other way we managed to salvage non-success on our primary objectives was impromptu sending on rest days. The morning after out Watchtower attempt we woke late to clear skies and lay about the camp in the stunningly beautiful East Creek basin, yawning and stretching our sore legs. After a leisurely breakfast, a game of backgammon and some reading, we found ourselves both staring up at the clean white granite of South Howser Tower looming above our camp. South Howser is the site of the Becky Chounaird, IV 5.10a, which resides on the fabled “50 Classic Climbs of North America” list, and as such is one of the most popular grade IV backcountry rock climbs in the Northwest. For many parties it is the primary objective of a trip to the Bugaboos, and rightfully so, because the position on a ridge and headwall of the South Howser Tower is superb, and the rock is immaculate.

I don’t remember our exact conversation, but it must have included the standard niceties of “you know, it would be nice to do some climbing on such a nice day” and “I bet we could get up that thing pretty fast”…by noon we were strapping on our shoes, grabbing a rack and some bagel sandwiches, and racing off towards the South Howser.

 

We enjoyed the loveliest of days on the Becky Chouinaird, which lived up to its reputation of beauty and all-time classic-ness. The rock was superb, the pitches were fun, and the views were stellar. We simul-climbed most of the ridge pitches and by the time we reached the headwall we were thoroughly stoked. Rowan lead an awesome physical pitch up the headwall, exclaiming his brimming stoke to the wind and celebrating each no-hands stance with booty dances. We topped out the South Howser Tower in the middle of a beautiful sunset, with the whole Selkirk range spread around us, aglow in the warm light of the falling sun. In the middle of the dense Interior Range of British Columbia, I had the feeling that the whole world was an unending range of mountains spreading in every direction. We enjoyed an expedient descent on the modern bolted rap route, a twilight glissade down the Pidgeon-Howser col on perfect snow, and were back in camp in time for dinner.

By this time our friend and fellow cliff-scrambler David Fay had joined our camp in East Creek. In impeccable style, David hitchhiked up from Idaho and hiked in solo, and he had just returned from a solo cruise-around mission, psyched on the beauty of the spires. The next morning we were hit with a hard cold rain in proper Bugaboo fashion, which gave us a great excuse to sleep in again, make pancakes and play backgammon. (Backgammon is a great backcountry game: all you need is the board drawn on a stuff sack, two dice, and a handful each of two different colored rocks). Soon the sky cleared and we were once again lounging amidst gorgeous sunny spires and beginning to wonder what the day would bring. Rowan opted for an R&R day, but David and I had the itch for vertical adventures so we grabbed the rope and rack and scrambled up the base of the Minaret to check out Doubting the Millenium, a really pretty line freed by Sean Villanueva and Nico Favresse. We were, as they say, stoked, however our stoke depleted a bit as we realized that the first pitch was a pretty thin slab and the first gear was 40 ft up, the second piece 80 ft up. That math = don’t fall. We both made tentative forays up the slab but neither of us was willing to lead it. We philosophized about how the snowfield was probably higher back in those days, but in reality Sean and Nico are just super talented and fearless.

We retreated back to camp for more lollygagging and enjoyment of snacks and the great view. However, we began to feel the itch again, and some time around 4:30 David proposed jokingly that we could climb Fingerberry Jam because we still had five hours of daylight left. We quickly both realized that he wasn’t joking. After hastily gathering our kit together we left camp at 5 PM wearing only our shoes and undies, as it was quite hot out, with Rowan laughing at our backsides like an old curmudgeon on his porch.

Fingerberry Jam, IV 5.12a, is one of the most aesthetic rock climbs I’ve ever tasted. The “business section” of the first three pitches follows a slender crack system up a basically blank wall of gorgeous clean granite. We scrambled up to the wall in our skivvies, got dressed on a small ledge, and David launched into a thin, arching crack which turned out to be an unrelenting tips crack. He powered through the tenuous moves in good style and sent the pitch. After struggling up the beautiful first pitch I continued up the second, which involved pulling a physical roof and enjoying a perfect finger-size splitter. After a few body lengths the splitter turned into a rail that tapered off towards a blank section, about one arm-span from another crack system. I obviously had to switch crack systems, but I was spooked by the questionable gear I’d wiggled into some funky pods on the rail. While second-guessing myself before the move I fell and ripped two pieces, falling a good 40 feet or so but it was a clean fall in golden evening light, so I was quite stoked and pulled back up to my last piece, found better gear in the rail, and sent the crack-switch move without too much difficulty. The incident proves the maxim that it’s better to just go for it the first time, because I could clearly do the move. The only damage was to my pants: I ripped a generous flap off one butt-cheek and my undies were flopping out, which David was kind enough to inform me as he climbed to the anchor.

The unrelenting first pitch of Fingerberry Jam. photo from David Fay

David cruised up most of the 3^rd pitch, which involves a 5.12a face-traverse crux. In his frenzy of stoke and haste due to the setting sun he climbed too high and attempted to traverse a completely blank slab of granite. After a few valiant attempts which all turned into stylish whippers, he pendulumed to the next crack system and scurried to the anchor. I was neither able to execute the traverse; we later learned we were about 15 feet too high. Whoops.

We enjoyed a gorgeous sunset on the wall as I ran the rope 70m up fun, cruiser terrain and belayed on a freestanding pinnacle about the size and posture of a standing grizzly bear, then David switched his headlamp to adventure mode (on) and ventured up into the darkness. By some strange literary trick of nature, once the sun went down and darkness descended upon the spires, the rock became physically black, a bit loose, and crusted with lichen. The orb of David’s light skittered around above and a litter of lichen and rubble trickled down the face.

“Dude, I feel like I’m climbing into Haloween!” David exclaimed. I’m sure I said something encouraging and gave a very attentive belay as I hugged the bear-pinnacle and tried to not get hit by any of the debris.

We topped out the tower, high-fived, coiled the rope, and began sauntering off towards the casual walk-off. Our saunter was terminated abruptly by a sheer cliff in front of us, and I informed David that, unfortunately, we would be needing the rope again. I lead out a ridiculously narrow ridge covered in loose blocks, on which there was no gear, and straddled the end aiming my headlamp beam into thick darkness in all directions: clearly not the way down. I had to reverse the ridge, which was terrifying, then we scrambled around for a while and managed to find a rappel anchor. What ensued was a classic descent that made the whole endeavor a true alpine character: lots of tenuous downclimbing on steep snow, searching for anchors, and slinging questionable blocks.

There is something unique that happens when you can’t see any further than the beam of your headlamp; you can’t tell if the couloir you’re kicking steps down is 200 ft long or 2000 ft long, because the light beam just decays into blackness beyond the visible snow. I always tend to imagine the snow disappearing over a bottomless cliff and grip my axe a little tighter. All you can do is keep going down, carefully, which is what we did until we realized we were at the bottom again. Relieved, we whooped at the glorious stars, glissaded down the glacier, and enjoyed a tasty meal and hot cocoa at 2 AM underneath a huge display of the galaxy framed by the dark silhouettes of the Howser Towers.

The next day was supposed to be a rest day too, but instead we packed up everything and schlepped our loads back to Applebee camp, stopping on the way for a quick attempt at the Pidgeon Tower speed record, team free-solo, naked, which is a story best told by David.

Rowan and I atop the South Howser Tower

At the trailhead, with the Brave Little Toaster sufficiently armored against marauding porcupines.

    Bailing in the rain

 

Hard to make out, but our glissading tracks from a prior day, viewed from the Becky

 

Gorgeous rock on the Becky-Chouinaird

Summit Sunset Stoke Dances!

A rare sight in alpine climbing, David getting ready for Fingerberry Jam

cruiser terrain above the difficulties on Fingerberry Jam

 

psyched on a sunny day

 The Alpine Mayonnaise Centrifuge

Desperate for calories, we salvaged the last of our mayonnaise by taping it to a sling and swinging it around our heads, gathering the precious fat in the lid. A game-changer.

sunset in paradise

heading off to go for the speed record on Pidgeon Spire...

All Around the Watchtower

Bugaboos, British Columbia, August 2013

It started like any other excursion of Colorado climbers at large in the big, wet Canadian wilderness: a custom playlist; a car that slowly devolves from shrewd organization to an entropic litter of chip bags, wrappers, and crumpled cans; a long, sweaty approach with massive packs; and a supply of stoke much sunnier than the weather forecast.  Despite all objective hazards, Rowan Hill and I stumbled over the Pidgeon-Howser col with our gratuitous loads in the midst of a thunderstorm and picked our way across the glaciers to the East Creek camp with a weeks' worth of food, a triple rack, and most of the gear we left Colorado with (minus a pair of gloves and some pack webbing, stolen by voracious rodents the night we bivvied in the forest). We felt seasoned from our previous climbing on Snowpatch spire, psyched after a weekend of cranking on (mostly) dry limestone in Canmore, and we’d arrived just in time for a two-day weather window to take our best shot at our primary objective: All Along the Watchtower, VI 5.11 C2.

I try to refrain from obsession. I call it dreaming, or inspiration, but my best friends know it's a front: I've wanted this line for years. In 2011 I cowered under a tent in Applebee camp with Noah Gostout and Erik Rieger as thunderclaps detonated overhead and the Howser Towers seemed some faraway Mount Olympus, only visited by herculean efforts of steely-eyed hardmen. In 2012 I climbed harder and further up the large walls of the American west, pushing outside the comfort zone with each climb until the dizzying void below and the difficult terrain still above at the fall of dusk began to become...acceptable? Normal? Like so many climbers have done, I was learning to relax into the objective hazards inherent in committing climbing and embrace the wild journey of expanding potential.

The Black Canyon of the Gunnison provided the perfect learning environment; the first time it seemed a miracle just to regain the canyon rim from the valley floor, but each successful “escape” led to a longer or harder line. Then I drove west last September to pay homage to the pioneers of our art and submit myself to a proper apprenticeship in Yosemite. My last week in the Valley I free climbed Astroman and ascended the Big Stone in one long, tiring day and suddenly the vertical world blossomed in possibility.

Success on the walls of Yosemite did not leave me satiated, but kindled my hunger for longer, bigger, harder, with the elusive goal of the Watchtower floating above all dreams and delusions, spurring me to dive deeper into the unknown. On December 1 Tucker and I woke before dawn on the rim of the Black Canyon in a completely vacant campsite, hiked through snow to the Cruise Gulley, and roped up beneath Jimmy Dunn’s tour-de-force Stoned Oven (V 5.11+). 16 hours later and minus our #5 Camalot I clawed through the “womb fight” and dragged myself over the canyon rim. We'd climbed in full darkness connecting crumbling, intermittent crack systems for over four hours, and at one dismal off-route hanging belay I'd committed to selling my rack and taking up running or biking or anything sane and safe as my main hobby. Still, in the cold night we stood alone at the top of a chasm of infinite darkness and knew what hardships lay below us and knew it was a good day.

The plans for an expedition to the Bugaboos hatched in the winter of 2013.  I kept the guidebook on my desk, bookmarked to the photo of North Howser Tower.  After ten-hour days crawling under floors and running wire in 12° houses it was tempting to collapse on the couch after work, but the image of the Watchtower floated in the periphery of my consciousness and I knew I would need increased stamina and new strength when the time came; I learned to nordic ski and puffed out laps by headlamp after work, then went bouldering at the gym. Once spring came Rowan and I worked our wilderness therapy gigs and spent our off-shifts bouldering and cranking on power-endurance testpieces at the local crags.  The dream of the Watchtower hovered like an angel or a spectre in the shadows of each day; I carried rock-rings in the field, and fatigued from long days working with defiant youth, I resisted the temptation to nap and spent my precious break time running and doing finger-hang workouts, trusting that each modicum of strength I gained would come in clutch on gameday.  On quiet afternoons in Durango I'd hike up alone to the Watch Crystal with a rope and mini-traxion and try to maximize the vertical I could get in 2 hours, never resting except for rappelling back down for another pitch.

 

Gameday. Our preparation was perfect; the day before we'd scoped the approach and kicked steps in the short snowfields so we wouldn't need to stop to don crampons. We woke at 2AM, huffed through the approach in an hour, nailed the rappels, and roped up beneath 2,500 feet of granite at first light. We were fit, ready, and psyched...and then it all began to unravel. We'd been heard vague rumors of “route-finding difficulties” on the first half of the route—I have always prided myself in the ability to choose the right path, in a forest or up a rock wall, but that day I met my match. The initial apron of the North Howser Tower looks from a distance to be a low-angle ramp that a confident party could simul-climb in 2 hours; it turns out to be a system of slick slabs connected by corners that hold intermittent seams, not splitter cracks.

Twice we climbed a full 60m in the wrong direction and rappelled back to our last point of “probably on-route,” a demoralizing experience. Rowan rose to the occasion and led up some frightening terrain through sparse protection, but each time we arrived at a position where neither of us was willing to proceed; the terrain above was difficult, unprotected slab.  Even Hayden Kennedy reported dangerous off-route slab climbing; we should have taken a hint.  We lost a precious hours of daylight attempting various options and returning to the same position. Eventually it was 3 PM and we were still staring at the same convoluted face, with the upper headwall, the headwall that had resided in my dreams for two years, floated in the upper distance like a castle in the air.

 

It was a hard call to make. Bailing off the face of the North Howser is a major proposition: reversing the entrance rappels is not an option, so returning to camp requires a complete circumnavigation of the Howser massif. 3PM, menacing clouds gathering despite the optimistic forecast, and still no path upward that wasn't a severe risk. Our eyes met. We made the call and began coiling the ropes. Back on the glacier, the sky opened up in a cold, hard rain, as if to confirm our decision, but it was little consolation. We were not sure of the distance or exact path of the route around the Howsers, but we'd both seen the photo, right? We knew it was a long way involving a steep gulley and a pass. Which gulley? Would we be able to see the pass? Would it be guarded by a vertical ‘shrund? The answers to these questions lay shrouded in the dark mist coalescing around the mountain. Standing in the rain exhausted at the base of one of the tallest walls in North America, I groped for any shred of hope that we could walk right back to camp, but it was just one of those situations where there is one reality, and the only path forward is to accept it.  We shouldered soggy packs and hiked out into the wilderness.

It always amazes me what human legs can do if you keep putting one in front of the other. I don't remember all the details of our long, circuitous bail, but I do remember some things I learned, like how a Cliff bar goes a LONG way if it's all you've got, and how climbing 1500 ft of steep snow is easier than the same amount of scree, and how it's best to put your hood up while rappelling over a bergshrund, and how to laugh while squatting in “lightning drill” on an ice bridge between two crevasses. For the third time, we automatically crouched and set down our axes after an electric flash illuminated the cloud, and we couldn't help bursting out in grins at the absurdity of our situation.

“Dude, isn’t it…like…a little past the point if we’ve already seen the flash?”

“Yeah, I reckon so. But it’s good style, right?”

Stumbling across the Vowell glacier in a white-out, weaving our path through crevasses while thunder resonated in our chests and lightning pummeled the summit of the North Howser, we couldn't help but wonder at the twisted web of circumstances that put us here, squatting on the glacier with the ice flashing luminescent with each thunderclap, rather than huddling in some unknown alcove on the peak above. Is there really fortune and misforture, in an absolute sense? Or do we simply keep writing our story forward, with each decision in each moment?

The storm passed and we were rewarded with a sweeping view of our final miles of glacier glowing soft pink in the sun's last rays. Relieved, we could see a path through the twisted convolutions of ice and realized that the day’s technical difficulties were over; all that remained was the comforting rhythm of exhausted walking. Our wet clothing chilled in the cooling air but the incessant plodding kept us warm, and under cold bright stars we scrambled over the Pidgeon-Howser col and glissaded beneath the South Howser on burning thighs that shook like jelly.  At last we stood outside our tent, soaked and steaming in the deepening night, and high-fived with big grins. We didn’t succeed in climbing the Watchtower, we were thwarted by frustration and dead-ends, but at least we showed up ready, and we got to explore miles of wild terrain and feel thunder rumble across the ice and stand in the wilderness with a good friend watching the vast expanse of the Selkirk Range fade into velvet twilight.

The biggest send of the 2011 expedition

The 2011 team, Noah and Erik, tentbound.

Glissading with a view in much better weather in 2013

At camp in East Creek basin

"Dude, it's really big"

The West face of North Howser Tower

heavy packs up the Bugaboo-Snowpatch col

                                                          Mayonnaise = alpine stoke

 Rowan racking up beneath 2500 ft of the goodness

Scoping

A glissading technique not recommended by Freedom of the Hills, but executed with style nonetheless.

                     

The swiss man shreds perfect afternoon corn snow

 Scoping mission complete, stoked.