Your guide to the perilous waters of the internet

7-27-09

Over two weeks since I've written. Climbed Outer Space with Christine last weekend. The climbing was fine, excepting the thunderstorms and the rain on pitch 4. The descent was horrible sandy death slabs and bushwhacking slide alder. Cairns were everywhere and I couldn't remember where to cut high as it had been 25 years.

I've also not hiked that far (2 miles uphill) with a heavy rock pack in a decade. My knees must be getting better as I'm not feeling any serious pain other than sore muscles.

I'm going to get even busier this week. I have to take a 30 hour class at Bates on "how to be a teacher". Seems the state has changed the laws now that we are credited.

Clint and Craig are starting to go climbing without me. I'm glad that they like the sport, but I kind of hate to let go of their "training". What if I didn't teach them enough safety stuff? They need to take some rescue classes. I took two weeks off climbing for tendonitis in my bicep, but that appears to be healed, knock on wood.

7-10-09

I've been having some serious issues with focus lately. Facebook is becoming an addiction of disturbing proportions. I have work to do, but I get sucked into the Facebook conversation and ignor my real work. The latest distraction is that Crystal broke her ankle climbing. She is on a road trip all summer climbing and visiting parks and friends across the country.

I've not heard the full story yet, but it appears she was scrambling up to give someone a cam and slipped 2 moves up. If there is a silver lining in this accident, it is that I was a little worried about her gear placing skills, so perhaps this accident will make her more cautious and will slow her down and give her gear skills time to catch up with her climbing skills.

I'm hoping it is not one of those serious heel bone breaks that takes months and months to heal.

John Bachar also fell recently, but his fall was unroped and he has taken the big ride. He left a son behind and the day of the accident the son was posting on a climbing board at 2 am about how much he missed his dad. The messages are heart rending to read.

Bachar was one of my heros back then. I used to watch him climb in Joshua Tree back in the eighties. He would be climbing stuff without a rope that was far too hard for me to do with a rope. He was one of the "gods" of climbing back then along with Chouinard, Robbins, Ron Kauk and several others.

Speaking of Ron Kauk I ran into him at the base of sunnyside jam crack right of Yosemite falls. He was there with a very pretty woman of about 38, and a hardman who soloed the route. They were suiting up right next to Sue and I, following us up the route and I could tell from the conversation that he was famous, plus I recognized the haircut and blue jeans from decades of magazine covers.

I asked him if his name was Jim (confused as usual), and he said it was Ron Kauk. I introduced myself and we shook hands. He said he thought he'd recognized Sue from somewhere, which was not likely as we are nobody compared to Ron, at least in climbing circles.

I new Ron had a son who climbed so we began talking about the dangers involved in a child who takes up our sport. His comment was that at least a son who climbs is "headed toward something positive", instead of sinking downward into drugs, or other bad activities. It was good advice. He was a very kind man to take the time to talk to a relative nobody like myself. He seemed to be totally humble, not stuck up at all.

7-3-09

Returned from Index today. Sue Clint, Craig and I started out at Exit 38 where I was climbing very strongly. I led all the climbs there at the Far Side that used to scare me and had no problems at all. They felt much easier, which is how it should be after a Yosemite vacation.

Friday evening Sue and Clint returned home so Clint could work the 4th (doubletime) and Craig & I drove up to Index. He led the second and 4th pitches of The Lizard, while I led the third (the big black book). Next I led Princely Ambitions 5.9 cleanly. The traverse seemed much more do-able than before and I made the move after a few minutes hesitation. There is a small cam that practically gives it a top rope. You just have to step over to the second footstep with the right foot, not the first. That places your body far enough over, after you weight the foot, that you can grab the jug, though it is very thin and balancy.

By getting that top rope cam, you are shooting yourself in the foot. At that point on the route, it takes a sharp right turn, traversing about 12 feet horizontally right. Then it goes up 5 feet and traverses 30 feet horizontally left on a 5.9 hand rail. Picture a 30 foot two by four nailed long way onto the side of a house. You can stick your fingers behind the rail where there is a half inch gap up against the "house". This rail goes about 20 feet before it turns up vertical.

I committed to the rail and hand traversed out about 5 feet. I threw my right foot up to take some of my weight (heel hook) and desperately placed a yellow tcu cam. When I tried to pull up the rope to clip to the protection, I found that I was hauling 70 pounds of rope drag. Talk about a bad time to have rope drag!

I pulled up just enough to place grab the rope in my teeth, then grabbed it with my gimpy arm and ever so slowly pulled in an inch of rope at a time. The whole time I was pulling rope, my hand and foot were slipping off the rail as my power drained. Finally I clipped the piece and tried to squirm up onto the rail. Failing at that, I sunk both fingers behind the rail and let my heel hook fall away.

As my body swung down I was left hanging there fully extended, like some Hollywood stuntman but this was me, this was real and I was 80 feet up in the air on a vertical wall. I made a couple more hand traverse moves and felt my power bleeding away to nothing. Desperately, I swung my right foot up onto the rail again and mantled for all I was worth. It was either stick the mantil or take a swinging fall onto the tcu.

With my heart pumping frantically I got my foot, and then my knee up onto the rail and pushed down, sticking the mantle. As I pulled up onto the rail, the damn vertical cliff tried to push me off. By jamming my fingers behind the rail I was able to balance my way along until it got slightly wider and began to trend upward. I placed another cam and stood there panting...the terror slowly draining away.

The rope drag got worse and worse as I climbed the last 60 feet. For the last 50 feet I had to clip gear with my daisy (to get a top rope), climb past the gear using my legs to haul the rope, then clip it when I was above it, and move the daisy to the next piece. I climbed the route clean, but should have placed less gear with longer slings.

Today I led Godzilla but my arm was so badly gimped it was a hang fest. I need to take some time off from climbing to heal up both mentally and physically. If there is a muscle in my body that doesn't hurt, I haven't found it. Climbing the weekend after coming back from Yosemite sounded like a good idea, but my body wasn't ready for it...or, not three days of it.

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