As I hobble out of Oak Creek Canyon, feet ripped and blistered, mind weak from dehydration and fatigue, the thought of climbing again is absolutely the last thing on my mind. And yet, mere minutes later, drinking beer and eating the best burgers that Calico Jack's has to offer, Bill and I are making plans to climb Epinephrine in the spring.
Probably half the reason climbers find climbing so enjoyable is due to their collective selective memories.
- Mini TR within a TR:
- The winter is spent climbing. Cara and I foray out to Southern Illinois, Looking Glass (NC), T-Wall, the Gunks, the Red (KY), and the Wichitas (OK). During this time, Cara improves by amazing leaps and bounds, even leading a few pitches hither and tither. Meanwhile, I log lots upon lots of moderate mileage. Along the way, I manage to lead my first ever aid pitch (executive summary: sorta fun, but mostly work. cf: selective memory). On our rest days, we go to class.
 |
Not soon enough, spring break comes as a welcome relief, and we get to forget for a week. Bill and I have traded some email by this point, and the plan is to climb Epi on Sunday. So on Friday, in the process of making some phone calls to try and finalize this plan, I learn that Bill is, in fact, in Wisconsin for the weekend for some girlfriend related thing.
Huh. That's interesting, Bill. I mean, we've only been planning this for THREE MONTHS now. But no matter, as our friends Storm and Arie are flying out in a few days. Storm and I already have plans to climb a harder route together, but had't decided which one yet. All of a sudden, the ante's just been upped without Storm's knowledge. To be fair, though, I call him back at home and plant the seed. He sounds skeptical but at least promises to think about it.
- [Storm pipes in]
- When Alex first told me that he planned to climb Epinephrine, I'll admit that I wasn't surprised; but also didn't volunteer to come along for the ride. Still, I didn't bother hiding my excitement when Alex called from the airport and suggested our ascent. For the moment I could defer all my anxiety about the notorious chimneys and instead think of what a hoot it would be for a couple of midwest trad climbers to come back with an 18-pitch grade IV on their tick list.
[back to Alex now]
It's Tuesday evening, and Storm and I have decided that we're going to
go for it. At dinner, Scary Larry dishes out equal portions of beta
and entertaining stories from the days of old. Afterwards, Storm and I
microdiscuss every single item that we plan on bringing up with us,
down to the last ounce of water. The plan is to go as fast and light
as possible. In this spirit, and based on Larry's opinions about
committing to a route, we decide to bring only a single rope. (cue
ominous groaning and creaking organ music)
The next morning sees an early start, and Cara is dropping us off in the parking lot at 5:30 AM. Launching out of the car, I grab my pack, which contains my harness, shoes, water, and the rack, and we start blazing up the trail. Ten minutes later, Storm has to answer the call of nature, and says he'll catch up to me.
 Notice that we DON'T HAVE A ROPE. |
As I continue down the trail, a terrible realization occurs to me. We have no rope.
We have NO rope.
WE DON'T HAVE A ROPE TO CLIMB EPINEPHRINE.
Now I'm hustling back towards Storm, roaring. He thinks I'm mad about his bathroom break taking too long, but in reality, WE HAVE NO ROPE. The message takes a few repetitions to fully sink in, and our spirits are sunk. We don't know what to do. In the irrational haze that only panic can bring, we decide to hike back towards the parking area and see if we can borrow a rope from one of the parties there.
- Yeah right. Two complete strangers who think they can climb Epinephrine, only they don't have a rope, and they want to borrow yours? Yeah right.
- But such are the thoughts of addled men.
About thirty feet from the guerilla campers, we encounter a man coming our way. He stops and looks quizzically at me for a second and then say, "Alex?" My response is, "Do you have a rope?" And then I realize who I'm talking to. It's Bill! Back from Wisconsin and clued in by Larry, he decided to just show up and hope to catch Storm and me before we started up. I apologize for my strange greeting and we tell him about our little problem. Luckily, he's got TWO ropes in his van, so it looks like we're climbing Epinephrine after all.
In the space of 15 minutes, Storm and I have gone from pre-climb jitters and excessive nervous energy to complete and utter defeat to absolute salvation from on high. And we're still at the trailhead.
- [From Storm's perspective]
- Alex's words hadn't sunk in yet. I couldn't make sense of why he was walking towards me instead of towards the climb. I repeated "GO, GO--I'll catch up," and I felt guilty for taking an overly-long nature call. To my sleep-deprived mind, Alex had a right to be angry if I slowed us down for even 30 seconds--for we were headed on an all-day, all-out Western-sized adventure. Still, why was Alex walking *towards* me? When I finally grasped the meaning of Alex's fateful, breathless exclamation "No rope," I was overcome with disappointment, dismay, confusion, and to some extent, relief. I've never been superstitious, but we were definitely in the midst of an *omen*, and it wasn't a good omen. With such an omen, the climb was off, right?
- I tried to piece together what had gone wrong with our planning. The night before we had an extensive discussion about how many ropes to bring--was one rope enough, or did we want an extra in case we need to rappel from the top of the tower? We had been so absorbed with whether to bring two ropes or one rope that we forgot completely to bring *any* rope.
thank the gods for Bill - But within two short minutes, the climbing gods reversed our fate. Our bad omen was offset by a good omen. Our good omen was named Bill. It didn't bother Alex or me in the least that Bill's extra rope didn't look fit for a rappel line, much less a lead line. Half an hour later I tied-in, winced at the frayed sheath, and in moment of weakness started to ask, "Is this a nine... point... six?... five?...?" but I cut myself off in mid-sentence. We were going old-school today--the leader never falls.
- And so it was! We made a clean ascent. No falls, no extra gear, no unnecessary gawking at belay stations, but plenty of mind-blowing climbing and exposure. Once we made it to the top of the tower and we had each had our fill of chimney leads, we were as slap happy as school boys. The rest of the route would not deliver any more fear-of-God pitches. Even the adventurous simul-climb to the summit didn't weigh as heavily on our minds since we had sent the chimneys.
[Alex wraps up]
And that's that, really. The climb was relatively straightforward,
with the lead rotating between the three of us. The chimneys were as
advertised (tough and strenuous, although rather well protected), and
the face climbing was interesting. We made it to the finishing 700
foot scramble at 6:30 PM and were at the summit by 7:30. The descent
was mostly straightforward, and although Bill kept on wanting to cut
down, I resisted, hearing Larry's voice telling us how screwed we'd be
if we didn't keep following the ridgeline until we saw the massive
clump of cairns. We were back at the car at 10, ate a huge dinner with
Arie and Cara, and finished with a champagne toast at midnight.
