Dear Friends,
I just returned from a three-day trip to Las Vegas over Thanksgiving, where I climbed with a friend named Timo. The standard itinerary for such a trip--gamble, eat, gamble, sleep, repeat--was swapped for one that took place almost entirely outside of Las Vegas proper, and instead centered on Red Rocks, a large valley surrounded by a mountain range with some of the best rock climbing that the west has to offer. It was pretty amazing. I didn't take all that many pictures (I forgot my camera on the first day), but the ones I did take can be browsed here. This trip was exceptional in that I did a lot of things I'd never done before, learning them because if I didn't I would die. Literally.
On the first day, I was sport climbing a route for the first time--sport climbing is when bolts are drilled into the rock face so that you can attach the rope to it with a quickdraw--when I realized that, despite being twenty feet above the last bolt, there were obviously no more bolts. If I dropped, I would fall forty feet and probably kill myself; my only choice was to finish the last forty-ish feet of the route. The reason I was sport climbing in the first place, by the way, was because the route was too difficult for Timo, my partner, who has significantly more experience outdoors. I happened to have a piece of trad gear (short for "traditional" gear) attached to my harness, and so I stuck it in a crack, and, hey!, it stuck. So I clipped myself into that and braced myself for the last stretch (which contained no cracks, and hence no opportunities to place gear, even if I had more).
Obviously, I didn't die. But I will say this: I have a good head for heights, but making a move when you know a mistake will drop you sixty or seventy feet is a good deal harder than making a move in a rock climbing gym with an eight foot fall and thick mats. Anyways, that was day one. Day two was even more exciting.
I should have known things wouldn't go as planned when Timo and I completely botched the approach. Fifty minutes into the hike, we realized that our trail was taking us away from the Cat in the Hat, the route we wanted to do. The Cat in the Hat is a four-pitch climb, which means that it has four routes stacked on top of each other. One person leads a pitch, the other follows up, cleaning up the gear placed by the first, and then the next pitch is led, and so on. When the top is reached, each pitch is rappelled down. All in all, the Cat in the Hat is between four and five hundred feet of climbing.
We finally decided to hike across the rugged terrain to the start of the route, which essentially meant climbing up the huge boulders leading up to the face of the cliff. It was a lot less fun than it sounds with 150 pounds of gear between us. We finally reached the base, though, and ate a banana in celebration. It was in the low sixties and we were in the shadow of the mountain, so it was cold; still, we could see the sun hitting the mountain higher up, and we figured we would be warm once we got up high enough. Timo led the first pitch without incident, and I followed. The second went more or less smoothly, and the third as well. The only irksome detail was that the sun moved up the mountain faster than we climbed. Timo is a slow, methodical climber, and a long pitch took us well over an hour.
Three pitches and four hours into the climb, the troubles began--which was interesting, considering that we were feeling pretty good, having finally found the sun. It was a little after 2pm, and we had just run into another group of climbers that had started before us. I was to trad-lead the final pitch, the hardest of the four, so I had some fun getting together a full harness of gear, webbing, and carabiners. We waited a good hour for that group to make it up, which was frustrating because daylight only lasted until 5pm. In any case, I began the lead with a short traverse to the right, then headed up a crack. After just three or four pieces of protection, I felt the rope start to drag because of the way it was being pulled through the protection. At first it was hardly a problem--I've climbed with weights on my wrists and legs--but after eighty feet and eight pieces of gear, the rope started to feel really heavy. With every step, the rope got heavier, the gear-placing opportunities grew fewer, and the climb became more difficult. And I still had sixty feet to go.
Thirty feet from the top, I had to pause. The last opportunity to place was fifteen feet below, and there was nothing else in sight all the way to the top. The rope drag was around thirty pounds, and it felt like a hundred. The rock was slippery sandstone with sloped holds and sketchy feet. Suddenly, I had a pair of realizations almost simultaneously: firstly, that I couldn't do it. I couldn't make the moves I needed to with this kind of drag, knowing that, if I fell, paralysis would be an optimistic outcome. And secondly, that I didn't have any choice. There are still things I want to do in my life. The first realization was the least appealing, so I shoved it aside and latched on to the second. I breathed a prayer and began moving upward, willing my hand and feet not to slip off their holds.
I'm writing this e-mail, so obviously I made it to the top. I clipped into the anchor and belayed Timo up, all the while feeling grateful to be alive. By the time he made it up and we prepared to rappel down, the last dregs of sunlight were slipping behind the mountain. And I was freezing.
To our surprise and delight, we realized that our rope wasn't long enough to rappel down to the next anchor. Instead, we hooked up an intermediate anchor and rappelled down from there. I don't want to bore you with more details, but suffice it to say that the process of setting an anchor and rappelling two people down to the next takes about half an hour. By the time we hit the top of the third pitch, it was pretty near dark. We set up the next rappel as quickly as we could; this time, our rope was short by about twenty feet, but it was a reasonable down-climb. A few hundred feet up, sure, but not difficult. We had settled on down-climbing and were pulling our rope down when... our rope snagged. And for the life of us, we just could not get it un-stuck. So Timo and I were stuck on the side of the mountain completely unprotected, and with no rope. It was in the low fifties by this time, and my fingers were going numb. We shook and pulled the rope almost an hour before a pair of climbers saw our snag and unhooked it. Grateful, we down-climbed to the anchor and set up the next rappel. This time it was hardly a surprise when our rope turned out to be too short. Exhausting, cold to the bone, and generally frustrated, we joined the group above us and, using two ropes tied together, made it down to the bottom in another hour or so.
The grueling hike back, which took just under an hour, was also quite pleasant.
Timo and I packed our gear into the back, sat in our seats, and and started driving away. And suddenly I realized that I had a new reason to love rock climbing. I had an opportunity to face the nagging voice of "you can't do it," and came out on top. I was exhausted, miserable (did I mention that I had a head cold?), and sore, but almost deliriously happy. The kind of happy you only get when you feel you've earned it.
And that was my Thanksgiving. How was yours?
------------------------
See pictures of my apartment and of work. (Look for the album labeled "Apt #1614" and "Poker Room," respectively.)
View the FUN Archives.You can contact me by replying to this e-mail. To send letters or packages, use the following address:
Dan Kaschel
4747 W Waters Ave., Apt #1614
Tampa, FL 33614
My new phone number is 813-313-6573.
Peace,
Dan
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment