Whereabouts Unknown: A Brief Reprieve

Packing for an expedition to tackle a 100’ obscure aid and free line rope solo in the Eastern Kentucky backcountry is much different at fifty years old than at twenty-three years old.  All those years ago I would have just taken everything, up to and including the kitchen sink.  The weight wouldn’t have been a consideration.  I might have taken a single bottle of water.  Probably no food.  Wouldn’t have worried about rolled ankles or getting benighted or cold. 

In 1997, if I’d gotten too hurt to self-rescue my only hope for survival would have been Don Fig finding me before the turkey vultures.  I was fully aware no one would know where I dangled like Toni Kurz awaiting my doom.  The full chain of events that it would take for me to be discovered at this obscure place in the backcountry was painfully apparent to me.  And that was—and honestly still is—a huge part of the appeal.  But if I’d taken a bad fall on Mosaic in 1997 my skeleton would probably still be dangling from a rope way out there. 

I’m an introvert.  When my mom said “you shouldn’t hike alone” my response was then and has typically always been: “if I wait until I have someone to go with me I won’t get to go.”  That’s partially true.  The other facet of that truth is that I enjoy exploring alone.  Other people complicate and sometimes ruin experiences for me.  That’s not to say I don’t want to share outdoor experiences with other people.  I absolutely do, and I feel lonely at times when I’ve found some amazing place and have no one with me to appreciate it.

But I tend to want to find places on my own and enjoy them unspoiled, in quiet, and then decide if it’s the kind of place I want to return to with others.  I’ve made the mistake in the past of sharing places with people who didn’t appreciate them.  An early visit with one of my cousins to Copperas Creek Falls comes to mind.  I was taking photos of the waterfall and looked over to see him carving his name in the back of the rockhouse. 

This last year I have also developed an even deeper social aversion than I’ve always had which has evolved into full-blown social anxiety.  I spent about a week and a half hiding at work and dragging myself home to burrow into the couch under a blanket hoping even my own kids wouldn’t come into the room.  The worst of those feelings passed, but I’ve since recognized that they were always there at times in a milder form.  Not intense enough to call anxiety, but present enough to affect my preferences and decisions.

Anyway, I’ve matured.  I’ve also slowed down somewhat.  Not because I had to, but because I had to.  I was running my own self ragged.  I realized I was missing important things.  Not that I ever felt like I missed anything when I was younger.  I saw it all.  And I kept a running list of places and things I’d seen in my haste to return to.  At fifty I realize I may not find future opportunities to return.  It’s better to try to take it all in on the first glance than plan to look again.  When I was younger that wasn’t as true.

Having high blood pressure and other health issues, particularly a few badly sprained ankles, I’ve tried to make it my habit to let someone know where I’m going.  It’s easy enough these days to drop a pin, copy the coordinate from Google Maps and text it to someone.  I always try to explain where I’m going with the hopes that the modern SAR team would have the best chance of finding my old, fat carcass.  But I still maintain a strong sense of self-reliance in my adventures.  Things would have to be pretty bad before I’d call for help.  Two times I’ve limped out on the stump of a leg after rolling an ankle.  I know it can be done even though I hope it never happens again.

I let my loved ones know more for their sake than my own.  I don’t want to suffer in pain with no prospect of help coming, but I accept the consequences of recreating alone.  And after thirty years of doing it I can say I have the experience to back up my position.  I have the experience to keep me out of trouble, but I also better understand the risks involved.  If I’m being totally honest, that is a limiting factor to what I’m willing to do these days.  Setting out to reclimb Mosaic it in the original style is pushing past my comfort level.  It will involve better preparations.  I’ll need to be more efficient and smarter about the whole affair.

Again, that’s part of the appeal both then and now.  Back then my concerns were technical.  I used the experience to test a rope solo system which I abandoned the second time I tried to employ it, after taking a test fall and having the prussiks slip and I bashed my knee pretty bad.  I was in another place, but still two miles from the road, and I limped out.  After that I did my research and learned how to modify and use a Gri-gri to rope solo and that was my system for years until I was able to afford a Silent Partner. 

One of my planning questions is: which system will I use now?  The twin prussiks worked well in ’97 for the aid climbing.  No slippage, easy and light, and for the easy free climbing was no real problem either.  And prussiks may be the best option for the traverse on the second pitch.  The Gri-gri would work well in theory, but with the close to the ground fall potential it adds just enough extra length in the system to possibly fully put a foot/feet onto the ground in a fall.  While I’ve had the Silent Partner for years and used it well, I worry about using it as well.  With both mechanical systems the traverse becomes a little bit of a complication.  I feel like a combination of prussiks on the first pitch and the Gri-gri for the upper pitch might be the best strategy.

I Dustin and I used two 50m ropes in 1997.  One 70m should work well to get down from the top in one rappel.  Worst case I can pull off two rappels, but that would defeat the purpose of taking a longer rope. 

Of course, I’ll need water and snacks.  I’ll need an adequate rack but nothing crazy.  I’ve pondered taking my hand drill and a few bolts.  A set of rappel anchors on top might be prudent considering there was a fire or windstorm up there a few years ago.  But I don’t really want to spoil the experience with bolts.  And that will add considerable weight to the expedition.  I can go fairly light if I’m careful, but there will necessarily be a certain amount of weight no matter what. 

And can’t forget the wire brushes!

At twenty-three I was just looking for novel experiences.  That’s been my desire my whole life.  But at fifty there’s also a little bit of urge to finish unfinished things.  I feel the need to set some things aright that went wrong.  I’ve been on a quest to realign the path I ended up on with the one I meant to take. I’m slowly zippering the years back together.  This is an important event in my past.  This is how I heal the bigger wounds of regret: by taking small doses of medicine.  I’m also painfully aware that I won’t be able to fully cleanse some things from my life or my timeline.  But if I can realign my own self now, then I think I can better accept the things I can’t fix. 

I’m waiting for the right opportunity to make another go at Mosaic.  I want plenty of time, so I don’t have to rush.  I would put it off to strengthen my rotator cuff for a free attempt, but that just ends up bumping me from doing things I want.  I will go and clean the crack as soon as I get the chance.  I’ll work on the moves.  We’ll see where it goes from there.

Whereabouts Unknown: Another Part

Tony said he’d never been.  It’s an iconic promontory in the Red River Gorge.  Okay, if you’re a hyperfocused, fully obsessed rock climber then maybe you wouldn’t necessarily spend time hiking to overlooks and such.  With that knowledge our hiking destination that day was obvious.  I outran him up the trail, fighting the years my lungs and legs were feeling.  I caught my breath in the time it took him to catch up to me and then scrambled on up to the summit slabs.  As I waited for Cap’n Chaos to navigate the lower fourth-class terrain I looked off to the north at the hollers and cliffs further back.  Memories of Twisted Pine and Mosaic resurfaced while I chuckled at the heavy breathing and grunting going on down in the trees.

I’d forgotten what the big rock I was standing on had meant to me in the borderland time between my early explorations and when I became a rock climber.  It was no mystery why I explored that area for potential rock climbs before I ventured further into the unknown.  The rock evoked adventurous daydreams.  I wanted more experiences like that in my life.  I wanted warm stone under my hands and feet.  I wanted sweeping visas and elegant lines and curves for my eyes.  I adored the bonsai-like trees clinging to the edge of the sky.

A week after Tony and I huffed up there I returned alone one rainy afternoon after work to take some photos.  This recent return trip I took it more slowly and meditated on my life, and the winding, twisting path I’d followed through the cosmos of time and space to find myself standing once again at this point.  I folded time by stabbing a hole in the space and lived astride both eras of my existence for a moment.

I went back the next morning to do the same and hike further.  Mosaic had taken up residence in the better lit parts of my brain and vacated the shadows it had resided in for many moons.

I intended to visit a nearby arch, the Twisted Pine slab, and hopefully the base of Mosaic to ascertain the condition of the crack at the bottom.  I expected to get wet wading through the undergrowth and had come prepared.  I started out back on the rock, and lingered there a little longer taking photos, and letting myself dwell in the soothing mists of enigma.

Eventually, I moved on and easily picked up the old user defined trail that traced the obscure ridge.  It didn’t occur to me at first, but the reason it was still well trodden was because of the arch I was going to.  I easily found it, and then retraced my steps back to where its trail spurred off from the main ridge.  At that point the trail faded into nothingness and the ridge was like I’d remembered it from a random hike a decade before.  Before I gained the key saddle, I was swimming through man-height yellow pines that had sprung up after the aforementioned windstorm. 

My clothes were soaked when I reached the saddle just below the Twisted Pine slab.  I dropped into the drainage to the west and easily descended to the small, unnamed tributary below Mosaic.  I found a weakness in the slope above and climbed up the steep, open forest to the lower edge of another pine thicket.  I tried contouring around the lower edge toward where I knew the route was, but it’s tangled snarl never thinned.  I crossed a dry gully above a boulder and tried to push higher into the rhodo buffer below the pine thicket.  Above that I could see a lower cliff band and then more pioneer species above.  I kept moving west until I reached the corner of the ridge above which I knew was too far.  I shoved my way into the dense, wet greenery to the main corner hoping to find a weakness somewhere, but I was greeted by twenty-foot sandstone cliffs.

The day had grown late.  I had hiked myself into mid-afternoon the weekend before Daylight Savings, and I felt the urgency of getting to an easy exit before the sun fell too much further.  I had a headlamp, but I didn’t revel in the idea of bushwhacking in the cold, watery darkness.

My options were to backtrack to the saddle and then drop down to the Sheltowee Trace and track out.  I knew I had at least a half hour of solid bushwhacking and then it was roughly forty minutes back to the car, OR I could follow the water into the main drainage and hike the creek out to the road and follow it back to my truck.  The creek was an unknown.  It had been twenty years since I’d once hiked up the same creek looking for an obscure trad route.  I bushwhacked the upper slopes below the eastern cliff lines and then dropped back to the creek to exit.  That had been a righteously difficult day of hiking.  I was wet enough the prospect of wading the creek didn’t bother me.  I worried about flow since we’d had a bit of rain overnight.  It was March 2^nd so neither the air nor water would be warm.  I also knew I am skilled at generating my own heat.  In the end I believed the adventure of hiking down the creek would be worth the effort. 

Down I went to touch the void.  That hike ended fine and was a great day in the woods, if slightly disappointing for not reaching my intended destination.  I got some great photos.  Everything was brilliant green, and I began to suspect that the photoreceptors in my eyes must have been unusually sensitive to greens that day.  The hike out was enjoyable and mostly uneventful save the respite I took on a gravel bar to make some tea.

Another week passed.  Mosaic was living full in the sun in my mind.  Its branches were beginning to show hints of buds.  By the next Sunday, I had no other option but to try to reach the base of the lost route again.  Twenty-six years and eight months had passed since last I stood at the base of it. 

I set out with little gear: a small daypack, a bottle of water, my digital camera, a small beat-up machete, and a recently purchased copy of The Tao of Pooh and the Te of Piglet.  My goal wasn’t to climb or scramble or to take photos.  It was simply to reach the base of the climb and figure out the best way in and out. 

My intended route was the most expedient way in that I knew.  I’d take what seemed the best way out once I’d reached the end.  I jumped on the Sheltowee Trace and plodded along trying to stay ahead of a couple of hikers that I was certain were going to the big rock.  I passed another couple of hikers walking the opposite direction on the Sheltowee but then no one else for the rest of my hike.

I reached the spot where I needed to leave the Sheltowee.  It’s easily recognizable to me, though I don’t think I could explain where it is to anyone else.  A short, steep hike up and I gained the saddle below the Twisted Pine slab and continued over into the western facing drainage.  I went down, crossed the lively stream, and plodded back up the slope into the barrier thicket.  I pushed on, carefully lopping the thickest, snarliest branches until I could look up and see a break in the lower cliff band.  I continued up the steepness finding my weakness until I found myself standing on a level wooded ledge under a sun-baked cliff.  I stepped to my right to an open area of the ledge, with a nice rock protrusion extending above the trees below.  The view was amazing, and I decided I’d come back and visit this spot before I left the area. 

I hiked back to the left into another pine thicket.  I pushed into it making slow progress and wondering how far it would be.  After two or three minutes I stopped as I had the distinct feeling I was in a place I knew.  I hadn’t felt that since I’d left the saddle.  And I can’t truly describe the feeling.  Of course, I had been in that spot in the past.  It was the only way to the base of Mosaic.  The difference was that since I’d left the “trail” I was in the first place that was unchanged since before the storm.  It was as much like it would have been nearly twenty-seven years ago as it could be.  I exited the pines and looked up and was there.

The crack had tufts of grass bulging from it.  And at the two saucer plates at the top of the crack a sizeable Charlie Brown Christmas Tree has grown.  Otherwise, the scene is just like I remembered it.  The slab split by the crack is lower angle than I had been envisioning.  That was heartening considering a possible free attempt in the near future.  I also noticed some possibly climbable features on an obtuse arete to the right about an arm’s span.  There’s no protection there, just something that might provide hand and footholds if it were somehow otherwise protected.

Mosaic 5.4R A2, FA: 1997

The stoke exploded in my brain.  I knew then that I had to return and recreate that initial experience I had, rope solo aiding the crack to clean it and reestablish the line.

I lingered at the base until it was awkward for both of us—me and the climb.  Was I going to make a move or just keep leering?  To avoid continued discomfort for both of us I moved on.  Or rather back to the sunny spot on the ledge where I let the maximum amount of skin soak in the sun for a while and read some from my book.

A fine spray of mist from the lip of the cliff drifted back and forth and wrapped around my warming body like a curtain in the wind.  The clouds lazed about in the sky.  It was a perfect moment in time, far from the stress and rush of my life.  I needed that more than I needed to climb some old project route I’d nearly forgotten about.

After some time I reluctantly packed up my things and began moving back toward the road.  The hike out was mostly uneventful, but I took it slow and enjoyed each step.  I’d already decided for sure I was coming back soon to execute another ascent of Mosaic.

Cont…

Whereabouts Unknown

The First Part

Was it naivete?  Or was it a blossoming sense of adventure, craving experience to validate its strength and vitality?  The early years of my third decade were filled with thigh burning explorations.  Between drudgerous factory shifts I would plunge into the backcountry, sometimes disappearing for half a day or more, and reemerge crisscrossed with angry red scratches, covered in sweat, flecks of bark, dirt and pine needles and wearing a big, stupid grin across my face.

Those were days before cellphones and home internet.  I fed my appetite for adventure by reading guidebooks, talking to more experienced locals, and from perusing topo maps looking for interesting combinations of isolines.  Even in my early twenties I had an eye for terrain.  I’d been consuming maps since my teen years, and I had a knack for it.  I could just see how the land would look. 

Most of the time, I was simply looking for arches, waterfalls, and other cool places to photograph.  And initially when I started rock climbing, I looked for new cliffs.  One of my early finds has recently taken up residence in my psyche again for reasons unknown.  Twenty-seven years gone and I’ve started down a path of rediscovery that so far has been rewarding.

To understand where I am now, you need to understand where I was then.  Before marriage and kids, I spent all my free time exploring the Red River Gorge.  I hiked many miles and spent countless hours solo hiking and scrambling around the hollers and ridges.  I answered to no one, and I decided the steps of my own path.  I scribbled in my journal and showed my family—and anyone else who would look—the photos I took with my ten dollar point and shoot camera.  Otherwise, there was little to mark my passage through the world.

I found a small cliff with some fun and beautiful face climbs.  I called it “Twisted Pine” for an old, gnarled pine tree that was dead apparently from a lightning strike.  Standing on top of that cliff I could look north, across the drainage behind it and see a nice, shield-shaped face.  One of my favorite climbs at that point was Big Country at Long Wall.  That face seemed to be similar, and eventually I decided to hike across and check it out.  Now, the base of Twisted Pine was a solid thirty-five-minute hike from the road on an obscure trail to nowhere.  This cliff was another twenty minutes back in the day.  It’s two miles on foot from the mere semblance of civilization. 

I found myself sweaty and beat standing at the base of a beautiful, blank slab curving into the sky.  The only weakness was a slightly widening finger-width crack that began six plus feet off the ground and ended about eighteen feet up at two small saucer-sized plates bracing the upper terminus of the crack.  It was filled with dirt and moss, there was no way to know how deep it was and if it would take gear or not.

I wanted to know what that upper face was like.  It looked like the climbing was easy, and it was exposed as the base of the crack began on an upper tier above fifteen-to-twenty-foot cliffs.  I knew it would be a hard sell to get any of my climbing friends to make the expedition out for a dirty crack.  I wanted it badly.

Around the same time, I had pondered how I could rope solo routes.  I had more free time than climbing partners.  When my mom had fussed about me hiking alone all the time my response had been: “If I waited until I had someone to go with me, I’d never get to go.”  My thinking about climbing was the same.  I worked odd shifts that provided ample free time during bankers’ hours but little on the weekends when the few climbers I knew were available. 

I’d been top rope soloing since the beginning of my climbing tenure, and I understood the basics of self-belaying on lead.  I didn’t have any fancy devices, but I knew that it was possible to self-belay using two prussik cords.

Soon after my initial visit to the cliff I was calling “Twisted Pine North” I returned with a pack laden with borrowed trad gear, aiders, and some prussik cord.  And a wire brush.

The only good potential anchor (for an upward pull) was a horizontal crack about six and a half feet off the ground.  I’m 5’9” so I had to reach over my head to place a small cam.  I clipped an etrier into it and stepped up, so I was eye level with the crack.  I was then able to build a proper anchor.  Once I had my bottom anchor, I was ready to begin excavation.

I reached up and scrubbed the dirt and moss out of the crack as far as I could reach.  All that crud rained down on me and soon was mingling with the sweat on my arms and torso and face.  I had it in my hair, eyes, mouth, and nose.  Once I had a section of crack cleaned out, I reached as high as I could and placed another piece.  Then I stepped up and repeated the process.  It was also apparent that the crack wasn’t deep enough to accept full fingers or hands as it widened near the top. 

My efforts were rewarded when I was able to wrap my grungy fingers around the nice plate edges at the end of the crack.  I pulled myself up and stepped out of the aiders onto the lower angle and well-featured face above.  From that point, I made my way up easier terrain, placing the occasional piece of gear and climbing the ladder-like holds until I reached a nice, grassy dish with a cluster of giant bonsai-like pines.  I collapsed there and enjoyed the pristine view in the meager shade provided. 

Once I had recovered somewhat, I built a small anchor and then surveyed the terrain above.  It looked like there were two potential paths to the summit.  The first was a nice and featured slab above the dish with no opportunities for protection or I could take a hard right and traverse across an unprotected hanging slab to a crack in a dihedral that led to a small pedestal just below the top of the cliff. 

For my first foray into roped soloing, I felt both options were the next level challenge.  After my initial assay on the wall, I needed a bit of a respite and maybe snacks.  I opted to bail off a minimalist gear anchor and return with reinforcements.

The cleaning ascent of the first pitch was undocumented in my climbing journal.  The actual full first ascent to the top of the wall took place in August of 1997.  I convinced my fifteen-year-old cousin and regular climbing partner Dustin to make the hike out with me.  I don’t remember what atrocious lies I told him, but I’m sure we had a discussion at the base of the climb in the vein of “we’re here, so we might as well do it,” and I was thankfully his physical superior at that point so he wouldn’t have introduced fisticuffs into the equation with us so far from the road. 

I repeated the process of gaining the top of the crack on aid minus the brushing, and with the benefit of a live belayer I romped expediently to the grassy dish which had become my new favorite spot on the planet.  I reeled in my little cousin fish.  If memory serves, I believe he attempted to climb the crack on top rope but struggled somewhat, and eventually just jugged the line until he could get his feet on the rock.  Once he was at the belay, we scoped out the two options.  After a short discussion we decided to err on the side of prophylaction.  I launched into the unprotected slab traverse aiming for the crack in the dihedral.  I was able to get in good gear all properly extended to reduce friction.  With my young heart racing in my chest from excitement, exposure, and Augustal humidity I found myself on the summit pedestal in short order.  A quick boulder problem mantel put me in the dirt where I lashed myself to some big tree and sucked in all the slack rope.  Up came Dustin and we high fived each other in celebration of our first honest-to-god Red River Gorge first ascent and a multi-pitch to boot!

We rappelled the route and hiked out noticeably less hydrated but obscenely more stoked than when we walked in.  Through my big stupid bug eating grin I proclaimed I’d come back soon and work on freeing that crack.  Dustin remained silent on that topic.

I called the route Mosaic for the interesting sandstone formation of the uppermost slab which is similar to the tile-like formations on the Shield at Long Wall and other slabs spread around the area.  A few years later when another route showed up in the guidebook with that name at the Gallery in Sore Heel Hollow, I was bummed, though our route was never published or much talked about, and I only had two over-exposed photos of Dustin tiptoeing across the slab traverse from the summit. 

Notice the CMI oval carabiners and hand-sewn 1" slings

I’m sure I tried to recruit my other climbing friends and partners through the early years of my climbing.  I’m not much a salesman obviously.  Maybe that’s a good thing, especially in this case.  I’ve thought abut the route from time to time over the years.  On a hike in the area about ten years ago I discovered a massive windstorm in the area had seriously affected the off-trail hiking making the approach more difficult and less appealing than it was to begin with.  Also, I had adult and parental responsibilities, and the usual myriad demands on my time and attention.  And so, interest in returning faded from my mind. 

Until February of this year.

 

To Be Continued…