Past Tower Rock

To tell you about today I first have to tell you about a day probably thirty years ago. And I have to set the scene.

I think that day was before I started rock climbing. Or at least it was before my rock climbing obsession took off. So actually thirty-one or thirty-two years ago. Still with me?

Imma tell you a story. I drive through the Gorge. I cross the steel “arn” bridge and standing proudly over it on the north side is a rounded dome of rock poking above the trees. And if you try to recreate my day, be forewarned, that was thirty-two years of growing all the trees kept at it. It was especially visible in the winter. And would have been that day all those years ago. Across lightyears of time.

I drove past it that day and most likely paid it little mind. Oh, I would have seen it. I have neck pain now from fifty-two years of jerking my head around to see everything I could. It was winter. January or February. Back then…in the winter…on a weekday…there would have been nobody. I was king of the realm on those days. Driving my lightning blue four-banger Mustang like it was a fighter jet. I know those roads. I knew those roads. Almost in a biblical sense.

I cruised past Gladie Creek. Back then it was a visitor center in a single wide trailer and a caretaker and his wife in an RV. I knew “Click,” the caretaker but had no reason to stop.

The road coiled alongside the river like a rope. The river was not red like it had been in one of my childhood dreams, but emerald green so deep it was almost black, lined by near bleach boned trees lining earthly umber hillsides. It blurred past my mind, but I saw every atom. Past Cloudsplitter. Past Gladie Creek. Past Tower Rock. Almost to Hen’s Nest, around the dark, east side of a precipice astounding to see—and I’m compelled to turn around. Or to get out? My intentions dissipated in the next moment. I missed a pull off so without thinking I slid over on the next. Immediately I felt that the surface was not solid, but thick, deep mud. I mistakenly stopped, but then that rear-wheel-drive faux sports car had all the wrong torque and traction for off-roading.

I got out and looked. Stuck.

The sky had that thick glass blue hue of late in a low winter sky and I was a long way from shelter. A light, icy drizzle started. And I reluctantly began walking. I wasn’t certain, but I thought Gladie Creek was about two miles from where I got stuck. Surely, I could ask Click if he could radio the ranger station in Stanton and have someone there call my mom and ask her to come get me. I hoped I could make it there by dark.

I was younger. I’m sure I covered the two miles quickly. I hadn’t seen another soul since I’d left Stanton. Halfway to Gladie a car rolled past heading toward my car. They slowed and stared, and I stared back wondering if they were going to stop. There was more than one person in the car. I kept walking and they kept rolling. Eventually I reached Gladie, a little footsore, and walked across the winterscruff lawn to the RV. I knocked on the door.

After a moment I heard someone get up and walk to the door. It opened enough for me to see an eyeball and the corner of a mouth.

“Yes?” She said hesitantly.

“Hi, is Click home?”

She looked puzzled and then said: “he doesn’t work here anymore.”

“Oh,” I said, and then I quickly explained why I had come looking for him at Gladie and that I was hoping someone could radio Stanton and have them call my mom.

She told me there was no radio. I hated to ask, but I didn’t know what else to do and I didn’t feel like the woman would offer: “would you be able to drive me to the nearest phone?” There was a car parked by the RV.

“No,” she said.

I did not want to beg. The next closest house was five more miles of road. The sun was getting dangerously low in the sky, and it wasn’t sleeting but only just.

“Please! If you don’t, I’ll have to walk at least another five miles.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t help you.” She shut the door.

There’s a much longer version of this story where I explain why this is my super hero origin story and how I will not refuse if someone asks for a ride. We’ll leave it at that and continue down the original rabbit hole.

I trudged back up the lawn to the road. I sighed and turned left and gave the slowest ever chase to the setting sun. The aches in my feet picked right back up where they left off when I stepped toe to asphalt.

There was a high school teacher. David. I graduated before he got the job, but I had friends who had him as a teacher. Somehow, I was privy to the knowledge that he had bought a little cabin on Raven Rock Road. He’d bought the cabin that I had talked myself out of buying and then regretted it when it sold. Regret it to this day. I hoped he would be home at the end of my seven-mile road slog. And slog it was. The light and weak warmth faded out of the dusky sky. I steeled my mind. I didn’t think about what I would do if David wasn’t home. Then I’d have to walk up to and through Nada Tunnel. And what beyond that? You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. It’s all different now, but back then it was not the kind of place you wanted to walk through in the dark. Alone. I prayed David would be home. Lips clutched in cold fingers as I uttered mercy to God. As I walked past the cabin on the paved road it was dark enough against the ridge I could see a light. Holy shit and hallelujah!

There was a light on inside. My heart thumped in my chest, but I was full of hope and relief. I knocked, trying not to sound alarming as I did. And the door opened showing a full, smiling pretty female face. She was maybe my age or a couple years older, no more than twenty-five, and I was hoping I wasn’t horrifying her for showing up on her doorstep in the dark and now steady freezing rain.

Quickly I explained I was looking for David—she interrupted to say he wasn’t home—and I then gave her the bullet list version of this whole story to this point. And then asked if she knew where the nearest phone was.

“We have a phone,” she said.

“You do?”

“Yes,” she laughed. “Do you want to use it?”

I stammered something and she stepped back and motioned me inside. She showed me the phone. I thanked her and called my mom. She said she could come and get me. I told her I would meet her on the paved road. She said okay.

When I hung up, David’s girlfriend said I could have waited there and had mom pick me up at the cabin. I thanked her and said I hadn’t wanted to impose. She laughed again. And I thanked her again. And I walked out to meet my mom.

But the point of this whole story is this…

During the chit chat at the cabin David’s girlfriend (I’m pissed at myself I can’t remember her name, she introduced herself) mentioned they had climbed up on “Pop n’ Top,” nudging out into the darkness toward that dome of rock above the bridge. Across from Raven Rock.

 

Again, this all happened before I became much of a rock climber. I was still boot scrambling around on whatever exposed rock I could get to. I was on the path to becoming a rock climber. They had “climbed” up on the dome of rock.

This is the heart of the story.

I decided to go up and “climb” up on Pop n’ Top myself. Maybe even run into the pretty woman again. I parked at the bridge. Locked my car. Took off up the gut-wrenching steep slope in my hiking rig.

Leather hiking boots, faded jeans, some black concert tee under a thick, wool army surplus shirt were my standard attire back then. I didn’t have a backpack; I used a military surplus Sam Browne belt with shoulder straps attached. I had a large pouch on the rear and two side pouches and in them I had food, fire starter, a collection of USGS topos for the entire area, and my trusty ten-dollar point-and-shoot camera. I also kept a rolled up wool army blanket on top of the large real pouch, but it was for show. I never slept out that way.

That slope is steep. Thankfully it was winter and not summer. I clawed and crawled up some and slogged up the rest. Finally, sweating I’m sure from the exertion despite the temperature, I gained a sandy bench at the base of the imposing cliff holding up the golden dome of rock above. The cliffs looked fiercely steep on the east and southeast side. Maybe they’d climbed up around the main corner of the cliff. It’s the southwest corner of the escarpment. And on around. But then there was a needle covered ramp up the steep side of the buttress, with rhododendron to use as hand and footholds at times. I climbed higher until I saw a crack between the big dome on my right and the main cliff to my left. And through the crack I could see light at the top of a dirty ramp. I walked inside and up toward the light came through the narrowest end of the crack at the uppermost point. The cold wind blew through my wool shirt in the dark crack. I got dust in my eyes. I always got dust in my eyes.

The crack narrowed. The left wall became smooth and steep. The right wall had a couple of angling and horizontal cracks where the space was tightest. It was only so wide as to let me sit, legs splayed and feet against the wall in front and my hips against the wall behind. I reached up to grab the lip of one of the cracks above my head and as my arm stretched up to reach it I thought what if there’s a wasp in the crack? and before my fingers could feel stone a wasp stung the middle finger of my left hand. I jerked it out in shock. I looked up and saw the wasp tumble out.

It couldn’t have been more than thirty degrees in that crack. And that factoring windchill.

The crack wasn’t really the size or shape or even normal texture for that kind of wasp nest. But it was winter. And cold.

She and I sat up there today. It was hot even though it’s March. Maybe ninety they say. The crack I reached into and conjured the wasp was dry and vacant. It was still hard to put my hand in it today. But I did.

I’m glad she was with me. I’m glad she laughed when I told her the story about conjuring the wasp. I’m glad she was with me when I didn’t find a wasp.

I like to visit hard to get to places to tell the stories. And I like to share the hard to get to places with the people of my heart. I’d lost her before I magicked a wicked winged mite and got the stab for it. We found each other again not so long ago. More than thirty years have passed.

Today we spent together. It’s what you do when you love someone like that. We decided to call it “Wasper Dome.”

First ascent of Follow You to Virgie