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

Third Pizza Party of the Apocalypse

 

Sometimes a shape inspires you. Sometimes a physical structure defines the shape of your soul. The 45° striated face of The Pearl does all that and more. It’s punk. It’s soul. It’s ethereal. Am I climbing out of a clamshell? Am I racing starlines through hyperspace? Are my tendons tearing away from my muscles and bones?  

What progress have I made on sending The Pearl? Zilch. In fact, I’ve lost a little ground, I can’t even get back to matching on the sloper/crimp hold before the gaston.

At the same time, I’m trying to send the classic V5 problem at Sky Bridge Ridge I am also beginning a new workout regime. It’s kicking my butt, too. And then my damned shoulder…the one I wrecked when I wrecked my bike on the Coors railroad spur leaving Golden, Colorado on my way home from work in the rain back in July of 2011…is still weak and painful. I deeply regret not doing the PT exercises they sent home with me that day.

Anyway, I went up there on Sunday to try the problem again, but due to some left index finger pain I opted not to push beyond two weak attempts. Then I set about cleaning up the Double Helix, Detox, and Fonz Boulders some more. I also tried the problem Detox for the first time in a couple decades. I remember it being hard back when I was strong and in shape, but it felt near impossible at my current levels. Then I tried a new problem I think may clock in at V1 and quickly lost interest when I struggled to get off the ground on that. It was demoralizing.

What I think happened Sunday is that I hadn’t rested and recovered enough after my two workout sessions last week. Recovery takes longer now. I’m trying to do too much too fast. I really need to focus on getting strong and in good condition before I start pushing limits, I think. Maybe I need to delay the Pearl quest until I make some distinct improvements. But my restless passions don’t allow me to consider that normally. I have negligible discipline. My bandwidth is narrow. The deluge of information is apocalyptic most days. I just can’t focus. I just can’t maintain a good sense of priority.

I know that the only things that will have a significant impact on my future self are drastic changes. I simply can’t keep moving forward on the same narrow path I’ve been trammeling my whole life. I have to step far outside my comfort zone.

I look at a recent photo of me attempting The Pearl. I’m heel hooking the sculptured rail, my right hand is on the starting rib, my left hand is crossed over and crimping hard on the small, but positive edge, and I’m eyeing the next right-hand sloper, ready to slap and choke up on it. To date, slapping that one and matching my left hand to the upper crimpy edge of it is as far as I’ve progressed.

The photo has a timeless feel to me. It could be twenty-something me working the problem years ago when I was so much stronger and closer to sending it. I gave up because my elbows were eaten up with tendinitis. Not only did I give up on The Pearl back then, but I gave up on bouldering altogether.

Today it’s not tendinitis; it’s a fourteen year old shoulder injury from a bicycle crash and late-presenting rotator cuff issues. It’s thirty pounds of stress-related weight gain. It’s decades of betrayal, failure, and disaster. Oh, and a heaping helping of self-doubt.

I’ve been on a self-guided healing journey for the past twenty months. Deep in the winter of 2024 I finally found the depths of what I will tolerate against myself. I was so overwhelmed with social anxiety and crushing depression that I burst up out of the shelf ice that had been holding me down, and I began warming the troposphere of my life with a slow burning ire.

It's been a complex quest hunting down the demons that have poisoned my mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing for as long as I can remember. There are still stragglers out there, but I know their faces; I will find them and eradicate them.

When I first threw out sending The Pearl by the end of the year as a goal, it seemed innocuous enough. After all, it was just another climbing tick on another list I’ve made. It’s arbitrary. It’s not important in the scheme of things. But then I remembered why I stopped working on the problem—the tendinitis. That abruptly ended my climbing career.

Back then, I didn’t have the resources to address the root causes and find the healing I needed. There were deficiencies and holes in my life. I never had a lot of money. I never had a lot of sound, reasonable support for my deepest needs from those close to me. Hardly anyone was giving me good advice on how to handle those kinds of issues. Or any kinds of issues. I went years ignoring the yammering devils that were chasing me as they wore me down, chewed up my mind and body, and delighted in my ruin. That’s all behind me.

Working The Pearl isn’t exactly picking up where I left off. It’s maybe more like going into a long disused room in my mind, turning on the light, sweeping up the dust of years, and starting to reorganize and mend things. The Pearl is finally making me focus on things I have avoided making eye contact with forever.

When I first decided on this as a goal, I was satisfied that it’s harder—even if only by one grade—than anything else I had ever climbed. I didn’t exactly understand at first, but now I do. By throwing down a challenge that is beyond anything else I had ever succeeded at I have forced myself to evaluate the entire system and plug the leaks. For whatever reason, the goal of summiting the Grand Teton has never struck such a deep chord in me.

It's possible I may never send The Pearl. I’m going to give it my best effort. I’m not going to give up until it’s obvious there is no path forward. I believe I can heal and strengthen my injuries and weaknesses. I’ve already made the first steps to do so.

In a related vein, I have also been cleaning up the other established problems at Sky Bridge Ridge. I’m rehabbing the whole area to be conducive to bouldering again. I’ve not stopped my development of Boulder City. That’s still ongoing with a brief pause while chiggers overrun the land. My hope is to throw down a few more new first ascents there before the end of the year. Maybe with this clarity of focus I can surprise myself with what’s possible there as well.

More to come…

[REDACTED] Rock

8/14/24

I am a consumable consumer. I’m a fourth-class citizen having soloed to the summit of [REDACTED] Rock. It took a few trips out here over the past few months to feel the feels I needed to feel. 

Scooting up Cloudsplitter yestereve was just the boost I needed. I felt solid. I felt in control. I ventured into blanker territory on the north slabs of the sky rock.

The climb: It’s a bump to a ledge from the saddle—but first the tiptoe crab crawl into the saddle—then toe scoot, toe scoot, waist-high sculpted crimps…sure I could snag one on the way down if I slipped—slip?! I ain’t gonna slip on my grippy sandstone in my sticky shoes—one committing stretch on smears and fears and I was into deeper digits. Then the reprieve before the ascension. 

Southwestern aspect of the skystack involves muy verticality and a paucity of paw holds. Combo moves of smear/mantle/high step put me square into no-man’s-land. No up or down without the cajones you bring with you. Nowhere to tie a rope. No solid holds on which to yard. Upward and onward into the wild blue. Then the summit bollard and glory!

Stupid grin, silly feeling, solid rock under my feet. Another me—Twentysomething me—would have inched back down the heady slab toward a terminal drop into the treetops with nary a blip on the EKG. Fifty-year-old me tossed a rope and slipped on a harness.

My dynamic neon parachute then returned me to second class terrain. But I had to a-send my way back out of the saddle. The downscrambling is as important as the upscrambling. Maybe I'll work up (or down) to reversing the climb up.

I lingered on a sunny slab nearby taking in the late afternoon vistas—shirt off because I’m too old to care anymore—hoping to bank some vitamin D for the coming winter. While I didn’t bring my own six pack, there was a carton of cars in the parking lot, but I saw not a living soul asides myself.

Living in the past does you no good. I had great experiences. I will have great experiences. I am having great experiences—that is what matters.

4th class scramble over my right shoulder

A Dream at Dusk

An audience waits for the sun to make a final appearance of the day, but it seems reluctant to take the stage. It peeks from behind the curtain in the wings.

The warm stone supports me where I lay in the sky. Magnesium pinpricks of white dance in front of my eyes. Wavy ribbons of cloud cover the bluebird dome in repeating patterns. There is a scent of pine sap and sand and sunlight. A breeze pushes over the rock urged by the oncoming night.

With closed eyes I duskdream about possibilities. What was and what is overlap. The circle doesn’t close.  Yet.

My shoulders melt into the sandstone and my mind wanders, my spirit soars down the gorge and into the past. The gritty bed under my head roots me in the present.

Unseen, the sun slips closer to the horizon. I’ve no light for the coming darkness; I should work my way back down into the world I came from. Turn my truck toward home. Wind along the river and back to town.

Punk music chases me as I chase the fading daylight. The windows are down and hair whips in my eyes. I don’t need to see to drive these roads. They’re like the lines on the palm of my hand. I don’t need to see to know where I am.

Dome of the Nada

 I know, I never followed up on the Whereabouts Unknown saga.  You must be looking for some kind of closure.  I understand.  I will continue this tale when there are updates.  Life got hot, and I'm still nursing a chronic case of decrepitude.

In the interim I want to share some tales of exploration from my earlier years.  Particularly, I want to share snippets of adventures from what I call Star Gap Ridge.  It's the big ridge on the west side of Tunnel Ridge with an old road through an old campground and passes by several (formerly) scenic overlooks and lots of exposed rock.  It's always been one of my favorite areas in the Gorge. 

In the '90s, my cousin Dustin and I checked out any bare chunk of rock we could find.  And I have a pinnacle fetish.  We scouted out the Three Pinnacles and climbed First Pinnacle which I remember as being a fun adventure.

After visiting the pinnacles, we explored further out the ridge.  We called this one formation "Nada Dome" partly for its shape and partly in honor of the perpetual basketball game that seemed to be going on at the time down in the community of Nada at a ball goal that overhung the main road. Nada Dome was the next most attractive thing out there, so we scrambled down the exposed slab to the saddle between the main ridge and the rock and found a 4th class scramble up on the dome proper.  We dropped a top rope on a few lines and moved on.  I also did a top rope solo line out on the end of the ridge on the formation we always called Titanic Rock.

Fast forward maybe five years and I’m hiking out that ridge with my dog Roger.  Roger was a seventy-five-pound lab/Newfoundland mix, and he was a big baby.  Wouldn’t let me out of his sight.

Anyway, I decided I was going to scope out Nada Dome again and scooted down the exposed slab and kept telling him to stay.  I hopped off the slab onto the narrow part of the saddle and as I started walking toward the dome hear my big dumb dog scooting down the slab too.  And before I could stop him, he hopped down onto the saddle.

I hadn’t had a cell phone very long, but I had one and was shocked to discover I had service.  I called my then wife and told her the dog and I might be late getting home.

There was no way to get Roger back up the slab.  It was too sketchy, and he was too big.

I went Touching the Void mode and started looking for a way down off the formation.  The best spot I found was a steep gully down to a six-foot cliff at the bottom and onto the forest floor.

I put a short lead on Roger and held onto the end as I scrambled down.  The big oaf stayed close to the edge because he didn’t want me to get away, but when I got to the ground, I started reeling him in and he started backpedaling and fighting me, but I had the advantage of gravity and pulled him off on top of me and somehow caught his fluffy ass.  It’s no wonder I have back problems now.

I assumed we’d end up having to hike down to Nada Tunnel Road and then have to hike up the far side of the tunnel to get back on the ridge, but fortunately there’s a walk up not far from the base of Nada Dome so what might have ended up being an hours long detour ended up being maybe only an hour.

Maybe this place has bad juju for me.  Another time I was by myself hiking and at the top of the slab down to the saddle and the loop of my bootlace snagged on the opposite quick lace hook and I almost launched headfirst off the Nada Dome overlook.  I truly don’t know how I didn’t die that day.

I could also tell of the time I got rained on while hiking in the area and had to strip naked to dry out all my clothes after the sun came out and after a few minutes realized I could see the road below from where I lay in the sun.  Another time I hiked out to Titanic Rock and picked up a bad case of turkey mites.  

Anyway, maybe it's time to head back out there. 

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…

Thirtysomething

 

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A post shared by Chris Chaney (@ascentionist) It was an ugly argument.  I don’t know that the worst verbal and emotional abuse I’ve suffered in my life hasn’t been from myself.  I jest, but it feels like there’s some truth to it.  But no malice.

While yesterday was the thirtieth anniversary of my starting rock climbing, I simply didn’t want to climb.  It was a little cold.  I couldn’t wrangle up a partner to do anything roped.  The gravel roads in the National Forest are closed for the winter so I couldn’t get to places like Haystack, Courthouse or anywhere on Indian Creek in the time I had.  If I had realized sooner, I might have taken the whole day off.  I was going to just go home.  But my heart of hearts just couldn’t.  I needed to mark the day somehow.  Thirty years is nothing to sneeze at.

I opted to run up to Left Flank and hit the “Left Field” bouldering area past To Defy the Laws of Tradition, or to give the V2 under Wild Yet Tasty a go.  While I have spent countless hours on the left end bouldering area, I had never actually tried the legit boulder problem under the Table of Colors Wall.  I ran home to change clothes and I opted for the smaller crash pad.  I left brushes and developing kit all at home.

On the drive up I felt nauseous and like I wasn’t going to be able to keep my “lunch” down. All I’d eaten were two brownies I made in a batch from a box.  I used olive oil because I don’t keep other vegetable oil in the house, and they just didn’t agree with me.  I think it was the olive oil.

Anyway, I also worried it was a symptom of impending heart trauma as I am wont to do.  I’m sick and feel bad in that sense so seldom that when I do it always seems like something fatal.  I turned into it and throttled up. I figured if I was going to die, might as well be in the woods with a crash pad strapped to my back on the thirtieth anniversary of the day I started rock climbing.  Nineteen days before I turned fifty.

Anywho, I trudged up the trail as fast as I dared with a bum heart.  I traversed the crag from left to right, and as I approached the bend around to the Table of Colors area, I could hear voices.  Two guys were on Mercy, the Huff, and their dog was tied up right on top of the boulder problem.  I played my part as the introverted-Asperger’s-recluse-solo-boulderer, and with no more than a nod to the climbers walked over and dropped my pad ten feet under the slavering maw of a killer Pomeranian. 

I was annoyed.  It’s a crag on public land.  Why bring a yappy dog?  I get it on one hand--it’s a Thursday in January.  Who would even be around?  EXACTLY!  Used to I had the whole Gorge to myself after New Years until Spring Break or even a little later most years.  Now, there’s always someone.  Everywhere.

I decided I would work out the lower part of the problem and just avoid topping out or getting close to the top-out.  I didn’t have much daylight, and if I waited until conditions improved my window would close.

The guys got down from cleaning and one came and quieted and moved the dog.  He was personable and offered a spot.  I warmed up to them a little bit.  I understood it was late in the day and they probably hadn’t seen anyone else and why would it matter if they leashed their dog on top of an obscure boulder problem at a sport crag.  I couldn’t be mad.

I gave the problem about three solid goes, making progress on every attempt, and then I sat down to calm myself and get my thoughts and emotions in check.  I stretched a little and tried to focus on my breathing.

I got back on and tried it from the undercling start, but still botched the sequence to put me closer to the summit jug.  I realized my mistake even as I jumped back to the pad.  On the last go I started standing and reached up to the crux match from the ground and went from there.  I easily reached the top-out jug, but it felt frighteningly hollow.  After my days or rock cutting and rock work at Muir, I have a new appreciation for the relative strength of sandstone in the wild, so I was not confident in yarding on the big, positive hold without looking at what I was grabbing.

One of the other climbers had run over to give me a spot and was telling me I had it and to go for it, but I just didn’t feel good about it with the hollow flagstone and one lonely pad on the ground.  I lowered down as far as I could and dropped onto the pad.  It was a good effort, and the problem is worthwhile, but until I could look at the top-out from above, I wouldn’t be comfortable trying again.  I put on my approach shoes and scrambled up to look at it.  If I’d scoped it out first, I think I’d have gotten it that go easy.  There’s plenty of solid up there.

I opted not to get back on it yesterday, but that I’d go back again as soon as I could with a couple of pads.  I chatted with the two guys.  I mentioned that it had been thirty years since I started climbing.  It was the normal climber chatter really, but I’m glad I ran into them.  As solitary as I am—and comfortable being so—I know that I fare better when I behave in a positive social manner.  It’s just not my default. 

Zach, one of the other climbers (and Juan), mentioned bouldering and we got to talking about it and I said something about the “warm up” area left of To Defy.  He expressed an interest, so I told him a little about it.  When I’d packed up and was heading out, he asked if I was going over there.  The sun had dropped below the ridge over Military Wall, so I said probably not, but then when I got to the top of the approach trail out I decided I had enough time to run over there.  I didn’t intend to climb.

Years ago, I did spend a lot of time bouldering there and getting stronger.  I did a couple of fun traverses and even a few straight up problems that topped out on ledges.  Back then there was always chalk all over the wall there.  Last night there was no chalk.  That was a little surprising.  Though maybe it shouldn’t have been.

I ran my hands along the wall and the holds there.  One of my main climbing goals in the early 2000s was to complete a left to right traverse of that wall.  It was possible.  I was able to do every move.  I could send it to the crux move* in the middle including said move.  I could begin on the crux move and finish the traverse.  I think I was even able to climb to the crux, step off, and start again just after it and do the entire traverse.  I just never developed the full measure of endurance needed to send it in one go.  Or at least I didn’t try it when I had that fitness.  I guessed back then it might be V6.  That was harder than anything I believed I had been on.

These days I am aware I (unintentionally) sandbagged a lot of bouldering grades.  I was climbing harder than I thought.  Last night as I put skin to stone on that traverse I wondered if it's not too late to finally send that problem.  To gain that fitness back would mean I was a legit climber again, not faking my way up routes through familiarity alone.  I can be on the rock in thirty minutes from work.  If I ran up there on decent evenings, I could get in a solid hour-long session and be home by 6:00.  With its nice, sandy landing I don’t even need to take a crash pad—just shoes, chalk, and some small brushes. 

I felt like I was old and dying on the way in last night.  I felt more like my old self on the way out.

*The crux move on that traverse as I had worked it out was a drop into a sloper match.  Basically, from a halfway good hold you'd reach down to about waist level and pinch a sloper ledge.  Then you'd have to let go and grab next to it and control the drop.