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

The Labors of Workcules

I’m a moveable mover.  The sun shines a little less harshly these days.  Summer is waning.  I’m not complaining.

I go forth less clad, as Wim Hof would have you believe we should.  Maybe I’m not ready for Kilimanjaro in shorts, but for some light scrambling in the temperate rainforests of Eastern Kentucky I am down for anything.  Or nothing.  But I digress.

Sure, it was a major national holiday.  Sure, there would be scads of scabs running loose in the sylvan wastes I longed to possess for my own.  Could I make it to the trailhead prior to the migratory infusion of touro-hikerists?  Only if I hurried.

I woke in the pre-dawn darkness.  I bounced from the bed with a vigor I had not felt since before I was thirty.  Still, I stretched stiff, old muscles as the day wakened outside my domicilicus.  I threw down an online order at the pizza place for a breakfast burrito.  But not the kind the Red-ish River Gorge is known fer.  But it should be.

Nom-ditty, nom, nom as I steered the trusty rusty tetanus wagon toward yon ridge o’er the tunnel.  I bounced and jounced out the gravel trail munching on chorizo, potato, beans and peppers wrapped in deliciousness.  Belly full, I locked up the truck at the Auxier Ridge trailhead.  Again.  I stripped off my shirt for maximum sun exposé and took off ahead of a couple of groups of hikers preparing to clog into the breach.

I kept my pace high, to stay ahead of the clot coming behind me.  My legs moved, my feet found their steps, and my body passed quickly like the shadow of a hawk through the woods. 

Voices echoed back and forth across the valleys.  I overtook and kept on cooking one slower moving band after another.  Couples.  Triples.  Families with triples.  They parted like the Dead Sea.  Or was it Red?  I commanded with my fleet-footed presence, and they obeyed.  I came to the Excalibur overlook and didn’t slow.  

A giant petrified frog

Turning left, I found my way out the exposed slabs over the saddle between the main ridge and Haystack, dropped down with seemingly goat like precision, and with only a pause to for a sip of water, struck out on the Girdle Traverse into the sky.  Toes on stone, fingers on shadows, weight over feet, mind in the moment I eased out onto the ledge on the south side of Haystack.  My mind was pondering the wisdom of this choice.  There was no rope or harness in my kit that day.  The only protection I carried with me was the experience and skill of my youth, hopefully dialing up on command to carry me safely up and down my intended goal for the day. 

A split second of psych and I committed to the first “crux” of the scramble.  It’s got more positive holds than anything else on the climb, however, it has less horizontal stone beneath to prevent a bad tumble into the treetops.  While a mental challenge for sure, I was less worried about it than the next difficulty.  I didn’t pause before committing to the upper friction moves, knowing I would have to stick it or nick it coming back down, or call 911 for a rescue.

I almost ran the last few steps to the summit bollard to the sounds of cheers and clapping from the ridge.  I had received a standing ovation for not dying.  Maybe tourists aren’t all bad.  I laughed and gave them a wave. A glance at Courthouse Rock quelled any desire to linger and knowing it might be better to head down before I let my mind wander to the danger of said descent, I began my crab crawl toward gravitational death.

Facing the challenge dead in the eye until I had no choice but to turn my back on the gaping maw of death beyond the solid stone, I made my way down, and then laid bare belly to stone hoping fat has friction.  Thankfully…it does!

I had reversed the upper crux successfully, though with a slightly elevated heartrate over any such passage in my tweens.  I suddenly remembered that despite the number of times I had completed the self-same scrambling jaunt it always had my full attention. 

I downclimbed the lower crux and breathed a huge sigh of relief.  I still had to make the frictiony traverse, but that was simply a matter of making the moves.  Soon enough I was kicking dirt and churning greenbriars.  I regained the ridge via the exposed slab and was met by one of the hikerers I had bypassed on the way out from the trailhead.

“You got balls, man!” he said grinning.

I gave him a modest laugh, and explained I had done that many times when I was younger, and it was only muscle memory now.  We chatted as we climbed back to the level top of the ridge, and then I bid he and his family a good rest of their holiday and struck out north toward the next monolith on the list.

It was at that point that I noticed my body wanted to move faster.  My legs wanted to run.  For the first time in many years, I felt sure-footed enough to almost try it.  But so close to heading out for Wyoming I knew I couldn’t risk a rolled ankle or pinged knee.  I’m still too heavy for that kind of pounding.  Honestly, I will probably never trail run again.  I don’t want t risk further damage to my aged knees.

I slipped past a large group getting ready to descend the stairs and plong, plong, plongged down, down, down to the Auxier/Courthouse saddle. I cruised across, clambered up the ledgy approach to the northeast face and dropped my things at the base.  I had decided to climb it sans anything including phone or water. 

My first start was a false one, so I quickly decided to abort.  I was tired.  I had also done a core workout at home before setting out on this training quest.  Better to hold back a little and live to push on another day.  On the hiked, quickly descending the ledgy part, and then picking up (or down) the Auxier Branch Trail.  I was thinking I’d Gap some Stars on the way back if I had gas when I got to the cutoff.

Tailgating the big group for a few minutes let me pay more attention to my joints and muscles and feet placement.  I was still doing well as I weaved and bobbed through the line of touros.  And then I cut loose and let gravity have me all the way down to the Auxier trickle.  I paused to top off my BeFree and then began the steady thigh master blaster exit back up to Tunnel Ridge.

Hitting the old gravel road was a relief, and I settled into cruise control as I drank more water and began texting while hiking.  I quickly decided to hike out Star Gap Ridge when I got there, and I kept my pace steady at five over the legal limit.

The side ridge is a ride out the ridge, east going and flowing over stone and sand.  If not for fear of turkey mites I think I would have gone plumb to Titanic Rock at the end, but the last time I sailed that far I hit a nest of some of the tiny biteys and regretted it for a long time.  Instead I swerved out to the Nada Dome overlook.  Another scramble and some explorations around the base of the dome only rendered a nice spot for some sunbathing and in the end that was enough.  I was ripped and whipped, but the sun and the cooler air felt nice on old skin.  I did my best to relax and let go, but the tug of obligations back home limited my enjoyment a tiny bit.

Nude shot!
Like my new RRG-themed tattoos?

Then I was traversing, scrambling, and hiking on at a breakneck pace back toward the truck.  It was almost too cool to ride home with the windows down despite the sunshine.

Wyoming or not…here I come!

The Sun Shines

I still remember the first time I hiked out to Courthouse Rock.  I was probably nineteen or twenty—a recent college dropout—and working full time in some dreary factory in Winchester.  I spent most of my free time hiking and exploring the Gorge.  I’d bought Robert H. Ruchhoft’s Land of the Arches hiking guide and set about systematically visiting all the places in it.

The trail was well travelled back then, but nothing like it is now.  I hike it often.  It’s my go to after work hike these days.  I appreciate the copious amounts of sunshine along the ridgetop hike.  I’ve also been working myself back up to scrambling on the exposed rock formations along the ridge.  Notably Haystack Rock and Courthouse Rock. 

On that first hike I was alone as I usually am.  It felt like a long distance to reach the end of the ridge, but if you’ve hiked Auxier Ridge you know that the scenery gets more interesting and dramatic as you go.  The main thing I remember about that hike thirty or so years ago was as I neared the end of the ridge I started running.  I don’t really know why.  I was wearing blue jeans and old beat-up hiking boots.  I had a backpack probably. 

Why would I get the urge to run?  I’m still not sure exactly.  But as I ran something surreal happened: I glanced out to my left toward the west and saw a large bird of prey of some sort gliding along at the same pace I was running.  We were both headed toward the end of the ridge.  I had never been there, so I didn’t know what would happen up ahead, but I kept running and keeping one eye on the bird.  I ran, and I had this image of myself just running straight off the end of the ridge into the sky.  As if I could fly along with the bird.  I had to pick up speed as the ridge narrowed.  The bird was moving faster, and I was going to lose it. 

My young legs worked hard, dropping down a rocky slab, pistoning against gravity to carry me over a shoulder high ledge, and finally I looked out and saw the bird soar off over the gap between the end of the ridge and Courthouse Rock.  I came up short in a cloud of dust at the final overlook before the stairs down the steep drop off and watched the bird continue out over the valley above the mouth of Indian Creek.

I can’t remember if I scrambled up on top of Courthouse Rock that day in the early Nineties.  I did get on top of it around that time.  And I returned to the summit of Courthouse and Haystack Rocks many times over the years.  For a long time, I did a trail run/scramble loop out Auxier Ridge, picking up both of those points and incorporating as much rocky scrambling as I could.  Then I’d cross over to Double Arch and traverse that ridge back to Tunnel Ridge.  Twice I made the sketchy 5^th class move which put me on top of the end of Tunnel Ridge instead of dropping back down to the trail necessitating ascending the brutal stairs out of Auxier Branch.

Those were many years ago.  I am many pounds heavier.  The brain cells and synapses that made those alpine training loops possible are long dead.  Or whatever happens to brain cells and synapses when they fail to engage in ways you remember them engaging.

This past year I’ve ventured out to Haystack a few times trying to knuckle up the gumption to get back on top of it.  Recently, I did so.  It’s all baby steps.  I’ve gone out to Courthouse a handful more times than Haystack to screw up the courage to make the moves to the top.  Courthouse has been a little harder for me for some reason.  The base has eroded drastically, making the first move considerably more committing.  The fall at the bottom is sketchy anyway, with a fatal drop leering mere feet to the right.  The rock feels more polished than it did fifteen or twenty years ago.  Duh!  And the times I’ve tested the moves it felt like my bum shoulder was going to be impinged if I committed my considerable mass to the moves.

After work this past Tuesday I ventured out Auxier Ridge again.  Typically, when I get out there and am not feeling it, I end up stripping down to the barest legally clothed state I can be in and lay in the sun on the bare rock between Haystack and Courthouse.  I’m trying to bank as much vitamin D as I can while the sun shines.  Gotta make hay and all that. 

Tuesday, I pushed on, dropped down the stairs, crossed the gap, made my way up the ledgy approach on the east face, and found myself standing under the 4^th class northeastern aspect of Courthouse yet again.  Without giving it too much thought I reached up, worked out the feet, and hauled myself up into the angling gash in the sandstone.  I knew what moves to do.  So, I made them.  I couldn’t help but be aware of the gaping sky to my right.  I couldn’t help but think what would happen if I slipped off a sandy hand or foothold and tumbled down the funneling chimney.  I got past the bulgy section and sighed in relief.  The upper slabby part is where I shine, so I plowed on up with complete disregard for the impending descent I’d have to pull off before darkness fell.

That’s not true.  I had full regard for said descent.  I tried not to let it ruin my summit high, but I kept thinking about the reality that no matter what I would have to climb myself back down to flat ground.  My solar collection was truncated by performance anxiety.  After a shorter period of time than I’d hoped, I found myself being pulled back toward the descent.  I stowed my phone and water bottle and made my way over to the crack and eased into the descent. 

Creaky knees and a stiff lower back didn’t come into play so much on my descent the other day, but they’ve flared up since then, and I now fully realize how much scrambling like that can take physically.  I never noticed that in my younger days, which is surely why I stayed in good shape until my forties.  I’m happy to have crossed back into the realm of scrambling adventures, and I feel like if I can keep this streak up and stay healthy my fitness will only continue to improve.

I did feel good in my body, making the moves, bending and twisting and working with and against gravity to travel through the world.  I miss those proprioceptive inputs.  

My goal is to work back up to doing the full five mile or more scrambly loop hitting all the available bare rock in the area.  Those were enjoyable days, and I look forward to recreating those memories.    

[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