We're Really Doing It

At story time on the last night, Dave told us a big one.  We had seen a rescue helicopter a couple of times fly in below us while we were climbing and it sparked Timmy’s memory, “Dave’s been pulled off the wall before.” (We later found out that the helicopter was picking up a guy who had reached up for a hand hold on the face of Half Dome and the block came loose.  It chopped his rope and he fell to his death.)

Dave told us about a time back in 2004 when a long, unexpected storm rolled in around late October.  He was on a different route and had packed a porta-ledge with a fly, but others hadn’t done the same.  The nose route has natural ledges to sleep on the whole way, so a lot of people don’t bring shelter.  There happened to be a Japanese team that were suffering through the storm day by day around the corner to the west from Dave.  I guess what happened was they couldn’t wait any longer and decided to cut their bags loose and go for the top.  They were later found frozen, hanging in their harnesses, about one pitch from the top.  We actually passed the spot, and when you see it you can’t imagine being stranded so close to finishing.  Hearing the story brings you right back to where you really are, a place that is foreign.  Like Timmy said, “you’re not really safe, until you get to the top.”

Despite the stories, you push the bad thoughts out of your head, and the excitement of finishing does wonders for your ability to push on, even if you’re tired. Three pitches left…two…one.

The last pitch is a special gift from the rock to let you know exactly where you are.  The lead climber goes up and around a very steep section, but when he fixes the ropes for the rest of the crew, they go right off the top of a massive overhang.  So, for the first time, we were forced to climb a rope, totally exposed, and twisting in the wind.  You really don’t realize how much you use the rock to stabilize yourself until you don’t have it anymore.  The only word to describe jumaring like this is awkward.  Ok, one more word, brutal.  It was those last 100 ft or so that the Wal Mart pull up bar really paid off.

While you climb closer and closer, Timmy does a good job of reminding you to look down. He loooves to yell below:

That last pitch of the nose is a bitch, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

The last night of sleep on the other hand was…laughable.  In this picture you’ll see a triangle shaped ledge.  That ledge is good for two right?

In my drawing below I’ve pointed out some of the details of the sleeping area.

Our first thought when they told us that the both of us were going to sleep in this small space is that they were joking.  On the triangle’s longest side it was good enough for one person. The other person, on the cliff side, would have their feet touching the edge.  Timmy and Dave assured us that by putting some bundles of rope at out feet that we could create a flat area and everything would be just like home. NBD.

It was Heath’s turn to sleep on the inside, but when Dave got freaked out by a big ass spider in the crack to the left, he decided to take his chances with the 2500 ft free fall to the ground instead of a bug.  The only problem is that Heath is taller than me, so it makes it even more ridiculous that he’d sleep on the shorter side.

After the worlds weirdest night of sleep Heath said he just kept his arm straight out to feel the edge to know how much space he had.  All this while slowly sliding towards our feet and scooting back up every 30 minutes.

Is it morning yet? How ’bout now?… now?

The biggest shock of the climb was the feeling of starting out each morning and re-introducing yourself to your new bizarre life.  By the end of each day you’ve desensitized again, then with eating and music you’d lull yourself into a comfort zone.  In the morning you’d get thrown back into your prison life where Dave is all over your ass to round up your shit, eat and get ready to climb.  Everything would be cool until it was your first turn of the day and it was time to get back into the anxiety zone, life on the rope.  ”Fuck man, I thought I was over this.  Why am I scared…again?” After a few days of this, along with all of the other oddities of living on a wall, you’re worn the hell out.

I like the way Timmy puts it:

Long before we even left our houses to start this thing I had a plan.  My plan was to pack rock climbing shoes and somehow convince Timmy to let me climb one pitch.  One pitch, that’s all I ask.  So when we met up with Dave and Timmy in the valley I asked if there were any parts of the nose that I could climb and I got a quick yes.  They said there were a couple 5.9 pitches on the 3rd day.  For most people that doesn’t mean anything, but to people who have at least climbed in a gym, it sounds doable.  A 5.9 is not that hard right?  Well, on the 3rd day when we woke up and I realized we were at the pitch that Dave was talking about, the one that I could climb if I wanted, I got a little sick.  I looked at Dave climbing it above me and his leg was shaking a little bit because he was in an awkward position, and that’s when I realized there was no…fucking…way I was climbing way the hell up there.  So maybe a 5.9 isn’t that hard, but when you take that climbing wall and put it 600ft higher than the top of the Empire State building, the answer becomes crystal clear.

Eating breakfast on El Cap gave me this weird feeling that I would guess prison or being stranded on a desert island would be like.  You know when you see the movies where there’s a group of people crouched in a circle around the last of their provisions and they’re waiting like dogs to get their share?  Well, it’s not like we didn’t have enough food, but if the bicycle trip taught me one thing it was that the first meal of the day you should just plow down as much food as you can because the 20 minutes of the stuffed feeling are no match against the benefit of working on a full tank.

So, Timmy would open these cans of fruit, which I hadn’t eaten since I was a kid, and it was “go time” with your dirty hands in the can.  Grab a pineapple ring, a half a peach or pear, or bagel with some peanut butter.  You’re reaching into a can and you look around to ask “anyone want any more pears?”, but inside you hope no one says yes so you can get primal and rip into the last of the fruit.  After the feeding frenzy there’d be a session of handing out clif bars and shot bloks for the days climb.  I crammed those bloks into my pockets like a shoplifter…unite and take over.

At night Timmy would break out cans of beans, tortillas, and cheese, or maybe trader joe’s boxes of asian noodles.  He’d sit there and be the nightly chef, divvying out burritos until you refused the last helping.  I never thought I’d have so much food that I’d be turning down thirds or fourths, but at the end of the day, meal time was down time, and you’d get a chance to bullshit, eat, and listen to some music.

Ok, after that sweet and sensitive post, lets talk about what everybody asks me about. Shit…and piss. It’s not in my nature to talk about this kind of stuff, ask my wife or Heath. I’m a pretty private person about my bathroom habits, but this climbing thing forces you to change your ways. Of course I already blessed you with Timmy’s amazing “vertical toilet” analogy, but it doesn’t really get across what it’s like. He may say that you pee on the people below you, but the part he leaves out is that in order not to pee on the ledge you’re sleeping on, you have to stand on the edge of a massive cliff. Even though you’re clipped in, your pedestrian brain doesn’t compute standing so close to the vertigo zone.

As for number two, it gets a little more complicated. The whole way driving up to Yosemite Heath was laughing at me because he knows my body shuts down in foreign environments. If I’m somewhere new, my body just says “it’s cool, we’ll wait ’til we get home.” So when we got to climbing and I was ready to go on the first day, Timmy put the data together and concluded that “fear is a great suppository.”

Timmy is pretty understanding when it comes to people adjusting to life off of the ground, so when it’s your turn he gets you all ready. He gets out “the kit”, he preps a bag for you, rolls it into a nice little chefs hat, and clips you in with some room to spare. The only problem is, if you’re new to this, you set you bag down on the ledge to pull your pants down and forget about the wind.

There goes your precious bag. Swirling in the updraft like the plastic bag in American Beauty.

You could be watching your millionth sunset over the ocean, or flying over a tropical Island, but every once in a while everyone gets a chance to be absolutely blown over by the scene in front of them, it’s one of the greatest feelings in the world. El Cap pretty much guarantees you an opportunity to go to that place.

Timmy says it well:

Each night there was a pretty consistent routine. Get the ropes all good, find a comfortable place to sit down and clip in, eat some food that Timmy would put together , and then just chill. We brought this little speaker too, so we would play some music during dinner and the down time. I’m not sure what night it was, but there was a gap in the conversation and things went silent. Nobody had their headlamp on and there was this perfect moment of quiet except for the Pink Floyd… Heath noticed it, I noticed it. We became fully aware that we were sitting thousands of feet off the ground in the pitch black listening to music. It was unbelievable. You’d look down into the valley below and watch the traffic drive in from the tunnel. The constant stream of headlights in the black looked like lava flowing down a mountain.

When you’re a kid you might build a fort in your living room from sheets and broom sticks, or maybe camp in your back yard. It was usually rooted in that feeling of want, wanting to feel like you’re somewhere different, your own world where you’re doing something unique. Well, after I’d tied my shoes, long sleeve shirt, and water bottle into my rope, I’d lay back, pull my sleeping bag over me and look up. I’d look around and think “I can’t believe I’m fucking here man. I can’t believe if you looked from the valley that we’d be less than a speck on the wall and this is where I’m sleeping. I can’t believe I have to tie my shoes in because there’s no guarantee they’d be there in the morning if I didn’t. I can’t believe I’m going to bed in a rock climbing harness a half mile off the ground”