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Blog on
12 September 2011, 10:27 pm

Sat on the coach to Heathrow, it struck me that I hadn't felt so nervous since I took my driving test, ten years ago to the month. It took me some time to identify the source of this anxiety. Sure, I was worried about finding someone to climb with, staying injury free, coping with loneliness, having enough money, and turning out of LAX onto an 8 lane highway in an automatic, but even the sum of these did not explain how I was feeling. More than these, for the next 9 months I am a full-time climber. I have no job and no fixed abode.

Obviously the best solution for this upheaval is to actually go climbing. I headed to yosemite and befriended David in camp 4. David is a softly spoken physicist from Seattle. Reserved, intelligent and astute, he also makes these mini-shrieks when he's trying hard, acting as a cue to increase encouragement.

Climbing with David, it soon became clear that I am Shit on granite.I have a lot to learn. I pull too hard with my arms, but if I put any more weight through my feet, they start to creep on the slick edges. In spite of this difficulty, climbs were climbed and progress was made.

This progress culminated in one of the best days cragging I've ever had. The cookie cliff: we started with waverly wafer (5.11a), hard because of a traditional wide section followed by some laybacking, which leaves you at a ledge from which two of the best pitches I've ever done depart. First we did butter balls (5.11c). David slayed a seasons-long project in doing this splinter finger crack, which I also just scraped up. Next up was wheat thin. If this flake-line was made from anything but the soundest granite it would have already crumbled to pieces, its just so thin. Laybacking this provides strenuous and exhilarating fun, just remember to pull gently!

We finished with another finger-crack, butter balls (5.11a), and the British style crack-a-go-go (5.11c), before the rain stopped play.

Pleasure in climbing manifests from many things, but classic routes, the feeling of progress and new friends is a sublime combination.

I'm meeting Katy and Ryan off their flight to LAX tmrw. I don't know where we're going yet, maybe tuolumne and the high sierra before they're too cold, or to the needles, which every American I've asked speaks so highly of, yet no one seems to have been there.



Source: Reeve's Roadtrip Blog

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The Needles
19 September 2011, 10:39 pm

After suffering various flight delays, and difficulties in us communicating, Katy and Ryan picked me up from LAX, where they had landed several hours previously. Sure, they initially drove off without me, thinking I was in Pete, vicky and Paul's car, but they promptly turned around on discovering that I had been temporarily abandoned. I had the pleasure of meeting Adam 8c Jee in the car also, a fellow mental health nurse who I had heard about but never met.

After a nocturnal shift behind the wheel, Ryan delivered us to the wild camping spot for the needles. Jet lagged and sleep deprived, the other 3 occupants of the car collapsed into a 16 hour slumber.

Jee was keen to climb with me the following day. We started with the 2 pitch classic Thin Ice (5.10b). This went smoothly, Jee even seemed to enjoy the odd jam, but avoided the thrutchy b-chimney using sport climbers laybacking and knee bars.

The next route, the Don Juan Wall (5.11b), features 5 pitches of crack climbing. Jee cope well with this, but after pitch 3 he was overtly nearing his capacity for adventure trad multipitching.

The next pitch was given the easiest grade, but conversely came close to spitting me off twice, only succumbing to an exciting swing way out left to a laybacking flake. Despite his obvious discomfort, Jee cope well with this pitch too, but shortly after I topped out, things began to go awry.

Due to a double roof and insufficient extending of my runners, the rope became jammed at the first roof. To make things more exciting, at this point the sun decided to race for the horizon. I abseiled down to free the rope, and belated Jee from an intermediate relay below the second roof. I re-lead tuition top out again. The rope re-jammed, this time at the second roof. I re-ab'd. When Jee joined me on the pre-summit ledgethe rope chose to snake into a crevice and wedge itself again. Impervious to any amount of pulling, and with darkness encroaching and two abseils ahead of us to descend, I opted to down-solo tion free this third jam. This required a moment of panic and a mighty heave for success, with visions of us being trapped on top filling my imagination.

We avoided any mistakes while descending and touched down in the post dusk gloom. Our lack of headtorches (punter error!) Made the complex scramble back to the trail more stressful than it needed to be, but the moon kindly illuminated the 2.5 mile walk back to our tents.

The latter part of the experience had obviously been emotional for Jee, and I felt bad for having dragged him through it. Nonetheless I was impressed by his resilience and determination, especially while navigating the complex scree and talus using the light from his phone.

Despite my years off narrowly escaping benighted, this certainly pushed me pretty far.

My impression of the adventurous nature of climbing at the needles was reinforced the following day. Perhaps I should have heeded greater warning from the gothic names of the formations: the magician, the sorcerer, and the warlock, duo not indicate amenable days out!

Pete and I climbed love potion #9, 5.10a, an exciting but steady route up run out slabs on scoop, chicken heads and knobs. To descend, the topography showed a bolt belay to aim for, from where we could ab again to the floor. I did a 50m ab, but no belay materialized, only ancient single bolts. I spotted an alternative belay, down to the right, and decided to take a gamble that the ropes would reach.

I ran out of rope with the bolts by my feet. Without other preferable options, I undid the knot in the end of the rope, clipped into the belay,and abseiled off the end of the rope. I actually abseiled off the end of the rope! Obviously I only did this as it was adequately controlled, but the ludicrous idea of it all made my giggle, in that way that getting away with silly risks often does.

That was all the climbing I did at the needles. I can see why its a backwater, even amongst the yanks. The combination of wild camping in a forest clearing without any supply of water, unreliable topos, exhausting approaches, long rougtes, tough jamming cracks and solitude appears to repel more people than it attracts.



Source: Reeve's Roadtrip Blog

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Not the B-Y
11 October 2011, 9:41 pm

The Bachar-Yerian, for those who don't know, is regarded as the classic hard frightener of California, if not the usa. Despite some effort, Dan and I did not climb this. Which came as quite a surprise to us, given the bold wall climbing we've done and the handy supertopo grade table making it sound about French 6c. This goes to show how wrong I can be.

Persuaded by the guide that the sun would be on the wall from mid morning, we decided an early start would not provide any better conditions. The sun was just coming onto the wall when we arrived at 11.30, having evidently wasted the primo conditions of the day. Dan won paper scissors stone and took the first pitch. He split a tip (more a surgical gash than a split) and had to lower off. Using Dan's beta I got through the crux and kept going through the dangerous part, which felt a good E6 in its own right. I lowered off the second pitch, having climbed down after scaring myself high above a bolt, lost in a sea pc knobs. Some of these weird identical protrusions are tiny crimps, but most are only there to deceive you into thinking they may offer a hold. Ryan P, we later found out, took a 70ft fall from this pitch when he went off route and snapped a hold. We beat a hasty retreat.

Neither Dan nor I took this particular failure particularly well. It's obvious that failure is the essential contrast that makes success meaningful and stops victory from being hollow, but i find this cold comfort when I want to do a route. For me, post failure blues is brought on because I assessing my climbing ability as not good enough. However, sat in camp 4, I realised the futility of basing an evaluation on a route I have no prior experience of. It's a bit like choosing the yardstick against which to measure yourself without knowing how long a yard is. By getting on the route I learnt some of its idiosyncratic challenges. If the route then turns out to be too hard for you, it only disproved your preconceptions. Our perception of the B-Y was wrong from the start, and we are still the same climbers.

That route deserves some respect, and I have been left strangely proud to have been on it. It was still a great experience, but one that starved the ego to feed the soul.



Source: Reeve's Roadtrip Blog

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The 5.11c trilogy
16 October 2011, 4:25 pm

It seems that a lot of climbing areas have trios of routes to aspire to. There's the Yorkshire limestone triple crown, three bold aretes at Stanage Plantation, the alpine trilogy of f8b+'s... similarly, yosemite has three long adventure routes, all graded 5.11c (as in the previous post, trying to convert this grade into British money will not give an accurate indication of what these routes are about.)

First up was the Rostrum. 8 pitches of sustained and strenuous crack climbing, with a few cruxes and two off-widths thrown in for good measure. We again played paper scissors stone for first lead. I was initially exuberant at losing to Dan, as it meant he would lead the crux and both off-widths. This glee quickly disappeared when I checked the topo and realised that actually all the cruxes abnd off-widths were on my pitches. I made Dan promise to lead the second offwidth, to give me a break.

The crux went swiftly, the harder offwidth was like watching a wild animal trying to escape from a vice, Dan got some tough pitches to keep things fair, and the top offwifth turned out to be easy (disappointing so, as I wanted to see Dan struggle like I had on the first one).

Second up was Astroman, a classic amongst classics, abnd deservedly so. So many famous pitches, with some evocative names: the endurance corner, the boulder problem, changing corners, and the Harding slot. Oh the Harding slot! Or Harding slut, which seems a more accurate name to me, given how's much of a whore it is to squirm through this narrow fissure. I am certainly no Tom Randall. I unashamedly slumped onto the rope 3 times before handing over the lead to Dan, having failed to gain entry to the narrow slot. Dan succeeded on his fourth attempt, and with a tight rope talked me through the series of jams and pressure moves to make progress. The upper part of the slot is too tight to fall out of, but almost too tight to make any measurable upwards progress. Now I'm pretty slight, but the possibility of becoming a permanent fixture seemed very real from within its confines.

The rest of the route went without incident, but continued in the vein of stout and strenuous crack climbing until you are sat on the very top of the cliff.

With 2 down and one to go, we hiked into the west face of el capitan. In some ways this doesn't feel like a proper el cap route, it certainly is not a big wall. Still, it comes in at about 600 metres of climbing, but atypically for yosemite, little of this is pure crack climbing.

Being carless, we decided to walk in and bivvy the night before. The base of the route is high above the valley floor and makes for a great spot to bed down. Embarrassing though, we were still beaten onto the route by Neil M and Hazel F. They arrived warm from the steep hike as we struggled to coordinate cold limbs. We matched their pace until high on the route where two pitches were soaked by drainage from recent rain. This wetness cost both teams time, and it was with some alarm that I realised we had 30 minutes of light left and four pitches above us. Dan and I simul-climbed to try and heat the encroaching darkness. Despite running out 100m of the route we still lost, and finished the final 100m by headtorch. My second benightment in 5 weeks.

On topping out el catp we took the 8 mile trail back to camp 4, unsure if we could find the much faster east ledges descent in the darkness.

As well as giving great climbing and a thought challenge, these routes were great training. That's a total of 39 pitches of extra granite climbing on everything from finger crack to full body squirm, thin slabs and thuggy roofs, leading I'm blocks, efficient change overs and hauling a day bag. In spite of my previous post full of amateur philosophizing about searching for lessons in failure, I've had a lot more fun improving myself whilst ticking does great classics!



Source: Reeve's Roadtrip Blog

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NIAD
17 October 2011, 9:23 pm

When I was 16 I was given an old On The Edge magazine, OTE 39. Aside from a fantastic bio of big Ron, the best article in it was "you want to climb the nose in a day?". This was both a how to guide, and an aspirational peice. The same day that I was given this magazine, I was happy to climb Tiger at burbage south, which, if you know the problem may give you an impression of how far removed my ability or ambition was from being able to climb the nose at all, let alone in 24 hours. In spite of its lack of immediate relevance to me at the time, the article obviously struck a chord as I remembered to tear out the pages and bring them with me.

Dan pointed out to me that the number of pitches we were doing per day had increased, from 8, to 12, to 19. With this observation combined with the seed planted years before, it became inevitable what we would try next.

After considering almost every point over the 24 hour clock, Dan began climbing the nose at 0320. Climbing by a full moon was eerie but exciting. Making fast progress meant we passed a sleeping team in the night, and two more pairs just as they were waking on dolt tower, 11 pitches up. At this point we stashed our abseil cord on the ledge to collect it another day. No retreat would be possible from now on, no discussion was needed. We were committed to the top.

We climbed doing everything we could to maintain momentum. Free climbing, pulling on gear or bolts, aid, standing in slings or on each other, anything was fair game. By 1130 we had climbed 20 of the 31 pitches, although this point is often regarded as the half way mark timewise.

Then the sun turned on us. Every surface reflected the heat onto us, our fingers and toes stung, our mouths dried up and our progress slowed. Some pitches, like the great roof, are inherently slow to climb, but others that should have been quick free climbs became protracted frigging exercises. We lost our drive to go fast, only continuing as we had no choice. Darkness eventually gave us some respite from the heat, but we remained toasted by it. Even though the climbing looked world class, it was with a weary obligation that we continued through constant pain. Every action was coloured by dehydration. We knew at this point that we would complete the route within 24 hours due to our earlier speed, but just getting off the route was the only goal we now cared for.

We found some water, which is sometimes left by big wall parties who have more than they need. We both greedily drank a litre but our mouths were dry again within a minute. 3 pitches from the top, I told Dan that I would happily abseil 28 pitches in preference to continue, if only we had the option.

On topping out at 2300 we shook hands, out of habit rather than celebration. We descended by the eastern ledges, bitching about the whole experience. We were interrupted at one time by Dan's watch alarm, informing us that we had now been awake for 24 hours.

The next day my body was in tatters. My fingers were too swollen to make a fist. We hitched to el cap to retrieve some kit. Stood in the meadow, I could barely comprehend what I could see with the previous days experience. Features that I had seen before now had a new meaning and context. My internal monologue was screaming "i damm well climbed that!" On repeat. It was really hard to reconcile the vast scale of El Capitan with, well, me.

Dan and I had been quite coy about out objective of the nose in a day whilst around camp 4. Inevitably however, lots of people knew our plans. Their kind congratulations, and knowing that some of them had driven to the meadow to watch our progress, all helped erode the memories of discomfort, and allow their replacement with a deep and personal satisfaction.

Although the praise from others his always nice to hear, and I think it is important in itself, it also helped me to put the day into perspective. Our friends helped me to refocus my thoughts on the good parts, rather than dwell exclusively on the discomfort and pain we endured to get there.

Doing the nose was amazing. It just took a little while for it to sink in.



Source: Reeve's Roadtrip Blog

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Taking it easy and some thoughts on camp 4
19 November 2011, 12:54 am

No big routes have gone down since Dan and I had our NIAD adventure, certainly nothing of that calibre. Initially after this we were both content to take it very easy, until the final days of the trip when Dan managed to throw himself off a perfectly protected crack climb while clipping, hitting the starting ledge straight legged. The resulting diagnosis of a fractured heel didn't stop him from hobbling around San Francisco without the aid of his crutches, frustrated by being slowed down by them. It was amusing to see the sudden change in this attitude as he approached the check-in desk for his flight home. With his bags overweight, Dan played all his sympathy cards at once: crutches in full use, hobbling, wincing at each step. This facade, combined with his gentlemanly charm, had the desired effect, as he placed an extra bag in the hold without charge.

Following Dan's departure there was a change in my motivation, away from big routes and towards single pitching and bouldering. Dan and I had our ambitions, abilities and approach to climbing closely aligned. It was on the strength of this that we climbed a lot of our big objectives together. I guess its natural for this to be followed by a bit of a lull.

Fortuitously, the remainder of team UK were mostly happy to go at a steady pace too. Long mornings were spent drinking coffee in the lodge with Katy and Ryan, hazel and Spidey.

Around this time the valley emptied dramatically as autumn took hold. My days activities appeared to fall in line with these quieter and more serene surroundings.

We packed up and left for Joshua Tree early in November, a few hours ahead of a forecasted storm. After a total of six weeks in the valley I was ready for pastures new, but curiously I also felt a surprising degree of sadness at leaving a place that had begun to feel like home.

Camp 4 is a curious place. Materially, its a pretty awful campsite. No showers, grim toilets, rocky ground, and a thousand brazen critters all competing to steal your food. And if that's not enough, the greatest hazard comes from the park rangers, the unsympathetic enforcers of the national park's myriad rules and regulations.

Although I have some sympathy for the principles behind some of the rules, their enforcement by the rangers often feels over zealous. I agree, for instance, with the reasoning of having a maximum stay in the park per year, to ensure all potential visitors can visit while maintaining some semblance of wilderness without overcrowding. But enforcing this so stringently when the park is almost empty doesn't benefit anyone. I believe in operating within the spirit of the rules, rather than following them to the letter. For a ranger however, I can imagine that giving a dirtbag climber an inch frequently results in them taking a mile. Either way, the result of the current situation is a pain in the arse for everyone. Climbers inevitably find ways to cheat the system (I stayed in the park for two weeks longer than allowed, for example), and the rangers continue to have a harder job because of it. It would probably be nicer for both sides if some of the rules that inherently villify climbers were changed. The rangers could work on their sense of humour a little too.

Set against such a background, its amazing that camp 4 provides such a healthy scene for climbers. Perhaps its because of its place in American climbing history, or just the people who spend their time in the valley. The people I met in camp 4 created a kind of microcosm of what nurtures progress in climbing: encouragement, the passing on of knowledge, inspiration, and speaking to people with first hand experience of your dream route. That everyone contributes to this effect in others seems to create a sense of community.

Camp 4 also seems to act as a refuge for those who don't fit in anywhere else. While there, I met several lost souls, eccentrics, and at least one seriously deluded folk, all of whom seemed to find some temporary solace there. People who I cannot imagine being accepted in a big city were easily accommodated by the irreverent and liberal residents of camp 4.

I suppose its not a great surprise that I developed such an attachment to the place, given my lack of any other current home, the duration I was there, and the nature of the place. However there's a lot more climbing I want to see in California, and staying in my comfort zone isn't why I've come here.



Source: Reeve's Roadtrip Blog

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Equinox
20 November 2011, 8:42 pm

We've been at Joshua Tree for a week now, but unfortunately the team consensus isn't very kind towards the climbing here. I'd been warned that it isn't to everyone's liking here, that some find the style too old school, and others take umbrage at the stiff grades. If anything, these attributes attract me more than turn me off. However, our experience is that there is a lot of chaff to sort from the over-starred wheat. The best routes are good, but you're unlikely to do more than one each day as they're so spread out. The rock on the face routes is way below par, mostly consisting of snappy flakes. The more moderate routes look much better, on cleaner rock, and are more concentrated and numerous, which probably explains the popularity of the place. For sure though, Joshua Tree is a cool place to hang out. The desert always holds its own distinct appeal, and the five of us have had a great time together. We've spent long enough together now that we have shared stories and developed our own in-jokes, we know each other well enough for conversation to be natural, or for silence to be comfortable. It's also been great for me to climb with such talented climbers as Hazel, Katy and Ryan, and to try and absorb some of their style and skill.

In spite of the fun I was having with my friends, I also found the days pretty hard on my ego. I didn't feel like I was climbing well, and it was a long time since I climbed anything of personal significance. Also, climbing with my present company was, in my eyes at least (I'm sure they couldn't care less!), demonstrating so many holes in my ability.

Although this may seem both ridiculous and unimportant when read in the cold light of day, I had a hard time getting a perspective on this when all I did was spend each day climbing. I had nothing else to provide me with feelings of reward.

It was with this emotional baggage that I found myself roping up at the bottom of Equinox for my second attempt. Round one had involved much falling and sitting on gear, and so I didn't rate my chances of linking the several sections that I had found hard individually.

Drawing on some recent insights from having watched Katy and Ryan, and spoken with Hazel, I quickly formulated my strategy. I knew I would have to climb assertively, really making the most of marginal footholds instead of overgripping for security, which paradoxically, would make a fall more likely through running out of energy. That, and I was going to be like Jerry (obviously if I was really going to be like Jerry I would have flashed it already. Nonetheless, I scolded myself for my lack of self belief).

As I set my fingers in the first locks I was aware of the soreness caused by my first attempt. The initial part went easier and smoother than before. I restricted myself to placing pro only from the least strenuous positions, I reinvented sequences and set finger locks with more patience than before, resisting the pressure to rush.

I experienced a moment of clarity mid-route, when I became aware that not only was I embroiled in the midst of climbing Equinox, but I was engaged in this process as I had raised my game to do so. The fact that I was using my climbing resources as effectively as I ever have done should not belie the physical effort I was pouring into every moment spent on the rock. My attention had been so focussed that I only became aware of my friends' shouts of encouragement in a retrospective surge of sensory backlog, as I stepped onto the finishing footledge.

As usual, the times that success is grasped by the skin of your teeth are the most intense experiences, and so are memorable for that. But greater than that, my enjoyment of climbing Equinox was enhanced by learning more about rock climbing from my friends, which allowed me to make the most of my current ability.

The essence of my memory of climbing Equinox is more of the visceral feel of this climbing flow; the outcome, successful as it was, is a happy yet minor detail.



Source: Reeve's Roadtrip Blog

[Wood FT]

Great writing reeve

[grimer]

Yeah, great stuff, inspiring.

[Jaspersharpe]

+1

[Oldmanmatt]

+2
or at least +1 again...

[r-man]

What he, he, he and he said. Enjoying your blogs a lot.

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Loving Bishop
22 December 2011, 3:15 pm

I fondly remember becoming aware of Bishop bouldering by watching the first dosage film, sat in a scruffy student house in Nether Edge. Without access to terrestrial television, Jon, Geth and I would intensely devour any DVD we laid our hands on. Perhaps through a combination of the forced repeated viewing of Sharma, Graham and Rands, and the Zeitgheist that held true in our house (Sharma was the man, Bishop was the place!) a desire to climb in the buttermilks was imprinted in my climbing psyche. Ambition and enthusiasm was then left for several years to mature.

For the first few days the climbing felt very alien to me. Weeks of primarily climbing granite cracks had left me unprepared for overhanging crimpfests. It took me equal effort to maintain the discipline to persist through the unfamiliarity without becoming discouraged, yet also to have the self-restraint to avoid going mad and destroying my body on every 5 star line in sight.

My enjoyment of the climbing in the Buttermilks was enhanced immeasurably by the company I kept while there: Hazel, Katy and Ryan (it felt sad that Spidey had left for home a few days before we went to Bishop, as he had equally been a part of the same group vibe in Joshua Tree).

Despite us having been no more than acquaintances when I lived in Sheffield, I was now spending almost all of my time with the same three people. Bizarrely I became shy when climbing in front of strangers. Perhaps a measure of how comfortable I had become around my friends.

The development of close alliances is inevitable, in part because going climbing is dependent on being with other climbers, and given the amount of time we spent together there was bound to be some degree of bonding. But beyond the practical necessity of having climbing partners, I enjoyed their companionship in its own right. As with any relationship, my appreciation of their company grew as I came to know each of them better, as I grew accustomed to their traits, their habits, and their idiosyncrasies.

As the subtle process of tacitly finding my own place in the group unfolded, I was repeatedly heartened and entertained by their openness, camaraderie and banter.

Despite recent years of indifference, it only took a few short days until I began to love bouldering again. Engaged by the novel and fun climbing style, my motivation was increased further by the aesthetic of the large round boulders sat on the desert plain, being looked over by the snow capped mountains.

I became attuned to the spontaneity and the opportunity for experimentation. My appreciation of the subtleties of climbing movement were heightened by the contrast with thuggy Yosemitie jamming. Between the encouragement of my friends, and the perfect conditions for learning through trial and improvement, I slowly refined the skill with which I moved between features in the rock.

As great as the satisfaction of this improvement was, the process of learning became an enjoyable end in itself. Rather than solely being the means to improvement, playful experimentation was becoming the purpose as well.

Although this isn't a new thing it felt like a re-awakening of that aspect.

All of these threads seemed to intertwine late one day towards the end of my time in Bishop, trying Soul Slinger at dusk. After the sun had dipped behind Mount Tom I relinquished my hopes of doing it that day, and my thoughts wandered to how many more sessions I could afford on just one problem. Despite my negativity and the failing light, I struck upon a change in foothold, a shift of my hips, and I was slapping into the huge hueco finishing hold and whooping as I topped out.

Elated, I made my way down the back of the boulder. Rather than congratulations, I was met with a tirade of comedic abuse from Hazel. A funny and well judged inversion of the expected social niceties. Curiously, it was this perhaps more than anything else, that exemplifies the fun I had in Bishop.

Source: Reeve's Roadtrip Blog

[reeve]

 
Thanks for your encouragement all of you! Albeit a little bit belated. I'm a little behind with writing as well as replying to threads so I'll try to sort that out too.

[Red]

Good belated effort on Equinox and Soul Slinger beast! Sounds like a great trip; shame you won't be in Bishop when we get there Great blog.

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The light of the moon
30 December 2011, 3:39 pm

(Route topo here: http://www.pataclimb.com/climbingareas/chalten/fitzgroup/exupery/chiaro.html)

Tony and I arrived in El Chalten, the gateway town for the Fitz Roy massif, a day into a veritable heatwave. The town, we were told by a local builder, has grown from a collection of 20 families fifteen years ago to its current population of about 1000. This rapid increase is in response to the commensurate increase in the number of people visiting the adjoining Parc Nacional los Glaciares for both walking and climbing. Consequently the town provides a comfortable base, with its myriad of bars and bakeries, and the chocolateria!

Tony lamented his lack of shorts in the unexpected heat. We'd been expecting to suffer through atrocious weather in our full-on hardshell gear! We organised ourselves and packed our bags on our first morning in town, wishing we had been able to leave the previous day like everyone else will have done. The few climbers remaining in the valley expressed surprise that we hadn't left by midday. The observation grated more with Tony than it did on me, my relative ignorance protecting me from anxiety about the length of the walk-in and conditions of the glacier.

I'll exhibit some restraint and stop short of describing the walk-in as hellish, but it was a pretty grim experience. Losing the  faint trail early on and having to scramble across a scree slope that was barely supporting its own constituent parts was one particular highlight. Second on the list was the ongoing discomfort in my right ankle, unused to heavy mountaineering boots. The scree slope was followed by a glacier crossing, during which Tony was kind enough to provide subtle advice and instruction disguised as off-hand comments, allowing me to avoid acknowledging the full degree of my incompetence in this environment.

Arriving last, we had no choice of sites at the bivvy area, so settled for a cramped spot between a boulder and a rocky windbreak. We left the bivvy at 4am, insufficiently rested from a combination of our late arrival the previous evening, and having shared a sleeping bag inside the double bivvy bag. We made our way up the approach gully and across snow patches, silenced by the effort, our anxiety and haste. This pre-dawn quiet was broken by voices approaching from below. Even before their words were audible, the conversation was recognisably North American in its giddy excitement.

Jason and Hayden shared their bright eyed enthusiasm with us as they effortlessly overtook, directing some of their surplus energy into feeling stoked for us. I didn't have the energy to feel stoked for myself; I already felt fucked.

Burnt off already, we soon returned to our silence. I remained aware of our companions somewhere up ahead of us by their continued chattering. I continued to breath heavily in an attempt to keep up with Tony.

Tony gave me the first block of 5 pitches to lead, which included the crux pitch. I looked forward to this, as I am recently practised at granite crack climbing, and hoped that leading these pitches quickly would make up for my general mountaineering incompetence, which was all I had managed to contribute thus far. The climbing turned out to be easier than expected, lots of laybacking rather than awkward jams. We followed long corners and juggy flakes for pitch after pitch. Climbing quickly was simplified by the rough solid rock, the amenable angle, and the windless sunny weather (the calmness and warmth we experienced is almost unprecedented here).

Despite feeling that we were moving well (especially given that we'd never tied on to a rope together), Tony and I were barely over half way when we heard the whoops of team North America having already touched back down! So maybe we weren't that fast afterall. I inwardly made excuses with some vague reference to a sore ankle.

Tony soon lead us up the final chimney system. On the summit ridge he cunningly drew on all his mountain experience to beta-sandbag me in such a way that he took the final lead to sit on the summit first. I soon joined him, and together we enjoyed the experience of sitting on a Patagonian summit.

Abseiling down was as time consuming as usual, but remained mostly uncomplicated. Reversing the gully back to the bivvy was made confusing by the fact that it was now night time (in spite of the 18 hours of daylight that we'd fully used), and the manner in which features morph and distance perception alters in darkness. We walked in circles somewhere in the vicinity of where we wanted to be for an indeterminable length of time. Eventually we stumbled back into our bivvy, through a mixture of chance and pseudo-navigation.

Another night was spent struggling to rest, fighting over the larger share of the sleeping bag through fluctuating consciousness. I discreetly tried to win back my half of the bag, but had to take care as waking Tony would inevitably lead to a loss of my increased covering. From the frequency with which I woke up cold, I guess that Tony was fighting the same battle.

Walking out on the final day was a similarly long and tiresome experience as it had been on the way in, moderated by some better route finding but exacerbated by tiredness and the growing pain in the Achilles tendon.

We staggered back to the campsite and greedily consumed anything immediately consumable, before heading to the nearest shop and continuing the treat train. Unfortunately, I was unable to alight this train for the next two weeks. My Achilles had swollen so much that all walking hurt.

Thank goodness for the chocolateria!

Source: Reeve's Roadtrip Blog

[comPiler]

Kind of the PR
30 January 2012, 2:42 pm

(Link to route info: http://www.pataclimb.com/climbingareas/chalten/fitzgroup/mermoz/pilar.html)

After climbing Chiaro Di Luna I expressed my intention to sit out my Achilles injury in the chocolateria. In the time it took for the swelling and pain to subside I also managed to visit a myriad of cafes and both ice cream parlours on several occasions. I felt decidedly more fat than fit.

Once the ankle was strong enough for me to boulder and sport climb on the outskirts of town, Tony suggested that I hire some strap-on crampons to approach routes in my trainers, thus eliminating the need to wear the boots that aggravated my Achilles in the first instance.

With good weather forecast for the Friday, we chose the Red Pillar on Mermoz as our objective. Analysing our previous route together, we felt that the rushed preparation and approach (due to having only just arrived in town) was the main factor in how trashed we had felt for the route. This time, we assured ourselves, would be different. Wednesday was left free; we would be fully prepared and completely rested.

Wednesday morning came, and over breakfast we we told of an injured climber high up in the Torre Valley. With the winds too high for a helicopter rescue, 30 climbers were mobilizing themselves to affect a rescue operation. It was difficult to not feel some level of grievance at the possibility of losing our opportunity to utilise the good weather, however utilitarianism took precedence in our minds.

The group of climber present worked well as a self-organising and motivated team. The kinship of it being a fellow climber in need creates a powerful reciprocal obligation to help, but even considering this, it was still heartening to see the gusto with which people helped. This went further still, to the non-climbers who helped out as far as they could, in spite of having a much weaker reciprocal incentive to do so. The day was a long one however. Stretchering all 95kgs of Canadian Ross across scree and uphill was not easy work. We got to bed sometime in the early hours.

The next morning came too early, in spite of milking the snooze button on my watch as much as I could justify. The available weather window was brief, so we had to leave that day, but we were in an even worse state of preparedness than last time! Collective psyche was low, and I sensed that both of us were on the brink of dissuading the other from even setting off. Begrudingly, we continued to pack our bags, and bitched our way along the hike to the bivvy site.

To cut a damp story short, we arrived at the bivvy late, quickly stuffed ourselves and settled down to another night sharing a sleeping bag. We rose at 2am (although only just, in a moment of weakness Tony almost switched off his alarm before I was awake) and walked the final 3 hours to the base of the route. We climbed three pitches, caught a glimpse of the splitter upper pitches, and got rained off. The conditions became properly Patagonian (well, probably not properly Patagonian in the scheme of things, but I thought it was all a bit minging). We got back to town damp and dejected.

We agreed to escape El Chalten and head to Bariloche for some stress-free climbing. Then Tony checked the weather forecast again. Another window was opening up. Unable to leave on a good forecast, and with the bitterness of unfinished business spurring us on, we walked in again.

This time our preparation was ideal. We were well rested and fed. We knew the approach. Tony had already cruised the first crux pitch, and higher up the grades eased. We felt pretty confident of fast and slick ascent. Which, as it transpired, turned out to be quite some error of judgement.

As soon as we moved above our previous highpoint, things started to go awry. Tony had to aid past the second crux, a boulder problem over a roof. The next "easier" pitches were alarmingly strenuous.  Steep, butch cracks that Tony had lead with huge run-outs between his gear. Oh no he hadn't. The long gaps between peices of pro were the long stretches where Tony had leap-frogged two cams in an unashamed aid-fest. I spent the last of my fight on the supposed final hard pitch. It felt great to be trying hard and just pulling it out of the bag, high above the glacier on perfect granite with a feeling of remoteness. And the sun on my back, unreal! This feeling stopped suddenly, when the next pitches felt no easier, and became a protracted dogging session. I felt like I was working a route at Malham, rather than on our intended fast and light, alpine ascent.

Wearily, we surmounted several false summits on the final ridgeline, until we found one that lead us on to no further disappointment. Although not the fast and clean ascent that I'd envisaged, I felt no lack of satisfaction at this. One never knows how hard a route will be until one tries it. An inevitable consequence of this is that sometimes you will bite off more than you can chew.

Source: Reeve's Roadtrip Blog

[abarro81]

Mama mia! Looks stupendous. If it didn't look so damn cold I'd be jealous 

[comPiler]

Chance
1 February 2012, 8:59 pm

Tony and I were joined by Andy, a friend Tony met in Edinburgh. We decided to climb Artebelleza on Innominata. It was fun to climb as a three, being more sociable at belays, and Andy fitted in comfortably with our established systems. The day took longer than planned however, a due to a combination of harder climbing than anticipated, the ropes getting stuck four times, and Tony needing to replace half of the rap-stations. Eventually, we reached the floor at dusk, and hurriedly packed our bags. I was warm and no one was above us, so I removed my helmet.

We rushed to get down the steep snowy gully, hoping to reach the feint trailhead before darkness fell. Tony was somewhere ahead of Andy and me when an almighty cracking noise echoed from above. A pillar of rock the size of a row of terraces was falling away from the mountain directly above us. I yelled "oh fuck" in disbelief. It was surreal to see, and hard to believe this was about to happen to me.

The main body of falling rock impacted on a shoulder and exploded. I intuited that the largest blocks would miss Andy and I, as the topography immediately above us would carry these away from us. This still left the hundreds of fragments that were rapidly dispersing in every direction. Not knowing Tony's exact position, I temporarily put him out of mind.

Above me, the sky was now littered with detritus; some pieces were rocketing down already, others that had been tossed upwards appeared suspended in space, poised to accelerate down on us.

My first thought was to escape. I briefly considered trying to outrun the mass of rocks before they reached me. The idea's implausibility was obvious, the gully too steep and the rocks already moving too fast.

Silhouetted in the sky, one large boulder demanded my attention over any others. Its arcing trajectory appeared to terminate exactly where I stood. Having already rules out escape as an option, I took two strides to my left and dropped into the foetal position, bracing my arms over my naked head and burying my face into the ground. The image of the rock in the sky remained in my mind. I hoped I was wrong about where it would land. With nothing more within my control, I was acutely aware that my life was now left to chance.

Although unable to see the onslaught, a rapidly rising crescendo of artillery fire exploding around me signaled its arrival. Everything vibrated violently. It sounded like the world was being torn apart. I can't remember where I was hit first. The hardest of the blows made my whole body recoil. With each impact my fear of the next increased. Hands and shoulders were hit the most. The hope I still held onto evaporated as pain rocked my head. I didn't think my skull would survive a much larger impact than that. All I could see were pebbles and gravel sliding past my face, sent by impacts just above my head.

As the rocks continued to fall, the thought came to me with surprising lucidity that I just wanted an end to this. If I was going to die, let it be swift. Through this partial expectation, I wondered how much longer it would last. How much longer could it last? Normal notions of time had ceased to apply. Yet rocks still collided all around me. And with me.

In desperation I begged "please stop, please stop, please stop, please stop." I was shocked to hear my own voice, only just audible over the noise, childlike and fragile. Even as the volley of stone fall eventually slowed I remained hyper-tense. I almost expected the ultimate blow to come right at the end, as soon as my guard was down and my hopes were up. A cruel twist that could be played by fate. The twist never came, but there was a delay before I allowed myself to believe it.

I knelt up and drops of blood fell from my head in quick succession. My voice cracked as I shouted to Andy, a vague figure through the thick dust yet only 20m from me. He replied and I was he was moving. The realisation that Tony was so far ahead of us that he could well have been caught in the midst overwhelmed my mind with sudden immediacy. I screamed his name. He answered. He had been safely off to the side.

I was unable to bend my right leg, although it could bear weight. Andy was mostly unhurt, so he and Tony took almost all the weight in their bags and guided me, bleeding and wincing, down the scree. What should have taken an hour took us five. Tony and Andy never showed impatience, although I started to doubt the accuracy of them saying "nearly there now". I never doubted their motive. At the bivvy I could barely keep my eyes open. Tony cooked. I was touched when Andy, judging that I lacked the motivation to even sit up, passed me cheese on crackers so I could stay laid down.

We walked back to town the following day. Again, Tony and Andy took all the weight. I felt significantly fresher for having had some rest, but still limped behind for ten hours. We made it back just in time for the ritual pizza, beer and chocolate, only this time it was accompanied by relief rather than celebration.



Postscript

This happened about two weeks ago now. Just to pre-empt anyone who's concerned, essentially I'm fine. I still limp if I sit down for too long, and my shoulders seem reluctant to shed their bruises. But all things considered, I'm not doing too bad.

Source: Reeve's Roadtrip Blog

[duncan]

Terrifying.  Great writing.  Glad to hear you are relatively unscathed.  As you know, others have not been so lucky this season.   Do locals think there is now more rockfall than in the past? 

Thank you for reminding me why I drew the line before this kind of thing. 

[Stu Littlefair]

Well, that kind of thing doesn't happen on pinches wall, that's all I'm saying. 
Powerful writing - glad you got away with it.

[iain]

  Powerful writing and also very pleased the consequences weren't more serious. I know the two guys you were with and you couldn't have asked for two more dependable people to help you out.

[TobyD]

Chance
1 February 2012, 8:59 pm
 Just to pre-empt anyone who's concerned, essentially I'm fine. I still limp if I sit down for too long, and my shoulders seem reluctant to shed their bruises. But all things considered, I'm not doing too bad.
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Source: Reeve's Roadtrip Blog

fucking hell dude, that sounds nearly as bad as torquay. 

Very glad that you still appear to be in working order; clearly, the impact absorbsion potential of the fraggle hairdo is not to be underestimated.

[Jaspersharpe]

Shit the bed Reeve! That is one of the most terrifying things I've ever read. Amazing writing to convey how it felt. Glad you're ok.

[seankenny]

Yeah that is really well written. You could probably sell it to a newspaper or something. (Might as well make some cash out of a near-death experience?)

Get well soon.