 © Steve Grace
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El Capitan Click to read Click to |
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© Steve Grace
|
El Capitan Click to read Click to |
El Capitan
Day one.
El Capitan’s sheer granite walls soar skyward for over three thousand feet. Its base,
more than a mile wide, rises out of a forested boulder field. Halfway up, white granite is
split by a horizontal gray band. Then the headwall—looming steep and featureless
above. We have driven twenty-four hours to get to Yosemite. We have come to climb El Cap.
Twenty-five years ago, just making it to the top was worthy of media attention, but now
dozens of parties can be seen ascending different routes across the face on a sunny summer
day. Still, an ascent of El Cap is the mark of a serious rock climber—climbers come
from all over the world to make the attempt, and many arrive back in their homelands with
stories of defeat.
Matt Simons, Chris Carithers, and I are a couple of years out of high school. Matt is strong—he never gets tired and doesn’t complain. Chris, who recently completed a stint as a bike messenger, has all-day-long endurance. I’m the most experienced, but I was just discharged from four weeks of physical therapy due to a climbing accident in which my ankle was smashed. Also, I needed seventeen stitches to sew up my chin. We think we are ready. Still, the climb is twice as long as anything we’ve previously done, and we’ve yet to climb as a threesome.
We pack and hike to the base. I lead the first pitch (rope-length) of free-climbing. We are starting up the Muir route. It feels great to sink my hands into clean granite cracks, but near the top of the pitch I find myself thirty feet above my last piece of protection. I am wriggling up a section where the crack flares to five inches, and remember how intimidating Yosemite can be. After I finish the pitch, Matt and Chris follow and then work slowly up the next two pitches of aid-climbing while I watch and relax. They finish at dusk.
Day two.
Clouds swirl above us all morning, and by early afternoon they enter the valley below as
though someone has broken a dam in San Francisco. We are soaked in thirty minutes of rain.
Dark streaks on the wall soon become trickles and then waterfalls. We retreat, and I am
frustrated with our progress. "We’re supposed to climb eight pitches a
day?" Chris asks in disbelief. I blame the rain. Our pace today is far too slow for
us to make it to the top with the amount of food and water we have.
Day four.
We waited on the valley floor for two days, and now the weather clears enough for us to
resume climbing. Today our goal is Mammoth Ledges. We jumar up our ropes to the top of
pitch six and begin climbing again. Hauling the 150 pounds of food, water, and gear is a
chore, but by four in the afternoon we are only a hundred feet short of our goal. As Matt
is leading the last pitch it starts to rain. His smooth-soled free-climbing shoes and
gymnast’s chalk are useless against the slick surface of polished wet rock. He is in
a race and makes it to the anchors just as the rock becomes impossible to climb.
The weather is bad, I am angry, and it’s taking us forever to set up a place to sleep. Chris is frustrated too, but Matt seems imperturbable, calmly organizing gear while Chris and I eat canned chili and pudding. "Let’s get this gear ready for tomorrow," Matt says, "before it’s dark." We are a third of the way up the wall and equipped to wait awhile, though the weather is not promising. We only have so much food, and by eating now we risk going hungry later.
Day Five.
More clouds. We are really up here now. The slabs run out below us for over a thousand
feet. Climbers at the base of the route are so small I can hardly tell what they are
doing. The second pitch requires that Chris climb down fifteen feet to a ledge and then
traverse thirty feet to another crack before climbing up. Due to rope drag, Chris cannot
protect this section. When he is twenty feet above the ledge, Matt yells over, "Hey
Chris, ya got any pro in?" Chris replies, "Just putting some in now."
Chris has no backup, if he falls he will hit the ledge. We are over a thousand feet up, and you’d think a roped fall would be safe, but hitting the large ledge would be just as bad as hitting the ground. Chris wiggles an eighth-inch-wide wedge of brass that is soldered to thin wire into a constriction in the crack. As Chris climbs higher, the crack flares, becoming more difficult. He inserts a camming device to support his weight. He is only five feet from easier climbing. Suddenly, the cam pulls out, and Chris hurtles down thirty feet. Finally the rope catches him just above the ledge. He is saved by the small wire, which is only supposed to hold 700 pounds, and that under ideal conditions. From my position, all I see is Matt flying sideways across the rock like a prop in a special effects studio.
"Are you all right?" Matt yells.
"Yeah," Chris says.
I take a deep breath, and tell my heart to stop beating so fast. We are OK. Matt’s hip is bruised from catching the fall, and I have the feeling that something really serious happened. Chris complains that we don’t have the right equipment, and I begin to doubt whether we will make it to the top.
We continue cautiously upward. The day ends at the Gray Ledges, part of the horizontal gray band. We are now halfway up El Cap and through the most technically difficult pitches. Still, the overhanging headwall—the steepest and most exposed part, the mental crux—looms above.
Day six.
The first few pitches traverse across the wall in a series of pendulums that connect
vertical crack systems. Slow going. We finish the traverse by one thirty and begin
climbing on the Nose, the most prominent feature of El Cap. The cracks are beautiful,
overhanging, and we move quickly—hand jambs, short sections of aid, frequently
yarding down on fixed gear. I start leading just after four and continue by headlamp until
ten o’clock. I am exhausted from the sixteen-hour day. It takes forever to set up our
portable ledges before we can eat. The night is clear, the moon bright, clouds
disappearing along with our fears of being trapped by a storm. Descending through
overhangs from this high on El Cap isn’t an option anyway.
Day seven.
We are ten pitches from the top. During the last two days we have climbed ten pitches
total, but we need to top out today. The first pitch is fixed from the night before, so we
each will have to lead three pitches. Chris leads the first few pitches, I clean, and Matt
belays. We move like clockwork. Our system is finally working.
Matt takes over just after noon. He fires up the first pitch, but moves slowly on the second. While I am waiting at the hanging belay I cannot help but notice the three thousand feet of exposure beneath me. We are completely disconnected from the world below. I try to avoid looking down.
Matt is the fastest climber of our group but he takes forever to finish his pitch. Something is wrong. I ascend to the belay. "Are you doing ok?" I ask. "I’m not sure what’s wrong with me," he replies. "It’s just like I’m going to drop everything I touch." His eyes are glassy and tired, yet he does better on the next pitch, and by five thirty in the evening we are only three rope lengths from the top. It’s my turn to lead.
"Seems like I work the night shift," I joke. I had been tired all day, and the exposure is making me slow and overcautious. Once I’m in lead, though, I find that I am alert and energetic. I climb as fast as I can, and Matt and Chris come up behind me. The final pitch is a bolt ladder straight though dark overhanging roofs. I climb almost to the end, before I’m stopped by lack of light.
The sky above is black. Closer to the horizon the sky is shades of blue illuminated by a full moon. The horizon itself has a crisp, red edge. I can hear the other two cheerfully talking at the belay below. I haul my headlamp up a free rope. They are confident now but I’m worried. I will have to free climb in the dark. At the end of the bolt ladder the route eases back. I slip into my free-climbing shoes and scramble the last fifty feet, returning to a horizontal world. The night is still and peaceful. A few minutes later Chris and Matt join me on top.
Profile
I rented a van and decked out our climbing club in Team Davis T-shirts. (This whole Italian- bicycle- racing- team- applied- to- climbing concept was inspired by Charlie Buell, another Seattle building contractor/climber who gave his construction crew Team Buell T-shirts.) We climbed hard, had fun, and, through a series of accidents, ended up placing in beginner, intermediate, and expert categories. The awards ceremony was on the other side of town, which is how we got around to adopting Cy Keener. He was young, lanky, and lucky: during the ceremony his name was pulled from a jar—he won a nine millimeter perlon climbing rope. I didn’t have a rope, he was from Seattle, and it seemed only courteous to introduce myself.
Two months later I borrowed Cy’s rope to climb a waterfall on Mt. Rainier. Hundreds of chunks of ice and rock fell down the waterfall while I was climbing, but not one landed on Cy’s rope. How do I know? Well, the next summer I talked Cy into climbing the Nisqually Icefall on the other side of Rainier. Cy, of course, brought his rope along. Part way up, a heavy, grinding ice avalanche fell over us and caught Cy’s partner, Matt Simons, sweeping him down the mountain to his death. And then the rope came tight, pulling Cy off his stance, snapping a Black Diamond carabiner like it was yesterday’s toothpick, flinging Cy forty feet through the air, and placing him down beside my brother. So I know that Cy’s rope was still good—otherwise it would have broken. Cy’s partner? He lay in the ice debris at the bottom of the slope, totally destroyed, his hard hat compressed by the collision. In a few minutes, however, Matt Simons came to and has lived and climbed ever since—although, these days, both Cy and Matt pretty much stay away from ice. "Rock climbing is a lot safer," said Cy.
—Scott C. Davis
Bio
Cy Keener
Place of residence: Seattle.
Birthplace: Tacoma, Washington.
Day jobs: Student. Occasional construction work. Climbing gear sales.
Education: Colorado College. Currently studying at Oxford.
First concrete pour: A hillside foundation in Seattle’s Magnolia
neighborhood with the Scott Davis Company in July 1994.
Coolest vacation: Rock-climbing with my dad in Spain.
Preferred hangout: The Vertical Club in Seattle.
First literary reading: August 15, 1996. Read the above essay to a packed house on
Capitol Hill in Seattle.
Current project: Learning ancient Greek.
Favorite book: Narcissus and Goldmund by Herman Hesse.
Craving: To climb alpine big walls in South America.
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