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unkemptbeard
Feb 8, 2006, 6:29 PM
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Registered: Feb 1, 2006
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My partner was in the throes of a 5.6 route billed as an "adventure climb" at Devil's Lake in WI. The good part is bucket after bucket in a slight overhang/corner. To get there, you have to endure the first 20-25 feet of typical DL 5.6 BS. A lot of guttural noise and pulling up on whatever you can find while your feet skate around below you. Sorta like the start of Michael's project if you're familiar with the area. He kept looking back at me while I belayed saying, "This part is sketchy" while fighting one for the ages with a pink tricam because he's sure it's the only thing that can possibly work.
And I'm thinking to myself, "Get on with it for Christ's sake. Getting dark. I'm cold...blah blah...can't be that hard" convinced that once I start up, the route will just crumble before me and that he's only having trouble because of "the jitters."
Basically it's an awkward little shallow corner. No good stances. The pro you do put in will inevitably suck. It's like you're fighting the wall the entire time. I mean, on paper, it's 5.6 and you're sure you've got it when you're psyching yourself up for the lead. But when the time comes, for all practical purposes, you really don't have it. And if you are honest with yourself, you eventually admit that, technically, your classification as a climber does hinge solely on the fact that you own an ATC and climbing shoes. And the shoes were a gift.
Anyway, he gets to the top, sets up a belay and calls down for me to start up. So I start up. Or try to. 3 times. Then I make a move and feel like tendons are separating from bones. Also I am certain that I've just pinched whatever happens to be the most prominent nerve in my ass and welded my shoe into a crack. I'm dripping sweat, have already succumbed to at least 2 injuries from exertion, and my feet are only 14 inches off the ground.
I said, "Screw it." What followed was one of the largest slaps in the face ever felt by those holy 5.6 Devils Lake clean climbing ethics. I am simultaneously proud and ashamed of it.
I hucked with all my might for the runner hanging from his lowest piece, put both hands in it, hiked my feet up and commenced clawing my way to the second runner. I repeated this procedure three times until I got to the ledge about 20 feet up or so where the fun part starts.
When I got up to meet my partner he said, "That low section was awful....you really cruised it though."
I probably said something like, "Oh, grumble grumble....grmph...always easier for the second...hrrrumble grumble."
I did eventually come clean though. This is not to say that Devil's Lake is my least favorite crag. Quite the contrary. But I frequently get humbled there. Just thought I'd share this display of my true character as a climber.
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billcoe_
Feb 9, 2006, 8:15 PM
Post #77 of 88
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Unkemptbeard: I see that is your VERY FIRST post.
I want to be the first to say you have quite a talent for words: PLEASE, please keep it up and bring on some more of that stuff.
thank you for sharing it!
Regards:
bill
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ambler
Feb 9, 2006, 8:38 PM
Post #78 of 88
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Registered: Jul 27, 2002
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Black Corridor at Red Rock, and some of its neighbors come in second. Wot an awful place of crowds and generic clip-ups, made even worse if you accidentally wander past one of the open-air "outhouse" areas nearby. Outdoors climbing for folks who aren't into the outdoors.
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adklimber
Feb 9, 2006, 8:51 PM
Post #79 of 88
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Registered: Jan 27, 2006
Posts: 110
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Has anyone climbed at West Point? The Poison Ivy Wall. This name say's it all. By far the worst climbing I have ever done. One area is completely covered with black spray paint.
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cygnus
Feb 9, 2006, 9:05 PM
Post #80 of 88
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Registered: Jun 13, 2002
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The office. Cinder block, painted walls are impossible.
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billcoe_
Feb 9, 2006, 9:26 PM
Post #81 of 88
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I have a near death story at Smith Rocks. Now generally, I like Smith, but this is one of those routes which needs a sign at the base which explains "Abandon hope all ye who enter here" or "Please verify that your life insurance is current before proceeding".
About 20 years ago, Mike Lake and I had headed over one afternoon to an out of the way area called Red Ryder Buttress to do a route called "The Young and the Restless". A 5.9 route. We had both separately climbed a nearby route "Red Ryder" and enjoyed that 5.8 bolted route and wanted to explore the area further. I suspect, although I don’t explicitly remember it, we did not have a guidbook. They’re might not have been one at the time anyway as the Jeff Thomas book had gone out of print somewhere in there.
We eyeball the line: Mike wants the lead so up he goes. Now Mike is very competent and solid on 5.9’s of all types, but when he gets out of sight, there's a lot of slow up and down with the rope that goes on for quite and extended amount of time. After what seems like forever, I hear "off belay" from up high. I prepare to climb and after my yell up "Climbing" I hear Mike yell down "BILL.......DO NOT FALL". He repeats it again, LOUDER, so I yell up an acknowledgement. “OK Mike”.
I was puzzled somewhat as the end of the first pitch was reported to have 2 bolts for belaying. The puzzlement ended when I reached his belay stance, where Mike had 1 ass cheek partially smeared on the rock to what passed for a ledge, and 1 (ONE) small wired nut behind him. (ONE!). He’s trying to smear his feet on the slab below him to keep his weight off the nut, and his feet keep slowly sliding out- so he keeps picking them up and replacing them. I can tell he’s uncomfotable. I immediately start looking around for any kind of additional pro and find nothing: N-O-T-H-I-N-G. NO BOLTS, NOT CRACKS NO ......NOTHING. MOTHERFU*CHER. Like a dog sniffing prey I go in hot search, traversing this way then back, then that way. I still see nothing. Except @30 feet up was a small pinnacle which it looked like I could put a sling on, and if I could traverse right @ 20 feet past the pinnacle, it looked like a left facing dihedral heading for the summit, and I suspected a crack there, although I can’t see it from Mikes psydo-belay. We can run the route up there and top out.
I grab the rack, take a deep breath or 3 despite the severe shrinkage I’m experiencing (balls in my throat would be the understated feeling) and shoot for the send. The rock immediately starts to get a bit crumbly. Trying to maintain 4 point contact at all times I move up gingerly. For those who are unknowledgeable about this, 3 point contact is defined as ALWAYS keeping 3 points on the rock at all times. So you move 1 hand only or 1 foot only at a time. 4 point contact is an improved version of this for emergencies only wherein you are so scared that you try and wrap your dick around any ruggosites or projections you can find, or wedge your head into a squeeze chimney. Anything, including biting rocks, which gives you better grip and makes you feel less powerless in the face of death. Soon I get to the pinnacle I had spotted from below. Pinnacle is a bit of an overstatement. From the front it looked like a pinnacle, however, it has no significant backside where the sling can rest. It wants to slip off. I fiddle with it, and finally find a way it sort of stays in place. I ignore it and head to the right and continue the traverse. 10 feet into the traverse I see a crack above with a few easy moves to get to it, so I give the rope a flip to pull off the sling and elimante the drag that the only piece between Mike and me is starting to cause. I might be looking at a 60 footer, but it wouldn’t matter because if I pitch from up here Mikes solitary #3 or #4 Chouinard wired nut will pull for sure and we will both fall the full pitch below Mikes feet.
Cautiously and slowly I easy higher towards the crack and our salvation. The cliff is so loose and dirty at this point that I cannot help but knock some crap down on Mike below. I make it to a small ledge for the first real rest right where that most beautiful of cracks ever seen starts. It’s a perfect #2 friend size so I grab that piece, plug and clip. Ahhhhh, I take a deep breath. Although I have no memory of my hands shaking, I’d be real surprised if they were not, because they are now just typing the words 20 years later in remembering this event.
Preparatory to launching, I yank the friend to check that it’s well set…..the “rock” on both sides shatters – destroying the best part of the crack and I’m standing 50 feet above my belayer with a steep cliff above, a not so friendly friend dangling loosely in my hand, no pro between us, and his #3 wired no doubt laughing at the in humanity of the situation.
I try to place the same piece immediately above the shattered crack. It doesn’t go as deep or look as good, but I’m not gonna make the mistake of pulling on it again. Deciding to climb up, as going down was at this time out of the question, I locate my hands in the “crack” and move my foot out right to a nice little hold. It crumbles and my feet wind up back on the ledge. Now my heart is pounding and I’m getting nervous because here’s where it got tough. The rock went from being soft, to not being rock at all. It was vertical mud, barely held in place. Trying several other obvious holds which in there turn also crumbled, I soon turn to kicking steps into the vertical wall.
At this stage of my life, I had climbed many a steep snow slope, some of which were CLOSE to this steep, but I’d at least had a picket, dead man or some other piece which I felt would have kept me from death should I pitch off and head for a full-on auger. Not so now. I am sure that a fall from here will mean death. There is no question in my mind about it at all. If I had some assurance that the entire cliff would have not crumbled off and fallen into oblivion, my fear would have been less: but no assurance was to be found.
Soon I’m kicking the sh*it out of the f*king cliff like my life depended on it. It did. As I kick a deep enough step I stand on it and start kicking with the other foot. I make the remaining moves, finding 1 more piece to utilize, a mud/chock wedged into the crack which I tied off with a sling and didn’t pull on: I finally get up, find and tie off, the only good piece since we left the ground, a stout rock lying at the top.
Mike follows. Topping out, he smiles and says “Interesting”.
(editied to fix the many spelling errors)
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rockguide
Feb 9, 2006, 9:40 PM
Post #82 of 88
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Registered: Nov 8, 2004
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In reply to: Unkemptbeard: I see that is your VERY FIRST post. I want to be the first to say you have quite a talent for words: PLEASE, please keep it up and bring on some more of that stuff. thank you for sharing it! Regards: bill
and may I add, thanks for your first post being a contribution rather than starting a thread with a one sentence question that has been the subject of countless other threads and requires a complex, multi paragraph answer (ie asking us to help with your homework or what shoes to buy)
Welcome to RC
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unkemptbeard
Feb 9, 2006, 11:45 PM
Post #83 of 88
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Registered: Feb 1, 2006
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Heh. Glad someone enjoyed that tale. I've been lurking on RC.com and reading the forums for quite awhile now...finally getting the nerve to post anything.
My adventures inevitably result in--to quote an old pal--one brutal defeat after another. I really should get around to posting some awful photos. God...there is so much more where that story came from.
Thanks a bunch for the welcome.
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superbum
Feb 10, 2006, 6:09 AM
Post #84 of 88
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Registered: Sep 19, 2002
Posts: 822
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Indian creek. What a pile. Don't even bother going there...lots of cows and lame Anasazi grafitti everywhere you wanna climb...
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brent_e
Feb 10, 2006, 6:38 AM
Post #85 of 88
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Registered: Dec 15, 2004
Posts: 5111
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billcoe....awesome post. my hands were sweating too!
thank you for that
Best
Brent
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mikej
Feb 10, 2006, 4:38 PM
Post #87 of 88
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Registered: Feb 7, 2006
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billcoe, I was afraid of falling, and I'm just sitting at work. That was an awesome story and i tip my proverbial wool beanie to you. I dont think i could have made up something that intense.
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billcoe_
Feb 11, 2006, 8:25 PM
Post #88 of 88
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Thanks for the compliments!
2 updates of things I've thought about.
1st) Maybe Mike Lake, who is back into climbing, can show up with his version:-) He's moved to California, but I see him post on Supertopo as rockermike occasionally.
2nd) Most obvious- avoid this area. There is an Alan Lester FA noted in the guidebook called "The Young and the Worthless" near here, it may even be this route-who knows, anyway anything on that cliffband on upper Red Ryder Buttress, where the upper rock looks light colored, above where the lower strata of rock is red and solid, is to warily approached.
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