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j_ung
Mar 30, 2004, 5:05 PM
Post #1 of 2
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Registered: Nov 21, 2003
Posts: 18690
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It’s been ten years or more since I last set tire in the Whiteside Mountain parking lot and much has changed. What hasn’t changed is my rotten luck in trying to get on this cliff. The last time I was here it was the second time in two weeks that I had been rained out before stepping onto the trail. This time my partner, Kris, and I are late due in part to last night’s “celebration”.
This is to be the first time on Whiteside for both of us and we’re a little nervous. A place of mystery and reverence for many Southeastern climbers, Whiteside is a little like the monster in the closet. It’s big, scary and has a reputation for long runs on dubious rock. (“Bring your track shoes,” an old friend once joked.) But for a Carolina climber, it’s almost a requirement to climb it at least once. If you don’t confront the monster, no matter how much or how hard you climb during your life, it will always haunt you.
We chug coffee, poop, rack up and set off up the trail. Atop the ridge, however, the cutoff to the base of the cliff eludes us and we lose even more time figuring out which way to go. Eventually, we decide on a small trail that gradually disappears to leave us bushwhacking gingerly down a steep rhododendron-clogged slope – typical Carolina approach work – that dead ends over an exposed slab. A hundred feet of down-scrambling later and we’re standing on the actual trail at the base of the second biggest wall in the East. The way is clear, so we pick up the pace.
A half hour later, I stand at the opening moves of our intended route, Traditions, an 11c that many locals claim is the highest-quality line on the wall. As a bonus, if the crux proves too burly, it is supposedly easy to aid.
I set my foot on a likely candidate for first hold and I’m off into the opening pitch, a slabby 5.9, but there’s a problem. Right away the moves seem desperate to me and I wonder if it’s my head or if they’re truly a little sandbagged. After 15 feet of what seems like consistent 5.10 slabbing, I reach a bolt. It’s rusty and it spins, but my options aren’t exactly abundant, so I clip it and continue. I pad rightward out a diminishing rail and the moves grow steadily harder. Before I know it, I’m 40 feet up and 25 feet out from the bolt. I do the math and remind myself to keep breathing. The climbing does not let up.
Finally I reach a jug at the lip of a small overlap. I search desperately for gear and find, to my great surprise, a fixed pin that isn’t supposed to be there. The truth dawns on me slowly, but with a crushing finality. This is not Traditions.
The climbing, however, appears to ease up after the overlap, so I push my way through a committing mantle and step onto my first rest of the climb. What looked like protectable cracks from below reveal themselves for the blank depressions that they actually are and my mind runs through the possibilities. Should I have lowered from the pin? Probably, but reversing the mantle seems unlikely, so I push upward in hopes of finding gear. There is none, however, and although the climbing is easier, I’m soon 100 feet up… 120… 150… and still no gear! I’m soloing with a rope attached until finally and thankfully I spy a slot that takes a #5 FCU eagerly, like Wal-mart takes Visa.
Again, I ponder my choices. The wall above is a virtual science fair project of moss and lichen and the wall to my left is out of sight around a curve, but to the right there’s a spacious grassy ledge. This time, the choice is simple. I move steadily right over easier terrain to a tree. After anchoring, I belay Kris up and we bail for the ground.
Dejectedly, we scarf bars, chug water and wonder what to do. It’s 11AM and we’re still on the ground, so the most logical option appears to be to find Traditions, climb the first few pitches, and then bail and walk out before any weather has a chance to move in.
Finding the route proves easy, frustratingly so, and we wonder how we missed it in the first place. As I stand at the base, ready to climb, I’m increasingly annoyed at my own level of commitment. “Fuck this,” I say aloud. “We should go for it. We’ll always be ashamed of this day if we don’t at least try.” Kris, it turns out, is thinking exactly the same thing, so we quickly formulate a plan by which, if we don’t reach certain high points by certain times, we’ll bail. We shake on it and for the second time today, I’m off. It is 11:30.
As expected, the climbing is intense – difficult and scary, though mercifully, the cruxes are very well protected. Trying not be overwhelmed by the sense that we’re in over our heads, we relax and take it one pitch at a time.
At just after six, we summit and the monster in my closet slinks back into the shadow of memory.
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taualum23
Mar 30, 2004, 5:10 PM
Post #2 of 2
(977 views)
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Registered: Dec 13, 2002
Posts: 2370
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Nice! Great job.
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