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Ricardo Carlos
Trad climber
Off center, CO.
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As John Yablonski used to say, "I get stronger when I shake." A boy and his gland..........
How many times did John save his own ass by a lucky or controlled fall-jump to a tree?
He told me of two, popping from the climb Frustration and the other was in the Valley.
Once soloing a crack ending in a easy mantel the day after a good rain I was stopped by sand on the mantel ledge. I tried to brush off the ledge but mostly just got sand in my eyes. After down climbing the climb a guy came up and asked, aren’t you embarrassed for having to down climb? Answered honestly I replied no but I would have been if I had fell and not died.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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My 2 cents on Yabo:
He had some deep pain, like a murky emotional water level rising up to his kneck. Getting himself to that position of pumping, shaking, pulling through the brink into life from the one arm figertip thrutches helped to burn away all that psychic fog and bring him closer to his cleansed & preferred self.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Right on the mark Roy. He just wasn't going to do anything peacefully or in a settled conventional way. I could just never visualize an older, more sedate Yabo! Maybe the next time around..........
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Jello
Social climber
No Ut
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I used to think that on-sight, free-solo, first-ascent was the ultimate. Looking back, that ideal got me out on thin ice a few times, or up sh#t creek without a paddle, maybe. Or even sitting way out on a limb, sawing contentedly away at the branch behind me.
I'm 22 years old, fit as a tom cat and confident as a mountain goat. A new line on Andromeda in the Columbia Icefields calls to me. An 1,800' face of ice and a little rock leading directly to the West Shoulder. For extra style points my only tools are a set of crampons and a 70cm Chouinard piolet, the north wall hammer stays in camp. Crossing the gaping 'schrund and climbing 100' feet of 75-degree ice to get established on the face, with one hand tool, calls for exhilirating balance and concentration, just what I wanted. Then it's a romp up 50-degree alpine ice for 1,000' to a 50' rock band. I shove the axe through the pack straps behind my back and start up the (mostly) solid limestone, totally in the groove and grooving. Just below the top of the band, I pat a little side-pull with the heel of my hand to see if it's solid, and immediately begin to lieback when the hold seems to be sound. But as soon as I've really committed to the move, the edge pops, and I start to barn-door. The jolt of adrenaline is painful, hitting like 10,000 volts, providing the enormous energy needed to halt the barn-door before I fly completely off the hinges. "UUUNNNNGGGHHHH!", I grunt, with one hand levering my body back in contact with the rock. Two seconds, tops. The difference between death and redemption.
-ElectricJello
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Jello
Social climber
No Ut
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Andromeda again, routing out the secrets of a deep,ice-filled chimney that branches off to the right, before the crux of Tobin's route, The Shooting Gallery. Five-hundred feet of glassy smooth waterice shaped like a three-foot diameter half-pipe lead to the first crux, a pull past an overhanging chockstone, which in turn leads to a snowfield in an alcove topped by overhanging rock. From here there are two choices, an overhanging offwidth heading directly up, or thinly iced stepped slabs heading left around a corner to who knows where? I'm in ice mode, so head left. Around the corner things don't look so good. The steps between the iced slabs go from steep to overhanging, and from a few feet high to six or eight. The ice on the slabs thins from 3/4" thick down to 1/4" of verglass. I think I can see an exit ramp above the next couple of steps, though, so head directly up. After making desperate scratching moves over the first of the big steps, I realize with an alarming and rapidly building sense of dread that there's no way I'll be able to reverse those insecure moves. The next step is bigger and quite obviously more difficult. Keep it together, man, just deal with it...
The next twenty feet of climbing require laser focus on the pick of each tool as it torques in a crack or slices down a few inches to hook in the verglass. Crampon front-points are placed with pin-point accuracy. Nothing else will do, there is NO margin for error. I'm climbing at my limit, unprotected on unknown ground. I would be scared, but can't afford that luxury. There is no one moment as on the West Shoulder Direct, when a careless move leads to sudden danger. This is five minutes of peering into the void and avoiding its' siren call by directing all energies into an upward-sweeping vortex. When the difficulties diminish and I climb the last meters quickly to the top, I feel relieved of the twin burdens of ambition and desire. At least for a time.
-EmptyJello
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TwistedCrank
climber
Hell
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On my 21st birthday I bought a brand new set of SMC rigid crampons for cheap from the gear store in Mammoth that used to be behind the Safeway. They were cheap because they didn't come with the allen wrench screws they were supposed to come with. Instead I went to Ace hardware and bought some screws the kinda fit. The next morning I hitched up to June Lake to solo the falls under the power station. There had been some freeze-thaws so the ice was dinner plate hell. Half way up the falls I noticed that every time I kicked the crampons would would collapse because the screws wouldn't stay tight. For the next 100 feet or so I had to tighten the screws on the bottom of my crampons every couple of steps with my alpine hammer. While hanging from my Northwall hammer.
Not real scary but I recall being pretty amped when I got back down.
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tallguy
Trad climber
bay area
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After finishing college, my best friend and I take the summer off to dirtbag around Alaska, seeing all the places we had only read about. We make it out onto the Harding Icecap near Seward, and spend days cruising around the icecap scrambling/climbing the nunataks that stick a thousand feet or so out of the ice.
Full of the courage that naturally comes with being 21 and male, and driven by an awe inspiring lack of carnal knowledge, I head out one morning to climb a nice looking coulior/gully up on one of the nunataks. My best friend takes one look and decides I'm on my own, it's over his head. But hell, I've read Freedom of the Hills, I know this sh#t. He'll meet me on top, and it looks fine to me, so I start up, wearing my crampons and carrying my nearly new shiny 75 cm mountaineering axe. It's warm, probably in the 60s, so I'm only wearing long underwear bottoms and my sunglasses. The lower sections of the coulior are full of crevasses and a bergschrund, so I scramble up a rock band to the side and traverse into the coulier about 1/3 of the way up. I head up, kicking steps in the snow and making good time. Life is good.
It slowly steepens, and near the halfway point I come across a hidden bergshrund that was not visible from below. It's not wide enough to be really scary, only 6-8 feet, but looking into it I sure as hell know you don't want to be down into it. Dark icy slot that curves away into the deeps. I traverse left to where it pinches down to a couple feet near the rock wall, make a platform on the lip, and highstep over onto the snow above. I'm ascending with style and courage, life is so good.
A hundred feet higher, and I'm breaking a nervous sweat. The view down is now full on grim, I'm way up there and the bergschrund below me seems way larger, it's a full on man eating maw now. It's steepened considerably now, and I'm doubting that I can do anything like a self arrest before I'm clattering around inside the schrund. Worse, the view up is beyond grim, it's way steeper than I thought, and the snow sucks, a bit of soft mashed potato over grainy ice crystals. Steps up start sliding down, no matter how I kick the steps they don't want to seem to hold together.
Wisdom rears its head over the pounding sound of my heart in my ears, and god I need a drink of water, I suddenly seem to have not a drop of saliva in my body. Every breath sounds the ragged tone of desperation and worry. F*ck this, I'm going down, this is full on dangerous. Three steps down convince me I'm hugely stupid, it's terrifying descending, and I know now that I've climbed past the point where I can safely downclimb my steps. Stepping down into the steps ruins them, they slide out and crumble to nothing. Life is not okay at all.
Up is it, it's the only choice, so I keep going. Looking down at all makes me dizzy, and I need every bit of focus to keep my balance as I reset my mountaineering axe to kick more steps. It's now so steep that I kick steps until my kneecap touchs the snow while straight legged, and I'm reaching up full extension (I'm well over 6'), one hand on the pick and one on the adze, to plunge the entire length of the axe into the snow. Not at all sure it will hold if my steps slide out, better not to think about that. Working up the courage to reset the axe is draining, every moment the axe is out of the snow is a moment where any little shift of balance ends in the crevasses and schrunds below, head over heels until I disappear like a quarter into a slot machine. Worse, I'm sweating so hard now that my sunscreen is running into my eyes, clouding my sunglasses, and rendering sight into shades of Monet. Stinging eyes and squinting hard, I can't take my hands off the axe to do anything, only blink and hope.
The only way I can do it is look straight ahead, either looking up or down brings adrenaline shots of pure fear. I can't even look up to see when I reset my axe, just tilting my head back a little feels like it will start a balance loss that would cause me to fall over backwards headfirst into nothingness. Plus, it causes more sunscreen to pool in the corners of my eyes. Balance is nonexistant when you can barely open your eyes. Life is so far bad now its not even funny, there's a constant loop of "this is the stupidest thing you've ever done" running through my head. Never again will I touch crampons or an axe, my mother was right.
Up I go. Hours go by, foot by painful foot.
Finally comes the moment of pure beauty, not capable of description or imagination unless you've been there yourself. I feel the angle ease back a degree or two. The sky is blue again, and my parents will be spared the phone call telling them that they've outlasted their son.
In less than 20 feet, its over and I've escaped. I have no memory of the walk up to the summit, its likely that I glided or flew. My friend is waiting asleep on the summit blocks, once he hears me he only asks if it was a long walk around and up the way he came. I can only say yes, it was a long walk around.
That icy endless landscape seen from the summit is without a doubt the nost beautiful thing I've seen in my life.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Gripping story, tallGuy!
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John Vawter
Social climber
San Diego
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When my kids were 5 and 7, we rented a cabin at Rock Creek for a week in July. We spent the days hiking, fishing, and visiting Hot Creek and Bodie. I wanted a half a day to myself to do some climbing. I hadn't been climbing much so I didn't even consider a Class 5 route. I was looking for a long third class ridge that would put me on one of the summits that ring the Little Lakes Valley.
But I couldn't completely deny my ambition: I settled on the North Face of Mt. Dade, Class 4. I left the cabin at O'dark hundred, drove to the trailhead, and set out in the dark. I carried only water and some extra clothing and made it to the base of the glacier by 7:30.
The glacier stretched a few hundred feet up into the north face and was out of the question in my low tops. But on the left, there was only about 50 feet of ice to climb to get to rock. Numerous rocks were imbedded in the ice that could serve as foot and hand holds. I strung these together and made it onto the rock below and slightly right of an impressive, sheer buttress. My plan was to traverse up and right as directly as possible to intercept the relatively lower angled north face just above the glacier.
I climbed steep rock broken by ledges, blocks and shelves up and right, up and right. But each time I thought I was about to break through to easier ground, a move outside my comfort zone stopped me. It was always just a little easier to continue up than it was to traverse right to easier ground. I continued like this, making occasional moves of middling class 5. The higher I got, the more concerned I was about reversing what I'd climbed. A little higher up, I abandoned any thought of downclimbing.
The moment of truth came mid-way up the face in a steep, sand-filled crack about a foot wide. I was close, perhaps 25 feet from a place where I could easily reach the lower angled face. The sand in the crack was consolidated, but not so much that I couldn't kick toe holds in it.
Good holds were rare. Mostly my weight was on my toes in the sand, and I used the rails of the crack for balance. Watching my feet for any sign that the sand might give way, I moved up and put my hand on a good-sized flake protruding from the sandy crack. I hoped it was the tip of an iceberg, but as I began to weight it gently, the flake shifted. A little avalanche of sand swept down over my shoes and billowed out into the void.
The adrenaline rush stiffened me. I couldn't unweight the flake without pitching off, but I had to quickly shift enough weight off that shoulder to keep from prying the flake out of the sand. My body sort of fluttered like a flag in the wind for a moment, then stopped.
The next few moves were just a blur. A toe in the sand, a toe on rock, pinching an edge, passing the flake delicately without touching it, weighting another booby-trapped flake, another jolt of adrenaline and narrowing of focus. More sand, something solid to grab and mantle onto, more steep but now solid or at least stationary rock, and finally the low angle ground. The sense of relief was like oxygen. Instead of just what I could see and touch in front of me, there was wind and sky, a past and a future.
For the first time I could climb without using my hands. I floated up the last bit up onto the face proper. Another hundred feet or so took me to a short overhang with some real 5th class climbing, but on solid rock. It felt good to be able to pull hard on rock that didn't move under my weight. I wound my way through the blocks, spires and debris to the summit.
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mooser
Trad climber
seattle
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For me, it was anything I climbed in the Czech Republic before the first clip. Mo-o-o-o-m-m-m-my-y-y!!
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DrCrankenstein
Social climber
too many places, actually
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It was '97 or '98 (or whenever that was) and I was in the Meadows and exchanging this story with Walt Shipley and he's showing me his funky, homemade kayaking helmet he is so proud of and about this stretch of whitewater he is way stoked to do...
I was having a great year sending and doing some of the best solos of my life. I was really inspired that year to hang it out there third classing. Within this era I had soloed up to 12a after rehearsal and up to 10+ onsight and I was definitely NOT a soloist (I liked to solo). I never was confident enough to onsight solo anything harder than 5.9 on greater than one pitch routes with high cruxes. I had just descended off Fairview, the Reg Route and feeling very stoked after my confident and totally solid onsight solo. So, I am looking at the right side now for a "cool-down". Ah, its only 5.8...No problem...Perfect after doing a more continuous and difficult line...OK let's fire off the GREAT PUMPKIN and call it a day. The first two thirds was cruiser easy low angle rock, totally reversible. Now I am on this thin ledge that tapers out right to a diving board lip. Here is the crux. Without even hesitating from this rhythm I was in and the fact that thunderheads were present I tried what seemed totally obvious...YIKES! That's not the way. It can't be...Uggg...Here I am standing on this thin ledge that flexes when you bounce on it. Stupid! Why did you need to be so curious if that lip section would flex?? You are only making yourself get freaked now. There are all these things going on in my little world right now...To set the stage, the weather is not looking that great to be most of the way up a route and having to halfway attempt a crux section and contemplate it many times to find "the way". Why the f*#k am I soloing? Sh#t this sucks. I am making myself freak, for sure! If I was tied in I would simply clip this bolt in my face and not think twice...CRACK!!!!!!!!Goddammit! F*#K! THUNDER! Its going to f*#king rain and you blew your window to start down climbing! DUDE! Get your sh#t together NOW!! OK! The proper way to do the crux totally goes up to this shitty, greasy, slopey knob over outer-space and then straight out right. That is definitely how I would do it roped up. I just couldn't commit to it. NO WAY! So, I devise this sequence of three or four harder moves straight up to what seemed like a way more solid traverse to the right...I figure if I blew it with this sequence I should be able to grab the [flexy] lip of the ledge on the way down!!! I had to just do something before I completely lose it up there. There was no way I was going to sit out a storm straddling this thin ledge (one of my options at this point). After clearing my mind I go for it with my reserves kicking in and my nervous system WELL in the RED. Ok...KEEP IT TOGETHER...Ok...Ok...Ok hold, smear, smear, jug, hand jam and stand up to a leaning system out right. HOLY SH#T BATMAN!! That was way gnar-lo!!! After about 8 minutes of easier traversing and finally getting to the upper shoulder of the formation, I AM SAFE...It was ONLY 5.8...
...YOU SOLOED THE GREAT PUMPKIN??? DUDE!!! I would NEVER solo that!! I wouldn't guide it either...SICK!...Walt Shipley, The MASTER of SICK...That was the last time I ever saw Walt. It wasn't until the next month that I heard he lost HIS life "SOLOING" in the rapids.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Nice one.
I guided The Great Pumpkin with a client who was in his late 60's. We went up on the route with a single rope and way up high it started raining on us and we couldn't go down. In a lull I waited for the tips of the knobs to dry out so we could finish up just before the weather closed in hard again.
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DrCrankenstein
Social climber
too many places, actually
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Hey Roy...Its Alex...Long time no see bro! I thought I would jump in the game here with my first post. I had been lurking and figured out who the real Tarbuster is. Say hi to Lisa!
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Where the hell have you been Alex?
-And welcome to the Taco.
Watch out for trolls and don't get sucked too far down the bunny hole; this place is time consuming.
Also, please post up every picture you ever took at the crags, we can always use a look ouside...
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DrCrankenstein
Social climber
too many places, actually
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CA...Totally different job...Inspecting petroleum tanks on west coast...In Hawaii right now surfing the net. Can you believe it? On vacation here then 3 weeks in YO!!!
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Way to be.
Tell us another solo story.
I'll say hi to Lisa, we were just talking about you and wondering.
Gotta love the taco.
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DrCrankenstein
Social climber
too many places, actually
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I'll dig up some other story material and post some pics later...Gonna stop surfing on my laptop and start typing some waves...
...For anyone who surfs the North Shore Oahu and hasn't climbed at THE cliff in Mokuleia, you should! Its totally RAD!!!
Cheers
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DrCrankenstein
Social climber
too many places, actually
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Roy...Tell Lisa I am staying with Jenny and Jeff here on Oahu and they say Aloha!!
Alex
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DrCrankenstein
Social climber
too many places, actually
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Snowshed wall summer of 2000...Kurt Smith said one of his most memorable (and proud) solos was Manic Depression, same day with John Bachar. I was WAY inspired (these guys are my heroes)! I'm all psyched up from leading some of the other classics here (Sanitation Crack, Farewell To Arms and Bottomless Topless onsight solo). Manic Depression looks hard! I rack up and tie in to lead it (way over my head to onsight solo). Crimp, finger lock (repeat) good nuts in between and here is the crux move...FALLING...Bummer! I lower down. That sucks! I blew the onsight. Second attempt yo-yo. I got the first half dialed and...SH#T! I fell again. Crap! So much for a free solo! I can't even get it on lead. Huh! This time I don't lower down but figure the move out and get to an anchor. After top roping it clean 2 or 3 times, I decide I will never solo it. Its not my bag!
DAY THREE, SNOWSHED WALL...
Lead the classic warm ups...Monkey Paws looks way good! As if I had done it 30 times, I got the onsight lead. That was way easier than MD and one letter grade harder. Ratings don't mean shit! This is my route! After top roping it 2 more times I had found a totally locker soloing-sequence to set up for the lock off move and a smooth way to glide through the final moves. After a 45 minute routine of pre-solo meditation and stretching, I lace up my trusted shoes and with a dusty clap of chalk I am sticking the initial roof move above. I am flowing magma, strong as hardened steel. Every thin hand, big finger jam is like the rung of a ladder. Wow...I am already past the crux and no need to shake out. So cool. I take a pause for the final intricate step move to clear the bulge and I am making the upright transition to walking off...AAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!
With a cry-out loud enough to be heard in town, I am WAY STOKED!!!
Hey! Whose rope is this? I am pointing to the TR set up for Manic D...Do you mind if I slip on my harness and take a ride? Sweet! I am totally warmed up and its been a good 20 minutes of cool down since Monkey Paws. I've got a perma-grin and all these eyes are burning into my back, I can feel it. Crimp, finger lock (repeat) set up for the crank through...WOOPS...HaHa...JUST LOWER ME...Its a good thing I wasn't soloing, I laughingly mumbled out loud...What a trip.
"Beats a trip to the morgue"- Anonymous Climber
Looking back at that moment affirms every bit of good judgment I ever had and feeling even more rewarded by an ability to confront risk and fear.
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Royal Robbins and Dave Rearick made, if I recall (I'd have to check) 2nd or 3rd ascent of the Northwest Face of Half Dome. Royal was chimneying up behind Psyche Flake, the enormous, detached block that used to be. It was a solo, of a kind, since there was no protection, and everything depended on the flake staying there. With Royal pushing with all his might outward on the flake with his feet, and his back against the main wall, Rearick was a bit nervous and said something. Royal comforted him with words along the lines of, "Think of all the thousands of years ice has been pressing outward against this flake. No two mere mortals are going to do anything to break it loose." Not long after, some climbers arrived at this location on the wall, to find the flake had fallen off, apparently, under its own power.
I was about age 13 when I started climbing in Eldorado with Kor. He didn't view me as young and expected me to keep up and hold my own in every respect. Histories are wrong that have ever stated that Kor had me "in tow." Hardly. We swung leads, and sometimes we soloed up the wall to where the harder climbing began. He and I made the second ascent of the Naked Edge, and we soloed the vertical three hundred or so feet up Redguard Route to the actual start of the edge. Near the top of this 300 feet is a cave you climb out and over, doing a wild, exposed lieback/undercling on sketchy, slightly rotten blocks. I had a coiled rope on, a pack, and was further bound by having my light down jacket on. I found myself doing that undercling (pretty stiff 5.8, if I recall, the scary Eldorado kind, and a straight drop 300 feet to the talus if I were to have made a mistake. Layton simply went up and over first, and I followed. He must have trusted my abilities at that young age, and I recall his somewhat sinister smile as I emerged out over the lip of the cave and made the last moves to him. I didn't have sense enough at that age to know I could ask for a belay.
I have lots of solo stories, but gotta get back to work at the moment...
Pat
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