The Flames.

Mar 14, 2017 - 03:20pm PT, WEST SIDE STORY, 1983

West Side Story is a route to which I contributed much grist, but I was not to be present for the completion of the climb. These were committing face climbing adventures, steep enough to warrant using hooks for some of the bolt placements.

A couple pitches off the deck, at the start of the third lead, I left the belay, underclinging and laybacking a 5.8 flake. Leaving the security of the flake, I headed up into a steeper section of rock with decent features for 5.9/10 face climbing. After linking up a series of moves in the blankness, I was a ways out from my last protection, and it was time to drill, but I couldn’t let go to drill and the only hook placement I could find was a tiny little flake no bigger than a thumbnail. The feature was just thick enough to accept the tip of a Leeper flat. It also had to be weighted at a 45° angle, so it was pretty tricky to drill the hole without disrupting my stance, because I was leaning diagonally off the tiny flake and pushing off smears with my toes.

After nervously hand drilling the hole, I pushed the bolt in with my thumb very carefully and quickly clipped in the rope. I slowly cranked down with the wrench to tighten the hanger into the rock, the flake snapped just as I finished, and I swung on to the bolt. With a short jerk on the rope, Mike caught me and when Mari looked up from below, she wasn't talking about Mike when she yelled, "Someone's looking out for you, Roy!"

I thought to myself, "Well, that someone is supposed to be me, and I'm not doing a very good job!"

We were getting pretty good at drilling on lead, and sometimes we’d get greedy and try to do a whole pitch, or a good part of it, consecutively putting in the necessary bolts, without returning to the belay for a rest. With this ethos in mind, I climbed higher and when I began to feel run out, having pushed plenty far past my previous bolt, I found a place where I might stop and try to drill. It was quite steep and smeary for the feet, yet it was a natural stance. I found I could drop my arms without falling off, and again I started drilling away, but things weren't going so well.

The drill bit was dull and it began binding and I started complaining. I was getting weary. My feet weren't holding and I didn't think I was going to get the bolt in before falling off, when Mike shouted: “Quick … I'll put a Leeper point and a fresh bit on your trail line and you can pull it up, smack the tip of the hook in the hole with your hammer, take aid from it, and start over!"

It worked. After completing that bolt placement, I continued climbing and got about 15 or 20 feet above the bolt, started crimping and laybacking a diagonal edge in the pristine rock, opting to point my right toe down along the contour of the feature, when my foot popped and I sailed out of there, dropping over 30 feet through open air. Jerking down onto the end of the rope, I banged my ankle, and I was pretty shook up.

That was it for me on that route; I lowered to the ground where Mari joined me, took a good look at my rattled nerves, handed me a water bottle, lit her pipe for me, and politely suggested I forfeit my dance card for the rest of the day. Owing to a frostbite injury I sustained to my fingers on a routine training climb later that year, my experience on West Side Story would prove to be the last time I would join in the fun and games of doing new routes in the Needles.

Roy McClenahan


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