“I believe. I believe. I believe.” Staring at the ceiling of my car, parked at the foot of Lone Pine Peak. 2:45 a.m. on a February morning, trying to psyche myself through the doubts that kept creeping through my head. “It is within me. Believe.”
Full writeup and results of the climb, videos, and photos are in the rest of the report at http://pullharder.org/2012/02/24/single-push-of-ne-ridge-of-lone-pine-peak-in-winter/ Here's a preview:

The NE Ridge of Lone Pink Peak, one of the Sierra’s quintessential alpine climbs, a pure 7000’ ridge and nothing else. Rising from the desert floor from sand that soon morphs to perfect granite. It’s commonly soloed in summer, but in winter, to my knowledge, it has seen no winter solo and no single push ascent. Alois Smrz did the First Winter Ascent (TR here); the fastest Winter ascent was done by a Pullharder team, spending two nights on the ridge (TR here). The route has been on my radar for a few years due to its huge stature and the fact that it looms over you as the most eye-catching feature every time you drive up US 395.

The NE Ridge of LPP jumped up on my A-list when Dale Apgar asked me to climb it with him earlier this month. It didn’t work out and Dale tried to go for the solo. Unfortunately conditions conspired against him and he made it about halfway before having to bail. Then, my interest rose further when I spent last weekend with Nate Ricklin who told me that his ascent of the nearby North Ridge, its first single push ascent in Winter, was one of his proudest Sierra accomplishments (TR here). Hearing him talk about the experience with such zeal and fire really made me stoked on the peak. The NE ridge still needed a single push Winter ascent.

By Wednesday, the hype in my mind had risen to a furor; I had to drop everything and go for it. The only problem was, I doubted myself. To blitz the route car-to-car seems the best way to climb it (though, truthfully, I don’t know if there’s a climb where I don’t think single push is the way to go). I have very good cardio, lots of experience and a cool head, so it was a reasonable goal. But I was scared.

The approach is maybe 10 minutes and this year lower ridge snow conditions are light. It’s only 5.7 with the direct finish. I’ve soloed much bigger and harder things, even earlier this month on neighboring Mt. Whitney (TR here). Why did this climb cast such doubts for me? I hadn’t been this scared in many years.

To gain confidence I called Gil Weiss, who owns the fastest summer solo time on the route, 5 hours. To my almost surprise, Gil thought I would crush the route in a day in Winter, no problem. He almost talked about it as an afterthought. There was never a waver of doubt in his support for the ascent. Stoked, I finished out the school day then jumped in the car just in time for rush-hour traffic.

On the drive up to Lone Pine the doubts returned and I called my often-partner Konstantin Stoletov, who had also soloed the route in summer. Konstantin kept reiterating that he was proud of me for getting after it this Winter and expressed no qualms whatsoever about it being a reasonable objective for me. No one had done it. But if my climbing partners know the route and know my ability and think I’ll cruise it, why is it that I can’t convince myself?

When I was 22, I oozed confidence. As a Ranger at Philmont Scout Ranch, the hardest hiking challenge was the 60 mile Conservation Marathon, from end to end of the Philmont domain with 30-pound pack and a conservation tool. The record was 27 hours. With much hubris I declared I could do it in 20; to force the point I would start at midnight. With nightfall at 8pm, if I didn’t go under 20 hours, I would not be able to find the finish, a cabin remote in the woods, 3 miles off of any trail. All or nothing. And I did it, 19:52, and the hardest day of my life.

The next year I wanted to climb Khan Tengri, the northernmost 7000m peak in the world and a most beautiful and difficult summit. But knowing no partners who were up to the challenge, and not believing in jugging ropes, I would solo the thing, including the 5.8 vertical pitch at 6800m. I am not sure where I got those kind of cahones, but I never felt that I would fall; I several times wanted to turn back due to exhaustion (I had climbed it alpine style) but indeed persevered to summit this amazing marble pyramid. To this day I consider it the second hardest day of my life.

Those challenges were much bigger– why was I getting hung up on Lone Pine Peak? I actually, deep down, knew the reason. I was scared I couldn’t zoom fast enough unroped in the icy conditions on a low-angle route.

While soloing is indeed mentally challenging (Josh Higgins has a good report on the soloing psychology here), soloing doesn’t make me scared. Indeed, when I choose to solo something, it is calm, collected, almost matter-of-fact. I’m not going to fall, and I climb carefully, securely and deliberately to guarantee it.

What actually psyched me out about the NE ridge of LPP was not the difficulty. It was that the route is low angle, meaning more snow and ice stays on the route than on a steep face. In winter, mid-5th friction climbing (and even 4th class) is dicey–and icy. That doesn’t mean I’d fall. It just means lots of time and precautions to make sure I won’t fall. Which means blitzing the route before night falls on me while still being safe is the real challenge. I envisioned myself running out of light and having to rush things that I should be taking methodically. Or bivying with no gear. These possibilities really made me scared, and for no real reason; I’d done it before. I actually think the psychological failure of a single-push attempt would be harder than the bivy, and I think I deeply needed to succeed for my own psychology. I needed to believe in myself more.

Where was this confidence I had when I was younger? Some people say you get wiser as you get older, and take less risks. But I don’t think it’s about risks or fear and falling. It’s about some deep belief in yourself, a self confidence. When I was 23 I had never failed to send any alpine route I had tried. Ever. I had never taken any big or scary lead falls. I had never fallen into crevasses, never failed at relationships, never fought with my family, never been rejected when asking for a date, never had to study more than an hour for an exam, or felt any sort of vulnerability whatsoever.

At age 31, all of these things have happened, and likely as a result, I can’t garner the same chutzpah I did before. And that’s ok. Naïve confidence is undesirable. I just wanted some genuine confidence for one route that seemed well within my capabilities. My speed climbing, route-finding and soloing ability were all there in order to send the route. My friends knew it. And I knew it. But why didn’t I, deep in my being, believe it?

Writeup and results of the climb, videos, and photos are in the rest of the report at http://pullharder.org/2012/02/24/single-push-of-ne-ridge-of-lone-pine-peak-in-winter/