What I learned on Denali 2013

In June I left my day job as a Registered Nurse at a small community hospital in Glenwood Springs Colorado and headed North to Alaska. This was my fourth trip to wonderful state and second trip to the Alaska Range. This trip I was fortunate enough to be an assistant guide on an Alpine Ascents International Expedition up the West Buttress. I would be co guiding with senior guide Ben Jones and Willie Benegas, two larger then life characters. I’ve heard many people explain why they climb with a comment involving it is a learning process. Each time I set foot into the hill or pull my way up a steep face I learn something new. Here are some of the more important thing the West Buttress taught me this past season. I greatly appreciate the teaching moments each of my teammates provided me with.

1. Some people are genetically programmed to be more likely then others to walk into crevases. Multiple times on the same trip. Withing one weeks time.

2. Some people are genetically programmed to be more likely to have what ever we attach to them fall off including but not limited to crampons, snow shoes (especially snow shoes) climbing harness, gloves, backpacks, pants and mittens.

3. Fixed lines may look simple and straight forward. But they are not. It is possible to make them more complex then a calculus problem involving the square root of fractals. If one tries hard enough he or she can wrap them selves several times though a fixed line resulting in a hanging human tangled upside down mess.

4. Even in an international group with language barriers all adult conversations lead to mention of adult x rated videos below 17,000ft.

5. “Mama huhu” is my favorite thing to say in Chinese especially to a Chinese client who speaks no English who was suppose to have a private translator on the trip.

6. If Chinese members of an entirely different expedition offer to make you “Chinese soup,” no matter how hungry you are respectfully decline. Also decline anything that comes in a tube that says fish paste. Failure to do so will result in your clients just about shitting themselves and turning snow into fudgsicles. (Which you as a guide will have to clean up)

7. Dudes from Denmark, who are x military and serve as body guards to diplomats in Afghanistan have really warped and hilarious senses of humors.

8. It is cool to bring your I Pod Movie or I Pad mini on expeditions and watch movies in your tent all night.

9. If you live in a desert nation and do not have access to snow you can train for Denali by Scuba diving. This was new to me.

10. Women see men in two ways those “who could get it,” and those “who aint never gonna get it.”  

11. On the mountain every pop song that plays on the world ban radio is “the best song ever.”

12. There are rules to drinking Yerba Mate and I am capable of breaking every possible one of them.   

13. My beard hold 234ml of frozen water in ideal conditions. 

14. On rest days Guides will dig extremely large holes in the snow for no particular reason except to stay in "rock climbing shape." 

Liberty Crack and the Legend of the Benito Bonito

It wasn’t going to be an easy sell. I’m far from a sales person and I could tell Pete wasn’t convinced we should go climb Liberty Crack instead of going to crag for the day in Tieton, Washington. I’ve got nothing against Tieton. The columns of ancient lava make for great traditional crack climbing. But I had been there the week before and by 11am it was so sun baked my underroos were soggy and I was panting like a taxed pup.

Spruce Climbing in Tieton

At Tieton I desperately tried to neglect the sun leading old school cracks with slippery beads of sweat rolling down my arms. The climbing was shut down by the afternoon’s solar flare. My partner Spruce and I ran down the trail skipping over Rattle Snakes for the refuge of the cold river water below

Pete and I had just gotten done guiding a 3 day trip with Alpine Ascent International on Mt. Rainier. It was the last trip I was going to guide for the season. I had three days left in Washington State before it was back to wiping butt and filling water pitchers as a registered nurse, blaaa.

Alpine Ascent group nearing Camp Sherman

 Liberty Crack had gotten on my radar 10 years ago when Bob Rinker described it to me as a must do. I had been guiding for Alpine Ascents for most of the summer and before the season had set an ambitious goal for myself. My goal was to climb all The Pacific Northwest’s 50 classic climbs on my days off. They include:

1. Mount Rainier, Liberty Ridge

2. Forbidden Peak, West Ridge

3. Mount Shuksan, Price Glacier

4. Slesse Mountain, Northeast Buttress

5. Mount Stuart, North Ridge

6. Liberty Bell Mountain, Liberty Crack

Spruce Climbing Forbidden Peak

Without a car and consistent climbing partner it was a goal that went unachieved. But I did manage to get three objectives done. Earlier in the season Terray Sylvester and I had climbed Liberty Ridge and a few weeks earlier Spruce, Ben and I had a successful trip to Forbidden Peak.

 I was stuck at the Ashford guide house, 6 hours from the North Cascades and at Pete’s mercy. It was looking doubtful we were going to go climb Liberty Crack with just a few days before I flew home to Colorado.

Pete Lardy was the only guide in the Ashford Guide house with me. He’s a stand up guy, trustworthy and talked about climbs he had done on the Diamond on Longs Peak. Pete was the obvious most likely victim to coerce into climbing Liberty Crack. I also thought he would make a great partner since we both seemed to have a love of Gun’s n Rose’s Appetite for Destruction.

My wife always tells me, “You’re a Lion take what’s yours,” a marvelous piece of inspiration from Jack Donaghy on the TV series 30 Rock.

I was the lion and Pete was starting to look like a Thompson Gazelle. Lardy would not be easy to take down. Things were not looking good. By 6pm he would only agree to go climbing in Tieton the next day.

Understandable he had another trip in a few days. Liberty Crack was 6 hours away, thirteen pitches, a few A2+ and we didn’t even have any proper aid gear. But thank the heavens Pete has a religious understanding of the term “classic route.” And the more I talked about Liberty Crack I think the more he realized this would be his one chance this summer to send it.

By 8pm he still wasn’t all that convinced we should go for it but I sensed the tables were starting to turn. I needed help, a persuader of sorts, a form of liquid courage. So I walked over to the general store and purchased a 6 pack of Black Butte Porter. By 9pm thing were looking better. Pete was starting to get more excited about Liberty Crack. By 10pm all plans of cragging in Tieton had faded to black and we had plans to leave at 6am the next morning to make our pilgrimage to the North Cascades.

Pete at the base of Liberty Dome

The plan was as follows. Leave at 6 am from Ashford, Wa. As soon as the Alpine Ascents office opened we would call and see if we could borrow any much needed aid gear like Etriers, ascenders, and hooks. We were driving two cars. Pete would go pick up the gear from the office and I would go to REI and Feathered Friends and see if they had any off set nuts which were highly recommended for the route. Several of the comments about the climb suggested offset nuts and a hook were mandatory. We came up with everything but a set of offset nuts and a hook. This made me a little nervous about the climb especially since Pete had never aid climbed before and I would be leading all the aid pitches but courage pushed us forward. Worse case scenario we rap down and try the route next season.

We arrived at the pull off for Liberty Crack late in the afternoon. We shouldered heavy packs and started hiking up towards the base of Liberty Dome. A small snowfield guarded the base of the cliff. We were in approach shoes without ice axes so used rocks and sticks to hack steps and gain the base of the cliff. There was a large gap between the base of the cliff and snow field. In some places the gap was half a foot and in other spots several feet. As we geared up for the climb I strattled one of the large gaps and took a leak looking into the void that narrowed to a tight chock of ice and rock 10 feet bellow.

Up and left of Pete is where I found Benito Bonito's treasure of offset nuts.

As I whized I noticed something shiny in the trench below. The magpie in me drew me towards the possible booty (free dropped, left, lost gear). I stemmed the ice and rock until I could reach down for the lost treasure. I wrapped my fingers around a carabiner and pulled. Attached to the carabiner was a dozen or so nuts.

I looked closer at the grand prize. Booty to climbers is like a pirate stumbling upon the infamous Benito Bonito treasure by accident. This wasn’t any set of nuts, a handful of the nuts were offsets. Exactly what we needed! My slight pessimism of actually getting up this climb vanished into the dark hole below me. I climbed out of the tomb towards the light of optimism. I looked at Pete, “no flipping way,” I said “there are offset nuts in this set.”  I let out a massive Homer Simpson “woohoo.”

That evening we fixed lines on the first two pitched through the “Lithuanian Roof.” Several times when the leading was feeling desperate a found offset nut came to my rescue.  As dark crawled in we rapped down. We had wanted to fix the first three pitches but the moon was rising and the “crux” A2+ pitch would have to wait until morning. I tossed and turned like a Mexican jumping bean in my sleeping bag all night excited about the next day.

The Lithuanian Roof

The next morning we jugged the lines to our high point. Jugging was new to Pete and it left his biceps in a sore spasm. But his motivation was still there and he continued on. I lead through a few copper heads with fraying wire ancient fixed pieces of protection. At some points too nervous to breath. I then arrived at the infamous hook placement. I knew I was hookless but searched my rack desperately wishing one would magically appear.

Old Hardware

It turns out the move is not all that bad without a hook. I stood as high as I could in the Etriers, put my index finger in the hole as a make shift hook and was able to reach up to a descent gear placement. The crux was done! I felt relaxation overtake my being.  We still had 10 pitches of climbing to go. But from here on out no more aid climbing just enjoyable free climbing.

Like clockwork soggy clouds were forming above us. Small cells passed overhead from the West. Every now and then a patch of grey would roll in directly over head and a few drops of rain would fall teasing us and testing our nerves. Several times I though we were going to have to bail leaving tons of gear behind as we rapped down. But we pushed on finally reaching lower angle climbing.

A few pitches of easy scrambling lead to the Summit of Liberty Dome. I looked around proud at the glorious North Cascade views. It had been a wonderful summer in Washington and this was the perfect way to end it.  

Pete scrambling to the summit

View from the Descent Trail

The Black Canyon's Cloak and Dagger

When Jim said he wanted to do Cloak and Dagger I rushed into the garage to the climbing library and pulled the Black Canyon Climbing Guide off the shelf. The climbing library is in the Garage because the wife forbids it in the Living Room. Not sure why? It's a volume of books that have taken me almost 20 years to put together.  She has expressed several time, "Our house is not your college dorm room." Ok fine the my climbing hold idea across the living room's high beam might have been taking it a little to far. But why can't climbing related books be inside? The wife works harder at keeping anything to do with climbing out of the house then I work at trying to climb 5.13.
 

The Dragon

I flipped through the pages of the guide but was unsuccessful at finding the climb. Little did I know Cloak and Dagger is a new Black route that got established in 2012. The amount of potential new climbing in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison is mind blowing.  

Mountain Project.com

 As usual Gilchrist rolled up to the mail box pick up point at 6:30 in the morning. NPR was blazing in the Prius as I opened the door to greet him. In a flash we were over McClure Pass and descending towards Paonia, Colorado. As we drove along the reservoir we were scared shitless by a massive block that had fallen from the jumble of sketchy cliffs above the road. It’s not uncommon for the road to be booby trapped with large rocks in this stretch. But this rock was the size of a FedEx truck that had face planted in the pavement. . Luckily  Jim was able to navigate around the massive block. 

The excellent Pitch 3

The approach to Cloak and Dagger is much the same as Comic Relief and Escape Artist. It took us about 30 minutes to scramble down the SOB Gully and then traverse over towards the start of the climb. The Cosmic approach ledge continues to the base of Cloak and Dagger's first pitch Pegmatite Gully but we opted for the Gilchrist Variation that first climbs a beautiful 30 foot crack and then traverses right bypassing the lower section of the Gully. As we approached a party was just finishing up Pitch two. Pitch 2 climbs a splendid steep hand and fist crack for 30 feet and then works into a squeeze chimney. Bring a big boy number 4 to make the wide first crack feel stress free. If you've got big cajones don't worry about the number 4 BD.

Pitch 5

I arrived at the top of pitch 2 to find a gentleman by the name of Dr. Tom Bohanon who goes by “Bohanon.” This dude has the same name as Bohannon from Hell on Wheels making him especially bad ass by name alone. I wished he climbed with a low browed tilted leather prairie hat and smoking six shooter. It turns out Bohanon is a old climbing chum of Jim’s and we would have his and his partners pleasant company for the rest of the route. 

Pitch 3 is the money pitch. The pitch seemed to be well over a 150 feet with the initial 100 feet being incredible steep clean and well protected fingers crack climbing. This pitch made the entire climb a true gem.

The next pitch is pretty radical as well. Large hand jams take you through a roof section with comforting large cam placements. A few exhilarating moves lead to 160 more feet of moderate climbing. Just as you run out of rope and gear you reach a massive comfy belay ledge. Kick the climbing shoes off and relax because the rest of the route is cruiser.

Pitch 4 and 5 are more typical Black climbing with sections of great and not so great rocks. The 5^th pitch starts with one final insecure but well protected move that leads to slabby moderate climbing. From here the route joins the final pitches of Escape Artist and Comic Relief reaching the top of the buttress. 

The Swing over. Most rap to the bottom of this gully and hike out.

When I climbed Comic and Escape Artist we did the typical rap of the buttress and hike to the canyon rim up a loose and dirty gully. The hike out always fells much harder then it actually is and makes the day drag on. Jim mentioned a variation to the rap and walk out were you can get a few more pitches of moderate climbing in and end up on the rim just a hop skip and jump away from the campground. 

The variation which I nick named “Astro Monkey Turd.” is actually a fun adventure in rockaineering. You rap about 10 feet as usual and then carefully stem over to the other side of the notch and scramble up to the lip. This option does involve untying briefly from the rope or some rope work trickery and shenanigans. Once on the other side of the formation scrambling leads through a razor knife edge ridge for 40 feet. The exposure is excellent. Two pitches of easy adventure climbing, following the path of least resistance brings you to the rim! 

Jim finishing up the "Astro Monkey Turd" exit to the rim.

I suspected since Bohanon and his partner Terry had done the traditional walk off and they would have vacated the camp ground well before we were finished. But there was a small hope they would still be around with ice cold beers and salty snacks. As we strolled into camp a man turned in our direction, it was Bohanon. Bohanon and Terry were having such a swell time they decided to stay another night.  Not to mention 133 was now closed do the earlier rock fall. Bohannon flipped open the cooler and retrieved two cold drinks extending them Jim and my way. It couldn't be a more perfect finale to our day!

Driving the long way home via Grand Junction Jim and I reminisced about the day. Climbing behind another party in the Black can be terrifying. But we found the belays were often offset from the pitches enough to offer safe places to wait for parties in front of you. The rock quality was over all very good and all cruxes offered great gear placements. Like all routes in the Black there was plenty of “adult climbing.” (Jim G’s term for heads up, run out no fall sections, greater then 15 feet above marginal gear)  The third pitch’s stellar rock and movement makes the climb a must do for any aspiring climber.