Wind and Rain and Rock

I woke up around 5.30 am, pretty cold. It must have been a very cold night as I could feel the ground chill right through my thermarest. Leon, in his giant bumblebee larvae cocoon, snores. I forgot about that. However, it wasn't very loud and I probably do the same. At around 6.30 am he stopped making noises. I thought his giant 0 ºF sleeping bag had finally smothered him. So I shook him awake.

He wasn't real happy about that.

Upon opening the tent flap we were rewarded with a fantastic view of the cliffs. Backlit by the rising sun they stood out in stark relief against a pale, cloudless sky. Awesome. I stumbled out onto the frosty grass and went to have a shower.

Leon's amazing watch claimed that the temperature was -5 ºC. The tent was covered in a thin layer of frozen dew. It was damn cold. There was no wind though, and in minutes the sun blasted up over the cliffs and started warming things up.

After breakfasting on bagels, orange juice and tea, we cleared up, packed the tent into the Cherokee and drove 0.2 miles to the parking lot (it's across the road from the camp ground). We got our gear sorted on the blacktop and tried to second-guess the weather. It had clouded over pretty suddenly after the morning's initial sun drench. As it turns out the weather would keep us guessing all day. More clouds were scudding in from the west and the wind had picked up too. So we donned gortex and hiked towards the south side of the razor-thin formations. The trail follows a stream and runs between two narrow (but very tall) climbing areas, the south pillar (separate from the main formation) and the south end (where we intended to do our climbing). The cliffs on both sides looked spectacular, being composed principally of sedimentary quartzite (a type of sandstone) that had been wrenched 90º from the horizontal by some ancient geological upheaval.

We were looking for a climb called "Ecstasy", rated at 5.7 in the book it's a three-pitch classic with high exposure all the way. We found the start easily and Leon won the toss for the first lead. The wind was cold and quite strong as it blew through the gap and was particularly stiff here on the Ecstasy buttress. Knowing that we wouldn't be able to hear each other we agreed on simple rope-tug signals for communication.

Leon stepped up and onto the rock, moving steadily and fairly quickly up the first part. He soon disappeared over a large ledge about 25 feet above. The wind was really horrible, and with steadily increasing cloud cover the sun would only come out for a few seconds at a time. Leon seemed to be stuck somewhere and was taking a really long time. I tucked myself into a sheltered nook and waited. After some time, five or ten minutes, he was moving again. I was expecting to see him again, but had to move back quite a bit in order to do so. He was moving leftwards, like to go around the to the west-facing side of the buttress. As I watched he did do this and again went out of sight.

Being a belayer can be pretty boring and uncomfortable, this was no exception. Once more Leon had stopped moving for a long period. I eventually shifted from my protected niche, moved back a long way and caught a flash of elbow about 100 feet up. He must have gotten himself into some sort of pocket and was probably working on an anchor.

But there were supposed to be bolts up there somewhere, marking the end of the first pitch. What was he doing setting his own anchor? This highlighted on of the challenges associated with climbing in an unfamiliar area. You really don't know what to expect and information you have gleaned beforehand isn't always reliable. Even if the information is reliable, there's no guarantee that you've properly interpreted it. So it's easy to get lost.

I moved around to look up the western face and managed to spot him being battered by a strong wind and working on a multi-point belay anchor under a small overhang. I crept back to my shelter, maintained belay and waited until he signaled me that he was done. The wind had been whipping the rope a bit lower on the cliff. I had wondered about the regular and light tugging and it briefly occurred to me that Leon had gone bananas in the breeze up there. Communicating this fact to me with a constant dribble of little yanks, but this was probably not the case. Not yet anyhow.

Eventually I got THE signal, three strong and deliberate tugs. He was anchored and I could take him off belay. Good, because I was busting to take a piss. Released from my duties I turned and aimed downwind while Leon started to drag up the slack behind me. Fortunately the rope had snagged on something before he could jerk me (I was tied in at the end) from my reverie.

Anyway, I put on my climbing shoes, dismantled the belay anchor and then gave Leon THE signal (three strong deliberate tugs) to indicate that I was climbing. The going was ok and I thought that the rating given for this one was fair. Then I found the spot where Leon had made his first long pause.

He had managed to get one of the smaller active camming units into a narrow and uneven crack. Apparently not liking its placement he had attempted to remove it. But it was stuck. Leon had spent a long time making fruitless efforts trying to extricate the damn thing before giving up in utter frustration. So I had a go at it myself and, after working with the determination of a Scot trying to save $60, got it out.

I continued up, into an increasingly strong wind, until I reached the Mexican's little aerie. Good lord, how in the hell did he hang on long enough to put in the gear? In the teeth of a buffeting gale Leon squinted and grimaced at me.

"I couldn't find the anchors!" he said.
"What?"
"I COULDN'T FIND THE ANCHORS!" he bellowed.
Oh.

I snuck around to the other side, creeping over the ropes between Leon and his anchor, and had a look for myself. Nope, even craning to look higher up I couldn't see any either. Oh well, no matter really, we've still got a fairly good idea as to where things go from here. As I turned to my original seat I looked west. Off into the distance the valley was disappearing behind some sort of haze. Rain? Rain.

At high volume we dickered over the details and decided to ditch. Even if it wasn't rain which, judging by a few preliminary splashes, it certainly was, maybe we could find another climb somewhere out of this damn hurricane.

Just down and to our left a bit was ancient pin with a (slightly) newer looking karabiner hanging from it. We could, maybe, rap from that to the ground. I went down to it and, with Leon shouting advice from above, backed it up with a MacGregor nut to set the rappel. The rain started to pelt us hard, it lasted a little less than sixty seconds and then dried up completely. But we were already on our way down. We cursed this inconstant weather and decided to look elsewhere for another climb.

At the bottom of the buttress we bumped into a Brit bent on Ecstasy with a pretty young lass. It wasn't what your thinking. She was probably his daughter, and observing from a safe 20 yards distant was probably mum. We chatted a bit with these friendly folk before moving up to a cave about 60 yards to the right for some lunch. Beef jerky and tea. Not bad either. Particularly as it was out of the bloody wind. The sun came out too.