When I’m
really climbing, I am in a mental zone. I
appreciate being pushed towards the zone, but only I really know when I’m in it,
when I’m below it, and when I’ve gone too far. It feels like a cool confidence
where risk assessment is visceral rather than verbal. I know I am competent and
strong enough to do what is required and even if I fall the consequence will be
worth the try. I continually strive to weed out the factors that keep me from
this zone.
On the last day of our trip to Cochise, AZ, I convinced my
friend Tasha that the approach to Sheepshead dome followed by a 5 pitch slabby
5.8+ climb would be worth a potentially grueling 6 or more hours. Tasha is a friend
from my home climbing gym in Milwaukee, WI. She’s a really good crack climber!
In a gym full of sport climbers and boulderers, I was pretty psyched to have
some variety in my climbing partners when I met her. On top her crack climbing
skills, she is an emotionally intelligent and deep thinking, logical person.
She is also way more confident at renting cars, buying rental insurance, making
phone calls and picking plane flights than me. What I learned about Tasha on
this trip is that she apparently had never before gone 7 days without a shower
or had to hike an hour up hill to get to a multi pitch climb and that she isn’t
the biggest fan of slab climbing. She also gets really cold really easily and
doesn’t love scrambling up and down boulders. Strength and ability plays a very
small factor in my climbing partner selection. I mostly pick people for their
companionship, intelligence, attitude, and availability.
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| Tasha tried this approach before - off trail. This time it was a much more pleasant experience. 7:30AM in AZ in January is pretty nice. |
I used to be pickier about climbing partners. I would see
people climbing with the same partner for years, both strong, experienced, and
competent people. I so wanted that. Years late I still don’t quite have that
yet, but it doesn’t matter because I know I can create it. This is a story of
building each other up, because people aren’t born with that wisdom, competence,
and strength, but I have learned it can be developed much faster than we
expect. All successes come from a very human place.
The route up Sheepshead is called Ewephoria. On this same
trip, I attempted to take two other friends up. After an hour long approach, I
started leading the first pitch, which is surprisingly much harder than it
looks. After placing a small TCU, which I didn’t love, and crawling out onto
the face to look up at a long run out to a bolt 20 feet up, I realized pretty
quickly that I was not in the zone. This felt like a familiar old feeling of
being too slow at making hard decisions, overly cautious, in over my head,
afraid of the unknown, and not ready to carry the mental burden of this entire
route, especially if the first pitch was anything like the rest. Other parties
were starting to line up behind us, all looking very athletic, psyched, and
confident. Ugh. I just knew something doesn’t feel right about this.
Coming off the route, I realized I didn’t feel sorry at all
for dragging my two friends up to the start of this climb. I brought the gear I
thought I needed and I made a decision and that was that. Today was not the
day. I had nothing to apologize for.
I told myself that it has been two years since I climbed up
real granite slab like that. I have been too busy in nursing school to practice
my trad climbing. I wish my partners were more experienced because judgement
and decision making is exhausting and I’d rather share that responsibility. I
wasn’t born out west and didn’t start doing this kind of stuff until my mid-twenties.
It’s really human not to want to take risks like that.
I texted a friend explaining that when I know that my
belayer knows what it is like to be up there on the sharp end on a long
multi-pitch, I become so much braver, but that I would not have that on this
trip. Almost immediately upon sending that, while drinking wine out of an
orange juice bottle and watching the sunset, I realized I had just stated a
problem which had a very clear and defined solution. Tasha is an emotionally
intelligent and logical person. I am putting her in a box of a gym climber who
won’t understand what leading run-out slab will feel like. Any emotionally intelligent
person would be receptive if I explain what I need from them to feel like a
team up there. This can’t feel like I am guiding her. This has to feel like we
are a team and that we are both fully in it, both constantly thinking ahead, even
if I am the leader and she is the follower. I need to know that we’re on the
same wavelength.
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| AZ sunset |
So, here we are, at the start of Ewephoria, way earlier that
anyone else. It’s only 8:30am! Some people show up at 11am and summit by 2pm. I
love our time buffer. I have one follower instead of two and almost twice as
much gear so I can head off onto the mystery slab knowing a solid #2 cam will
catch me if it’s my worst nightmare up there.
The first pitch is a success, and my trepidation about the
whole adventure decreases by half. Phew! However, I am belaying from an icebox.
My puffy is down at the base in Tasha’s backpack and I am standing in the shade
with a cold north wind wicking away my body heat as I stand in a thin long
sleeved shirt and a wind shirt. I am literally shivering, belaying Tasha up,
waiting for my puffy to show up, knowing that pitch will probably be a tedious
challenge for her (we don’t have weird slopey granite diherals inWisconsin). Also,
she is going to hate this freezing belay ledge even more than I do! Tasha
arrives to the icebox. I warn her she is probably about to freeze, grab some
water, my jacket and the gear and announce we should get out of this place
ASAP! Without thinking too hard, I head back out onto the slab to a bolt, small
cam placements, and then who knows what…
I feel a tug of the rope on my harness and calmly freeze.
“Hold on Kaybe… Sorry…”
“Is that because of the rope or because of your belaying? I
just need to know we need to fix the rope.”
“Umm… A bit of both.”
“OK, no worries, thanks for telling me. Let me know if you
need me to slow down.”
I pull out onto lower angle rock moving slowly but smoothly, clip a bolt, then look up
about 30 feet to the next bolt. Standing with the last bolt at my feet, I
attempt to sling a chicken head, but moving a little higher the rope whips the
sling right off the rock. I laugh to myself. Yep, I expected that! I look up
and look down. I smile. This isn’t scary. This is 5.5 probably and I am so
strong. In fact, the fact that the route is bolted like this feels like a
compliment. It’s set for a 5.8+ climber. I am easily a 5.8+ climber. I know
that. I quickly move on to the next bolt. Around then I start hearing hooting
and hollering from my left. I look over to see two yahoos practically running
up the rock helmetless on a harder route about 100 feet away, boasting their
recklessness and speed for all on the mountain to hear. I roll my eyes. This is
why I take chances on people like Tasha over the really strong climbers. I
laugh knowing for sure that I am in the right and they are frankly acting like
they are adolescent boys (which they are not). Shame on them. I am so happy to
be my cautious humble self up here and not one of them.
 |
| Looking down at the first run-out. Easier than it looks, still eerie. |
A few more moves on rounded, rough granite slopers takes me
to the anchors. “Woohoo!”
I get Tasha on belay, thinking how she’s probably freezing
down there, poor thing. As she starts climbing up to me, I start hearing more voices.
“Damn it!” I think. More parties. Well, we’re already 2 pitches up. They can’t
move THAT fast. This should be okay. Hopefully we don’t slow them down. I always
think I’m more likely to slow someone down than to catch up to someone else.
The third pitch is tightly bolted slab, but no matter how
tightly bolted it is, it doesn’t change the fact that there literally are no
holds, and this rock is surprisingly not that low angle. Two pitches up reminds
me to make quick decisions. Going down isn’t really an option and that’s okay.
Trust your feet. You’ve done this before. It’s been 2.5 years, but you haven’t
forgotten how to walk on this stuff. You know this kind of rock. Off to the
left is a water streak, with little edges, but it’s actually dripping with
water. Stand on the wet edge and risk slipping later due to a wet shoe? Or
continue on the pure slab? Slab it is. Perfect. I am making decisions out of
logic and not fear. This feels good. About 40 feet later I reach the first
actually hold. “Holy crap! Tasha I just walked up vertical rock. Oh my goddess.
Ahhhh!” I flow gracefully through a few last moves using a big step across and
balance thinking that a 6’ tall person probably just reaches out and grabs the
jug. I’m back on a bit of run-out 5.4 slab and then perched at another anchor.
 |
| Water streak slab!! |
For some reason I thought the fourth pitch was going to be a
breeze, but once again, I got sent off onto a bolt line of very vertical slopey
rock. For the first time I question whether or not there may be a variation of
this pitch which is harder than I bargained for. I look around and see no
better way up. Well, if this route goes at 5.8+ and the bolter thought I could
do this, then I can do this. Calmly breathing and carefully balancing my way up
another 50 feet or so of slab, I sling one last chicken head and look at one
last 6’-person-step-across. I smile. “This should be fun” I think as I smoothly
lean across to a few jugs and pull up and over a bulge right up to the anchor
which is on the first big comfy ledge we’ve seen all day. Yessssss! Fourth
pitch down. Holy crap! We’re going to do this whole thing no problem! It’s
sunny and beautiful and only about 1:30pm. Not bad for someone leading trad
near their limit (as far as I know) and a sport/gym climber following! Tasha
makes it up and we both realize we need food and water and a break. She looks
pretty tired. I’ve been chasing the sunshine and trying to stay well before the
second party so I haven’t eaten much since we left the ground. The second party
catches up to us. Perfect timing. At this point if they want to pass us I
frankly don’t care.
The group turns out to be a super nice group of college
kids, very humble and friendly. One guy commented on my slinging of chicken
heads. “I didn’t know how to do that! I saw you do it so I thought I’d try it,
but I don’t think mine would have worked.”
I laugh, “To be honest I don’t think mine would have worked
either. Those were some poor excuses for chicken heads… More like fins. One of
mine just fell off on the second pitch anyways!” We talk about the fourth pitch
and I realize that they are just as human as I am and it doesn’t matter how
much more they get to climb outside on this kind of rock. Once the basic
strength and competence is there, the rest comes from trusting myself and
loving the climb.
 |
| Proof of rough granite. It was worth it. |
The final pitch is a “chimney” which is so wide it’s really just
a slightly overhanging 5.7 which involves an awkward heel hook mantle with a
wall behind you. Like, really, I’m only 5’2”, but I think you’d have to be 8’
tall to stem in that thing. I stand on a little ledge and try to clip the last
bolt before I pull over onto the summit. I’m not tall enough. I laugh. Story of
my life. Sometimes one of my excuses which keeps me from the zone is that most
backcountry/alpine/trad climbers seem to be at least 5’6” tall. I’m more built
like a sport climber, but honestly, that has never kept me from any 5.7 move. I
enjoy proving to gym climbers that short people can do any route. So if it’s a
move on this route, I can do the move and then clip the bolt. The extra spice just
makes me more badass than the (probably) 6’ person who put the bolt there! One
last friction mantle and I’m on top!!!! “Woohoo!!”
“How was it??” Tasha calls up.
“Hahaha uhhhh… You’ll see. It’s one of the harder 5.7s I’ve
ever climbed…”
“Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me at all!”
Working through the moves, Tasha gradually makes it up into
the sunshine. To the very last move, every friction move is heady for her. That
makes for a lot of heady moves on a route that is 750 feet long. She has been
working so hard and she stayed mentally with me the whole way up. We all have a
different degree of risk tolerance and a person can feel just as exhausted
following a multi-pitch as someone else does leading it. Hard moves, exposure,
understanding and trusting gear, prior experiences all factor into how quickly our
risk tolerance is used up. The more we pile on the more exhausted we become. We have to remember that because what affects one person in one state of mind can affect someone else way more. Tasha has been a really awesome partner today, given how out of her comfort
zone she really was. We un-rope and stand in slight disbelief thinking about
everything that we did to get here. She’s standing well away from the edge and
on low angle terrain so I run over and give her a big hug.
 |
| 750 feet of this is a lot to ask of anyone! |
“Ahhh” she yelps, still not 100% comfortable standing on
slightly angled rock all the way up here.
“Thanks for not thinking I’m crazy and for agreeing to do
that whole approach with me and the climb!!! I can’t believe what an adventure
that was. Holy crap I’m so glad we did that!”
For the first time I feel like I totally belonged on a long
moderate multipitch. It is a freeing feeling to have mutual but unspoken trust
with whoever bolted this route. Their work would keep me safe if I knew myself
well enough to know if I should be on the route. I used to meticulously write
down the entire route, draw my own topo, and try to take out as much mystery I
could from the route. Today I knew with the right gear and time and just enough research, whatever was
thrown at me, I would be capable of navigating.
Today I was in the zone all day. I trusted a less experienced
climber because I knew what I needed from her didn’t require her to be
extremely experienced. It just required teamwork, trust, a willingness to try
something new, and communication. I trusted my internal strength and mental
calm, rather than the number of granite pitches I climbed in the last year or
the amount of cams I placed in my life. People don't forget skills like that too fast. While this is the longest and hardest multi pitch
I have led, it feels like it unlocked a door. It taught me that I am capable of
so much more, and reminded me that those people out there leading longer and
harder multi-pitches are human too. So here’s to new friends and partners, being
strong, competent and humble, and many more days in an ever expanding mental zone.
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| See that one? The biggest one?!? We'll never look at that quite the same again. |
