Lordy. No, Baby. Please, oh please don't make me go camping there. That means I be havin' to climb there too...
"Okay," she relented. "You don't have to climb there. You can go back over to Vedauwoo, but I'm not camping anywhere near Casper. It's just too dusty."
(How quietly I sigh...)
But what else can I do? With my family camping in the forest, what am I supposed to do? I just can't desert them.
Well, I could, but believe me there'd be Hell to pay when I got back. Luckily, the extended family is with us, and I get to climb with my brother-in-law. Dan sits across the campfire from me, looking dazed in its flickering light. He too knows what climbing in Blair means.
"We are gonna get spanked."
"Yep."
The following morning, the dads have breakfast duty. Dan fries the fat bombs on the griddle while I pretend to lend a hand. Eight hungry rug rats devour breakfast junk food and over a dozen farm-fresh eggs, two pounds of bacon, and a box of instant oatmeal. They tap into the dads' stash of gatorade, one-by-one draining the entire gallon. A wife voices dismay at the disappearance of the precious electrolyte fluid, but the dads shrug indifferently:
"Guess we'll just rehydrate with beer, heh-heh-heh!" we say.
By noon, we are off to revisit a few Blair moderates. Actually, "Big House" and "Becker" are most likely the easiest routes in all of Blair. The latter is a pair of hand & fist cracks that lead to a short offwidth (too wide for a fist jam, too narrow to fit one's body inside of) exit move. The former, on the other hand, is a bulging fist & offwidth crack, which has always seemed to me to be a bit hard for its given grade of 8+. I can't help that. Just about anywhere else I've climbed, these two routes would be rated higher. Anyway, that's Blair. The median grade of difficulty here is about 11, on a scale of 0 to 14. As for "Sport Climbing," you can look elsewhere. There are about 3 bolted routes here, and two of them require natural gear placements as well, unless you enjoy the prospect of slamming into something as you fall. You need to be a solid leader on 11's to reap the bounty of Blair-Wallis. And you'd better like offwidth cracks!
I'm leading "Big House" for the third time in my life, and I still think of it as 9+ or even 10a... so I wrestle with my fears as I rest on a piece of protection before the crux bulge. Pushed outwards, body weight momentarily on tentatively jammed fists, I get through the bulge, panting like a scared animal as I plug in another big camming device. It's relatively easy from here, but the adrenalin lingers, the legs like Singer sewing machines... you gotta love it.
Suzanne follows next. Her first climb at Blair. She gets to the crux bulge, and so begins her epic. The rope goes tight in my hands, making the most distressing noises as it pings taughtly over the myriad rough crystals and rounded edges. She tries everything, even a pendulum onto the faces beside the crack. Direct aid from the rope finally helps her overcome the hardest part, and she cusses her way up to the belay anchor. I rappel to make room for Dan before he begins his duel with Big House. Suzanne belays him up.
The sounds of his struggle are all too familiar. I am meanwhile moving our gear to the base of "Becker."
Dan leads the next route, gaining confidence with every meter. He and I have been sharing the same demons of self-doubt this season, so I understand what he's feeling up there. He threads the rope through the anchor bolts on top and lowers off, feeling good. Suzanne follows slingshot, also very pleased with herself. By the time I'm roped up to climb it, two guys wearing only shorts, hats, and chalk bags are free-soloing "Big House." They glide up our nemesis with nary a grunt, and are soon peering down over the top of "Becker" at us. I think for a moment that I might offer them a rappel on our rope, but they don't have harnesses... although obviously being Blair Hardmen, they just might fancy a shirtless dulfersitz de rigeur. I can't bear the thought of it. I pull the rope.
It looks like it may rain. We're all bonked. And then there are the soloists. Talk about deflated egos! We retreat to the campsite.
Back at the campsite, we are martyred heroes. We play the charade for all that it's worth as the kids admire our bloody wounds. Danny and I start rehydrating ourselves, twelve ounces at a time. Eventually dinner is served, thus ending our supreme reign as heroes. The wives order us about until all the kids are tucked into their tents. Dylan and Brandon leave for a bivvy in a cave they've discovered. I get out the gear and sort it for a particular route, or two, or three. Under the influence of acute hydration, Dan and I combine our equipment in to a well-organized rack of big intentions. Our wives laugh at us, saying what most wives do in a situation like this:
"We wish you'd fondle us as much as you fondle all of your toys, sweety!"
"Well, maybe if you were as quiet as our 'toys,' we would!!!"
In the morning, the dads help with breakfast. I've already done all the dinner dishes before anyone else got out of their sleeping bags, so Dan and I aren't expected to do all that much. We dads leave at about the crack of noon, bound for The Grand Vedauwoo. Usually somewhat deserted, this Labor Day Weekend, the place is crawling with people. They're mostly from Colorado. You can always tell: they have better gear than climbers from Wyoming; they usually have jobs; nice hair cuts; duds from Patagonia; and they drink bottled spring water instead of the local well water. Oh, yeah, and their vehicles have those green license plates. Anyhow, they sit around in small chatgroups, lounging in very hip wilderness lounge chairs, watching other people climb, as if they have all the time in the world. Some one is overheard to say how uncrowded it is up here in Vedauwoo. Dan and I feel as if we've been dropped smack dab in the middle of a major population center. Backed into a corner like wild animals, we start up the route "Hesitation."
It's supposed to be three rope pitches long, but I take an early right turn on the first pitch and we are off-route. Dan leads an easy half-rope-length to another ledge where we strike up a conversation about how lost we are. While we are discussing our numerous options, a redheaded fellow free-solos up to us with a friendly greeting. I think he must be from Laramie by the way he speaks and as it turns out, he is. You can just tell.
"What're you guys doin'?" he drawls.
"We're bein' lost," we say. "Duzziss fist crack get back onto Hesitation?"
Red puts his fist to his lips and furrows his brow, thinking hard. He tells us nonchalantly that we can just walk up that crack, and, yeah, that should put us somewhere on or near the route, although he says he's never actually climbed it, except for what he's just done. Then he heads up the fist crack, moving efficiently across after asking us if he could go first, to which we ofcourse assent. Nice guy. We stare. We start talking about how many kids we have. We assure each other that it is more noble to be careful for the sake of our children than to be unfettered and bold. And fast. And cool. We rub our expanding, middle-aged bellies like submissive dogs. We verbally de-louse each other. Then I take the rack and move across the "walk-up-that" crack to a shaded alcove, which leads to a lovely little cave, a respite from the blazing hot sun. I dive inside, sling a chockstone, and shout for Dan to join me. I belay him up as Red stands on an exposed swell of granite before me, a hundred or more feet off the deck, his arms folded like some old time movie Indian. Soon Red disappears like the wind, leaving Dan and I to sort out our own path. We linger in the coolness of the cave for a while. He says I can have the next lead.
Ohhh, boy.
"I think there's a raptor's nest up here," I tell Dan as I grapple with the giant chockstone that forms the roof of the cave. A few moves later confirms my thought...(if you've never seen a nest like this, made of twigs and regurgitated rodent guts... you really must make a point to...)
Over the chockstone. Squeeze left. Basically put your body between two hard surfaces of something like 30-grit sandpaper and start wiggling up. It's alot like that. Alot of grunting and bleeding. And I mean bleeding. There are dried blotches of old brown blood everywhere. I reach what turns out to be the last ledge on the pitch, and groan, mostly because the next crack looks just like the maw of a great white shark, turned on its side. I vacillate: there has to be a way to avoid "Jaws." The ledge is down-sloping, tilting outward at about forty degrees, and the rock itself is disintegrating with every smearing step I make.
I vacillate right, crouched like a child trying to avoid a whipping. The ledge terminates at a vegetated groove, with a tight seam in it. No way I'm going up there! I can't believe it. We have to climb "Jaws."
The struggle begins. Just getting off the ground requires hanging out of the crack on an armbar. Ahhh, Vedauwoo! Then I lift my foot higher and wiggle in to the gash like a maggot squirming into a pus-weeping flesh wound. Ahhh, Vedauwoo! Then I suck in all of my breath and repeat the whole procedure. I see that my exposed skin is bleeding all over the route. Ahhh, Vedauwoo!!
I start wheezing, the fear factor causing me to hyperventilate. I stop, helped by a painful armbar-rest, and wrestle a large camming device in to the crack. I yell at Dan to take ( hold me in place with the rope ). I dangle there, barely able to regain control of myself. After a few minutes, I ooze upward, finishing the route. Dan follows in much the same fashion. That he is belayed on a top-rope doesn't help much, psychologically. We both flop on the western summit of Reynold's Hill, not knowing what trials await us in the descent: a scary down-climb, a stuck rope after a sling rappel, and embarrassment that we need the assistance of two strangers to retrieve said rope...
We limp back to the campsite, tails between our legs...
The following morning, Dan and I are loath to get moving. We've had our butts kicked two days in a row. Yesterday was worse than the day before. Today, I have proposed several different routes, each an improvement on the other, descending in difficulty to make up for every hour we sloth in our lawn chairs. Finally, I say that we should forget challenge, and just get out to the Nautilus and have some fun.
"Whaddaya say we just do Piton Perch, then rap from the Potato Chip?"
"Okay. I'm wasted."
We drive away after packing up most of the campsite. Everyone else stays behind, and the older kids hike to the top of The Heap.
Dan leads the route, which is well within our abilities at this point. A little bit of 5.7 here and there, but mostly just low fifth-class stuff. He belays me at the last ledge below the top, leaving me the spooky-but-easy chimneying to a step-across onto the famous Parabolic Slab of the Nautilus, a feature we locals call the Potato Chip.
As I'm cautiously scrambling up the slab to its summit, someone on the ground whistles. At me. I think. Funny, it sounds just like my wife's whistle. I keep climbing, clipping in to the top anchors, and Dan follows. I look around the forest from about two-hundred feet above it. That whistle comes again, and I spot the source: my wife is down there. She's whistling at me. We shout at each other. She says that I have the keys to the van. Suzanne stands beside her, holding Bubby, our 2-year-old. I puzzle over this. Dan arrives.
"Yer sister says that I have her keys," I inform Dan.
"Well, do you?"
"Nope."
"Uh-ohhh."
Other than this, we are having fun. We rappel, trying to entertain my son. We try to use anchors on the Practice Slab to reach our spouses directly, but the trio toproping it ignore us. We scramble all the way round the other side and walk to our packs in those tiny little rock-climbing shoes. Amongst the numerous pleasure-seekers are a group of Lakota Indians. A large one, his chest scarred from atleast one sun dance, verbalizes the wonder of this place. He has a look of a shaman, the lilting voice of song, as he asks with arms outstretched Who stacked everything up like this. We smile, we shrug.
"Yahweh?" I say.
I don't have her keys, but I give my wife my key to the van. Dan and I part company, and I drive home.
The next afternoon, the struggles diminished by my poor memory, the weekend past begins to look better than it was. I head back out in the late afternoon with Squeak, the minute he gets away from work. Today, there is absolutely no one at the Nautilus. It's Tuesday afternoon, and it seems that everyone else in the world must be home doing laundry.
We climb Lower Slot Left, and Squeak tries to talk me in to falling my way up Finally. But I've had my eye on a classic offwidth here, the famous Upper Slot. I've never done it before, and today is the day. Though it's no where nearly as difficult as Vacillation Exit, I respect it momentarily, then start up. Before long I am belaying Squeak up the wide heel/toe fest. In waning daylight, we rappel from the top of Ted's Trot Block, off of an old Tenth Mountain Division eyebolt, backed up my a ratty little, quarter-inch buttonhead bolt. We laugh. We downclimb. We get back to town just as Squeak's wife gets back from out-of-town.
My wounds are healing now, although I've been grinding the scabs off for three days. True, I got spanked, but then I got to work my way back in to the graces of this area.
Ah.
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