Tom 2
Quiet As A House
A long time ago, my friend Tom and I climbed in the mountains of Colorado together. In fact, it's been twelve years since I was able to share a rope with him. Still, the memory of that last climb we did together is engrained in me so vividly that it will never seem that long ago. It was kind of a landmark for both of us: we nearly got killed, out of carelessness, and a lack of the realization that, yes indeed, Climbing can be Dangerous!
We were climbing Kiener's Route on Longs Peak, and running short of time, we decided to retreat at Broadway, the big ledge at 13,000 feet. It was Tom's first time on such ground, and we'd belayed every pitch up the thousand-foot Lamb's Slide gully. This slowed us down considerably, and besides, I'm no speed demon myself! Anyway, it was October, and the gully was pretty icy instead of being nice, crisp snow. We down-climbed each pitch as we had ascended it, but without intermediate runners between belays.
High in the couloir, I put Tom on belay using a very casual hip/shoulder system, confident that we were adequately secure in our technique and ability. I hadn't bothered to anchor myself very securely, having clipped in to a rusty old piton paired with one of our own passive chocks haphazardly slotted into a shallow crack. Tom started down toward me, walking upright instead of crouching or facing in to the slope. He looked as if he was taking a Sunday stroll.
That's when he fell.
Thirty feet above me, his feet shot out from under him, and he was downward bound like a bobsled. I couldn't believe my eyes, he went so fast. As the rope went tight under the weight of his hurtling body, I was spun around by its force, and the rope was ripped out of my brake hand. It slid through my glove until I could grab it with my other hand as well and regain control. While I had been rotated around in slow motion it seemed, I had witnessed the old piton shifting and our chock being pulled downward into its crack. This sort of thing had never happened to me before. His fall arrested, Tom tried to right himself like a tortoise stuck on its back. He'd broken something, he said. The rest of our journey down the gully was fraught with great worry, as we cautiously avoided a repeat performance.
That was the day we stopped being novices.
The following morning, on a bright, still day, we took turns photographing each other with the fall-stopping chock. Never before, and never since, has a single piece of gear been so revered by me, atleast. It represented the beginning of a new era for me.
I last saw Tom back in late 1991, when he visited me in Casper, but I've since lost touch with him.
I wonder if he's used that chock since then, or if he retired it to a holy place...
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