I drove up to the Jemez at around 3:00, after spending the afternoon in the photo lab at the Los Alamos high school (the pictures for my book are FINALLY done), so I didn't actually get to the dirt access road and park until about 4. The hike to the crag is horrendous. Theo and I experienced the sissy version of the hike to the "other area" that my friend Shibli was talking about before - this one starts much higher up in the canyon, and goes further up the other side. It probably took me 45 minutes to get to the crag, where I found Shibli and 2 funky guys (think stereotypical hippy skatepunks, but smaller and dirtier). I can't remember the first one's name, but the other guy was called "Shaggy". Shibli had been teaching them (unsucessfully) how to climb. The crag, BTW, is NOT that great. More Shibli exaggeration.
 
Shibli wants to bolt something (it's like 5:30 now, I think), but I don't want to deal with the hassle, so I instead suggest that we climb a crack - there are a few decent looking ones. So off we go. I spot a line, walk up to it, and discover that the rock is complete shit, and that it is covered with the droppings of lots of different animals. So I mumble some stuff about not climbing and just going home (I hadn't brought my rack, and Shibli had only 1 incomplete set of cams), but Shibli will have none of this. He boldly grabs the lead, and soon Shaggy and I (the other Dude is off rolling rocks down the hill and shouting incomprehensibly at random moments) are cowering under an overhang at the base, twitching nervously as rocks as large as 80 pounds or so fall like rain.
 
Shibli believes in cleaning as he goes, apparently, and yells "rock" so quietly that it's easier just to listen for the eerie whistling noises and cringe. One comes within 2 feet of my head when I stick it out to ascertain what kind of progress our brave leader has made. Upward progress is halting at best, as the rope runs perhaps a foot every couple of minutes. Shaggy contributes to the team effort by smoking all of Shibli's cigarrettes and talking about how someone in Arkansas gave him money to buy shoes (I kid you not!). Though it sounds as if this event was fairly recent, Shaggy is no longer in possession of these shoes. Now it begins to rain. Not a good sign. Shibli and Shaggy respond to this in different ways - Shibli keeps up his snail's pace climbing without comment, and Shaggy bemoans his lack of a proper drum - "Dude, that thunder woulda set off the most BEAUTIFUL melodies!" and comforts himself by banging on an old water bottle. He subsequently spills water all over his pants. I attempt to keep nodding and "uh-huh"ing at all the right moments to keep Shaggy occupied, and thus prevent him from venturing out from under the overhang to his certain doom, and also shout various items of dubious inspirational value at Shibli.
"Dude, it's raining!"
"Dude, it's getting really late!"
"You want me to send up the drill so you can rap off?"
"You sure you don't want the drill?"
"Why don't you aid it?"

    As per his unique personality, Shibli responds in monosyllablic fashion or not at all, and continues to ooze upwards. Now he comes to a crux, and spends more than half an hour climbing up, climbing down, and mumbling "watch me". Finally, he begins to doubt his ability to pull this rotten-looking squeeze section and asks for my advice. "I'll send up the drill. Just rap off." This is not what Shibli wants to hear. I try a second tack. "Just aid the damn thing, just do SOMETHING!" Shibli mumbles his assent, and the rope ceases to run for about 15 minutes. I begin to wonder again what is happening, and risk a trip out from under our protective cave. Shibli is standing in the same spot as he was before, idly fiddling with gear and climbing up and down. Now, with a feeling of great dread, I remember: Shibli doesn't really know how to aid. Moreover, he has eschewed the trappings of a modern climber - ie quickdraws, and simply has proceeded to clip cams directly to the rope. Thus he has little or no gear to construct an aiding rig. Moreover, 3 quarters of the way up the pitch, he has used most of his limited gear already. Now the other dude chimes in from an unknown location, telling Shibli to traverse rightwards and "walk up that ledge." Finally, the rope begins to run, and 20 minutes later, the welcome call of "off belay" resounds through the canyon.

I tie myself in, gather up our street shoes (I see no way to get off of this climb either), and begin climbing in the gathering gloom. Shaggy and companion, bored, wander away to look for the hotsprings. The pitch, I must admit, is difficult. Probably 5.10, with some sketchy gear (with a set of nuts and more cams, it would have been fairly well-protected). I have to leave Shibli's lone hex behind, because I am less and less able to see the rock and can't waste time trying to free it. After a scary 5.10+ or 11- traverse on which Shibli has placed no gear (ie the follower will take a good 30-foot winger if he comes off), I finally top out, finding Shibli anchored to a small, loose-looking tree. It is now fully dusk, and we need to get down quickly. Shibli manages to find a decent rappel after a couple of abortive tries, and we get back to the ground - sort of.

The entire ridge is a jungle of nasty thorn bushes, vines, and dead snags. Now it is dark enough that most of these obstacles are difficult to see at best. After another 15 minutes of stumbling around, we find our gear and pack up. Shibli makes the understatement of the day: "I wish I'd brought my headlamp." We have 2 miles of steep, heavily vegetated terrain and a small river to cross to get back to our cars. And it is pitch black. There are no trails to follow, even if we could see them. Shibli and I take different approaches to this problem. He crashes through obstacles and goes quickly, I wave my arms in front of me constantly and stumble a little less, but go slower. We quickly discover that being separated is bad - finding each other is virtually impossible, even from only 20 feet away. This is the darkest night I have EVER experienced outdoors. After about an hour of stumbling downhill, Shibli locates a lighter in his pack and we proceed by it's flickering light. I quickly learn to memorize the details of the forest ahead of me quickly, because the light goes on and off randomly. It's similar to a weak strobe light, and I soon get a splitting headache. We also find that it's best to have the light in back - that way the person in front can see where they are going, and the person in back still has enough light to follow the leader and avoid obstacles (at least somewhat). To add to our misery, it is still raining intermittently and our shoes are filled with mud and rocks. After sliding on our butts down a steep section of the hill, we are at the river. It's plain that attempting to walk over logs or rocks is out of the question - they are practically invisible, so we simply wade through. This is surprisingly pleasant - I'm not really cold because of the exertion, and some of the mud and rocks in my shoes seems to wash out.

Now we have to go uphill. It's much easier, at least mentally, because a misstep doesn't cause you to fall onto a dead log or similar nastiness, at least not as often. It's also really steep, however, and the rain has loosened the soil enough that we resort to "climbing" the hill on our hands and knees, cursing as we slide back downwards. We wordlessly crawl directly through thorn bushes and dead branches that would have had us swearing like sailors 6 hours ago. Finally, we see headlights, and a few minutes later have the luck to emerge from the forest right where our cars are parked. Despite my debilitated state after 2 and a half hours of hellish stumbling around in the dark, I have to ask the obvious question: "Want to go climbing tomorrow?"