copyright

Cameron McPherson Smith

1992

Rain sloshes in torrents down my windshield despite the madly flailing wipers. My VW headlights can barely cut through the downpour as Alex and I chug stubbornly up the highway into the mountains...This weather...it might have been back in England...But no, this was (Sunny) Southern California. As Alex and I drove from San Diego and approached Tahquitz from the South, so from the West marched black clouds ready to do battle with the mountains. This, following weeks of sunshine and 90+ temperatures...We were in for some sun-drenched climbing ! Yipee !

Not quite.

After an hour of winding up and down the twisting roads we found Humber Park, at the base of our old acquaintance, Tahquitz. We roll in, park, and I kill the engine and lights...the road-trip, like so many others, has finished for the moment...

It's midnight. With the wind whipping pine tassels through the air, the horizontal rain and the electicity of the storm keeping us on edge, this is right out of a low-budget horror movie. I half expect Igor to appear at the window with a heavy burlap sack slung over his hump...

"Well, I guess that's that."

"Yeah. Might as well stay here the night, though. I don't want to drive back to San Diego tonight, really."

"Yeah."

We crawl into sleeping bags in the back of the car and sink into sleep.

I wake later to find the rain still pouring down. I wake later still to find the rain continuing to pour. I wake a third time to find the rain slackening. I wake a final time, at 7am, to find a misty, miserable, cold, drenching drizzle. Just like England.

"Alex."

"Mrrr......................Yeah ?"

"Rain's cut off. You want some oatmeal ? Tea ?"

We prepare oatmeal and licorice tea on my little stove under the dripping 'shelter' of the hatchback and gaze up at the rock. Ragged grey clouds glide silently overhead. After a while I begin to think; perhaps it's not so bad up there...perhaps we can climb anyway...I came all the way from Oregon - I've got to climb SOMETHING...

Crazy eyes.

"Let's climb anyway !"

"In the rain !?!"

"Yeah. Let's do it anyway. We can aid anything that's too

wet ; I can whip a pair of aiders together from some slings."

"Oh Geez...OK...." Crazy eyes...

"This ought to be an adventure, eh ?"

"No joke !"

I think about what's in store for us. Shaking my head as if I were an amazed onlooker, I blurt out,

"Man, why do we DO this to ourselves ?"

"I don't know..." replies Alex, staring at his hard, chilly

oatmeal. Then

"I guess we need it, somehow."

We use cliches because they are true. They are not explanations, but they are descriptive.

I agree, then grimace with the thought of water running down the face. We have one Gore-Tex jacket between the two of us. Oh well, I rationalise, people have climbed fo years without Gore-Tex. We start to pack the gear. In twenty minutes we're ready to go.

We knock off the approach hike by going straight up the talus slope, cutting an hour off the normal approach time. The approach is fun, really, with a number of boulder-type problems to overcome and some very treacherous, loose gravels on the steep slope. I recall doing this with Tim, last December, with axes and wearing plastic boots, with four inches of new snow rounding the forest floor and edges of boulders. That was an adventure as well, doing mixed climbing in the forested slopes just to get to the base of the rock...

At the base we decide to have a go at the Long Climb. It's been seven years since I climbed it last, three for Alex. Six or seven pitches, I think. 5.7 or 5.8, something like that. I like the though of not having a route map along. This will be good for us. All cracks and chimneys. Pretty easy, but nice and long and, in the rain, a reasonable challenge. It's 8:40am.

It is still drizzling as we quietly rope up at the first chimney. Alex goes up for the lead and I huddle under a large chockstone. Cold water drips into the neck of my pile jacket and trickles down my back. Here we go...It is during miserable belays that I usually try to analyse my reasons for being where I am. Of course I never come up with an answer that I choose to believe and just as the rope is tugging and the leader is calling "Slack !" I usually drop the analysis. Sufficient data. Insufficient analytical capacity.

Alex yells for slack and I let the rope go free as he clips into a piece of protection. A few minutes later, as I'm contemplating the properties of a soaked pile jacket, Alex yells down "OK, man, here I go ! Watch me !". I try to remember what's so hard about the first pitch but then remember the rain. A few tense seconds pass as Alex makes some moves. I just feed the rope...

No worries, Alex gets through. Ten minutes later I hear a the usual muffled "ON BELAY !" and up I go. Another pitch, another climb, another adventure ! It is all worth it...IT is what I'm here for.

I think the first pitch is rated 5.6 but the rain jacked that up to around 5.8. My ancient Fires, bought in 1986 and never re-soled, do an admirable job, though, sticking to the granite even though a film of water washes down the face. A couple of tricky chockstones block the way, forcing some stem-grope-thrash moves as I try to get out the protection and hang on at the same time. Seconding, I remember, is not really so easy on rock-climbs.

As I think about how nice a climb this was when the rock was warm with sunshine, I come to the final moves and realize why Alex had yelled for the lookout. I traverse to the left, underclinging a dripping flake with my Fires now failing me and paddling on the slick surface. "Must get a re-tread someday," I think. "Some of that 5.10 stuff." I manage to cross and give it a 5.8 with rain, 5.6 without.

"Nice lead," I say, dripping and tying into the belay.

"Yeah. Too bad about the rain. That last part was pretty

wild ! So what about my protection ? It's been a while."

"Yeah, fine. No problems. A stopper popped out but there was

a bomber sling above it. Hey, I've got an idea - how about

the leader wears the jacket and the second gets the pile ?"

"OK."

We switch jackets and Alex takes my nylon belay seat and drapes it over his head. It's a limp rag.

"Nice hat, Al."

"Yeah, yeah..."

I take the next lead, first traversing twenty feet to a four inch crack. I place a Friend and grunt up the opening moves. The rain has increased and I dubiously console myself with the thought that when I finally get round to doing the Eiger, it'll be wet as well. Strange consolation. Ten feet above the Friend I place a Hex and rest for a moment below a chockstone as a minor waterfall showers upon me. I look up and get a good washing, the cold water bringing me to spluttering life. As I reach up for a large chockstone in the crack the waterfall finds my cuffs and down it goes, right into my jacket and sweater, down into my long-johns, down into my shoes. "Charming," I think as I grab the top of the chockstone and my hand slips off in the rain. I grope for a few minutes as my foot-jams start to slide. Just as panic starts to build and I'm about to come off I find a fist jam, of sorts, in a flare between the chock and the wall of the crack.

"Here goes ! Watch me !" I commit fully to the jam and pop my feet out of the crack. I yard up as hard as I can, come eye level with the top of the chock, then shoot my other arm in and scrabble around in the mud for a hold. Below the crack has flared and my feet are useless and my jam is slipping and somehow I get hold of something and do a grotesque knee-up on the block, wriggling into the large offwidth above. I get on top of the chockstone and pant down to Alex, thirty feet below ;

"Wow ! What a grunt ! Listen, as far as I can tell the only

way to get this part is a fist jam with the left hand. You

might want to remember that."

"Thanks. How's it look ?"

I peer up into the rain and see that the crack continues up over another bulge.

"Looks easy from here, but I can only see another thirty feet or so. Here I go."

Gathering my wits I continue up the offwidth, employing any and all pssible methods of staying on the wet rock. I jam, thrash and hump my way up to the bulge, getting in a Friend and a Hex on the way. As I pass over the bulge I pass out of the line of Al's sight. The usual feeling of being on my own comes over me as I head up. There's nothing to generate a feeling of commitment like climbing out of sight of your belay...

OK, some broken terrain, easy, and then above it something resembling a roof. Roof ? Ignore it, just get there and deal with it.

I ignore it and get there and begin to deal with it. The roof juts out five feet and is split by a crack an inch and a half wide. I place my last Friend under the roof and, underclinging with the left hand, reach up and out and above. Blindly groping for the crack I find it and slot a couple fingers up to the second joint. Wriggle, test, pull...OK ? OK ?

I realise my position as my feet begin to slide on the rock. Wow, this is really dangerous ! My heart begins doing overtime. I breathe faster and yell :

"OK, man I'm going for a VERY HAIRY MOVE ! Watch me, this is

EXTREMELY HAIRY !!!"

I want to be sure he knows the hair-factor here.

"OK, I've got you..." comes the lonely, far-off reply...

OK, Cameron, this is the Eiger. This is it. This is the moment of truth, D-Day, dawn at Agincourt, with Shackleton in Antarctica...This is it. It's raining. I'm shivering and scared stupid. With one last thought of "DO IT !" I cast off...

My feet swing free and I hang from four jammed fingers a few hundred feet above the ground. I yard up on my one arm, despite being unable to do a one-armed pullup back in my apartment. Fascinating. I come face-to-face with the hand-jam, wonder for an instant at how in the world it is holding me, then thrust my other hand up and into the crack, which has tapered to a first-didgit width. OK so it's not so bad, just get to work and get over this...

I pull up but the upper hand starts to slide out, so I transfer my weight back to the lower. I'm really terrified now. My mind is racing. I pant like a dog. I yard up again, now feeling around with my feet - why the hell didn't I look for foot-placements before I moved - no time to regret, just get it over with ! I find something for a foot, then press, push...Somehow I get up and get my finger-tips placed in the crack. My feet are over the roof, trying to friction on the rock slab, I'm hunched bizzarely and I'm wondering how long I can hack this with just fingertip jams in a wet crack. I look left and right, and up - the crack tapers to nothing. I'm finished. This is it. I can't find anything to get me up the last ten feet to the ledge above.

This is it. I'm going to fall. Everything is sliding. I wonder how good that Friend is ? WHAT AM I DOING ? I'M PLANNING MY FALL ! This is insane ! No, I WON'T FALL...I can't ! I learn true desperation. I know a death struggle. I don't trust that Friend in the crack below me. No way. I cannot fall...

I raise my left foot and scrape around...It comes to rest on a perfect one-inch ledge. I'm too terrified to be excited about it. I'm out of control. The rain is coming down and my fingers are at this very moment slipping. If I don't find a handhold I'm going to fall off. There is nothing else to do but commit totally to the foothold.

One inch is actually a very nice hold - on a sunny day, or wearing crampons, or with a nice bolt for protection. But this is different, this day is inhospitable, I am in cold mortal terror and the ledge is wet. With infinite care and yet instantaneous action I transfer all my weight to that foot-hold. I quit breathing as I start to stand on the ledge. My fingers pop silently out of the crack in perfect unison with my standing on the ledge. I reach skyward and use my fingers like feelers as I push up with my leg. My right leg hangs free, dragged along like useless baggage.

I am standing fully extended now on the wet one-inch ledge. I cannot hope to back down from this position. I realise that I MUST find a hold above as I start to feel - then my fingers grip a perfect flake. I am more terrified than ever now - take it easy on the last stretch, don't get too excited. Climb the last 5.3 move like it's a 5.11. I do. I pull up so carefully ; up to a rock, a hump of rock large enough to grip in a bear-hug. I do it. It's over.

I spend about five minutes with my face against the cold rock, panting. After a few minutes my drained face returns to life, I can feel the blood in it again, and I can feel my lips as they are wrenched into a smile, a grin, by forces deep in my brain. I chuckle.

I've escaped, once again -- for now.

***

Unfortunately, the rain picks up and it becomes outright stupid to continue...We rap off, spending many miserable minutes -- crammed in what we dub The Dripping Black Cave -- trying to sort our ropes.

Eventually we reach the talus slopes. On the way down we begin to talus-ski some steeper stretches. At one point I am bombing down with litle control, if any...perhaps it"s just luck I"m still upright?

I think to myself, I better slow down now, before I go over a ---

Too late! I am basically airborne and then I land hard on my ass, WHAM on a 50-degree boulder covered pea-sized granite gravel...Nothing can stop me!...I slide bumping and rolling down this treacherous incline, everything is too quick to react! Suddenly I see the forest floor coming up at me, I hear Alex yelling STOP, STOP! (as if I could) and SLAM I crash to the ground.

I roll over, groaning...nothing broken, but for the next day or so my wrists, which took much of the impact, feel like theyŐre still vibrating from the solid impact. I marvel at the fact that I have come through this little four-hour adventure in one piece. Alex and I have a laugh, and continue on.

That little escapade completed, we FINALLY reach the car, drive down to town and have a pizza and a beer. Once again, I put it all behind me, in a sense. I am just grateful to be alive, warm while itŐs cold outside, and eating while so many starve.