DEVILS TOWER RELOADED

29MAY05
No work Memorial Day weekend but the weather report has been moving the thunderstorm prediction forward all week. First it wasn't coming till Wednesday, then Tuesday, now Monday. All right, better go climbing this afternoon; it's already 11:00. Got to the Tower at 13:00 and headed for Walt Bailey Memorial. Almost to the Bowling Alley on the approach trail I met a couple dozen people carrying a girl down on a stretcher. They were very professional, working like a dynamically progressing bucket brigade. I spotted Frank among them giving words of encouragement to the hurt woman. I sat on a boulder off the trail and watched them pass; they obviously didn't need any help or interference from me. Climbed east along the "ramp" of the Southeast Buttress and overshot my route since I didn't know where I was going yet. Came onto some climbers who let me take a look at their book. Scrambled back a ways and here's Leigh Lassle and company on his way to an East Face route. "Hey, I know you." (Small world; I climbed here with him and Frank last year and a couple weeks ago had run into Leigh at the wall in Gillette where we belayed each other on some sections inaccessible by the solo safety cable.) Climbed up to Walt's Memorial where a climber was being belayed by his partner. Well, it was fairly chilly and had been getting windier. There were thunderstorms flashing to the south and Dan had told me it was raining down in Casper when I called him a few hours earlier. Rather than wait for these climbers then set up and get caught in the rain; I turned back. I'd scoped the route and knew where I was going now; might as well check out the approach ramp as a return route before I had to do it in the rain. Imagining it was already wet on the way down I decided I don't really want to ever have to return that way in the rain. Would be best to turn back before the rain or be sure there's time to make the Meadows and rapp back to the Bowling Alley. (Saw "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" again recently and realized the Southeast Buttress "ramp" is where Richard Dreyfuss kept sliding back down while the helicopters were trying to gas them.)

Got down and stopped by Frank's Devils Tower Lodge. Frank had been climbing with the hurt woman's husband, a fair distance away, when she was hit by a rock while climbing with a friend. They were all in Rapid City where they'd flown her by 'copter. So another girl comes in and lies down on the floor next to the girl that was telling me this and says she's the one that knocked the rock loose. Says she'd knocked a little one off and yelled "ROCK", then one the size of a volleyball fell on her ankle and wedged her foot in the crack. As she tried to free her foot the rock cuts loose and she yells "BIG ROCK". She didn't know anybody'd been hit till she got down hours later. The girl who'd been hit had a football size rock from that vicinity bust up her arm and possibly ankle. She was in no condition for climbing and hence the rescue. Later heard that her ankle was only sprained but her wrist/hand would require healing and therapy.

4JUN05
Got back from a job and headed out for an afternoon climb since it's supposed to rain tomorrow. Here's rain falling from a clear sky… well, the Sun was still out anyway. Turned the truck around at Moorcroft where I was surrounded by thunderstorms although it was just sprinkling overhead.

12JUN05
Signed in and left the Ranger station about 0500. Reached Walt's Memorial and set up an anchor with slings around a boulder wedged against the columns. Carefully hung my ropes and it was already 0930. I'd say time flies when you're having fun, but I've come to agree with ol' Willy at Weis & Weis who said: "Let me tell ya Greg… time flies anyway." Being a 200 foot pitch, I didn't want to waste any pro I could use later, so I climbed about 30' or so up a flake crack with good solid holds then set an SLCD and moved left along a horizontal crack in the column which is the right side of the Walt Bailey crack that constitutes the remainder of the climb. So I set a good solid #1 Friend (SLCD) in the crack and ran a sling over to the first piece to keep my rope straight to the anchor. So I take off climbing and as soon as I'm above the pro I realize that just because my Yates Rocker had worked flawlessly for top-roping doesn't mean it won't lock as soon as the rope is making a 180 degree turn through it (as in: whenever you climb above your protection). Of course my Silent Partner had no such problems but Greg couldn't resist experimenting with new equipment. You fool. So now for every foot I climb I have to grab the Rocker and shake out a little slack. So about 5' above the pro I'm stretching the rope and trying to get a better grip and I let go with one hand and start tugging on the Rocker, with my toes barely smearing some nubbins on the face. And then… death came quickly for me… well, if I hadn't had protection anyways. Aired it out 5' past the pro then 5' of slack for a 10' fall. On an SLCD. I never fell in 10 solo attempts on Durrance; didn't think you were supposed to fall… ever. Then last year I fell, casually clowning, tied into belay bolts. And then again with Frank on a top-belay, which is just a stretch of the rope. Now here I am falling on pro and loving it. Well, only because it didn't rip out of the crack and bust my ass. So I climbed back up and started setting pro like crazy. Now I've got so much gear in the crack I start hang-doggin' and it turns into an aid climb. So I'm scouring the face for ledges, flakes, nubbins… the cracks the best thing going and it's too thin and shallow to do much with. I can't figure how the hell Frank did 10 laps on this route. I can't do it once. So I get to the 100' mark on my lead rope: halfway. By now it's in the 90s and the sun came around the columns a long time ago and my throat has been doing the dry thing. I originally thought I'd zip to the top, rapp back to my pack and have a drink. Remembering the throat-pealing episode after a previous climb, I set an extra piece and rapped down for a drink; I figured there's no challenge I haven't already failed here. It was already 1230. 3 hours? No wonder I was parched. Had a bite and drink. Ascended back to the midpoint. My throat was already raw and felt the same as before. And I still didn't have water on me cause I'd left my little waterpack at home. Didn't think the pealing throat / dehydration thing were worth the cost of the climber's medicine bundle (#2.5 Friend, #7 Rock, 1 sling, 2 biners) I would leave behind. Rapped down. Went home.

3JUL05
So after I told the CGC boys about climbing in June, Paul Garger lays this voodoo Indian curse on me. (He'll deny the whole thing; but he did say I was cursed for climbing in June.) Walt Bailey Memorial again: had my anchor and ropes set up a little before 0900 this time. Got my first 2 pieces of pro set and I'm thinking this time I'll only set pro every 10' or whenever I find a good resting spot. (Which, as I recall, is never.) This time I'm using my Silent Partner, instead of the Yates Rocker. I climb past the #1 Friend; same bomber set as a couple weeks ago. 7 or 8 feet above the pro, one toe in the crack I'm trying to find a decent smear on the face for the other foot. Fingertip jammies are providing some balance but doing nothing to oppose gravity. Next thing: boom… I'm into a 15' fall. Held my right foot out from the face so as not to hook the sling to the pro on the right. Whump… Ain't so bad. What a kick.

Climb back up to the pro for another go. OK. Stay in the crack till you can get your foot on that 1" ledge to the left, then rest and set a piece. So pretty soon I've got left toes on the little 1" ledge and as I straighten my leg, left knee against the column, knee angle approaching 90 degrees, my center of gravity is moving away from the face. But I have a couple end knuckles on right fingers just wedged enough to keep me from falling back. As my knee straightens past the 90 degree point and my center of gravity is moving back into the face, my last knuckle is rocking up out of its slot. My left fingers have been combing the crack above for just enough purchase to maintain my upward, inward momentum… but no… My knuckle blows out of the crack and I straighten up with my balance just outside of vertical: boom… death for you again. The question is whether I'm starting to enjoy the thrill of taking air where air was not meant to be taken. After that last fall, I was thinking seriously about how much it would have hurt if that sling to the right had caught me between the legs; so I instinctively crossed my right foot left, unfortunately in front of the rope instead of behind it. Those split second instincts can be so foolish sometimes. I was at least 10' above the pro this time for a good 20' total. The real boom came when the rope pulled tight under my right knee and flipped me upside down with my back against the face. Ouch… the tourists have got to be loving this.

So I kind of pried my leg off the rope and let myself down to the anchor where Richard and Stephanie were waiting their turn. I said: "3rd fall's a charm. Go ahead; I better quit while I'm ahead." Richard asks: "What kind of self-belay device is that? It worked great. That was an awesome fall." I was about to head home and reassess my strategy (and attitude as I was thinking: "Yea… it felt pretty awesome too…"), but these two were friendly enough; so I ask if they'd mind dragging my rope along and tying it into the bolts on top. Richard says he'd rather top belay me than abandon my rope at the bolts. Well, I didn't want to take up too much of their time, but they said they're in no hurry anyway. OK, this will be good too.

So I'm getting my non-essentials packed away and watching Richard's lead while Stephanie belays. He looks to be trying everything in the book but keeps moving up slowly but surely. Now here's a real climber. Maybe I'm just a space cadet who dreamt he was a climber and now the dream is over and the space cadet is flyin' off the face. Stephanie followed up after Richard made the top and did quite well. She hung on it a few times at the crux, but toughed her way past it and worked her way to the top. So I follow up and reach the tough stretch where I had seen Richard do a layback to the right for a little bit but got right out of it. Well, it had looked like it was working good for him till be quit so I figured I'd rip that stretch up in the layback. Wrong. There just wasn't enough edge, it was rounded and worn smooth. I should have followed Richard's lead and changed tactics before it was too late. By the time I realized that my hands were getting slick with sweat, I couldn't go for the chalk bag because I needed both hands to hold the layback. So I kept going with my eye out for a way out of the layback without taking a dive. Slip… I'm hanging on the rope. Being in the "rockin' chair" sure takes the boom out of a fall; you just kinda stretch the rope a little then back to climbing where you left off. I knew Richard was tied into the bolts and I just hoped he was using a reverso or otherwise minimizing the load. He couldn't see me from where he was at, but if he was muscling the load and saw me clowning he'd have probably hollered: "What the hell do you think I am? A chain hoist?" I had originally ask him to tie me into the bolts and go because I wanted to hang there testing and studying the crack without wasting their time. Well I started trying this, that, and another thing and thinking all of a sudden I'm going to find an easy way to zip up this little crack. I must of stretched that rope a half dozen times then swung over a crack to the right and gave it a try. This isn't any better; (looking in the book back home it's actually rated a shade tougher). Got back into Walt's little crack and decided there isn't any easy way. Kept jamming my baby soft toes in there and ground my way up to where I'd left my "climber's medicine bundle" in June. The crack keeps getting wider from there and easier on the toes. And Frank did that little crack 10 times in 6 hours last year. I previously theorized that he was half goat, half lemur, but I am now confident a "Close Encounters" flyin' saucer left him behind in the '70s. How else could he have gotten stainless steel toenails mounted on Kevlar toes?

Climbed to the bolts and hauled my drag bag, which kept hanging till I swung it a column right (looking down) and then pulled with lots of friction the whole way. I'd pull a couple feet then Stephanie would pull the slack through my reverso, which made the job a lot easier even if it still took a while. We scrambled up the Meadows a ways then Richard and Stephanie headed over to a rapp down Solar or something to the northeast. I scrambled up farther, planning to scramble a Summit. Stowed my pack and made my ropes up into a really stupid (20/20 hindsight) setup tied across my shoulders, double mountaineer coils hanging under either arm and getting under my feet when trying to climb in a crack. Anyways, I started up this big chockstone canyon someone had told me about, just left of the regular scramble. Figured if it didn't work out I'd just step on over to the right. Well it looked like I should set some pro that I didn't have with me and there wasn't really a step over to the right. It had opened up and looked very exposed to 500 foot air. So I climbed back down, fighting my ropes till I pulled them off and tossed them down to the meadows. Picked the ropes up and thought: "I'm just rappin' offa here, wasn't plannin' on makin' it a late night." Rapped down the usual Meadows Rappel, hiked back and drove by Frank's lodge. Got out and here's Richard & Stephanie about 100 feet from my truck, sitting by their tent in Frank's camping area. Always a small world. Talked for a half hour and Richard asked to see my Silent Partner self belay device, got that out and we talked another hour.

My partners for the day have climbed numerous routes in several states. Stephanie had just gotten into climbing a couple years ago after meeting Richard who had been at it for a while. Stephanie was saying how the route difficulty rating system has sometimes got a lot to do with the anatomy of the guy rating it. She says they'd climbed a route once that was rated really tough and although Richard was usually the stronger climber he was having a hard time of it so she took over the lead. Her hands were thin enough to slip into the crack and she tore that route right up. It was the toughest rated climb she'd ever done and she led the climb with confidence. Richard said he was able to lock his end knuckles in most of that thin crack section of Walt Bailey Memorial, whereas Stephanie's fingers were too thin for knuckle locks. I'm probably as much bigger than Richard as he is bigger than Stephanie and I was mostly slipping my fingers in sideways and still not getting deep enough for good purchase; but I did manage some knuckle locks. It got me to thinking that maybe I depend too much on my middle and index fingers and I need to work my pinky and ring fingers more. It's great listening to other climber's stories though and reminds me that I'm not much more than a rookie myself. Went in to talk to Frank and told him I might need a crack I can put my hands in if I'm going to do laps for 24 hours. He said we can try some different routes, but I know he's thinking just like me that we'd be losing an edge to have to make it into 2 tech pitches. Back to the drawing board.

NOV05

Well, this year started as Devils Tower Reloaded but digressed to Devils Tower Downloaded, or Unloaded, or something like that. There was plenty of CBM work and I just failed to find the time to climb or even for proper exercise. And the June & July climbs proved that I'll need to be in top shape to do Walt's Memorial with Frank. Kinda killed my ambition with spare time not happening. So I'm packing out of Wyoming this month and going to do geology or logging or both in Illinois next year. When I get caught up I'll just have to return to the Tower for a month or 2 and just climb every day like Frank. Then we can plan a proper 24 hour climb. Devils Tower: I'll be back. G.A.CREWS

2000

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