I’m disheveled. A twinge of sadness is seeping into my mind, filling my cracks, and I’m not quite sure how to digest it. Just days ago, I watched grimey climbers scale big walls like ants, barely detectable even with a long-range camera lens. Excitement woke me in the morning instead of my standard cup of coffee, motivating me to carry more than my typical load to the start of the route, where we were gearing up to fix the first three lines of Lurking Fear for Tommy and his best friend to climb.
I just took a post-travel shower after spending nearly two weeks on the road and half as much time in the same clothes. My foot odor filled up the whole car, crinkling the noses of my patient companions who stank just as badly as I did. And yet it was bliss – all of it. The weaving roads and fruit stands throughout the Central Valley, the steep ascent to the Sierra Mountains, and the towering granite cliffs that greeted us when we made it to Yosemite Valley.
My goal was to jug the descent route, and rappel into Lurking Fear to snap some photographs and reduce the amount of suffering I’d have to endure. Yet I shouldered a pack to help prep for Tommy and Galen’s climb. Then we stumbled through chunks of granite rock, stubbing our toes while we watched those above us move higher and higher until we made it to the start of the route.
By late morning, Tommy was on the wall, placing hooks and stitching up the first pitch with gear. Then I followed, quickly becoming discouraged by my ascending rigging, which wasn’t set at the right length for my arms. Tears pricked my eyes. I was in over my head, and it was likely that our companions would be, too. The magnitude of the undertaking was rapidly becoming clear.
The First Climb
The next day, all four of us made it to the base of the climb to jug the first pitch, where we’d dial in gear and determine wether or not we were prepared for our original undertakings.
Not long afterwards, our attempt at our own big wall ascent failed (like 50% of el Cap attempts), leaving me feeling disappointed but more motivated than ever to find myself up on a wall. I wanted to know what it was like to sleep on a portaledge with 1,000 feet of air beneath me, to watch the climber light shows at night, and to follow in the footsteps of giants like the Stonemasters. I was deflated to know that a true attempt of the summit would have to wait, but the lingering inspiration woke me up from my stupor.
The Second Ascent
Still, I resolved to make it to the top of El Cap on this trip, even if it meant cheating. With the clock running against us, I knew we no longer had time on our side. So, I vowed to jug fixed lines up the descent gully on the east side of the feature, taking our whole group up to the top.
Me and my companions rose with the sun, tossing our mini packs in the car and drove to the trailhead to begin the climb. The first half mile was steep, and covered in the kind of dirt that makes you slip down the mountain. Then we reached the first few fixed lines, that could’ve just as easily been hand lines as technical jugging lines. Then we got to the real stuff – the vertical walls stacked on top of one another like jenga blocks at the start of a game.
I wiped sweat off my brow after jugging the first few lines, Half Dome cresting in the background. Though my toes began to ache from jamming them into the wall while I made my way up the lines, the views made me forget myself. It was the kind of place that did that – erased any sense of self by its own regality. I was surrounded by the stuff of dreams. This was love, if I’d ever known it. Eventually we did make it to the top of el Cap, reveling in the spittle from a nearby waterfall. The valley floor appeared small from our stoop, and a grin spread across my face.
A Wandering Mind
Amidst my own happy delirium, my mind became curious. How was it that someone once looked up the walls in the Valley and said, “I’m going to climb those walls”? With boots and pitons, and no assurance that it would go, they began the ascent with rope wrapped around their hips – an emotional tether as much as a physical one. And then, against all odds, many of the original pioneers of climbing in the Valley did make it, paving the way for future climbers.
Yosemite was once a lawless place, defined by impossibility until those gruff enough to challenge the limitations of humanity began to climb upwards. The Valley took convention and spat out grit, and determination, creating a strange kind of sacredness that lingers in the region today. You can feel it wafting through the meadows like a thick breeze, prompting your eyes to follow the haul bags on the wall. The grandiosity of Yosemite’s granite is enough to wipe clean the stain of mediocrity, if only for a while. And it seems to be the place that absorbs you if you don’t fit anywhere else.
Truthfully, places like Yoseite leave me feeling sad at the terminus. How can I return home to exist behind walls that separate me from the wonders of the world, when I feel at home stewing in my own filth out in the wilderness? Do I truly want to be defined by the work I do, and the home I created? Or by the things I’ve done? Something is stirring in my chest. The older I get, the more I realize that I’ve never been a cookie cutter desert. My edges are ragged and unpredictable, glossy and glaciated like the walls that tower above me while I stand in the Valley below El Capitan.
For More Inspiration:
