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Epitaph
of a Gritstone Climber Neil
Gresham
How
much is a route worth to you? Long winter nights
cranking the plastic instead of cake loading on
the couch? Sure. Rejecting that big career break
in the city to stay near your beloved crags? Maybe.
Your relationship on the line? Doubtful. Your life?
I don’t see many stepping forward.
It’s
for this reason that I’ve never been a fan
of free soloing. If God put cracks there then why
not shove cams in them and walk away? The tricky
decision comes when there aren’t many cracks
and you still want the line. In the UK we have
a simple policy of no bolts on gritstone, so you
take the trad protection as it comes—which
is rarely in abundance. The paradox of this unique
and beautiful rock type is that what it lacks in
pro, it makes up in friction. On a cold, dry winter
day it feels like you've got suckers on your hands,
tempting you to smear and palm your way into a
situation that you may, or may not, live to regret.
On
a freezing December day in 1999, I sat beneath
the un-repeated test piece, Meshuga (E9 or 5.13X),
at Black Rocks in the Peak District, slowly but
surely trying to make up my mind. This route, immortalized
in the video “Hard Grit,” epitomizes
the edginess of this style of climbing: a rounded,
overhanging and protectionless arête with
blind, slappy climbing, above an appalling landing. I'd
top-roped it enough times to know that it was infinitely
fall-offable. The slightest shake or hesitation
and I’d be spinning off backwards into the
boulders. A spotter at the base seemed a futile
but important gesture—seeing as the ground
was too steep and uneven to position crash pads.
But the big question was whether to wear a helmet—if
it upset my balance then I’d be more likely
to fall, so perhaps here, safety meant no safety
equipment?
To
this date I had learned to trust implicitly the
little voice we all have inside us which tells
us when it’s right or wrong to take risks,
and today, for some reason it was saying don’t
risk it. But this couldn’t be right;
I’d done my prep and everything was set.
But I wanted it badly enough to discard the most
important warning a climber can ever receive.
I
came around hanging upside down at the base of
the route with double vision and a complete loss
of memory. They discharged me from hospital
later that day with a concussion and the long road
to recovery ahead—not physical recovery,
as by some miraculous reason there were only bruises
and not breaks, but I’d been left with severe
vertigo symptoms and the whole world spun every
time I moved my head. It wasn't until the following
winter that I was fit to climb again, but everything
pointed towards leaving Meshuga well alone. Getting
away with it once was enough, and my confidence
was in tatters after such an appalling misjudgment.
The
decision to return to Meshuga and make the second
ascent was the second hardest decision of my life.
The hardest decision would be to give up this lethal
but highly fulfilling style of climbing. The euphoric
sense of relief after such an ascent is followed
by a long and cathartic period of reflection; the
idea of ‘re-offending’ during this
period could not be more repugnant. But then
suddenly, from somewhere, the seed is planted for
another fix, but this time bigger and better than
the previous. It incubates and the whole cycle
repeats. I had become increasingly aware of how
this process was taking me towards a red line;
Meshuga had brought me close, but there was still
more to be discovered. I knew there was space for
one more.
When
Neil Bentley announced his ascent of Equilibrium,
the “project arête” at Burbage,
and declared it the first E10 (5.14X) on gritstone,
it fit perfectly into the picture. With a desperate
but protected boulder problem crux, and then ground-fall
potential from the upper part of the climb, I realized
that this route would draw upon a fusion of everything
I’d ever learned within the separate disciplines
of sport and trad climbing. After a year of specific
training, I was ready for the lead. A series of
falls from halfway through the sequence left me
sweeping the crash pads from 40 feet. The pressure
on the belayer could not have been greater—even
with Charlie sprinting back to take in rope, it
was obvious that he could do nothing for me if
I fell from any higher. The ascent came in one
of those rare moments that feels like an entire
life of dreams and expectations has been compressed
into a few seconds. And this time, the charge that
was generated was enough to quench the fire. Now
that I’ve seen the un-blurred vision that
I was craving for, I’m content to stay in
the cloudy world that I know.
Neil
Gresham
Arguably
one of Britain’s
best all-around climbers, the colorful and highly
professional Neil has repeated Equilibrium
(E10 7a), the hardest trad route in the United Kingdom. “I
could only do it one in 10 times on a top-rope, so
psyching up for the lead was fairly interesting.” He
has also repeated the terrifying Meshuga (E9 6c),
a route featured in the video "Hard Grit."
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Making
the Drive Katie
Cavicchio
By
Thursday you've had it. You’re tired of the
scene in your neighborhood coffee shop, of demanding
drink orders, “Yeah, give me a no-buzz, triple-soy,
blonde mocha latte and a vitamin water.” You’re
weary of languishing at a desk, fluorescent lights
buzzing overhead, while your out-of-work carpenter
friends take advantage of unseasonably warm temps
at the local crag. You’re done with
SUV-studded traffic jams and have taken to yelling
and swearing at other drivers.
You
make two decisions:
1. No more Eminem while driving.
2. It’s time to go to the desert.
You
pick up the phone and make a few calls, you’re
thinking perfect splitters—gold cams all
the way. You want to smell sage in the air and
see red dirt under your nails. With plans and partners
in place, your mind shifts from your inbox to sun-warmed
Wingate, to camping among cottonwoods, to a fat
moon illuminating sandstone buttresses. You’re
hungry for the fix that helps you survive the week
in the cube farm.
You
load your car with a crate of camping gear and
whatever food is in the fridge. You find your sleeping
bag and down jacket, and because you haven’t
been to the desert for a while, you toss in an
extra roll of tape. One glance at your paltry rack
sends you inside to borrow your roommates’ gear.
After
clock-watching all day Friday, you're desert-bound
by 5:15. You merge onto the highway, set the cruise
and start to unwind. You sing along with the stereo
and burn past towns you’ve never visited
but have long used as a yardstick. You’re
almost there, imagining morning, thinking about
French-pressed coffee and the sound of cams clinking
as you organize your rack for the day.
For
you, the desert means sandstone towers, hand jams
and crack boots. It means focusing on the tick-list
in your guidebook and forgetting about the to-do
list on your desk. And it means, even with
all the gobis and scars and wounded egos, a non-stop
grin on your face as you head home again.
Katie
Cavicchio
In
between working for Backbone Media and coping with
her love-hate relationship with Rifle and the fact
that she can’t kneebar, Katie has been able
to maintain a healthy fix of climbing, trail running
and dancing. Some of her favorite climbing areas
include Joshua Tree and Eldorado Canyon. Oh yeah,
and she loves Paris Hilton gossip, wearing glitter
and hip-hop dancing.
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Skull Steve
Roper
Yvon
Chouinard and I were having a splendid time climbing
in Yosemite Valley, then one day a notorious climb
beckoned. The Lost Arrow Chimney was an ugly route,
but hard men sometimes had to get down and dirty
to enhance their reputations. This climb, a fearsome,
rotten gash some 1,200 feet high, had been climbed
only eight times since its first ascent in 1947.
There
was an additional problem, however: the smashed
body of a teenager reposed halfway up this ominous
slot. He had taken a hideous fall from near the
Valley rim the year before, and the rangers had
decided to leave the corpse and place the route
off-limits for a year—as if anyone were lining
up for it.
Before
our climb I decided to scout the approach from
the Valley floor, since time-consuming slabs and
brush led upward 1,500 feet to the start of the
climb. Hours later, sweating, I arrived at the
rope-up spot to find a few shards of skull and
a boot containing a sock full of tiny bones. The
kid was returning, very gradually, to his home
in the Central Valley.
And
then I did something bad. Eager to impress a waitress
at the lodge, I took a large piece of skull and
headed down for dinner at the coffee shop. I laid
the specimen on the table, where of course it enlivened
the conversation, but the waitress was appalled,
as she should have been, and reported me to the
rangers. The next day I was headed back up the
hill with my souvenir, told by the outraged rangers
to return it. So chagrined was I at my behavior
that I gathered up all visible bone fragments and
buried them in a splendid rock cairn I built a
hundred feet distant.
Chouinard
and I went up a month later and did the route.
He found another piece of skull 50 feet up and
tossed it over his shoulder with the cry: “Skull!” Hours
later I swung around a corner on tension to attain
the main chimney. We knew the body would be close
by. Sure enough, on a ledge I came suddenly upon
shattered bones, shreds of cloth, and, oddly, a
near-perfect mummified arm. Chouinard and I had
been curiously silent for an hour or two, so to
break the tension I yelled down to Chouinard, “Goddamn
it! His parka doesn’t fit me!”
Doug
Abromeit
“Many
people during the ensuing years asked me if this
whole sorry episode were true. I assured them that
it was a preposterous myth dreamed up by my enemies.
But of course I was lying.” Roper, himself
a veteran of over 400 Yosemite first ascents, was
at the center of rock climbing during the golden
decade of the 60s. He and his cronies shaped the
future of rock climbing in Yosemite and their influence
and style reverberated throughout the world. In the
rowdy, rambunctious world of Yosemite, Roper and
his partners took on a Ginsberg-like aura and will
be remembered as the “beat poets” of
American climbing.
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Clastic
Redemption Jonny
Copp
It’s
the emptiness that’s making me sick. Culture
shock, yeah. Right, I’ll get over it,
I know. But these mini-mansions bought for two,
and built so close to the next monstrosity that
you can smell the bacon cooking at the next-door
neighbors’. And these huge streets,
void of walkers and bikers and street vendors,
just carry trains of shiny single-passenger vehicles—all
these folks thinking they go where they go of their
own volition. The empty political jargon and baby
kissing smiles. The empty fears: not based
on actual happenings, not objective in the least,
constructed without ever having taken a fall of
any kind. And the toilet paper: fifteen thousand
brands of multicolored and softened-to-your-comfort
styles to choose from.
But
it’s not only that, it’s my luck. Driving
through Reno I stopped for some food. While
chewing on memories of India and the “dangerous” conditions
in Nepal, but only being able to remember smiles
that matched people’s eyes, my truck was
being broken into. Camera gear, my music—all
gone. The cops pulled up to my beat-up pick-up
eventually—’course I was the main suspect. “So
what kind of insurance are you going to be claiming
with?” And by the time I was out of
there, heading south on 395 towards Bishop, I felt
like a political prisoner, especially when I unfurled
the wrinkled-up speeding ticket I’d been
granted rolling through Utah the day prior. Ah,
yeah... then there was Cynthia. I wrecked
the corner of her Saab trying to get out of Boulder
two days before.
Felt
like I was amid the Karmic equivalent of the War
on Terror (what a ruse). Just wanted to go climbing.
Blazing
out of Reno I barely caught a glimpse of some rollerblades
attached to a pair of skinny legs, and an arm with
its thumb up protruding from the roadside sage. Didn’t
think twice, and ol’ Jim got in. “Goddamned
misogynist informants working within a rancid system,” is
what Jim said. I figured I was in for a long
ride. But truthfully the hours wrinkled up
insignificantly like that speeding ticket, and
sixty-year-old Jim, who was rollerblading down
to Arizona for the winter, spoke articulately of
his life on the road, run-ins with the authorities,
and mountain-biking from Buffalo to New Orleans
last winter. I only prodded him on with gentle
questions, some of which rallied him into vehement
monologues on convincing conspiracy theories wrought
from first-hand pains-in-his-ass. He’d
had his skull crushed by a cop, family broken up
by a Christian fanatic, and water spiked by the
police just before having to testify in court (makes
you wet yourself basically—so you look like
a derelict). “But I'm here now,” he
said, “and it's fine.”
We
parted ways near Bishop and he shook my hand with
a smile—a real one that matched his eyes. It
was a great afternoon on the East Side. And
as I pulled up into the Buttermilks, the last waves
of sunlight were filling up the underbellies of
the giant boulders. I felt full, and happy. And
the emptiness was gone.
Jonny
Kopp
Jonny
has had his passport stolen by a monkey in India,
been given a test run with a machine-gun in Pakistan,
been robbed in Reno, and has starved in Patagonia.
He is known for high level alpinism and has charged
up impressive first ascents all over the world. One
of his most memorable moments was free-climbing the
Mayan ruins with a gang of spider monkeys. Applying
the idea that less is more in terms of equipment
and supplies, Jonny still believes that the summit
means something but that ascent style is everything.
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Taking
a Stand at Boat Rock Jason
Keith
Boat
Rock, a small but regionally significant boulderfield
surrounded by Atlanta’s growing sprawl, was
about to be destroyed? Literally. The housing developer
had assured Brad McLeod, co-founder of the Southeastern
Climbers Coalition, that he’d make every
effort to spare the boulders from the teeth of
the rock crushers, but soon thereafter gravel was
all that remained of classic problems such as Titanic,
Jerry's Arete, The Glass Mantle, and Toe Jam. More
boulders awaited demolition.
Boat
Rock is a half-mile long jigsaw puzzle of private
parcels, many of which have yielded to high-density
residential subdivisions. Brad knew he must take
a stand before the machines spit out, piece-by-piece,
even more classic bouldering problems. When a FOR
SALE sign appeared, Brad and the rest of “Team
Boat Rock” immediately started the money
drive to buy the boulders: $100,000.
So
far, TBR has raised over half the needed cash through
individual climber donations, and by making the
project about the community as a whole. “This
is a green space issue: it’s not just about
climbers, it’s about the local community,” explains
Brad. “We could’ve chained ourselves
to the boulders, but that would’ve alienated
folks that might help us.” Instead, TBR chose
a collaborative approach that eventually endeared
boulderers to the local residents.
Today
the “Boat Rock Preserve” protects nearly
eight acres of bouldering, including such outstanding
problems as Lost Digits, Paint Can Boulder, and
Waves in Motion. The Boat Rock Preserve, now part
of a land trust established by the SCC, also provides
critical greenspace and an “outdoor classroom” where
local school kids tour the property to learn about
its geology, animals, and unique flora such as
oak and hickory trees, wild azaleas and orchids.
Eventually, Brad and the rest of TBR envision the
Boat Rock Preserve growing into a 40-acre park
for boulderers, school kids, and much-needed open
space.
Taking
a stand at Boat Rock not only meant bringing the
climbing community together to save a threatened
bouldering area, it also meant reaching out to
the local community to identify common interests
like greenspace preservation and environmental
education. Sometimes preserving your own piece
of the rock means sharing it with others as well.
Martin
Volken
Currently
the Policy Director for the Access Fund and an attorney,
Jason is constantly contemplating the wonders of
the natural environment, water law and policy, public
lands and the history of the American West. When
he isn’t brooding he is actively rock, ice
and alpine climbing worldwide or enjoying the athletic
lifestyle of residing in Moab.”
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