See You on the Flip Side

The afternoon winter sun blazes low through C Concourse’s bay windows from a crisp, cloudless sky. Pristine snow caps hills visible through the terminal’s opposite wall. As we drove into the airport, Mts. Hood and St Helens stood tall, proud and stark to the east, jagged shadows cleaving their slopes. They, too, were pure white. I’m told the last couple days’ cold snaps have finally brought some decent snow to the passes.

Right now, however, I lounge against metal walls and windows on industrial green carpet, watching planes take off and land. My plane is late. Hopefully this gets delays out of the way– over the next day and a half I plan to get through four flights, two busses and a boat to land my ass on Cat Ba Island, in HaLong Bay off Vietnam’s north coast. My 13-hr flight from LA to Taipei leaves at 11:05 this evening and lands 5:35 on January 2^nd.

Awaiting me is work as a climbing and kayak guide among numerous islands in the area with a company called Asia Outdoors. The staff with whom I’ve communicated have been amazingly supportive in the process of moving myself half way around the globe. I’m honestly still a little surprised they hired me.

TSA could not have cared less about the nine pounds of coffee and 400 feet or so of webbing and rope in my carry-on, the only hitch in security coming as an agent chased me down to return my forgotten driver’s license.

Dear Sir, you do your job credit.

Despite being in unopened brand-name packaging, I’ve crossed my fingers in regards to the absurd quantity of climbing chalk in my luggage. Also the climbing hardware I’m ferrying over, as I’ve been warned that shiny objects and customs agents sometimes get along a little too well. I’m armed with a camera.

I’m SO far beyond stoked.

Happy New Years, and see you on the flip side.

Walking in the Clouds

I return to Squamish just in time for Assault on the Chief, a highline festival put together by Slacklife BC in mid-August (theoretically the area’s best chance of clear skies through the year). After swearing last year I would never again stand atop the Chief unless I climbed the thing, I recede on that promise and hike the monolith three times in as many days. Between the lot of us we carry hundreds of pounds of gear to the highest gullies on the south end of the summit peaks. The gullies are deep: sheer walls drop 800 feet or so to sharply sloping beds, which tilt another several hundred feet precariously downward toward the Squamish River.

We set five lines total, ranging from 40 to almost 200 feet in length; all system components doubled in case any one should fail. As we stand atop the gullies Friday morning clouds curl lazily up, shrouding tree-covered outcrops and the land far below.

I tie in double, triple and quadruple-checking that my harness will remain above my hips when fall, then slide out onto the line past the “no fall zone.” I make the mistake of looking down, inducing nauseating vertigo. I pull my gaze from the chasm beneath me to concentrate on standing. As usual when on a highline, my mind freezes in regards to movements that come as second nature to me when walking near the earth. No ground resides in my periphery, providing a sense of stability and reference. My focus point, usually at eye level, has become the anchor to which I plan on walking. Raising my eyes sends my view unsettlingly into the clouds.

I coach myself through the series of familiar movements required to stand up on the highline, trying desperately to release the terror tensing my muscles, disallowing my usual fluid, effortless movement. And I fail. Over and over and over again, the anchor blurs in my vision. I fall, sometimes catching and hugging the line with bruising force, otherwise summersaulting without grace to the bottom of my leash, from which I flip upside down and climb back to remount the line. Eventually I simply clip in, hang and cry.

It’s so frustrating to be shut down by something totally within my ability. Time and time again I’ve walked lines up to 200 feet long on the ground. At the same time, we as humans have such a primordial, base objection to being in the sky– we’re beings of the earth. And thus, by moving a line several hundred feet into the air to walk in the sky, highlining becomes an absolute mindfuck. It draws on a different kind of strength, requiring absolute trust and belief in the gear, my own ability and in the people who have set the line. For me, with my longstanding aversion to heights, working to overcome that fear and trust myself is the most psychologically taxing activity I’ve ever done.

Three hours later, after a long doze, I tie in once more. As I set my second foot upon the line after several failed attempts to stand, I hear my friend Spence’s voice from the group of people clustered at the anchor: “Now STAND UP, Gavi.” (There may have been an expletive included in there.) In that instant my entire mindset changes to decided determination, and as I shift my weight forward and up the line stabilizes under my feet. Spence speaks again: “Now take a step.” My breathing drops; my arms and shoulders relax. My left foot feels forward, finding the line, and I transfer my weight as muscle memory kicks in. My entire body corrects and counterbalances, reacting to shifts in the line beneath me. Spence talks me through another step, then lets me trust myself as I complete the walk. Several feet before I reach the bolts, with no intention of walking off, I drop myself ungracefully to hug the line. Full of endorphins and triumph I let out a giddy yell, grinning like an idiot puppy. 

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The next couple weeks are spent alternately climbing and slacklining. I watch Spencer free solo a line we set off a tree above Shannon Falls, walking the length without a tether. It's both terrifying and awe-inspiring, snapping photos from my outcrop amidst the water's roaring lip. I also take my friend Tania up her first multipitch climb, which also happens to be her first trad climb, placing gear and leading pitches for her to follow as so many people have done for me in the past two years. The girls' day is amazingly refreshing.

My last day in Squamish, I climb Angel’s Crest with my friend Drew, following the sharp ridge overlooking the Chief’s North Gully. We work our way through 12 pitches of mixed tree climbing; pumpy, energy-draining cracks; scrambling; and straddling some slim, teetering, airy spines spiderwebbed with cracks aptly named the “Acrophobes.” At the very top of the route I belly crawl to the end of my current slim ledge and reach one foot across a precarious gap, straddling a chimney that simply disappears several feet below me into 1,800’ of air. I work my way up, shuffling and utilizing counterpressure as the chimney squeezes closer, eventually stepping out from the narrow cleft to yard myself over an unassuming lip. For the last time this summer, as the sun dips to the horizon, I stand atop the Chief to take in the sea-green waters and snaking clouds below.

And for the first time, I’ve gotten here my ass up here by climbing the thing.

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Once stateside I return to Smith rock, face climbing for the first time in almost a year. It’s strange how insecure I feel, climbing without following lines of weakness and clipping bolts rather than being drawn into the rock’s geometry to place gear. It requires a different sort of mindset, trusting my toes not to slip from Smith’s trademark tenuous knobs as I stand and suck my hips into the rock, reaching high to grasp divots above.

It feels good to be home, or as close to home as I get these days, for a couple weeks. I’m around people with whom I’ve grown close throughout the summer, together following weather patterns south as rain arrives in the north and summer heat begins to recede from crags in the states.

As my summer comes to a close I look back over what I’ve learned and what it means to be in the travelling dirtbag community. I think the community forms so cohesively because it’s built on an essential foundation of trust: often we meet people and within hours, or minutes, place our lives in each others’ hands. We do this each and every day, and it adds a decidedly unique component to how we relate to one another.

Communication provides the basis for that trust we so freely give to each other. Ensuring communication is clear and deliberate, and conversations regarding experience and expectations aren’t half-assed– on the wall and off– is a lesson that’s been driven solidly home this summer. I’ve spent hours upon hours in reflection upon various experiences over the last few months. Although I don’t always reach concrete conclusions, every experience and conversation shapes my future interactions within the community.

And finally: The words “Walk Off” in regards to a descent usually prove a very polite way of advising, “downclimb a long, precarious, chossy, exposed, teetering ridge, on which the route may or may not be marked. Without a rope.”