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.”

Soundtrack: Don't Stop Believing

The cathedral of Mt. Gimli’s prow rises straight from the Vahallan highlands, proud and defiant against the sky. Sheer gneiss walls shine marbled in deep gray upon light tan, layered in countless sheets of stormswept flakes. Gimli’s peak bends near the top, leaning ever so slightly to the east, as if bracing for battle against an unseen opponent or the upcoming winter wind. Although, the winds and weather in these mountains arrive from the west.

The graceful line of the South Ridge runs straight up the mountain’s most prominent, exposed fin. It’s a line I’ve fantasized and dreamed about climbing more than any other: I’ve Googled it constantly, stared at its images, at the red and blue and pink lines overlaid on the rock, read descriptions over and over and over.

Arriving here hasn’t been easy. After leaving the Bugaboos, now solo, I found my way to Nelson, a small town on Kootenay Lake reminding me strongly of all the best parts of Bend and Portland mashed together, including a killer food co-op. I was blessed with the incredibly gracious hospitality of Dom, who I’d met in the Bugs, and his wife Lisa, who offered me unlimited snap peas, raspberries, tomatoes and cucumbers from their garden. While Lisa worked in the morning, Dom and I scrambled a few hours to a peak above the ski resort where he patrols by winter, bullshitting about the mentality of trying and failing, and life lessons, and the meaning of partnerships. From the top of our hike, Dome gave me a visual tour of the region, pointing to where I’d see various peaks and ranges in the absence of BC’s August wildfire haze. He also answered my longstanding question of mature trees growing primarily on ridges, pointing to repeated avalanche paths among drainages.

That afternoon, I walked into every outdoor store on the main drag, asking employees whether they knew of anyone in need of a partner to climb Gimli. I found success on my fourth try: the manager of a small ski shop, wearing a tight, white sequined shirt, put me into contact with one of her husband’s employees whose partner had just broken his wrist. Two days later, after making a massive number of “energy balls” (load oats, cashews, almonds, dates, honey, peanut butter and chocolate chips into a food processor and mash the outcome into a compact mass), Phil and I drove out for Valhalla Provincial Park.

The drive was a terror. When they claimed the road to Gimli required high clearance, they should have specified a quarter-width tank. It’s probably good that I drove in the dark, unable to watch the sheer drop playing next to me as I maneuvered half-cleared landslides, slightly adjusted rock fall and massive soft ruts and ridges. Teenage winter lessons in ascending my own gravel driveway on snow and ice were the only reason we made it to the parking lot.

I am now even more officially in love with my car.

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And so our hike Saturday morning has landed us on the flats at Gimli’s base, equipped with a few stone windbreaks, a backcountry toilet and metal food canisters, practically close enough to sneeze on the mountain. A bleating family of mountain goats heralds our arrival.

We pass a lazy afternoon snoozing in the sun and exploring paths and slabs around Gimli’s west side, arriving atop a ridge that ends in an abrupt drop hundreds of feet to a snow field and deep blue lakes below, marking the upper reaches of a deep green valley guarded by erratic, jagged peaks. As the sun sets in the evening, and the full moon rises blazing in the south, and the macho, muscly goats with their short, sharp horns bleat and stare at me as I pee before bed, I take it all in and smile.

I wake Sunday morning to the bleating of goats, exiting my tent in the early dawn to five pairs of entreating eyes. The goats follow us as we make breakfast and gather our gear, and spectate as I belay Phil on the day’s first pitch. We swap leads after every anchor as we climb, working our way up the arête. My first pitch on lead takes me up and around a block, stepping over a wide gap to hug the ridge’s crest as I work my way horizontally above a slight overhang, battling instinct that screams to me, telling me I stand on absolutely nothing… to either side or below me. I trust my hands (mediocre) and my feet (solid), and toy with the trade-off of placing lots of gear or reducing rope drag (always a tenuous mental puzzle). I get a grand ego boost when we pull out the guide at the top of the pitch and I realize I’ve just climbed a much harder variation than I expected. We climb a lot of relatively relaxed rock, using some finicky techniques of counter-pressure called “laybacking” to grasp flakes and lean backward, bracing our feet against the same wall to keep our bodies upright. We dance around the fin as the wind picks up out of a clear blue sky, wildfire haze in the atmosphere blending surrounding mountains into the distance.

The sixth pitch is my lead: I hug and shuffle over an awkward block in a closed corner, arriving beneath a very intimidating roof. Even on stellar gear it takes me three attempts to override my apprehension, making moves leftward beneath the overhang. Wind whips as I reach my left foot far out to try and brace on something, my right toe still jammed in a crack spiderwebbed from the corner and my right fingers braced on a knob as I reach blindly up and around the roof with my left hand, groping for the monster hold that I’ve been assured lies in wait. The overhang’s dark lip stretches above me. I can’t find the hold, anywhere, I’m slightly terrified, and I have no intention of falling. And so I pull the smallest piece of gear I carry from my harness, cram half of the cam’s lobes into a tiny crack and grab its stem, “French Freeing,” using it as a handhold as I wrench my stuck right foot out of the crack, hiking myself up to see over the edge.

In exasperation, I find the jug straight in front of me, overhead, rather than to the side where I’d been grasping in vain. And it is massive, and it’s in reach. After grabbing hold of the jug I lower myself, remove my cam and yard myself over the thing properly, rocking up onto my foot to stand atop the roof, breathing deep before moving upward to build my anchor.

The remainder is an extended scramble. We reach the top of the ridge, passing atop the curved, leaning fin before making our way down, around, and up to Gimli’s true summit at 9,100 ft on the adjacent peak. The cairn marking the summit is taller than me. Tucked beneath is the register, a black plastic watertight tube containing a small pad and pencil. I pen our names and date, taking in the adjacent peaks and valleys, and I recognize that I’ve accomplished the first really big goal I set for myself in the world of rock.

Now I get to downclimb.

Trust and Judgement

My first-ever descent down a technical glacier involves a 1:30 AM rappel into a yawning 40ft wide crevasse with lightning on the horizon.

I return to the Bugaboos in a climbing partnership matchmade by mutual friends in Squamish. Chris, a Kiwi fond of the phrase, “Cheers, Mate!” has extensive alpine experience and has dreamed for years of a trip to the Bugs. What I lack in alpine experience (I have virtually none) I make up for with confidence and familiarity on granite. Together, we compliment each others’ weaknesses, communicate well, and share similar philosophies regarding safety and gear placement. Our biggest challenge on the wall boils down to interpreting accents.

In addition to the usual backpacking gear, we bring close to ten days’ food supply and our climbing gear probably totals over 25 lbs. Luxuries for the stay include my trusty sarong, a ratty thrift-shop cribbage board ($.50), a novel and soap. My pack is f’n heavy.

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The Kane Route summits Bugaboo Spire, the park’s namesake and second-highest peak. It’s accessed by crossing a glacier and ascending the Bugaboo-Snowpatch Col, a pass that involves mid-grade technical glacier climbing and the very real probability of injury in case of misstep. Chris guides and teaches me the basics of spotting unopened crevasses, properly utilizing ice axe and crampons, and travelling as a roped team (he’s especially excited that Freedom, our “mountaineering bible,” includes a variation of classic Kiwi technique). We navigate through areas of rockfall and cross a high bergschrund (an area where the glacier’s main body has pulled away from the headwall, leaving an ever-widening crevasse in its wake). At this point in the season, the crevasse spans almost the entire col.

Once on rock, the route requires primarily convoluted route-finding and scrambling as we avoid scree fields and the possibility of triggering rock fall. Although the climbing is easy, it’s also extremely exposed and contains huge risk– in many places, slipping or falling is not an option– consequences lie on Crescent Glacier thousands of feet below. Toward the top of the route we rope up for a few easy pitches of climbing. As I lead the “money pitch,” working my way up a crack system on a sharply pointed, free-standing outcrop “the Gendarme,” I chance a look down. Oddly, I feel more comfortable here, with nothing but air below me as the spire drops away to the distant basin below, than I have on numerous (much) smaller climbs at home. The scale of everything around me is just so incomprehensibly huge that features register in my mind as closer than they really are.

From the summit at 10,512 ft, hundreds of peaks extent out of sight in every direction. Glaciers, spiderwebbed with crevasses and spotted with turquoise pools, envelop every peak in the vicinity in a singular sheet of ice ribboning and flowing in multiple directions. Beyond the valley from which we approached the Canadian Rockies rise, barely visible through the haze of a nearby wildfire. I cannot remember ever feeling so remote.

The descent is slow-going. It takes eight rappels, several hours of downclimbing and a slightly sprained wrist to arrive at the top of the col. My mind has switched to auto pilot, my movements feel uncoordinated. Sleep will wait until we return to camp, so I continue to move. We rappel the top half of the col, tying two topes together to double distance lowered. Our second rappel takes us to bolts straight on the side of the bergschrund’s gaping maw below us– we lower and take a slight pendulum in, snow cascading down our backs, until we catch our crampons on a rock buildup and hike ourselves back out and up to the rappel station. From here we lower ourselves into a second crevasse until we can step across to the receding snow shelf, pulling ourselves back onto the glacier to begin our downclimb. Throughout the night Chris leads, teaches and guides me, correcting my movement, trading a quick descent for safety.

We return to our sleeping bags utterly exhausted, yet safe and content, and fall asleep as lightning flashes on the horizon.

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The next couple days are spent snoozing and acclimating, and watching the sky darken to deep gradients behind the spires as thunderstorms build. They’re also prime opportunities to improve meal quality: since no one wants to pack out extra weight, leftover food is offered up– in a single day, I score a packet of smoked salmon, BBQ-flavored beans and a tub of sundried tomatoes, olive oil and all. We also wage ferocious wars against marmots and ground squirrels as they shamelessly attempt to commandeer said food.

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Monday is not supposed to be an epic. That’s hilarious.

We rise early, leaving camp by 4:00 to ascend the col before the sun begins to soften the snow. We head a short distance around the back of Snowpatch Spire the Buckingham Route, which proves to be incredibly fun, on good rock, with interesting movement for the grade.

Throughout the day in the warmer temperatures, we watch rock fall increase from Bugaboo Spire’s scree-covered lower ridge, hurtling down the col across the path of ascent. The clack of boulders tumbling and smashing echoes up to my position, repeatedly puncturing my mindset as I place gear. Two pitches from the top of our route, somewhere below us and out of sight, a woman screams. When she wails again, and again, and again, and then whistles and shouting begin, we bail. By our third rappel, we can see someone lying in the bergschrund. A slide mark begins 200 ft up, close to the top of the col. By the time we reach the col close to two hours after her fall, two other parties have reached her, extracted her from the crevasse, and begun the process of lowering her down toward the ice field beyond. She’s extremely lucky: a guide on the Kane Route has called in a rescue chopper with a sat phone, which swings in as the party nears the flats. Within another half hour, she’s gone. The few hours the whole process takes is fast. Had she been anywhere else, with fewer people in the vicinity, she would have been on her own.

Chris and I mutually decide that descending the col at this time of day is Stupid, with a capital S. We rope up to head around to the other side of Snowpatch Spire, where a series of rappels and a roundabout glacier/scramble descent will allow us to bypass the col.

Skies darkening to the west, we reach the rappel route. The ledge at the top overlooks the Pigeon-Snowpatch icefall, a deep blue cascading section of glacier comprised of whorls and waves, deep crevasses, towering erratic seracs, spiraling pits into which water cascades and others out of which flowing streams eject. Slim dark lines mark dust laid down between yearly layers of snowfall, long since compressed into ice. Above the whole Pigeon Spire rises to an elegant, slender, dark pointed apex.

As we thread rope for our first rappel, thunder cracks and peals around us, reverberating between spires. As we work to set our second rappel, the sky opens in a deluge of hail. The ice piles onto tiny ledges around us, ricocheting off the wall and cascading down to pool at our feet and on our collars as sun-warmed rock melts the bottom-most layer instantaneously. Chris is, in a word, not pleased. I laugh with the hilarity of it all. We continue downward as hail turns to rain. In my concentration as I double-and triple-check my systems, the deafening thunder recedes to the back of my mind, becoming almost commonplace in the situation, and I almost forget about being cold (in my utter brilliance, I’ve left my gore-tex in my tent. My trusty soft-shell simply isn’t up to the job).

The moment we reach the ice, the storm ceases and the sun breaks through in a pure azure sky. The mountains are laughing at us. We then realize that, where we could have leapt on rope from the wall to the surface of the glacier, we’ve instead rappelled straight into another crevasse. From the point where we stand precariously on rock, the bottom is out of sight. We make out way to a show shelf, throw on crampons and climb out of the crevasse before disconnecting from the rope, pulling it from our final rappel, and finish our roundabout return to camp.

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After two days of climbing in the Bugs, it’s time for a reality check. Chris and I have some conversations about safety, and he is brutally honest. Our days climbing have progressed extremely slowly. Foregoing weather, it’s simply unsafe, mentally, to be at it for that long. If Chris were to fall into a crevasse, I lack the necessary skills to rescue him on my own.

And we are, in essence, Alone.

The col is out of condition. The bergschrund has opened almost the full breadth of the pass. Unpredictable large rock fall occurs throughout the day and has begun to occur during the night as well, making descent extremely precarious. Even if our bodies escape the fall path, rocks can still strike and shred the rope we rappel upon. Concrete evidence hangs on the camp’s central message board. That particular individual was lucky: on a double-rope rappel rock struck the rope that was on the side knotted at the anchor, so the knots where ropes were joined lodged in the rappel ring and allowed him to finish his descent. The brand-new chartreuse rope, however, is shredded.

In essence, I need rescue skills on snow and ice. Although I’m confident on rock, I tend to take my time in movement. I need to be able to move faster and retain that confidence. “Speed is Safety” is probably the most well-known tenet among alpinists. Speed beats weather, and it beats fatigue.

It’s a really, really hard conversation to have, especially considering the forecoming beautiful weather. It takes me a solid day to process. It’s so hard to be here and turn back, letting go of, or delaying, aspirations that have grown so prominent in my mind. The harsh reality stings, and I must remind myself that the Bugs will still be here when I’ve gained the necessary skills and experience to climb safely in the remote alpine. On rock, I’m solid. On snow and ice, I enter an entirely different world requiring an entirely new skillset… Although in the alpine there’s always inherent risk, there’s no need to increase the degree insensibly.

The next day, as I begin the walk down from camp, the sun burns deep orange through a gray-brown haze signaling nearby wildfire. Lush mossy ridges, raised among countless cascading runnels carrying glacial melt, blaze red, orange, purple and yellow with wildflowers, Snowpatch Spire rising stolidly above.

Photos to come...

Mindgames on the Rock

The Chief looms above the sea-green waters of Howe Sound in almost 2,300’ of towering black and white granite. Gaping gullies and tree-lined ledges cleave the face and a sweeping slab known as the “Apron” skirts a large portion of the dome’s base. The monolith, indisputable evidence that I’ve returned to Squamish, contains a lifetime of climbing in itself.

At the base of the Chief is nestled a walk-in campground. Tent platforms scatter along trails among towering firs and cedars and cushy moss, accompanied by bear boxes (there’s a certain resident ever-present terror this summer), a few pit toilets, and a miracle of a large covered cooking shelter equipped with picnic tables, spigots, and a single sweeping counter. On the fringe of the forest, old telephone posts driven into the ground provide framework for a slackline jungle gym overlooking the sound, next to which we cook meals in clear weather. Looking north, Mt. Garibaldi rises from the hills. Its glaciated dome and single point bring to mind a similar familiar view of the South Sister as it rides my memories.

Squamish provides a welcome ego boost. The granite’s geometry is easy to work with when placing gear, the grades are soft (meaning the same difficulty climb may receive a higher rating than elsewhere), and some pitches are simply cruising fun as I reach high, insert my fingers into a crack, sink into a constriction and know with absolute certainty that, no matter if my feet slip, my hand is locked into place and I’m not going anywhere. It’s these pitches that I absolutely love, especially when I’m hundreds of feet off the ground.

However, there’s also something to be said for the feeling of ringing triumphant disbelieving relief that comes at the end of a particularly spicy (mentally challenging) section of rock. When I simply can’t fall because I’m twenty feet beyond my last piece, there’s nowhere to place any gear, if I fall on the slab below there’s a solid chance that half my arm and leg will lose skin (at the least), I’ve got an ever-present niggling doubt that the last piece I placed will actually hold (even though when I put it in the rock I knew it was bomber), the rock is seeping water, I’m feeling exposed on insecure feet and moves that are a bit more technical than I really want to be making at the moment, and my hands are sweating in the sun and my calves cramping–– I guts up, take a breath, tell myself I’m going to damn well stay on the rock, and then I keep climbing…  When I finish the sequence and get an anchor built and clip in safe, profound elation makes itself known. This is how I build confidence and trust in myself.

And then there are climbs where I simply flail. I follow my partner up a climb called Split Beaver classified as an “off-width,” meaning it’s too wide to climb by shoving a fist into the crack and too narrow to fit my entire body into and treat as a chimney. Not only do I feel that these require the most brute full-body strength of any style (I’ve seen it described as a wrestling match with the rock), ascending them can also require an obscene degree of creativity. For the most part, I “chicken wing” my way up, throwing an arm in and exerting pressure against rock on opposite sides of the crack with my hand and elbow. Along the way I also throw my leg in to use as a lever (it becomes very stuck), “stack” hands against fists to extend their collective width, and tumble off the face. Repeatedly. I suppose it’s beneficial for my ego.

Some pretty awesome people swing through the area, as well: the day after climbing Split Beaver I attend a movie showing and guest presentation by Alex Honnold, a climber most famous for free soloing (climbing without a rope) various big walls. He’s down-to-earth, soft-spoken, happy to give advice, and freely talks about still finding himself in terrifying situations. It’s incredibly refreshing to realize that even though the guy does some things that are pretty out of this world, he is, in fact, still human.

When the rain comes, it hits as an unrelenting deluge. Slender clouds snake into the sound, hugging mountainsides and expanding to sock in the region. We retreat beneath the campground’s cook shelter, playing chess and cribbage, sharing music and simply connecting. When I go to sleep, the water pounds my skylight so loudly that I truly question whether the car will manage to shed the entirety.

By night, clanging metal rings up from the town’s shipyard as floodlights cast the Chief in a golden sheen. Communities truly form as food and drink and stories are shared, puppies are mooned over (Basil the Baby Basset Hound constantly stands on her own ears), debates initiated, climbing partnerships formed and back rubs traded. The big dipper and north star shine, ever-present points of light intermeshed among electric towers’ geometric struts. Falling stars appear by the minute, and time simply carries us forward.

Entering the Alpine

 Looking over the gear I planned to take north spread out before me, my brain decided it was high time I owned a car. Three days later, I drove home a rusty-colored Honda Element. Actually, consensus in camp leans toward “Burnt Cinnamon.” Its name is Blaze, and I am in love.
 
I promptly removed the back seats and spent a solid day and a half building a system of storage boxes and columns in their place, all of which have removable lids. Boxes got linoleum tops, windows got curtains covered in Mt. Fuji, an old weight-lifting mat got repurposed into a sleeping pad running behind the passenger seat, and I got a personalized home on the road.

After a few stops to stock up on beer and food (BC has a 15% sales tax and booze bleeds even more) I drove to Vancouver via a solid interrogation by border control, met up with a friend and headed straight out for eastern BC.
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The approach to Bugaboo Provincial Park covers approximately 50k of heavily potholed dirt roads winding up out of a valley and into a steep river gorge fed entirely by rushing glacial melt. Along the way, a bear cup gamboodles onto the road in front of us and topples back onto his butt in surprise, exposing a light tan chest patch, before hightailing it back into the woods. Dark, angular peaks jut forth above, impressing the feel of titan guardians. When at last we round the final bend to the parking lot, glaciers pour down the valley in front of us, punctured by massive dark spires and flanked by bowls and ridges streaked in dense, deep green conifers and brilliant alpine shrubbery.
 
We hike in early the next morning, after surrounding Blaze with chicken wire held in place by dozens of giant stakes and rocks to protect its tires and brake lines from rubber-eating porcupines and monster marmots. The approach to Applebee Camp climbs approximately 3,050’ in 3.4 miles. I leave behind vegetation and swarming mosquitoes (and oxygen), climbing the ridge adjacent to Bugaboo glacier and feeling more drunk by the second. My relatively light pack presses my shoulders and quads into the rock. I can’t decide whether I want to eat or puke, so I do neither. The flat stone top of Appleby Dome embraces me with splattered tents and bear boxes.

 We spend the rest of the day relaxing, crossing a small snowfield to climb a couple of shorter routes and bask in our current unreal reality. My sense of perception is completely distorted. Among the glaciers, divided by name but ultimately a single ice field, granite spires rise thousands of feet around us. I have no idea how massive they truly are until I see people crossing the glacier at their base, barely specks on the ice. To the south, the Purcell Mountains spread before us in a continuous snowcapped field of peaks. The sky is pure, cloudless blue– almost unheard of in the Bugs. The sun blazes down upon us, glancing up off the snow. We reapply sunscreen religiously. On the way back to camp we stop to refill water and wade in alpine pools. Crisp, clear turquoise water takes on a milky sheen in places where the glacier intrudes beneath onto the rocky bed, and in places where the surface remains frozen (it’s early enough in the year that smaller pools freeze over on a nightly basis). A huge, flat sloping stone edges in on the pool, providing a snooze spot that puts any other to shame.

In the evening we hang our packs from racks designed to protect our gear and ropes from pack rats and take advantage of the rare cloudless skies, laying our sleeping bags out under the stars. The full moon rises perfectly centered over the mountains to the south, bathing them in an ethereal white sheen as we go to sleep.
 

As the moon sets between spires in the early morning, we cross a snowfield and skirt lakes to approach a formation called the Crescent Spire. Although we plan to climb a relatively mellow route to the summit, we soon discover we’ve started up an unknown line. While the granite is solid, the spire seems composed of thousands of blocks all waiting to topple over… so we continue up, testing rocks before we pull or step on them and making careful choices as to where we place the gear and anchors that hold us. Throughout our climb the sounds of snow and ice cracking and caving in the alpine heat reverberate up through the bowl below us. As we rejoin with our intended route, avoiding the possibility of cliffing ourselves, we climb beautiful corners and traverse around and up sloping slabs, ending our roped ascent on a small, airy arête before scrambling up an incredibly exposed block next to a thousand-plus-foot drop to gain the summit at about 9,300’.
 
The view takes my breath away.
 
After scrambling and rappelling the majority of the adjacent gully we save time on the descent, abandoning our attempt to step down through rotten snow and simply sliding down the snowfields on our butts.
 
We hike out later in the afternoon and spend the next two nights at our companion’s farm. We meet the mammoth donkeys her father breeds and laugh as she sets up a trio between her piano and collie and German shepard as thunder storms move through the valley. And finally, after a half-day of climbing at a local crag, we drive back across BC to Vancouver, crossing multitudes of mountain passes and spending the night in the hot, humid Okanagan, where we buy nectarines and cherries and peaches and blueberries sold by dozens of farms along the roadside.
 
I suppose the Bugs qualify as my first experience in alpine climbing. More exploratory, with less advance information and less certain rock, taking more care to stay safe during approaches and descents to and from camp as we cross snow and ice with ever-changing characteristics. It’s tough, remote, peaceful and exhilarating. And we got damn lucky with the weather.

Entirely Off the Grid

Never again will I wear chacos to bushwhack through cactus-infested steppe. In southwestern Idaho, sage and grass grow thick for miles in a sprawling bowl nestled amongst rolling mountains. Short, stubby cacti huddle agains the ground, pink, orange and yellow blossoms burst wide open. Lupine, yarrow and a myrad of other windflowers brighten the land. Squat pines for the landscape, coalescing into forests as they move up hillsides. Aspen groves, lines by wild iris, wind between crags and along drainage lines.

From afar, the steppe appears to be scattered with pebbles. Up close we realize that the exposed granite, product of uplift and erosion, rise from the land into monoliths hundreds of feet high. Divots and tunnels and bowls cover every face, formed by billions of seasons of snow and thunder storms. Chartreuse, orange, black, brown, white and forest green lichen streak the rock in patchwork rainbows. 

I spend my first few days in the City of Rocks climbing mellow routes, taking time to refamiliarize myself with movement and gear placement. The granite is here is coarse, providing strong, trustworthy friction beneath my feet. 

As I climb I slip into that point of focus between myself and the rock's lines of weakness, problem-solving directions of pull and complementary geometry between cracks and constrictions and the gear I carry. I reestablish confidence and trust in myself and my ability to place the pieces that catch potential falls. 

Better judgement occasionally prevails over my desire to climb. When storms move in, they come with astonishing speed. Wind whips out of nowhere, howling around the rocks as rain pelts down from dense gray thunderheads; at 6,800' elevation, the air holds little moisture. At this point, we bail off the rock and spend the day's remainder soaking in hot springs in the nearby "town" of Almo (consisting of perhaps ten buildings, cell/3G service and a handful of cows). 

On the evening showers move through during sunset, the entire atmosphere is set ablaze as we gaze through fiery veils of water to the hills beyond. When we turn around, a massive double rainbow shines bright against the darkened sky. 

One day we hike up to a tall, slender formation called Jackson's Thumb and climb four pitches (rope changes) up 2.5 billion-year-old rock— some of the oldest exposed in North America. 

The second part of my stay is spent in AMAZING company. I split a campsite with a father and daughter who provide me with a bin in which to store my food (the rodents here are voracious) and inform me they've left me a "treat." I return to camp in the midday heat to find six of my beers on ice in a miniature cooler. 

With Larry and Lane travels Tsu, a 67-year-old Korean man with the body of a 20-year-old who's been climbing since he was 13. He lives in Joshua Tree and casually free solos (climbs without rope or protection) moderate routes on a daily basis. Tsu is one of the nicest, most humble and enthusiastic people I've come across. I hope I die as happy as I perceive him to be. 

As for climbing, I lead harder routes and flail up behind my partner around some beautiful roofs and long, insecure cracks. We hike out to Stripe Rock and climb the white dyke splitting the feature. Protection is sparse and insecure. We sling webbing around chicken heads (protruding pieces of rock) to break potential falls and belay off anchors that belong in a textbook under the "Don't Do This" heading. I learn A LOT. 

On my last day, we climb a narrow spire called the Incisor, pulling through a beautiful crack and slightly nervewracking traverse to super fun, airy and exposed climbing up an arête that leads to the rock's tiny summit. From here, I look down upon the entire City spread around me. 

I go to bed utterly bone-tired and completely satisfied. 

A Long Past Due Revival

It’s been a solid couple of years since I posted anything here, and I’ve turned into somewhat of a nomad since then. I’ve discovered climbing and highlining, and grown to crave the giddy triumph and inner tranquility I feel after overcoming mental and physical hurdles. I’ve found myself amidst the most genuine, caring, guiding and inspiring community I can imagine. I’ve spent winters in the mountains, lived in deserts and on caldera lakes, watched eagles and owls leave the nest. I’ve spent nights on top of mountaintop glaciers, and lain back as stars sprawl over me and dry lightning sets the sky alight. I’ve rediscovered outdoor education and faced a completely contrasting set of challenges and dilemmas. I like to think that I handled them well, that I learned and that I grew.

I’m notoriously bad at staying in touch with people when I’m out of town, so as I set out for another summer of fun, my goal is to post here regularly whenever I encounter the interwebs and have a functioning compatible device. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a journal entry from a night atop Smith Rock in mid-April…

                                                       

The cliff glows burnt silver, stark, in-your-face. Regal. Black shadows cleave her surface. There is no middle ground.

The world has turned ethereal. A pregnant moon glows, blazing milky light over the junipers. I turn away, blinded, small lights skittering across my vision. The desert feels softer, friendlier. Sage, stripped of green in the sun’s absence, gently brushes my fingers as I amble downward toward the river. A breeze plays across my bare shoulders as I wind my way upward between boulders after the crossing. And as I rest atop the summit, gazing westward across the plains toward the mountains– as a patchwork of clouds begins to shroud the slowly eclipsing moon– the rock, rough beneath my body, welcomes me home.