Get your own Free Home PageWhat a disaster. We should have known from the outset that our first attempt at Leaning Tower was bound to go awry. My partner, Sam, was flying in from England. Sam is a hardman who had had an accident while alpine climbing about nine months before our trip -- he had agreed to do the Tower with me to get himself back in shape and as a warm-up to bigger and better things. I wanted to bag the climb as a prelude to an assault on El Cap the following week. Neither was to be achieved.
Part one of the epic started as British Airways decided that a bag of cams and jugs looked suspiciously like a bomb. Sam arrived in SFO from London with bad news. As soon as he got off the plane the friendly folks with the funny accents informed us that Sam’s cams hadn’t made the trip. We’ll happily fly them out tomorrow, they said. Lots of help given that we planned to be just about at Awahnee ledge mid-day the next day. The complicating factor was that we had only three days to do the climb; if we wasted a day waiting for Sam’s cams and somehow got stuck behind a slow party we were dead in the water. Or rather, I would miss work Monday and be in BIG trouble. I guess the real answer to our dilemma was to quit our jobs and climb for a living. But that, grasshopper, is another discussion entirely.
After lots of discussion about what to do we decided that we would make a go for it. We had my rack, bag, etc. and a new set of aiders and daisys that Sam ordered just for the climb. All we needed for the basics of the ascent were shoes, a harness, a helmet, and a pair of ascenders for Sam. We would be short biners and cams, but by back cleaning we thought we could make do. Sam decided to buy some shoes, and we borrowed a helmet and harness from some folks at Mission Cliffs. Now all we needed was a pair of jugs.
After calling everyone we knew that we thought we could get the gear from, we figured our best bet was the anasazi hard-man, local Yosemite resident and mutual friend of ours, Jack. Off to the Valley we go. By the time we got there it was almost 2 am, and we drove everywhere looking for our friend. Now, parking spots in the Valley are kind of like hiding places for gold back in the pirates’ days. Every (reasonably accomplished) pirate had a hiding place that was secret. “Where you parking these days Jack?” “Oh, here and there.” “No, really where you at?” “Yeah, well, you know, the usual places.” Jack-man was nowhere to be found and we finally crashed in Camp 4 at about 3, still lacking jugs and with no real plan about what to do.
First light found us groveling for jugs. We asked a couple of people if we could literally borrow their jugs for two days so that we could do the climb. I was personally very skeptical that would find anyone, but Sam was intent on trying, anyway. Lo and behold, the second group of climbers we asked agreed to lend us a pair of jugs. One guy, Jeremy, was incredibly helpful -- sure, he said, just bring ‘em back in one piece. I am constantly amazed at the climbing “ethic” -- climbers will have no compunction about breaking the law to sleep in their trucks, bamboozle food, or avoid Johnny Law. But they are, in general, loyal, friendly and open to each other. An interesting paradox, similar to what I observed traveling around the third world. The “us against them” philosophy that contributes to this kind of moral paradigm has some pretty gnarly implications, but that could be the subject of another treatise entirely. Back to the LT report.
Having secured jugs we were out of excuses. We drove to the Bridelveil lot, finished packing up our gear, and started off for the climb, humping the pig and all. What a nightmare of an approach. First, the approach itself sucks, doubly so with all our gear. By the time we got to the catwalk, we were exhausted. Then, of course, came the catwalk -- which no one had warned us about. I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t want to do that thing without roping up in any situation, much less in full pack. We led over, and were in the process of figuring out how to get the bag over when a couple of Swedes came by to lend a hand. They suggested setting up a static line and running our stuff over piecemeal. We set up the static line, and I tried to carry it all over in one fell swoop. Stupid move of the day #1. I got a third of the way through the traverse when the pig decided I would look better on my back ten feet down. Off the catwalk I went, saved by the line we had run and the quickdraw / jumar combination that connected me to it. My partners helped me up while I swallowed my pride and we carried the contents of the pig over to the base of the climb in three or four trips.
Finally to the climb -- it was only 1 pm or so. As we looked up, we realized that the party which started the climb before we started our *approach* was only at the top of the second pitch. Looks like trouble, but let’s get going anyway. Gotta move if we are going to make it to Awahnee Ledge. Up I started on the first pitch. After all the nightmares of the approach, getting gear, the catwalk, and all the rest, a good solid aid pitch felt downright pleasant. I was moving, all cylinders clicking, and I sped up the pitch in no time. Once at the belay I secured all the lines, managed to haul the bag up, and sat back on the pig to await my partner and watch the epic unfolding above me. When I finished the first pitch, the party above us was, well, still at the top of the second pitch. Apparently while I was leading their leader took a “60 foot whipper” and was now having quite a bit of trouble. To make matters worse, they were having trouble communicating. “Is the lead line fixed? MMMMM! Is the lead line fixed? MMMMMM!” Over and over again. What a nightmare. Meanwhile, my partner was struggling to jug up the pitch I had just led.
As it turned out, Sam’s formerly dislocated shoulder had really started bothering him. After really trying to force it, he finally decided that it wasn’t a great idea. If we got above the first pitch and his shoulder gave out, I was in for a lot of leading, even assuming he could jug, which he was having trouble doing. After much debating and lots of yelling back and forth, we decided that we should bail. Such a disappointment. After all we had done and how good I was feeling, to lose it to injury was frustrating for me, but especially for Sam, who wondered when his shoulder would be right again.
Once we decided to bail, it wasn’t an easy task. Leaning Tower is pretty overhung, as the name suggests, and the first pitch traverses right ten or fifteen feet. First I lowered the bag and we pendulumed it back and forth until it swung into the wall enough for Sam to grab it. Then I rapped down, with Sam holding the bottom of the rappel line so that I could pull myself into the wall. I developed this great system for cleaning: Pull myself into the wall. Hook into the bolt that held the biner I needed to clean. Work the biner out around the hook. Pull, lift and swing back. Cleaning 20 biners this way sucks, believe you me. I finally got down safe and sound.
The hump out sucked almost as bad as the hump in and we were miserable the whole way through. We finally got back to the car, drove to Camp 4 to fill bottles, ate some cold ravioli-o’s and crashed in El Cap meadow. What a fiasco. But the best ravioli-o’s I’ve ever had.
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