North America Wall, VI 5.8 A2

June 2001

It has been a very long time since this wall, it seems like forever in so many ways. Sometimes I think we measure time not so much by the number of days or weeks or years that have passed as by the number of powerful experiences, good and bad, that have occurred. On that measure it seems a lifetime has gone by. But, it seemed good to capture some impressions from the NA, if for no other reason than for completeness.

This was most definitely my favorite wall of all time. The level of difficulty is not captured in the rating… this route is way harder than the Muir or Zodiac, sustained and interesting the whole way. And totally classic besides!

I did this route with my buddy Robbie. We’ve done a ton of alpine climbing together across two trips to Peru and we climb really well together. Where things are too much for me he takes over, when they are too much for him I take over. We are similar in our levels of risk tolerance, expertise, and wall / mountain demeanor. Pretty much the ideal partner.

They say some of my stars drink whiskey. But I have found that the ones who drink milkshakes don't win many ballgames.

--Casey Stengel

The crux on the NA comes pretty low on the route – pitches two through four – and it pushed us right off the deck. We admitted to each other later in the climb that if things had kept up at that difficulty level the NA probably would have gotten the better of us. But it didn’t and we persevered. Somewhere down here we had our Chongo experience. Chongo Chuck was living on the Sea of Dreams and we would see him commuting back and forth to his bivy. Every once in a while he would shout over instructions, especially on pendulum pitches for some reason. He kept saying “Listen to me, damn it. I know what I am talking about.”

The most memorable bivy on this wall, and probably my most classic bivy of all time, was in the Black Cave. Robbie and I both melted down on day three as we were climbing up into the Black Dihedral. I remember starting to wimp out on a lead and Robbie just batting me around, “dude, just get up there and do it!” I did and soon we were bivied under that overhang where the classic picture of Royal Robbins in a hammock was taken. We chilled out on the ledge and enjoyed the evening.

My favorite pitch of the route was the Cyclops Eye (pitch 20). Robbie started off, got to a really thin section, and popped a copperhead. He came back and delegated the pitch to me, which I took reluctantly and fearfully. I traversed over to where he had popped the head and had to free climb through some loose 5.7 (looking at a long, horrible pendulum fall). We both held our breath as I made the moves, finally getting a reasonable piece in before the fixed junk started. I cruised across the eye and ecstatically clipped the belay. Just as I was about to bring over the bag Robbie reminded me that we could run together the next pitch and that we really needed to if we were going to get off in time. He was classic Roberto… framing the obvious choice without making me feel bad if I decided to stop. This was a classic inflection point… stay… go. I took a deep breath and started up pitch 21, which turned out to be really easy. I remember the surge of energy as I realized we were going to make it, that I was going to get to the next belay. It was here that my internal clock switched from worrying about whether we were going to make it to being excited about topping out. What a feeling, better than any drug.

The wall didn’t let us off easy, and Robbie heroically sent the last pitch, which was hard, way harder than it is marked in the topo. He nailed a bunch of pins, but soon we hit the summit as the sun set. We broke out the Jim Beam and celebrated our first trip up the big stone together. What an amazing route. Highly recommended to all!

We should replace fear with courage, regression with progress, pride with humility, lethargy and inaction with ambition and activity. You need imagination, golden dreams, new horizons, unlimited panoramas, vision. May you never fail to thrill at the twinkling of a star, at the unfolding of the petals of a rose, at the sudden birth of a new idea. Fear not that your life shall come to an end, but rather that it shall never have a beginning.

--John Henry Newman