Lady Wilson's Cleavage TR
ant
Lady Wilson's Cleavage is an adventure climb. And it was high time for
an adventure climb.
after a month in joshua tree, futzing about with easy climbs that
scared me, it was time to move on. i spent the last couple days in
southern california realizing that i could, it turned out, lead 9s and
10a in a pinch, but no matter- i was off to Red Rocks where 10a cruxes
were bolted and 9s were downright doable. instant rating upgrade.
excellent.
the first thing on the table was a big route with a internet partner
off rockclimbing.com, alex. alex had replied to an ancient call-to-arms
partner search posting a month or two ago, and we'd settled on march
2/3 to meet in RR for a climb. alex has an impressive list of grade IV
and V 5.10 routes he wants to tick this year, and LWC was to be the
warmup.
dandy, i think. only RR 5.9, so i can lead anything. 9 pitches, which
is long enough not to be a gimme, but short enough not to be an epic. i
feel pretty good about the whole thing, and therefore don't do a hair
of research. i drive up from jtree, pick up alex at the airport, and we
camp in his howard johnson motel room, which is slightly nicer than 13
mile, and smells better. it is also my first hot water shower in a
month. so far so good.
i didnt know what to expect from alex. turns out he's a big burly
fellow, a regular gym climber, and his forearms are like my legs. but
more defined. he is earnest and seriously enthusiastic about climbing
the big classics, and the offbeat classics, and he walks a quick clip
with a sort of eager sub-waddle, sort of bent at the waist, leaning
forward, with his head raised up to take the view in. we gear up in the
parking lot and crash out around midnight, but not before i find out
a) LWC is all chimney/OW
b) LWC is on mount wilson, which is big. really big.
c) three hour approach. four hour descent. estimated ten hours
daylight.
d) its cold in RR in march.
ok. cant lose any sleep thinking about this now. i carefully pack my
headlamp, knowing full well im going to use it, and just hoping it gets
me the final mile to the car, not the final pitch to the top.
beep beep beep beep beep
and i wrestle around trying to find my cellphone to turn off the alam.
5:00am, and another hot shower. toss on the climbing clothes and we're
off. its cold. its still cold when we get out of the car at the pullout
and sip down another bit of awful vegas water and eat a kit-kat and
we're off, again. lots and lots of walking brings us to the big 3rd
class ramps that climb hundreds and hundreds of vertical feet to the
ledge where LWC begins. its light outside now, and i can see the route,
high above us, never really looking much closer as we trundle on. alex
pauses occasionally to check approach beta with his three route
descriptions, but i am anxious to keep the pace up because i smell
epic. i keep assuring him 'yes. i agree completely. lets do it'. is he
stalling? is he worried?
because i am. i dont know what i dreamed about last night, but i dont
feel any better at chimney/OW than i did yesterday evening. i toy with
the idea of subtly letting alex take all the crux pitches. the topo
makes it easy. all the odd pitches are 5.9. all the even easier. all i
have to do is get him on the first lead and im golden. the trick is, if
i dont lead a hard pitch, then ill feel like i was guided up the thing,
and ill have to come back and do it another day. i wrestle this thought
around for two hours, past 4th class moves which dont come easily to
the Walmart Sand and Sun beach shoes im wearing for the
approach/descent [they are comfy as hell, pack down, and weigh about
8oz for the pair, but they Dont Have Rubber on the bottom.].
we pull the crux approach pitch, batmanning up an ancient knotted fixed
line past a 5th class step, and then cruise upwards again, following a
faint climber's trail that is just a few broken branches better than a
bushwhack. eventually, we're standing underneath the fat crack. we did
the approach in two hours, so that is one hour of margin gained. alex
is psyched for the first lead. it doesnt look that bad, but i say he
should take it, being careful not to sound too relieved, in case i need
to pretend i wanted it later. we gear up, slosh down some more water,
and some cliff bars and whatnot. turns out we forgot one liter of
water, leaving 2.5 for the climb, but this turns out fine as it is a
brisk day and i do a lot more shivering than sweating over the next 9
pitches.
alex takes off, lugging the (count 'em) four big cams we have with us.
my C4 5 and 6. his older camalot 4 and 5. and double 3s, and a full set
of cams with a couple doubles, and a mere eight nuts, which makes me
nervous becuase thats most of what i place in RR, but works out nicely.
alex is strong. and alex is enthusiastic. alex wants to fire this
route, and doesnt really care how it happens. when alex senses a crux
move, he slaps in a bomber piece and yards on it. he doesnt peek down
to see if i caught him. and when i catch him, he doesnt make a joke
about it, excuse himself, or otherwise pass it off. alex isnt gripped.
he isnt interested in style point. he just likes climbing and its still
climbing if he pulls on a cam or two.
i watch from below, protected, warm enough, with another kit-kat close
at hand, giving alex his requested 'tight belay' and watching the
clouds whip over the top of mt wilson at fast forward speeds.
eventually he spasms his way to the belay, and i pop my shoes on,
shoulder the pack.
if i had any doubt about LWC being an Adventure Climb, it was dispelled
within the first couple moves. that b*tch is sandy. you hear me?
*Sandy*. San-dy. i grope my way to the belay, and take off on the next
pitch, 5.8ish (you guessed it..) chimney and OW. thirty feet above the
belay, ive got a good piece of gear in below me, and im moving up,
generally chimneying and backstepping and occasionally throwing in an
OW move for shits and giggles. at this point, i am reminded of the
Adventure Climb status as an awesome looking foothold snaps off,
despite having knocked on and kicked just about every feature on the
way up. I catch myself on decent handholds, wide-eyed, and replace my
right foot on a solid looking shelf that is guaranteed to hold,
avoiding the tempting big positive features. the new bomber foothold
promptly snaps off as well, and i catch myself again and place a piece
and wonder if alex knows his self rescue.
alex complains that i did not call 'rock'. i ignore.
i continue on, passing bushes and sandy chimneys. bushes and small
trees are a constant presence, lodged in the crack at various spots. to
be sure, this lady wilson chick has one hairy chest. it was completely
routine to yard on small branches for handholds and occasionally sling
the bigger things for pro. i pause briefly to ponder whether
branch-yanking is bad style, but decide its natural so its still free
climbing. or maybe LWC is actually 5.9 A0. i dunno.
up i go, belay in a damp hole in the rock, and alex flies on up. we
trade gear and he takes off on another 5.9 pitch, and i follow with the
pack on (two pr shoes, 2 l water, clothing, 200 power bars) and scrape
it against everything and get stuck in everything, and have to take it
off one shoulder to remove gear placed in the back of the crack and
generally make a frustrating mess of things. no, its worse than a
frustrating mess. i decide i fucking hate a pack on this terrain, and
the route is going dandy, so its time to switch things up. i need to
crank out some 5.9 on lead to get my credibility, and it will be a hell
of a lot easier on lead than following with this beast strapped to my
torso.
i lobby alex to let me take a 5.9 pitch. we re-flake and he leads the
next pitch instead of swinging, and i second dragging hte pack on a
sling, which allows me to chimney, but the pack gets all but destroyed
getting dragged through the featured crack. so i end up with the next
lead, a 5.9 (you guessed it) chimney/OW. i leapfrog cams up the cruxy
bit, leave one for pro, cruise higher, and start chimney-OWing again.
it feels pretty damn good without the pack, becuase now i can squeeze
into things instead of pulling delicate out-of-crack stemming moves to
avoid any spelunking. i decide ill try to link pitches, in an anti-epic
effort, and im moving reasonably fast. i dont hear alex call the
halfway point, or making any 'only a couple feet left' noises, so i
keep moving up. eventually, i gain the brushy ledge which begins the
long right-angling gully/chimney/OW/bushwhack that takes up the last
few pitches. i find a scrub oak that looks burly enough to hold a fall
and call off belay. no answer. again. and louder. no answer. hm. i
figured i linked pitches, so alex is probably sitting at the belay with
ten feet of rope left. whatever. i tie in, lean back, and promptly am
punctured several hundred times by an unnoticed dead thistle bush. a
little cursing and i start to pull the rope up. i take in a yard and it
stops. hm. i yank harder. that's something, alright. i yell down. no
answer. well, it better not be stuck. i put him on belay, and give
three big on-belay tugs and lo and behold, hes coming up. i guess he
was simulclimbing underneath me. wish id known..
when the rope's halfway up, i call out. no answer. louder. no answer.
ok. when theres forty feet of rope left, i call out. no answer. why is
that bastard ignoring me?
he surfaces out of hte crack, with my pack dangling, completely
shredded, and goes off belay. we bushwhack to the base of a steep step
with a thick bush on top. this is the notorious vine pitch (4 meters).
apparently the first ascent party had a vine they yarded up on here.
the thing kicked the bucket, and now there's an ancient faded piece of
7mil cord hanging off a tree, with a loop in the bottom. its alex's
lead, and he commences to absolutely thrash his way through the bush.
its completely and utterly ridiculous. its a combination of
bush-yanking, bushwhacking, and squeeze bush-chimney, and scrub oak
leaves are raining down on me, dust, dirt, small rocks, banches, i cant
look up becuase the shit is coming down like cats and dogs, and alex
starts coughing. inhaled too many bark chips or something. he slings a
bunch of twigs on top of the bush for pro and walks over the thing,
linking it to the short pitch above, all the while coughing, hacking,
and occasionally retching the extra dust out of his apparently
sensitive lungs. he continues this for most of the rest of the climb. i
follow, and its ugly, and arrive at his ledge, spitting dust out, and
pulling oak leaves out of my as-of-yet unused chalkbag, and flapping my
layers around to encourage the spikier vegetable matter out.
i saddle up for what should be the last lead, a 5.9 (you guessed it)
chimney/OW/bushwhack and belay off an enormous tree. above us one short
chimney slot (marked 4th class, but pretty damn hard) gets us to the
top, where we are suddenly confronted with honking winds, snow, and
only a few hours of sunlight on the clock. i snap a few photos here and
there, slap on my Sand and Sun foam shoes, and we start walking off the
absolutely coolest summit in red rocks, characterized by classic piles
of sandstone at the peak, then transitioning to a smooth and sparsely
yucca-populated deep red sand/choss saddle, and then finally a harsh
limestone gully which we downclimb, dodging as much of the stream as we
can, but generally getting wet anyway. at some point we have a
discussion about his new hat, which turns out to be made of windbloc,
hence his complete inability to hear a damn thing i said/yelled all
day. go figure.
to make a long story short, we got to the climber's trail under lotta'
balls around headlamp time, and the car a chunk of time later. descent
went reasonably well, considering the rushing water, and the fact that
my year-old beach shoes chose this descent to blow out, leaving just
enough mesh to hold them onto my feet for the occasional wading, but
little more. i refused to consider the whole thing a success until i
confirmed the car hadnt been broken into.
it hadnt, so high fives all around, and lets have another kit-kat, eh?
that night i had my third shower this month, and cleaned all the dirt
out of my nose and ears and mouth.
great climb. all day i didnt see a single person, a single bolt, or a
single sandless hold. classic stuff, i figure. today i climbed Olive
Oil and ended up smacking and generally avoiding every single jug the
whole way up for fear the thing would pop off the rock, the way just
about anything that tempting on LWC might.
now, back to the road more traveled.
-anthony
Paulina
> march 2 :: lady wilson's cleavage
>
> Lady Wilson's Cleavage is an adventure climb.
<snip great TR - thanks for posting!>
Sure sounds like it. OW/chimney, sand, holds coming off, bushwacking,
wading, cold... wow -- all the things I so... er... don't like in one
place! I'm very impressed.
So how long do you reckon until you'll feel the need for another
adventure climb?
Cheers
Paulina
x15x15
> after a month in joshua tree, futzing about with easy climbs that
> scared me, it was time to move on. i spent the last couple days in
> southern california realizing that i could, it turned out, lead 9s and
> 10a in a pinch, but no matter- i was off to Red Rocks where 10a cruxes
> were bolted and 9s were downright doable. instant rating upgrade.
> excellent.
Hey ant:
If you are the same *ant* that me and my wife met in jtree a week and a half
ago..... right on! You were doing Cake Walk while I was on Anacram, the
climb just left of Cake Walk. My buddy that I told you about in RR left the
day I emailed him with your address. He is now residing in Zion for a few
months. If your travels may take you to Zion let me know
removebefore:bgndmtsatdslextremedotcomremoveeverythingelse or respond to
this post.
Good TR.
x15x15
kellie...@urscorp.com
ant wrote:
> march 2 :: lady wilson's cleavage
>
One of these days I'm going to do something worth writing about
again....best thing I've done recently is to climb Snoqualmie Mountain
twice in one day without ever getting on my intended route. We did
find a whopping 12 feet of WI3 and a couple of mixed pitches, which did
nothing but confirm my low opinion of my ability to climb rock using
crampons and ice tools. Must do something about that.
I'll be in SLC the last week of April if you're still tooling around
then.
kellie
-V-
> march 2 :: lady wilson's cleavage
>
> Lady Wilson's Cleavage is an adventure climb. And it was high time for
> an adventure climb.
Thanks for the story, enjoyed it immensely.
Like your moves, like your style.
-V-
A. Cairns
ant wrote:
> march 2 :: lady wilson's cleavage
Several LOLs.
It didn't take you long to write it up, either.
Hey, anthony, let me know what you want to climb around Vancouver. Your
only real choice is Grand Wall at Squamish. It should be adventurous
enough. You would need to lead 10b and a bolt ladder. No chimney or OW.
Andy Cairns
John Peterson
Ant - we'll have to do something heinous in Tucson just so that you
can do a writeup about me. Maybe we can feature extreme cactus moves
or something like than.
John
Julie
> to be sure, this lady wilson chick has one hairy chest.
Steven, you need this in your .sig file!
Ant - it was nice to meet you in Josh the other day. I'll be
mini-road-tripping thru SLC &/ Vegas in late March; email me (or reply
here if you lost my addy) and I'll shoot you my cell #.
JSH
ant
> If you are the same *ant* that me and my wife met in jtree a week and
a half
> ago..... right on! You were doing Cake Walk while I was on Anacram,
the
> climb just left of Cake Walk. My buddy that I told you about in RR
left the
> day I emailed him with your address. He is now residing in Zion for
a few
> months. If your travels may take you to Zion let me know
yep, that's me.. no sweat on the zion option. i seem to be logging
plenty of mileage in sunny vegas. freeclimbing is hard enoguh. no
reason to up the ante, learning to lead with a triple rack and 100
ovals.
aid climbing. worse than sandy chimneys, im sure;)
-anthony
ant
> Ant - we'll have to do something heinous in Tucson just so that you
> can do a writeup about me. Maybe we can feature extreme cactus moves
> or something like than.
i dunno, john. ive never seen a cactus that was harder than V2,
assuming leather gloves and crampons. i think we should plan on having
an epic. ive always wanted to have an epic.
anthony
Mad Dog
>ive always wanted to have an epic.
Please, take mine. They always end the same way and I've had enough for one
lifetime.
steelmonkey
I'd convinced myself I didn't have to do that route, but after reading
that, I gotta go check it out now. Sounds awesome.
GOClimb
GO
ant
(assuming non-sarcasm..)
heck, a few more repeats this season and LWC might become the
bullet-hard vegetable-less wide crack classic it always aspired to be;)
thanks for the collective warm fuzzies, everyone.
-anthony