TR - Minor Deeds (long)
Mark Cato
Minor Deeds
5/19 - 5/20/02
I wrap up at work Sunday afternoon and make a quick drive home. Maybe a
little too quick. I ring Dave and start changing as soon as I'm in the
house. We plan on getting down to Seneca tonight, hopefully with a bit of
daylight left. We wise up and decide we're not climbing anything today.
I'm still packing at a frantic pace when my wife, Christine, tells me to
slow down and make sure I don't miss anything. Then she tells me to pack
some thermals. I'm still finished before Dave arrives.
The drive from Pittsburgh to Seneca is uneventful. We stop at the
Arrowhead market and get a couple of sandwiches for dinner, and provisions
for the next day. We eat in the parking lot, and we talk about our plans
for tomorrow. Dave has a few of routes in mind, and I'm just looking for
an easy route to build some trad experience on. I've clipped bolts,
seconded quite a bit, and I've led some short single-pitch routes, but this
is the first time I'll be getting into multiple pitches that I'm leading.
Hurrah!
We pull into the parking lot at dusk and take a few minutes to just look at
the rock. I always remember my first trip down, and looking at that
awesome sight. The first time I sat nervously on the summit, looking down
at the valley. We take turns looking through binoculars until we're
shaking too badly from the cold to really get a fix on anything. I said a
quiet thanks to my wife for urging me to pack thermals. Then it's off to
Princess Snowbird to set up camp and eat a bit more. Dave and I slurp
cup-a-noodles and talk for a while before the cold sends us to bed. He's
testing a new bivy sack, so I have my tent all to myself. Around 5:00 a.m.
I wake up to answer nature's call, and there's a nice layer of frost on the
inside of my vestibule. I shake from the cold and hurry back for a few
more hours sleep. The next morning I hear a voice outside my tent. It's
Jimmy, the Pot-Smoking Mennonite (that's what my buddy calls him, anyway).
I pay him his money, and he asks if I get high. "Um, no. Sorry." Dave
and I eat oatmeal. I make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before we
break down camp.
We park in the lower lot and begin the hike up. The stream's pretty high,
but we manage to cross with dry feet. It sounds like someone in the group
after us wasn't so lucky. We take the stairmaster up to Ecstasy Jr (5.4).
We scramble up to the belay tree, propping our packs up out of the way.
Dave takes off on lead. He takes a while to get into the groove. He's
climbing a little slow, and he keeps apologizing for it. He fiddles in a
nut and gives it a couple of good yanks. Ug. I hate it when Dave sets a
nut! He swears the climbing's easier than he's making it look, but he
finished the first pitch without any true difficulty. I unsling the tree
and put on another layer while Dave takes up rope. Before I know it, I'm
on belay and trying to clean that damn nut! It finally comes free, and I'm
happy to say the rest of his pieces were all cams. Like Dave said, nothing
too difficult yet.
The next pitch is a bit more serious. The climb moves a bit left of our
belay, and up a pretty vertical right-facing dihedral. There are plenty of
places good gear will go, but not too many great stances to fiddle with
things. About 15 or 20 feet after his last piece he plugs in a large cam.
We're both happy to see it go in. Then there's a small rest before a
series of bulges. Dave climbs up sits in a small cave in the middle of the
pitch to catch his breath before setting another nut and disappearing from
view. I follow him up, appreciating his efforts on the lower section. I
peek in his cave, and move up to the set nut. I look at it. It needs to
go up and a bit right to go free. I poke it with my nut tool. I tug the
cable slightly to see if I can shift it. Then I put the tool on the bottom
left corner and start smacking the tool with my palm. Pretty soon, the
sucker pops! My nut tool retracts automatically (it's on a janitor-style
extendo-key-retractor thing). Sweet! The nut swings free and smacks me on
the anklebone. Less sweet. I finish off the pitch, and we scramble up
luncheon ledge to Old Woman's Route. We've abandoned our hopes for more
difficult climbs today.
Dave sets off on the first pitch of Old Woman's Route (5.2). He's done the
traverse to link Skyline with A Christian Delight, but never the first or
last pitch. He's entitled to be a little greedy, but the last two are mine.
He heads up and angles left, rapidly approaching the ledge at the top of
the first pitch. He heads up and left around a sizable chunk of rock on
top of the ledge. I thought he would have headed right. A minute later
he's scrambling back down and over right. I smile up at him, and he down
at me. He sets an anchor and brings me up. Dave passes over the rack and
we look at the guide. Pitch two is a lengthy but easy traverse, a nice
warm-up. Pitch three angles up and right to the expansive ledge behind
Traffic Jam. "Am I looking for the first big tree, or a bunch of trees?"
He tells me to look for one loaded with slings. Sounds pretty obvious. "It
says the protection's pretty sparse, Dave." He tells me to do the best I
can with what I've got.
I scramble over a boulder and start looking for gear. I slot a bomber nut
in a constriction right around the corner from the obvious step down to the
traverse ledge. The guide notes that this step is the crux of the pitch,
but it's only 5.2. I make the moves, which are a bit awkward but not
difficult. I traverse over about 15 feet more, looking in vain for gear,
but it's easy ground. I still want to protect Dave, regardless of his
earlier statement. As I look down, I see Dave's nut tool nestled in with
the slings. My first piece was a nut. I get on the radio. "Um, Dave, I'm
coming back."
"What's going on?"
I pause. "I've got your nut tool."
"Shit."
I traverse back across the ledge, reverse the tricky move, and get back to
my first piece. I clip Dave's tool to the rope behind the first piece and
lift the rope high. The tool sails right to him. Now I move back right
and climb down again. Pretty funny stuff. I manage a total of 5 pieces on
the 75 foot traverse, slinging trees and even finding a place to sneak in a
cam. The tree with all the slings is pretty obvious, as is the start of
the next pitch. I set a belay and take up the slack. Dave makes quick
work of the traverse, and I'm having a bit of trouble with rope management.
Dave pauses a couple of times so I can catch up. He gives me a couple of
pointers at the belay.
Soon I'm off on the third pitch, angling up and right in a wide crack
formed by a detached fin. I sling a tree and bounce to the outside of the
fin, taking a second to look out over the east valley. The view is
spectacular, and the exposure feels incredible. Dave and I have trouble
seeing damage from the fire earlier this season. For the most part, things
are lush and green. The feet on the outside of the fin are getting thin,
so I move back inside. I pull out the smaller cams at a good stance, but
the number 2 is too small for the gap. I grab the number 3 and plug it in.
I climb higher, looking for protection. I don't see anything great, and I
want to hold some larger pieces for higher up. I look down, and I've gone
an easy 15 or 20 feet above my last piece without worrying about it. That's
a first, even on such easy ground. I climb a bit higher and fiddle in a
psychological hex (it might have held a fall, but I didn't like how it was
sitting) and kept going. I reached the top of the climb. All that was
left was an easy scramble to the ledge. I got up and started looking for
trees to sling. I send a small rock over the edge and let out a yell. The
tree I pick is all wrong for the load Dave would create in a fall, so I
scramble back down a bit, and tie off to the back of the fin. I wedge
myself in the notch and bring Dave up. He passes me by, scrambling the
last couple of feet to the ledge. I take him off belay and follow, and we
head for the summit.
As we work our way to the summit, the wind dies down. I pull out my water,
and we eat the last of our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We sit and
talk softly. I watch the shadows of the clouds roll down the hill to the
west and into the valley. We watch the sheep in the far field and Dave
points out some recent construction. I kick back, enjoying the view. We
haven't climbed anything hard. There's still daylight to be had, but we're
in no rush. We're content to bask in the glow of our minor
accomplishments. Dave was able to cross Ecstasy Jr. off his tick list, and
I finally had a chance to lead my friend up something at Seneca.
_____________________
Mark Cato
mdc...@andrew.cmu.edu
Jason Lucero
our first real trad multi-pitch this weekend also. Nice job.
--
"There is no spoon"