I took a nice, long trip up to the Dacks for the 4th of July, so long that I needed three partners to get through it. Having the 4th on a Wednesday made scheduling difficult. I couldn’t get a full commitment out of any one partner so I settled for three partners at two days a piece. I also compromised on climbing with the new boyfriend when I’d sworn I wouldn’t.
It was a great trip. The rain was out but the bugs were in, and the birds were roosting on the unpopular climbs. I climbed all six days (barely) and having a fresh partner every couple of days made me feel fresh too. Even the boyfriend worked out (though he did get one heck of a glare when he suggested I extend a runner at one point).
5.Fun
I’d heard of 5.fun but I’d ever climbed it before. This Dacks trip I didn’t climb hard, but I sure climbed fun. I tried a 5.9 which nearly made me cry and I romped up the best 5.7 ever (more on that later) but mostly there was an awful lot of 5.8. 5.8 at the Dacks is just hard enough to be interesting, just easy enough to be fun.
Now you’ll tell me that I’ve always had it wrong, that I should have been concentrating on fun and not numbers all along, but I know that 5.8 is now 5.fun because 5.8 is no longer 5.hard. The bigger your comfort zone, the more routes that open up to you. Because I can sometimes lead 5.10, I can almost always lead 5.8, and suddenly there’s a whole world of classics I can enjoy. All those famous 5.8s that used to haunt me before a trip: could I/would I/should I lead them? This trip, I led them. This trip, I loved them.
What was fun? Running the rope out twice on Gamesmanship and landing at a good anchor both times. Doing the direct start to The Sting because I was pretty sure the guy before me made it look harder than it was. Pulling through the unexpected power moves at the top of the gorgeous Partition corner. Styling my way up Mr. Clean, the sweetest looking line in the Dacks. Marvelling at the flow of the jams two-thirds of the way up an undistinguished single pitch route at an undistinguished usually-wet crag. Launching into the crux sequence on Prelude on faith, missing the pin but trusting the moves. Clipping bolts up an arete as the rain starts to fall thinking, “This move looks hard, but it won’t be easier wet.” Looking out from innumerable belays watching the fast-moving clouds and feeling the breeze that’s blowing them, loving the last pitch, not worried about the next pitch. That was fun.
Quadrophenia is to good as Handle With Care is to . . .
The third pitch of Quadrophenia is the best 5.7 I’ve ever climbed, stomping all over my previous favorite, Another Roadside Attraction at the Red. Handle with Care, on the other hand, is a steaming pile of shit. But this story won’t be about Quadrophenia. No, you can’t say much about a route where the gear is good and the moves are sweet and everyone has fun and smiles the whole way up. Heaven makes a horrible story. Ask Dante.
Much easier to write about hell. Much more literary to describe rock flaking off beneath our feet, whole sections of shale interrupted by just enough floating granite jugs to pull through. I can give you an image of myself huddled against the wall, belaying in my helmet with the pieces raining down around me wondering just what the fuck he’s doing up there. Then I can climb surprisedly into the shale field myself, knock down my own shower of rock on what is hopefully no one beneath us, wonder where he found the guts to lead through this choss.
When I waver with indecision partway through the imagined second pitch – is this the route? is this the gear? – you’ll be there with me. You’ll feel the horror he and I felt when the “jug” I’d said I needed to reach comes off in my hand. Thank God the “jug” (green Alien) I was moving off of held up all right. We’ll hold our breath together as I start the long, slow downclimb. Only you and I will know (we won’t tell him) that most of the gear beneath me is crap.
Should I have backed off like that? Should you have that time you did? You knew the route went that way, only you were scared and your feet were sliding on lichen and little sandy bits of dead, alpine rock that hadn’t been sloughed off by enough previous ascents. You can’t see chalk and you’re not sure you see gear except right here in front of your face and you don’t want to leave it. There should be a sign or you should have bigger balls or maybe the move is really this hard or maybe if you did the move it wouldn’t be that hard. This I can tell you, this I can make you feel.
What I can’t tell you is what it feels like to float through endless tiers of 5.7 roofs. I can’t tell you because it feels too good, too natural. There was no voice inside my head to record and play back for you. There was no sticking point to analyze. No drama, no thought at all. Only freedom and movement and joy.
You know what? Forget this story. Go climb Quadrophenia.
The Gods Decide
I don’t mind rain. I love the sound of a heavy downpour on a watertight tent: the dark, damp outside and the warm, snugness inside. At the crag, the mad scramble to pack and go as a storm descends is its own thrill: the rush to beat the first wet wave to the car or the joy of finding dry shoes under your pack after a soggy rappel. I love to snuggle in at home on a rainy weekend with a good book and bad-for-you food, like staying home from work when you’re only a little sick.
No, I don’t mind rain. But I hate indecision. I hate waiting. I hate second-guessing. Will it rain or not rain? Go up, go down, stay on the ground? Go back to bed, stay home, give it a try. Climb something easy, climb something short, don’t climb at all. Decide.
And I hate being wrong. You stay low, it never rains. You drive two hours to the crag, it pours. Always calculating the odds, always wrong.
We didn’t do Hesitation because we hesitated. The sky was blue and the air was warm when we left the car. “I won’t even bring a fleece,” I said. “It’s going to be a beautiful day,” I said. But by the time we’d made it to the base of the route the sky was black and thunder was rumbling in the distance. We sat down to wait – would it pour or pass? We sat and sat. Whenever I thought, let’s just do it, the wind would pick up or the thunder would sound more closely.
Finally, annoyed by inactivity and shamed by indecision, I suggested we walk back down to Creature Wall and do a single pitch or two while we waited for the weather to make up its mind. From the top of what I must admit was an extremely nice 5.8, I gazed up into the blue-again sky and re-plotted our ascent of Hesitation. That was when it started to rain. Lightly, from scattered fluffy white clouds, the drops fell and nearly evaporated. Then stopped.
“We’re going to do Hesitation,” I told Miriam. “If we’d started right off this morning, we’d be done by now. This weather is all bark and no bite. By paying attention to it, we’re just giving it what it wants. Ignore it.” It started to sprinkle.
“I can’t hear you,” I told the rain. “You think you’re impressing me but you’re not.” It picked up speed. I railed at the rain: “Make up your mind,” I told it. “Commit! I don’t care what you do, only do it!”
It rained for the next twelve hours. You can blame that on me if you want.
Poke-O-Moonshine w/ Steven
Gamesmanship, 5.8 (P1, 2, 4 & 5: Dawn; P3: Steven)
Fastest Gun P1, 5.9 (Dawn)
Sting, 5.8 (Dawn)
Washbowl w/ Steven
Wiessner Route, 5.5 (P1 & 2: Steven)
Partition, 5.8 (Dawn)
Prelude, 5.8 (P1: Dawn)
Overture, 5.8 (P2: Steven, P3: Dawn)
Pitchoff Wall w/ Steve
Pete’s Farewell, 5.7 (P1 & 3: Dawn; P2: Steve)
The El, 5.8 (P1 & 3: Steve;, P2: Dawn)
Hurricane Crag w/ Steve
Quadrophenia, 5.7 (P1 & 3: Dawn; P2 & 4: Steve)
Pretty Boy Special*, 5.9 (Dawn)
Handle with Care, 5.8 (P1: Steve; aborted P2: Dawn)
Creature Wall w/ Miriam
Jump Bat Crack, 5.8 (Dawn)
Bark Eater w/ Miriam
Mr. Clean, 5.8 (Dawn)
Because Dogs Can, 5.8 (Dawn)
Eat Yourself a Pie, 8+ (Dawn)
*If you go to the top of Hurricane and start the walk-off at climber’s right and end up (probably incorrectly) at a spot where you can’t walk anymore, there’s a steep, hard, short, slanting crack to the left. Steve had led it once before and thought it was about 5.9. If it’s in the book, it’s in there as 5.8, which for the Dacks it might be. It’s pumpy and sustained but short. Climbing this crack brings you to ledge with the bolts at the end of Quadrophenia P3, from where we rapped.
